Magestic 2

Copyright © Geoff Wolak

www.geoffwolak-writing.com

Part 3

Nappies and bootleggers

Winter, 1928, saw baby Mary toddling, an early walker, and she was growing rapidly. She held a Canadian birth certificate, and people did talk behind closed doors because we were not married; it was 1928 in small town Canada. Still, they knew not to say anything, or I’d have them dropped from a plane.

The first contingent of British NCOs were now housed in Kenya and enjoying the desert, having undergone a gruelling six months of training in Canada. They had all completed basic parachute training and had grown to like it, many going on to sample freefall. With a permanent British Army liaison now at the Rifles base, Big Paul suggested that twelve of the men come back as full time instructors, to be based in Canada. The Brits agreed, the men destined to return to us after a holiday in England, and then only if they so desired a holiday in chilly old England.

The FBI had departed, sorry to leave us, and were now sneaking about the border in their white snow smocks and catching the bootleggers. They benefited from accurate and timely intel from their counterparts across the border, and the FBI were growing in stature and reputation, Washington delighted. The various insert teams would cross the border to Canada to meet the Rifles on a regular basis, and to have a party out of the cold when their bosses figured them sat freezing their nuts off watching bootleggers. Cross border co-operation was at an all-time high.

Jimmy then convened a war council. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, baby Mary.’ They laughed, Mary waving as I moved her hand. ‘The secret airfield will now be extended with numerous underground facilities, more hangars, including one eighty metres across. It will be needed for an aircraft with a thirty metre wingspan.’

‘Shit…’ they let out.

‘A road will be laid some ten miles east, where an underground facility will be made. Actually, it will on the surface, then covered in dirt and moss, and will operate all year round. Those working there in the winter will have to stay there for five months at a time, but that will not be for a year or two.’

‘Atom bomb,’ Mac stated, looks exchanged.

Jimmy nodded. ‘Come 1939 I want ten operational bombs, but I have no intention of using them.’

‘You don’t?’ I asked.

‘No, not unless absolutely necessary. We will, in the spring, start developing advanced fuel-air explosives, binary liquid. If necessary, they will be dropped on Japanese cities -’

‘Cities that are all made of wood,’ Hacker finished off.

‘Exactly,’ Jimmy said. ‘The effect should be similar, but with a lower loss of life: people could flee. We’ll also be developing bombs that will detonate below the water’s surface.’

‘Crack the back of a battleship,’ Big Paul put in.

Jimmy nodded. ‘And we’ll drop them near warships. We’ll also develop knockout gas for aerial delivery. If the US Marines can send people to sleep … then they need not kill them when they storm ashore. Now, unlike the aircraft, we will teach the British and Americans how to make atom bombs, around 1938. Any sooner and it risks getting out. The Manhattan Project was started in 1940 and completed in 1945, as you know. We … are accelerating that process by a few years. We’ll also develop a plane that can deliver the bomb, ready for 1939.

‘Between now and then, my greatest fear is that we leak technology and start an arms race, or that the war is started earlier or later. We’ll need to be flexible. Unfortunately, showing our weapons too soon will not deter the Germans or Japanese; they’ll simply wait till they have their own. If the war is delayed till they all have nukes … we lose the planet. So between now and 1939 we need secrecy, and we need to monitor the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese.

‘Sykes and Jack are handling that for us, but we may have altered things with our passenger aircraft, which are seven or eight years early. The Germans, and the Japanese aircraft companies, will be trying to copy us, to some degree.

‘OK, starting in the spring we’ll begin collecting Uranium ore; there’s a place up near the Artic circle where it lays on the ground in lumps. We’ll then start refining it. All those working on it – not from this group – will need my blood. Big Paul, we’ll want permanent patrols and security at that base from the spring onwards. It may get cold in the winter, but it will operate all year round. Paul, arrange stored supplies up there, enough for at least nine months. And let’s start testing snow skids on Dash-7s.’

I raised a hand. ‘How about a big oil furnace underground, spraying warm water on the runway before a landing; it’ll be good for half an hour.’

‘Try it, since the base needs extra heat in the hangars.’ He faced the scientists. ‘Start working on air blowers, and insulation for the hangars and buildings. You could rig up parachutes suspended from the ceiling to keep in the heat. Some of you will find it very cold up there, so make it comfortable; home from home. And use tents; large tents inside the hangars with heaters inside them. And if the hangars get really cold, run a jet engine for five minutes.’

The following afternoon I accompanied Jimmy over to the secret plane factory. He assembled the senior staff. ‘Guys, I’ll not want any more jet prototypes of this design, so you can test them to destruction. I want the basic fighter thirty percent bigger, and then we’ll test its range - and the weight of bombs that it can carry. The speed is fine, so use the same engine in a heavier aircraft. Going very fast is exciting, but at that speed you can’t shoot down another plane or drop a bomb and hope to hit a target.

‘So, we want a jet fighter with a maximum speed of six hundred, but bigger wings to carry bombs and rockets. Then, I want you to take the same design and make it two-seat, one behind the other, with duplicate controls. It will be used for training, but I also figure that one guy could fly while the other navigates and drops bombs. Thank you, and go to work, people.’

And four hundred people got to work, not including the people they could call upon to make parts. Mac, Handy, and the scientists designed a one thousand pound bomb, and it would be tested on the jet next year. For now we rigged up a rack to a seaplane and bombed the Canadian moss, disturbing the wildlife.

For a test, they made up dummy one thousand pound bombs and strapped two to a jet prototype. On landing they cracked a main spar in the wing, a valuable exercise. A redesign of that spar was on the cards, but I suggested that the bombs should be closer to the fuselage; that way less stress. They used the second jet prototype to test my theory and failed to crack anything on landing. Progress: we had a fast jet with a really crap payload.

The next thirty production Dash-7s and twelve seaplanes all went down to American Airlines. Since they were leased to ourselves, late payment was not an issue. We now offered more routes, Dallas becoming a hub. Toronto to Washington was added, Washington to Mexico City, Washington to the Bahamas and Bermuda, New York to San Francisco non-stop. Smaller airlines folded, and fledging airlines gave up before they even got started.

Seeing that Boeing was struggling because of us, we moved quickly and bought shares, offering them contracts to make planes for us, less technologically advanced planes. We also offered to teach them some of what we knew. They accepted, since they had no choice. A handful of our engineers travelled down – it wasn’t far – and began to organise Boeing. Their first aircraft for us would be aluminium, but with rivets and no honeycomb. It would have our engines, and would be a high-wing monoplane with a high t-tail and large flaps, and would operate as a rough airfield aircraft, large wheels and sturdy undercarriage. It would also have rear loading clamshell doors and detachable ramp.

We gave them plenty of money - no one would be let go, and a three-year timescale. Basically, it was a three-year learning curve for their staff, who would probably advance around six years in their skills. Ours were twenty-five years ahead. And we now informed them that we owned the land next door, so they could build on it.

Meanwhile, our gold deposits were growing, as was the rate of extraction, but a British mine engineer - well paid to shut his gob, told the Belgians what we were doing. Ngomo quickly moved tonnes of gold ore to the mine in Zambia, tin ore back. A Belgian team reached the mine in Zambia and examined the gold, as well as our mine, examining the tin. The man had been wrong, and they went away. The man also went blind, shipped home.

Seeing that our bauxite, used for aluminium production, came mostly from Australia, I arranged to buy up most of it. Jimmy then showed me the world’s largest deposit on the map; Guinea, West Africa. We got Rudd on the case, and our trusty Dutchman bought land that covered the future deposit, not due to be discovered till around 1950. He bribed a few people and received permission to mine for gold, for which Guinea had plenty, and bauxite was duly discovered. We’d corner the market in the decades ahead.

We were also causing a stir with our cars. They were not cheap, but everyone wanted one, especially the richer Americans. As production increased the vehicle’s purchase price fell, the factory expanding. Again. We shipped the cars down to Los Angeles and across to New York, where the people loved them. If you were not driving a Trophy car, you were nobody. A “trophy” wife or girlfriend was optional, as were furry dice.

Jimmy then intervened and specified a lorry, a large lorry, and since the engines were powerful it was the logical choice. It would also help with moving heavy parts. The lorry would drag two wagons, a joint between them, both wagons offering four large wheels. He then specified a simple and long lorry with a separate cab, for lumber, of which there was a great deal around these parts. We would soon be in the trucking business.

An October stock market crash

Spring, 1929 saw us make plans for the October crash; history repeating itself. How many times had I traded a crash in our era, and always in October?

We drew up lists of US companies that we were interested in, and they included banks with futures, ship builders, telephone and radio companies. We even had an eye on a few film studios. That was months away, so I concentrated on the aircraft, but also paid regular visits to the Rifles. Another fifty FBI guys had turned up, and we had put them through their paces. They were followed by another two hundred British NCOs being welcomed – or shouted at – by former British NCOs.

That led to another visit from Mister Churchill, this time with Timkins - aka Forsyth. ‘We’d be interested in a training depot in Kenya,’ Churchill began, lighting a cigar.

‘We could organise one quickly,’ Jimmy offered. ‘But our best people out there are … black.’

Churchill took a drag. ‘We know, we’ve spoken to returning soldiers and officers, most of whom had high praise for these black soldiers, not least their physique and fitness. But the officers are white, I met one.’

‘What would be your aim … and what are your hopes for such training?’ Jimmy asked.

‘You make men like you make machines, Mister Silo. I won’t profess to understanding how you achieve either, but you do – and in good measure. So if we had soldiers that were tougher, and better trained, it could only be a benefit.’

‘True,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘But I will restrict numbers, since – as with my aircraft – we have no wish for our enemies to observe our training techniques. And that chap Herr Hitler seems intent on stirring up trouble.’

‘I have an eye on him,’ our host declared. ‘And both Forsyth here, and I, agree that re-armament is important.’

‘So do I,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘Traditional armaments.’

Timkins said, ‘And we’d like more of your planes for the empire routes.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Jimmy offered our man in parliament. ‘But they are popular.’

‘Especially with the Americans,’ Timkins noted. ‘American Airlines is growing rapidly.’

‘We’re all one big happy family,’ Jimmy commented. ‘A common language, and a common purpose.’

‘Well, you’ve raised some eyebrows in Downing Street with your gold,’ Churchill stated. ‘You’re easily the richest man on the planet.’

‘Would they like a larger cut?’ I asked.

‘It may be prudent,’ our guest suggested, ‘to place some elsewhere, or risk your wealth becoming tea house gossip.’

‘I trust the Bank of England completely,’ Jimmy said with a false smile. ‘So unless they wish to alter the arrangement … it will stay in place.’

‘As you see fit, it’s not my concern. So what of Kenya, and our soldiers?’

‘We’ll assist, starting with five hundred men a year in Kenya, increasing the numbers of men visiting here to say … four hundred a year?’ Churchill nodded, Jimmy adding, ‘I’ll arrange a base in Kenya within weeks, and increase the size of the base here pro-rata.’

‘We brought with us an order for fifty of your single engine aircraft, thirty of the twin engine types,’ Timkins explained.

‘Would you stick guns on them?’ I puzzled.

‘No, they’re for observation and communications around the empire’s hotspots,’ Timkins explained.

‘Ah.’

With Churchill and his team looking again at the sports car, we took Timkins upstairs, hugs and greetings exchanged with the gang, a thousand questions fired at him. The car kept our guests busy for an hour, after which they ate and rested, giving us time to chat to Timkins at length.

‘All on track?’ I asked him.

‘All on track,’ he confirmed with a smile. ‘And now Churchill quotes Jimmy, even in speeches.’

‘He names him?’

‘No, just pinches a few lines.’

‘Cheeky blighter,’ I mocked with an accent. I introduced Timkins to Susan, their first meeting, and my daughter - now running around and under everyone’s feet. I sat her on a stool at the counter and Cookie fed her, Holton family girls always quiet when food was around.

‘Churchill had been advocating a peace approach in recent years, but he can see the Nazis taking power in Germany, so he’s coming around to the idea of re-armament.’

‘It happened before, so it’ll happen again,’ I said. ‘What, 1934?’

Timkins nodded. ‘The Germans will re-arm around 1933. But you caused a hell of a stir with these planes and new weapons. They’re pleased that you’re on our side, but scared as hell that others may get hold of them first.’

‘They won’t, it’s a bitch of a manufacturing process to copy,’ I assured our man in London.

Jimmy joined us. ‘I hear congratulations are in order.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I’m engaged,’ Timkins replied. ‘And to a Tory heiress, Lady Helen Chastleton. We met on a flight back from Cairo aboard a Goose.’

‘If the British establishment is trying to rope you in … take one for the team,’ I encouraged, checking where Susan was.

‘I’m an odd mix of high society … and socialist values,’ Timkins confessed.

‘Have you altered anything over there?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes, a great deal. Where I knew that our overseas polices would be unpopular I’ve influenced things, averted a few uprisings in far off corners. I’ve affected trade and industry as well through businesses I have seat on the board with, pushed them in a few new directions.’

‘To the benefit of the British?’ I asked.

Timkins nodded. ‘For now we need Britain stronger, to take on the Germans, and Jimmy has plans for the empire. If left unchecked, the war will leave Britain broke, whilst loans from America become dependent on Britain giving up its empire.’

‘Ah…’ I let out. I faced Jimmy. ‘You figure that a post-war Britain would be easier to influence than America, especially around Africa.’

He nodded. ‘It’s a work in progress. But keep in mind that right now the British Empire is stronger than America. It’s not until the US industrial machine gets going during the war that America truly takes over, and that’s down to Britain shrinking in the war and going broke. Right now the Americans are jealous of the British Empire; they want it down-sized.’

Sykes stepped in with Jack. ‘Didn’t know you were here?’ I said.

‘Just landed,’ Sykes said. ‘Fresh from Hong Kong.’

‘Congratulations,’ Jimmy said to Jack.

‘He’s been married a while,’ I pointed out.

‘A son,’ Jack said with a smile.

‘A son?’ I queried. ‘Lucky bugger; I just produce girls.’

‘I wanted a girl,’ Jack admitted.

‘How’s Hong Kong?’ I asked.

‘Po and Yuri are buying up every damn business they can afford,’ Sykes reported. ‘Their ships go everywhere. They even have a few cruise liners, and they bought mining rites to Papua New Guinea.’

‘It’s a good area,’ Jimmy agreed.

‘But what happens when the Japs invade?’ Jack asked.

‘The Rifles would defend it, along with their little air force,’ Jimmy said with a grin.

‘Ah,’ Jack let out. ‘Give them something to think about. But won’t they be cut off and surrounded?’

‘Feel sorry for the Japs,’ Jimmy told him.

We held a formal meal downstairs for all of our guests, Sykes and Churchill having been members of the same club for almost nine years and now great friends. The British establishment knew that Sykes also worked for us, but the intel he provided to them was too valuable to complain about.

The group discussed aircraft, there was no getting away from it, and our British guests seemed a bit jealous of American Airlines. Well, they had British Airways, so what was the problem? Seemed that they wanted to fly to South America as well, and every other bleeding point on the compass. There’s no pleasing some people, I thought, keeping my thoughts to myself. Jimmy promised to expand British Airways, and asked about a runway closer to London, maybe west of London, round Heathrow way. They would look into it, since there was a small strip there already.

Churchill told stories of the Boer War, and of daring exploits in his youth – and he liked the sound of his own voice. Sykes would then make up incredible stories about Jimmy killing someone hand to hand and pulling an arm right out the socket and beating the man with it. I had to hide a smile. And Sykes, he was so sincere in his story telling that Ted and Bill were both fascinated and horrified in equal measure. At least there were no ladies at the table; this was 1928 and business. Man talk, as I later described it to Susan, getting a slapped head.

‘You’re courting the British Government,’ she said in bed, ‘yet not the Americans.’

‘We need their help in Africa. No Americans in Africa at the moment, love. Or later, come to think of it.’

‘And talk of propping them up after the war, holding onto some of the empire.’

‘Only around Africa, and only till we’re ready to take over. Besides, right after the crash we’re going to give the US economy a significant boost that’ll put them years ahead. 1940 will seem like 1950.’

She dropped the issue, my spy in from the cold. I wasn’t unhappy with what I knew about her, I was enjoying my family life and sex life greatly. It was like … a second chance, a second time around, and I was very grateful. Those twelve years fighting had reset all my registers, and I was like a twenty-year-old again, not the ninety years I actually was.

Our guests had a good look around the huge Canadian Rifles camp, and again tried a few weapons, Churchill always keen to have a go at anything. He drove a half-track - and damaged a jeep, before eating in the men’s canteen; he wanted to see what conditions were like. He was impressed, the food great. It needed to be; our people had been injected and they ran twenty miles a day.

At the end of the day our guests admitted that they had grabbed the returning British NCOs from Kenya and formed their own Airborne Brigade, parachutes bought from us and Dash-7s to jump from. The teams would be used for advanced recon, which was the whole point. Jimmy promised them a plane that would carry eighty paratroopers, within a year or so. It was news to me, but it turned out that a variant of the seaplane had been sidelined. It would have a more shallow float, but still be able to land on water, and benches instead of luxury seats. Two new doors at the rear would allow paratrooper egress. At the moment, it was still on the drawing board, but would prove an easy enough conversion.

Our guests signed a deal for more jeeps, and now half-tracks for use in Africa, and we bade them farewell at the inlet, Sykes and Jack catching a lift back to cold old England. If that particular plane crashed we’d have a problem.

But our safety record was excellent; it was why people wanted to fly our planes. And when the Goose fleet did have a problem they set down on water. Some flew their entire routes on three engines, some limped in on two. One had landed next to a battleship when a fuel line broke, and so far the only fatalities had been a heart attack, and some guy who had missed his footing and fallen into the water between the plane and jetty – and drowned.

A few of our Cessnas had ploughed into the ground in bad weather, but our guys had not been flying them at the time. And of those accidents, many lives had been saved by the aircraft’s crumple zones. A few Cessnas had hit hard, the passengers surviving, one or two Dash-7s hitting things without splitting apart or catching fire.

The “stretched” Goose, known affectionately as Mother Goose, was very stable, both pilots sometimes going back to calls of “who’s flying the damn plane?” Passengers were amazed by the auto-trim, and it became known as the plane that flies itself. The US Navy came calling, desiring the aircraft for maritime patrol, and we could not build them fast enough.

When I had a quiet moment I helped Hal with the flying bedstead, which was looking more and more like a Huey every day. ‘We’re seriously taking the piss with the timeline,’ I commented one day.

‘Instead of Vietnam, US Marines will use them on Iwo Jima.’ Hal remarked. ‘No big deal. That’s only – what – twenty years early.’

The bedstead now had a skin, and was looking like a helicopter. When Jimmy saw it he ordered it moved to the secret factory, not to be flown over the town. He was, however, pleased enough with it, and no one thought the helicopter strange. Since many people had tried in recent years to make one it was no great shock. Hal told the engineers what he thought may help, and they argued it around, Hal always making it appear as if it was their idea.

With a heat-boned honeycomb skin and aluminium frame, it was a safe bird to crash land in, something we kept reminding Hal of. We even advanced basic Huey technology along with springs and dampeners in the skids. If you hit hard, the bird bounced. We enclosed the tail fan, but high-speed rotor tests often ripped the main axle apart or tore off the blades. Where was carbon fibre when you needed it? Hal opted for more blades, wider, and less radial speed. It did the trick, and the helo behaved like it should. Jimmy would not sanction a second prototype yet, so testing had to be gentle.

I took her up with Hal sat left seat, and this all felt familiar, as well as feeling like something I did sixty years ago. The bird behaved, and hovered, slipped sideways, backwards and forwards. I flew her out over the woods behind the factory and up the inlet, returning without incident. It brought back a lot of memories, but I didn’t inform Susan of the stunt; spy or not, she nagged like a real wife. The only problem with the Huey was the sound effect, and I told Hal, ‘It’s got to sound like a Huey.’

‘They were twin blade, so a different sound. In time.’

When Big Paul saw it he wanted them for the Rifles, and pleaded with Jimmy to the point of raised voices. It was 1929, for fuck’s sake; we couldn’t risk releasing them yet.

My home life was busy, in that there were no modern conveniences, and always something to do. Vegetables had to be cleaned and peeled; there were no processed foods yet. Fruit needed washing and careful examination, floors needed sweeping - I had a mind to invent a Dyson vacuum cleaner. The heating boiler needing fuelling and kicking on a regular basis, garbage had to be driven to a spot where it was handed in, milk needed to be picked up each day – it didn’t keep, and floors needed washing regularly. There was no washer-drier, just a place you took them to be washed, a launderette in town or in Vancouver. I was forever threatening to invent things, getting the pointed finger from Jimmy.

October crash

The news of the October crash came by rumour, phone call, and finally newspaper. People started to fear for their jobs. We waited to see what the effect would be on our flights, but instead of being booked ten times over we were now booked five times over. A few advanced orders were cancelled, naturally, but we focused on British Airways and on Hong Kong flights – and aircraft that had been cancelled were sent that way. And we were still short of damn aircraft.

Jimmy said that the crash would take months to affect the UK, a year to affect the rest of the world; we were not yet an integrated world. And with many companies going to the wall, or about to, we pounced, buying stocks in a great many companies before offering them loans. We picked up more Boeing stock, a film studio, two ship builders with Navy contracts, and a shit load of property from people who were desperate to liquidate their assets. Tall towers in New York, and many other cities, fell into our hands, whole apartment blocks with hundreds of apartments in.

It was a fire sale on a grand scale, and we bought property around Los Angeles for next to nothing, large estates that movie bosses had owned. In Seattle, we just decided to buy the whole damn town; apartment blocks, hotels, businesses, they all went for a song. We knew what we would need in years to come, and bought a few Texas oil companies, as well as a few mines. Those of our suppliers that came to us cloth cap in hand, literally, were bought into.

In the space of three months we had increased our value by more than fifty-fold, if you used the factories as a start point. And we still had money in the bank. Since we now owned that bank’s parent bank, it was all in the family.

Bill and Ted could not believe, nor fathom, how much money we had spent – nor where it had come from. With the winter turning bad for many American factory workers, we made a move that would make the newspapers; we started soup kitchens. First in Seattle, none needed in Vancouver yet, then in San Francisco, dozens of them. They snaked ever south, but we concentrated on the north, right across America. By time we had hired the staff to run them we were numbering twelve thousand staff.

They doled out bread and soup each day, the sign above their heads making it clear who was paying for it. By time April came around we were feeding two hundred thousand people a day. And that was just the start.

Jimmy then sent a note to the US President himself. ‘Sir, as you may be aware I sponsor a Canadian Infantry Regiment, who turn out fine and disciplined men. Given the current crisis, and the good men out of work, I would like to sponsor a US Regiment in Washington State, say twenty thousand men. They would get three meals a day, a bed, and would be far from temptation and trouble. I would require your officers to run it, but would fund food, fuel, and additional equipment where needed. I await your response. Your servant, Jimmy Silo.’

The response came back within days; we had a go, an existing base selected, the officers and NCOs notified. We sent a team of our own roughnecks to advise on barracks and assault courses, running tracks and canteens, and the builders moved in.

The recruitment process began in earnest, newly recruited men encouraged to help build their own barracks. The pay was terrible, even for 1929, but they got fed and they had a roof. They also received an inoculation organised by Susan, a puzzle to the US Army doctors at the base. We indicated that the men may train or exercise in Africa, and that seemed to do it. The first two hundred men assisted the builders, and got fed. Each had a twelve-month signing, renewable if we wanted them back.

Our own Canadian Rifles were increased towards two thousand, most of the original intake now corporals or sergeants, some now even officers. Twenty were dispatched to Washington State, to bring the training along. We bought bolt-action rifles and plenty of ammo, sending it down to the base, several armouries needing to be built. The base received a better fence, and we insisted that there be a few internal bars for the men; it was not a prison.

As soon as a barrack block was finished, additional recruits would be signed up, stuffed inside, and asked to work on the next block. Inside a month of starting the base we had over a thousand men, all busy building things. At the end of the second month we had three thousand willing volunteers, uniforms brought in. The first batch of men to have been recruited were now fit, scaling the assault course a few times a week. Big Paul was stretched, but enjoying it all. Mac and Handy stopped designing weapons and put their boots back on, even Hal and Hacker went south and helped at the base. They were, after all, ex-US Army.

The Rifles NCOs, being Canadian, did not cause a stir with the enlisted men, but the US officers were not best pleased. That was until they started measuring themselves up against our guys. Then they were just downright moody and miserable. Our guys offered the US NCOs money if they could knock them down, and kept their money. They challenged US NCOs to running competitions, and showed them up. The testosterone was thick in the air, but the groups eventually settled. Jimmy popped down often and made it clear that he spoke to the President regularly, and any officer who pissed him off would be scrubbing floors as a junior cook’s mate.

The men were kept busy learning new bits of kit; jeeps, half-tracks, mortars. But, most of all, they appreciated the food and the roof over their heads. Threats of being kicked out were taken seriously.

By June of 1930 the base held twenty-two thousand men, the fence pushed back time and time again. That led to the US Army opening a new base a hundred miles south of the original, in California, and eight thousand men moved down to it. So we hired another five thousand for the old base, just to be awkward, the sprawling base now creeping more than four miles end to end.

Then we asked for a base in the desert, near our parachute school in New Mexico. A fence was thrown up, wooden huts knocked together, water wells sunk. The first five hundred men moved down, housed in tents to start with, and started building another camp from scratch. Supplies had to be brought in, but the camp soon took form, a hive of activity, dust scuffed up by boots. Jimmy sent down the existing Goose aircraft that had a rear door fitted, and large numbers of men were put through parachute training on a voluntary basis, six or seven flights a day.

Palestine

The British had relented after a little arm-twisting, and more Jews were allowed into the region. Jack then made a visit, finding the Jewish elder responsible for recent immigrants.

‘You are Joshua Krevsky?’ Jack asked.

The man looked Jack over suspiciously, noisy kids running around the table he sat at. ‘Yes. You are a British official?’ he asked with a heavy accent.

‘Not really.’ Jack handed over a large bag of small diamonds, making Joshua’s eyes widen. ‘Sell those in Europe or America, and bring as many Jews as you can here from Europe, from Germany.’

Joshua pointed a hand to the diamonds. ‘This … is worth a great deal. A great deal.’

‘Then you should be able to bring many people here. Now, there are some conditions. We want you to buy land from the Palestinians, we don’t want any locals to feel that they are … being pushed out. If you help me with that, then there will be more diamonds like this, many more, from my boss.’

‘And who is your boss?’

‘His name is Jimmy Silo.’

‘Silo, the one the newspapers say is world’s richest man?’

Jack smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘He is a Jew?’

‘No, not a Jew. I will be back in six weeks.’ Jack then presented a letter to the military governor of the mandated region, explained that Jack would do just about what the hell he pleased, signed by the Prime Minister. On land that had been simply allocated to us by the British mandated governor, Jack commissioned five large hotels, three where the modern-day Tel Aviv would one day sit. Ships had already docked, and men and materials were pouring off.

Those British labourers were tasked with improving roads, as well as the port facilities at Haifa. They had also been asked to employ local Jews, “Sabas”, as well as recent immigrants. The ancestral land was getting a makeover.

And there Jimmy made a mistake, or maybe he knew. Maybe he weighed up the odds and decided to go ahead with it anyway, and to hell with the consequences. His action in Palestine would have ramifications for us all.

Six months into the new military endeavour in the States, we arranged for the best men to be made Corporals, one stripe, some made up to full Corporal, since we needed the supervisors. Some men were natural born leaders, big and tough, and they were selected, more pay received. NCOs were segregated, and each base offered several bars for the corporals.

By modern standards we had more Indians than chiefs, often twenty-five or thirty men to a corporal, four sections to a sergeant, twelve sections to an officer. We were in a hurry to promote. Our Canadian Rifles had reduced in size temporarily with many NCOs posted down to America, but a year with our Rifles made a man a sergeant for sure. Our people found the training for the Americans tame compared to the tortures they had endured in the Canadian mountains, something of rest for them.

I was busy these days, running the empire, our own empire. Managers had been hired, and now toured all of our properties around the States. Our hotels were not making much at the moment, if anything, but we didn’t care; this was a long haul. Our apartments were in the hands of agencies, and I kept an eye on them. The properties in Los Angeles were boarded up, or rented out - often at good rates, and I turned my hand to the movies. Dragging up the head of the studio we bought, I sat the man down.

‘I want you to make a film about US soldiers fighting Japanese, or similar. So long as the bad guys look slanty-eyed. On some island in the Pacific.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m the damn boss.’ I held my fixed stare.

‘Oh. OK.’

‘And then a film about the rise of these Nazi fellas in Germany; make them look real nasty, and intolerant of outsiders. Then I want a film about these Russian communist idiots. They think everyone’s money should be shared, that everyone is equal. Write a story about a hard working communist factory worker and corrupt bosses; I want the people to see these arseholes for what they are. Oh, and make them all loves stories, or with a love interest. And always kill the hero at the end.’

‘What kinda budget?’

‘A big one, we’re not short of money – use the best stars for them. Kindly get on it quickly.’

I went and told Jimmy only after I had commissioned the films.

‘Good to keep the studio busy, but the world will produce enough propaganda films in the next few years. You’re just a few years early - again. Does Susan … complain about you being early?’

I wagged a warning finger.

‘So … how is married life?’ he asked.

‘Great, second time around. And, considering just who she is, she nags more than Helen did.’

‘Your girl is growing rapidly,’ he sighed. ‘Sneaks behind Cookie and takes whatever she wants.’

I smiled. ‘Holton girls like their face stuffing. How are we money wise? We stretched?’

‘Nope, we have more than we know what to do with. The gold is at a good level, Rudd sends us money from Nairobi, Abdi has sent some back, and the fridges made good money, very good money. Po could send us more money, but he’s expanding rapidly. And we still have half the diamonds. This year will see the DOW Jones pick up a bit, so I’ll trade a few stock’s that I know will do well.’

‘Microsoft not listed yet?’

He smiled. ‘No. But Bell Telephones is, and the forerunners of many computer companies. We have a large slice of Coca Cola and others, so should make a killing. We have the navy dockyards for the war years, and our airlines are also making a killing.’

‘No competition, that’s why! How’s the bomb?’ I asked, glancing around.

‘The scientists made basic Geiger counters, and we have a few tonnes of ore. They’re refining it as we speak. They’re also working on C4 and similar, and complex detonator circuits. That … is basically it. The original Manhattan Project took longer because of a great deal of experimentation and theory, which we bypassed. A separate group have developed a fuel-air explosive, and they have a lab working on binary-liquid.’

‘That may do it by itself,’ I suggested.

‘And with no lingering radiation,’ Jimmy keenly pointed out. ‘It’ll be the first type of attack we try.’

‘Why are we not milking the fame in the US? Everyone knows us now.’

‘What need do we have? We don’t need the people behind us. Remember, this is 1930, and public opinion counts for jack shit right now. We need the man in the White House on our side, not public opinion.’

‘So why the soup kitchens?’

‘For when we do need public opinion on our side, and because we help where we can those less fortunate than ourselves.’

I turned my head, and there stood Anna and Cosy, a baby cradled and a child walking. We leapt up. ‘Another one?’ I asked.

‘Yes, a child needs a sibling,’ Anna said.

I kissed her on the cheek. ‘That’s a talk I should have with Susan.’

‘Where is she, we haven’t met her yet?’

I shook Cosy’s hand. ‘Looking after the kid, I guess. How did you get here?’

We found them seats, the girl shy and hiding behind her mother.

‘We thought about the new planes, but then took a cruise liner to Hong Kong, a nice enough break. Po persuaded us that the planes were all safe now so we flew across to Hawaii, had a little holiday, then to Los Angeles and had a look around, and a train up here – great scenery.’

‘Bit of a trek,’ I said.

‘First big trip for a long time,’ Cosy said, others now noticing them and coming over.

‘How’s the orphanage?’ I asked.

‘Stable, and growing,’ Anna responded. ‘Three thousand children, plus those in Nairobi.’

‘And their education?’

‘The first batch are now very bright,’ she confirmed. ‘And we had ten of our fifteen year olds join the Rifles. But most are very young still.’

I asked Cookie to call Susan, and she brought our own sprog down, Mary studying the strange faces and the young girl. A three-hour long party began, plenty of food for the kids. We resumed the party in the morning, not much work getting done, tales of Rudd and of Kenya. And Anna had previously met Susan in the volunteers group, her cover story confirmed.

Cosy tried the sports car, and marvelled at our family car, jealous as hell. He took a ride in Hal’s Huey and was amazed, and glimpsed jet fighter assembly in the secret factory. I took him down to the Rifles the next day and he fired an assortment of weapons, Cosy glad to be back with the boy’s crowd. We even had a few beers with the soldiers.

That evening they told us about the mine in Guinea, and what they knew of the gold mine in the Congo. Ngomo now wore the rank of Major, and all of the white officers accepted it. The white officers outside the Rifles didn’t, but our bunch knew Ngomo’s capabilities. Dr Astor was still working at the hospital, and had been briefly engaged. I exchanged a look with Jimmy. Dr Graham was creating a teaching hospital with a reputation that attracted doctors from Europe, and Abdi was running Somalia like a business, but still playing nice with the British. When he created a golf course and hotel the British were most put out. Still, Abdi graciously allowed the British Governor the first tee-off. Mogadishu was becoming a good place to be posted for the diplomatic types. It was safe, clean, and offered good hotels with fridges.

And Rudd, he had the fridge makers create air-conditioning on the roof of his hotel. Now, in the rooms below, you could turn on cold air. Progress.

Steffan was busy with new track, a line up to Tunisia through the worst parts of the Sahara. As a passenger, you could go for a day and see nothing but sand. Instead of boarding a troop transport in Mogadishu or Kenya, British forces could go all the way up to the Mediterranean. Soon, they’d be able to take a train from Mombasa, through the Congo, Zambia and to the coast of southern Angola.

Terrorism

One morning I received a call, and my heart sank. A bomb had gone off aboard one of our planes, a Mother Goose headed for London from Washington.

The bomb had gone off in the cargo hold, and had blown a hole some ten feet wide through the fuselage, killing twenty passengers and injuring the remainder. The blast had popped out the cockpit windows, our pilots suddenly in a hell of a breeze.

But the bomb had not damaged anything critical, just the float and the passenger section; all of the control wires were in the top of the fuselage. With no windows, and powering down and descending, the pilots pointed the nose back towards Washington, radioing ahead. When the co-pilot ventured back into the cabin he could see the hole in the floor, so they decided not to land on water, heading for American Airline’s new concrete strip. The wheels came down without a hitch, the plane making a smooth landing considering the breeze, passengers soon carried off, the bodies covered over.

Our aircraft were not pressurised yet, so explosive decompression was not an issue; they flew at ten or fifteen thousand feet. They did, however, have small pressure values and a constant pump running so that the air was pressurised by a small amount to keep the cabin pleasant.

Images of the plane, and the hole, were soon in the newspapers, and glimpsed in the new Movietone News. The press had come to see us and Jimmy gave them a statement, a hand-cranked movie camera present for the first time.

‘This has been a tragic event, and we all feel for the families of those who lost their lives in this wanton act of terror. It’s not clear yet who planted the bomb on the aircraft, or who the target was. There were diplomats from America, Britain and South America on board, as well as few rich individuals – any one of which could have been the target of the criminals behind this.

‘But we make our aircraft tough, and built to last. The bomb did a great deal of damage, but our aircraft kept flying. And our flight attendant was trained in basic life saving, giving the wounded passengers medical assistance whilst she herself was injured. She worked in terrible conditions, yet fought bravely to save the lives of others. She - and our brave pilots - are the true heroes of the tragic episode.

‘But make no mistake: we will hunt down those responsible – to the ends of the earth if necessary. I am hereby offering a fifty thousand dollar reward for information that leads to the arrest of the people behind this, or information that is of any use. That’s fifty thousand dollars.’

High ranking US officials popped in to see the survivors in hospital, our trolly dolly now a national heroine, her picture in the papers. We nudged the US administration, and they organised a medal for her and the pilots. And the reward money did the trick, a hoodlum from New York coming forwards; he’d say what he knew if he got the money, and was in Canada at the time, no extradition south. We put pressure on the administration and they agreed, the man paid in Toronto, our people nearby.

He had sourced the explosives for two German gentlemen. My heart sank; we were on Hitler’s wanted list, and it was only 1930. Then I remembered that Hitler wasn’t even in power yet, now right confused.

The real reason for the bomb attack would not come out for a while, after we had pieced a few things together.

It started with the diamonds in Palestine. The Zionists had used the diamonds to assist their communist brethren in Germany, even to the point of bribing prison guards and busting out a few activists. After being held and tortured, the pipeline operators had given up Jimmy’s name as the sponsor of this breach of security, a bit cheeky of them. Jimmy Silo was now wanted in the Fatherland for subversion – and for being a communist!

The US administration offered us an FBI liaison straight after the attack, and we immediately housed him in the hotel. He started on vetting our staff, helping to check identities and family histories for any German blood. No one proved a liability in the main staff, but a subcontractor had a German man working for them, and he had only become a Canadian citizen a year before.

While the man in question was at work, our boys snuck into his small apartment, finding many newspaper cuttings about Jimmy. That sealed it. The man was picked up by Big Paul and the SAS, taken to the woods and made to talk. The man had a phone number contact in Toronto, codename “Brown Bear”. The Canadians traced the number - in those days there weren’t that many telephones, and our boys set up the observation of a fishing tackle and bait shop on the outskirts of Toronto.

An elderly couple of German origins ran the store, and one younger man was seen coming and going, but he did not look like the fishing type. He was followed to a boarding house in the city. Jimmy ordered them all picked up, and in one late-night swoop we grabbed all three. The couple did not resist long, explaining that they were simply paid to collect mail and phone messages; just gofers. Brown Bear was a real party fanatic, and died under interrogation, revealing nothing.

Security was stepped up at all of our businesses around the world, and we asked for more FBI guys. The blame of the attack was laid firmly at the door of the Germans - by us, but both the British and the American Governments tried to distance themselves from accusing the German Government for the actions of a few individuals. Jimmy wasn’t bothered by that response, he had expected it. Still, both the US and British Governments knew who had killed their diplomats.

We instigated bag searches and body searches for our paying passengers, and for now stopped international parcel delivery unless the parcels were open. If someone wanted an unopened parcel sent, they would have to fly with it. The passengers didn’t mind the searches; they were for their safety. We sent warnings to Kenya and Somalia, and to Hong Kong. Po found a handful of Germans he thought looked suspicious and killed them all, just to be safe. Rudd took a similar view, and Ngomos men – dressed like street corner newspaper vendors – started following Germans.

Within two weeks, Rudd had identified a well-organised ring of German spies operating in Kenya, and they had been seen near all of our interests. Jimmy gave the OK, then men picked up and interrogated at length. We had soon identified a network of some fifty Germans around Africa, Sykes and Jack on the case. Since some of the Germans were sniffing around British facilities, the British Government now took a more active interest.

The German spy ring in Africa soon ran out of warm bodies, and they must have figured that it was down to either us or the British. They must have also figured that anyone with a German accent in Kenya would stand out. Jimmy warned everyone to watch out for Dutch, Danish, French, all sorts.

Meanwhile, in Canada, our FBI guys had unearthed a German cell in Seattle. Jimmy ordered them watched for a few weeks, then raided their apartments. When raided, the FBI had enough evidence to warrant formal charges of spying on US interests, including Boeing. It was an embarrassment for the pre-Nazi era Germans, who wished to maintain good relations with the Americans.

Our movie about the Germans was then released. It hit the screens first in Los Angeles, and made its way slowly east through small town cinemas. When it reached Washington the President had it pulled; he did not wish to antagonise the Germans. We understood, and Jimmy sent him a note apologising for causing diplomatic problems.

Then a funny incident occurred. The Italians, for reasons best known to themselves, ordered their fighters into the air to intercept our flying boats. Those flying boats flew from Cairo to London over southern Italy, with permission. No one had told us that permission had been rescinded. The new Italian monoplanes flew up to the flying boat, but could not catch it, even on a good day.

Next they made sure that they were waiting at their best altitude and planned on swooping down to force our plane down for a search. Their planes swooped down, having been too low to start with, flew past ours – our passengers waving down at them, but were soon left behind. And we were not even trying to outrun them. The Italians, now frustrated, tried firing anti-aircraft artillery on our flight path. Seeing the flack exploding below them, our pilots got the message. We altered their course, so that our aircraft skirted around Italian airspace in future.

The gang were now at odds with Germany and Italy, and we figured it was because of the planes; the real reason would take a few years to emerge. Jack and Sykes had been granted formal permission to carry pistols under their suits around England, and to keep them at home. I kept a hunting rifle over the fireplace, and a pistol in the bedroom. But all of our staff had been warned about strangers, and someone suspicious would not have got to within thirty miles of us.

Jimmy was concerned, because this was unexpected – and not wished for at all. He could not have suspected at the time that the Zionists would drop his name, or that the Germans would be so vexed about it.

Jack, meanwhile, was offering poor German Jewish families in London a free trip to Palestine and some money to settle there. They started to flock to The Promised Land. The British authorities in London were not fussed, they didn’t particularly want them anyway. But many cabinet members argued against allowing an influx of Jews to British Mandated Palestine, saying that there would be trouble. The Prime Minister pointed towards benefits that outweighed that “strip of sand”. Still, he was often in a minority in the British cabinet, tension growing. The one thing in his favour was Timkins, who said: ‘House them in the slums of London till we burst, or house them in Palestine.’

Summer, 1930

The summer of 1930 was great, the Canadian summers opening up some wonderful scenery, especially where we were located. Canada was great - in that the views were spectacular, not so great in other areas – like the winter weather! The US economy was still falling, the knock on effect now being felt around the world. Our aircraft were still busy, but the odd empty seat was evident. We lowered prices by ten percent, and moved a few aircraft to Hong Kong and all points west of us, where the US economy and “The Great Depression” was not having such a dramatic effect.

Most of our regular airline passengers were diplomats, and they would always travel, so we were not worried, and we were still expanding British Airways and adding more routes. I then hit upon the idea of having our own hotels placed at each destination and refuelling point, soon buying up modest hotels local to the various airstrips – but boutique hotels; passengers flying with us received cut-price accommodation. It was an immediate success, most passengers opting for our hotels - since they saved money. One hotel, in Cairo, was a right hotbed of intrigue, with diplomats from all over staying a night before moving on; French, Germans, Italians, British and Americans, all rubbing shoulders at the breakfast bar, and all being falsely nice to each other.

The Germans were always there, probably trying to glean some intel off the others, no doubt with a monocle and a cigarette in a long holder. Still, the Third Reich was contributing a few Marks to our bank balance. And one of Ngomo’s men from our era, who oddly enough spoke German, took up a job as cleaner and waiter, playing dumb. He met with Sykes once a month or so, a long list of names and details to go through, and was kept very busy. His buddies, the scientists left at Ebede, rigged up suitable listening devices. They didn’t record – no magnetic tape yet, but our man could listen to people in the next room, or at a distance using a directional microphone.

That led Sykes to nagging us for a “Q” Branch to be created, since time was running short. Jimmy agreed, and the scientists left at Ebede were tasked with creating spy toys - not just for Sykes, but for other British agents as well. When I heard about it I suggested some toys for the FBI, to keep them sweet. Jimmy agreed, and we requested a pinhole lens that could see around corners, miniature telescopic lenses, etc. I then stopped dead, an idea forming.

I grabbed our own scientists and asked for a pinhole lens for seeing inside aircraft, and to make it sharpish. A week later they had a few prototypes, our engineers trying them, the lenses used to see around frames, and our men were absolutely bloody delighted by them. I ordered up four hundred lenses, Jimmy quietly pleased with the innovation, our engineers now avoiding taking things apart to inspect them.

As a direct result of the pinhole lenses our guys started to make small holes in the skin, plugs to fill them afterwards. Areas that would have taken days to inspect could now be inspected in hours. And from now on, all new designs would consider this method of inspection, small holes popping up everywhere in our aircraft.

Each of our aircraft was subject to a routine annual inspection, but I now insisted that crews be sent to every regional hub, and that the pinhole lenses be used to check frames on-site every three months. Then, if they found something, they’d bring the birds back to us. Annual full inspections would become bi-annual.

The Canadian Rifles were still growing, but jobs with them were a fast track to a promotion, better pay and conditions. A year with the Rifles now meant a man would become a corporal, and six months as a corporal often meant a spell in the US, or teaching the British soldiers here. Many had been made up to officers.

I often visited the Canadian Rifles, but would also journey south for a quick flying trip to the main US Army base, now with its own dirt airstrip. Some of the American recruits had been with us a while and appeared fit and strong, and they were getting the kind of training that normal US enlisted men would never touch. These guys sampled twenty rifles, a variety of pistols, machineguns, grenades and mortars. They learnt how to drive the jeeps and half-tracks, and many of them learnt to parachute in New Mexico, a few jumping for fun from a Dash-7 at the base.

Back at our own munitions factory, Jimmy had ordered a field cleared and a massive concrete arsenal to be built, half sunk in the ground. Now finished, I wandered over for a look. The building offered no windows at all, mud banks reaching halfway up the walls. The main door was steel, and big enough for a truck to drive into. Stepping through a man-sized door, being saluted by a few Rifles on guard, I peered down a dimly lit corridor, a pearl-string of lights seemingly going on forever. A few people were coming and going, and I stuck my head into the first room. Thousands of AK47s sat in racks, all shining in the reflected bulb light. I found them covered in grease on closer inspection.

The next two rooms were also stuffed with AK47s, followed by pistols, then fifty cal rifles, RPGs, and mortars. The final room had been painted white and offered two ceiling vents, plastic containers filled with knockout gas. I withdrew before I fell asleep on the floor. Walking back down the central corridor, I figured there was space for maybe a hundred thousand AK47s here.

‘We gearing up for a war?’ I asked Jimmy at the hotel.

‘We need to keep the munitions guys active, but we don’t want the weapons out there yet. So … we stockpile. They pick one or two from production and test them, the rest stockpiled ready. And they’re also ready for any small wars if need be, some going to Abdi and Ngomo, and now the British depot in Kenya. Oh, I asked Abdi and Ngomo to open up the oil near Mawlini, and to create a joint training base on the border, the British training there as well. We need the lily white colonial boys used to operating with blacks.’

‘Won’t be easy after years of prejudice.’

‘No, but they need to first know the capabilities of the blacks, then maybe some begrudging respect; or at least tolerance. I’ve asked for officers with experience from India, so that should help. Oh, and Sykes goes to Nepal soon, to start the Nepalese Rifles.’

‘Ghurkhas?’

‘No, it’ll be our unit - not a British unit, although they will have British officers. A few of our white officers from Kenya will go, a few of Ngomo’s men. The Nepalese should not have a problem with blacks, and they’ll train in Kenya. You know, there are now forty-five white officers in the Kenyan Rifles, a preferred career after a short commission with the British Army.’

‘How’ll you use the Nepalese?’ I puzzled.

‘They’ll land in Hong Kong in 1937, and the Japs will invade Canton in 1938. I haven’t asked Po to create his own Rifles yet because he always goes too far and too fast – a bit like you.’

I smiled. ‘He’d have ten thousand men in the first month.’

‘In 1941 … he’ll need them. And, we may spark a war a year early. Well, that or let the Japs take Hong Kong –’

‘And our business interests,’ I finished off. ‘What’ll happen if Japan does take the colony?’

‘The colony wasn’t too affected the last time, but last time the greatest surge in the colony’s growth was after the war, and the greatest surge in refugees was when the communists were clamping down.’ He checked no one was listening. ‘Han has made contact with Mao, and met him face to face. He gave Mao diamonds, and then arranged to send weapons and supplies. If the Chinese authorities found out there’d be hell to pay. Well, they’re already mad at the British so … mad at us afterwards as well.’

‘And the plan with Han?’ I nudged.

‘Get into Mao’s good books, help after the revolution, and try and tone down China for a few decades. See if we can’t keep them out of Asia.’

‘Like Vietnam and Korea.’

‘Korea then Vietnam. Anyway, the French colonial dictators in Vietnam are brutal; they deserve to be kicked out. Our roving fridge salesman may have had a hand there already, and will do so when the Japanese are distracting the rest of the world.’

Security remained tight after the German spies had been unearthed, and Canada offered plenty of German immigrants for us to worry over. So did the States. The Dow Jones was supposed to bottom out around now, but our activities were having an effect, the DOW ticking upwards because we were buying into stocks that would have fared better than the rest, causing our own rallies.

With US World War I veterans staging a sit-in around Washington - for not being paid what they were due, we were tempted to get involved, but that would have upset the new president. And with that new president in office less than a month, we received a visitor, his Chief of Staff, flown up aboard their dedicated presidential Goose, not yet named Air Force One – they had no Air Force, but An Army Air Corp.

I welcomed the man into the hotel bar. ‘Figured you’d be busy, just moving in and all.’

‘It’s always hectic to start with,’ he said. ‘New appointees.’

I new exactly what he meant, but kept quiet. ‘How can we help you?’

‘Mister Silo not around?’

‘I speak for both of us, unless it’s his round at the bar.’

The man laughed. ‘Well, we’ve heard about these new aircraft, secret aircraft.’

‘We’re always developing new aircraft, and they are always secret. Otherwise … our competitors may copy them.’

‘Your competitors, Mister Holton, do nothing all day but try and copy you!’

I laughed. ‘So we must be doing something right. Which secret plane were you interested in?’

‘One that has the British and Canadians concerned.’

I decided to be clever. ‘You know the Super Goose?’

‘Yes, I’ve been in one.’

‘We have one that can fly non-stop from here to London – at thirty thousand feet – drop six tonnes of bombs and fly all the way back.’

‘Jeez.’

‘There are no aircraft that could stop it. So you see the concern. Still, we are working on the military version with you guys in mind. When we’ve got it sorted we’ll be trying to sell it to you.’

‘How long till its ready?’

‘Oh, not long, maybe two years.’

‘So we could be talking about the procurement of these planes in 1932?’

‘Thereabouts, yes. Problem is, when it carries a lot of bombs it fractures bits of the main spar, so we’re working on it.’

‘It’s a hell of a weapon, but how accurate would the bombs be at that height?’ he asked.

‘Not very, but we are working on that. You could hit a city in daylight, but we couldn’t get the bombs within three miles of the target yet.’

‘Pity. Still, it would have an effect on the morale of the enemy, their capital taking a pounding day after day.’

‘It certainly would,’ I agreed. ‘But they’re not cheap. If we made a lot of them … then they’d be cheaper to produce.’

‘You build them solid alright. I was in a Goose over Hawaii in a storm, and the damn thing was just about upside down. It took a hell of a beating and came right through it. I used to stare down through the windows when flying, but now I sleep soundly. Could hit one of those planes with an artillery shell and it would still keep going.’

‘We won’t be using that as an advertising slogan.’

The man laughed. ‘So when you have something -’

‘We’ll be trying to sell it to you, and building them through Boeing; jobs for American workers!’

‘Good of you.’

I eased back. ‘What effect are our soup kitchens having?’

‘The effect is … we’re damn glad you’re not running for office!’ We laughed. ‘But they are helping. And the soldiers you employ, that all helps; it gets them off the streets and gives them something to do. Say, we’ve seen them try out these new automatic rifles of yours, but you’re not selling them.’

‘They’re expensive, and their ammunition. You could mass-produce them, but the quality would drop off. Besides, in the hands of enlisted men they just spray the bullets around, and before you know it they’ve burnt up fifty dollars in hot lead. Better to take single, well aim shots. We keep the automatic rifles for sergeants.’

‘The army policy is well-aimed single shots, and probably for good reason. We’ve not adopted the Thompson yet.’

‘Would you like to see my sports car?’ I asked.

‘Sure would,’ he enthused, and I distracted him with a ride in the beast, the wind in his hair. He loved my family car, so after his brief overnight visit I arranged for the next twenty to be given over to the White House as a gift. The presidential motorcade had arrived.

Jimmy was concerned that they were asking questions, figuring that someone in the Canadian Government may have leaked the information of the jet. But he was pleased with my decoy, pleased till he rolled up a magazine and attacked me with it.

‘They’re more interested in long-range bombers than jets, you moron! We’ll get no peace now.’

‘I told him two years! Keep ya panties on.’

‘They’ll want to see the prototype!’

‘So let’s make one. Always hide a big lie…’

He sighed. ‘Yeah, may as well. I was heading that way anyway.’

And the next day we commissioned a new design. It was a Super Goose, not a Mother Goose, but was not much larger. It did, however, have a rear glass bubble, a top and bottom glass bubble, and a massive bomb bay. The crew would consist of three to start with, a rear gunner to be added on the second variant; the navigator would double as bomb aimer. With no passengers, we hoped for a fifty thousand pound bomb load.

The biggest aspect of redesign would be the float, but Jimmy asked them to allow the plane to crash land on the water without sinking. They removed the float aspects, but toughed the lower half of the fuselage and bomb bay doors. If this bomber was damaged over Tokyo, it could be ditched quite safely in the Pacific.

I then suggested that the bomb bay be watertight, so too the other compartments, and with airtight doors to help keep the thing afloat if it ditched. We discussed making the cockpit pressurised, but opted for oxygen and partial continuous pressure as a first stage, since Japanese Zeros topped out at ten thousand feet! A tunnel would lead from the cockpit to the rear gunner, and would allow an eyeball check of the bombs, to see that they had all been released.

I suggested a manual release for stubborn bombs, just in case, and several hatches were built into the roof of the bomb bay. The toilet was kept, so too the cooking galley, and two bunks would be fitted. Auto-trim was kept. The top bubble was above the navigator’s station behind the pilot, and it allowed only a view of above and to the sides through a low Perspex dome. The lower bubble involved lying on the floor and peering down after opening a strong watertight hatch, a map view of the world. Bomb aiming would be done through a powerful telescopic lens in the nose, the scientists working on a formula to predict where the bombs would land if released at certain heights and speeds. The first prototype was ordered, the workforce now back to thinking about military applications for the planes.

‘Does this affect things?’ I asked Jimmy. ‘I mean, if the Americans do have these in 1940?’

‘Not really, they had the B17 before. This will have better performance, range and speed, better bomb load – and definitely better bomb aiming!’ We laughed. ‘Before the war they said the B17 could hit a barrel at ten thousand feet. They would have been lucky to hit the right country. Ours will … hit a barrel, and at twenty thousand feet. But we still want Boeing to invent the B17 and other aircraft.’

I took a keen interest in the Super Goose, because it was genuinely interesting. I thought about what a long-range bomber would need, then realised that we had already covered it all; if you could deliver fifty passengers around the globe, you could deliver bombs. That was why the Goose had been designed all along, I realised.

Reading the papers, I kept abreast of what Gandhi was up to in India, his peaceful protests, being arrested, released, then arrested again. And Germany was up and down, leaders coming and going, Herr Hitler now a German citizen and allowed to stand for office.

Mary was in nursery, and very bright according to the teachers, but no one was teaching her any foreign languages yet. Susan was still involved with medical kits, both for our planes and for the Rifles. Many were produced each month, and shipped out to Africa for Ngomo and Abdi, the British Army in Kenya then asking for more – to supplement the ones that had been pilfered away. We were now selling first aid packs.

The sale of cars and fridges had slowed with the depression, and prohibition did nothing to help fridge sales. Still, we only sold them around the southern states and they were still selling well enough. With plenty of money from the gold pouring in we bought US stocks, and the markets started to recover; it was fair to say that we had bought at the bottom. The new president took credit for the up-turn, although they did hold a meeting to discuss European bank woes, something that sounded oddly familiar. I could not put my finger on it, but a US crash followed by a European banking crisis seemed familiar.

Since we had bought stocks when they were at twenty cents, and now a dollar twenty, we had made a few bucks. And Boeing, they had turned out a monoplane early. It was ugly, but it flew well enough, and was reliable. So I nudged a company we owned to buy a few, just to get the ball rolling. I repeated that nudge with two other companies, and Boeing’s staff turned that frown upside down.

The monoplane they produced was not the one we had commissioned, that was still being tinkered with. This was a potential fighter, and came with machineguns, the plane possibly for overseas sales. I spoke to our chief engineer down there, and he explained that it was a prototype, which would now be tested to destruction and modified. I suggested a swept wing, and a larger tail.

They did test it to destruction, and its sister prototypes, and Boeing got used to busting up the things they produced prior to release. God knows whatever possessed them to produce the Boeing 727 in our era, but I made a note not to repeat history. And as for the DC-9, as I was going to have that banned. I did, however, spy on Douglas, and the DC series were alive and well and on the drawing board. Where would the Second World have been without the DC3 Dakota?

Then I stopped, and went and found the oracle. ‘Douglas, DC3, wartime; should we … improve it?’

He eased back. ‘It would be hard for the US administration to buy them when compared to our aircraft, and we’ll have a parachute bird.’

‘Does it matter if Douglas Aircraft keep going?’

He made a face. ‘We altered that page of history with our aircraft; the genie is out of the bottle. Besides, D-Day is something that I aim to avert. And the plane that Boeing is developing, that will be an excellent parachute delivery plane.’

‘So … we don’t do anything,’ I realised.

‘Not unless we wish to work against ourselves, no. Besides, as soon as the war is over we’ll give the technology away and move on from it.’

We suffered no more terror attacks, and the Germans must have known that we had taken care of their spy network, here and in Kenya. Aircraft doors could now be locked, and pilots had pistols tucked away – just in case. I remembered Jimmy warning the British and Americans in 1985 through Magestic letters, so we were ahead of the curve by a long way.

Jimmy organised a meeting a week later, some of our best engineers in on it, plus a few of our scientists.

‘As you may know, a few people around the world are experimenting with radio direction finding. In simple terms, you turn the radio antenna till you find the strongest reception from an aircraft that’s currently transmitting. That gives you their direction, which you can then radio to them. If they’re lost, they can set a reciprocal course and find you. Now, I don’t want us to be second place to anyone, so let’s get on it quickly. Once it works, I want it at every airfield, and every pilot, to know about it.

‘Next, there are scientists in England who are experimenting with a high-frequency radio burst that they say will bounce off a metal plane and come back to a receiver. So, if a plane was not transmitting, such as an enemy plane, you could still see what bearing they’re on. I want that looked at quickly as well.’

Out of the meeting, I asked Jimmy, ‘When was that due to be invented?’

‘Radio direction finding is being experimented with now, and RADAR would be with us by 1936.’

‘No big deal then,’ I realised.

Kenya

With winter coming on, Jimmy suggested we go around the world and check on the state of preparations. We would, however, maintain some degree of secrecy about our plans. Susan elected to come along, rather than be by herself for two months, and we packed up Mary’s favourite toys. In this day and age that consisted mostly of wooden dolls.

We grabbed a Goose, three senior pilots and two stewardesses, Big Paul and a buddy, and set off for Los Angeles, a group of engineers catching a lift down with us. In Los Angeles we booked into a hotel we now owned, and I even spotted a few of our cars about. After a night in the hotel – inspecting it as if we owned it - we toured one of the movie studios we now owned, meeting a few stars of the day. The producers presented us with figures, and we pretended to be interested. They had a dozen scripts on the desk, so I told them the ones I liked after flickering through. They would make them – or else.

We spent an enjoyable afternoon on a sun terrace, Mary just as aquatic as her stepsisters had been at this age. Jimmy recognised a few stars, but I had no idea who they were. At dawn the following day we lifted off, taking four invited guests with us over to Hawaii, a group of rich people who had missed their previous flight. Hawaii appeared at sunset, our guests grateful, as well as very pleased to meet the pair of us; two of them had our cars.

I booked us into a hotel that the other travellers had recommended, enjoying the local cuisine that evening - mostly fish, and sat watching dancers in traditional dress - grass skirt and coconut bra – laid on for the rich tourists. It would be a long time before cheap flights flooded the island with “Hoolies” from the mainland.

Powering up at 7am, we headed towards Guam, where we could refuel if necessary. We didn’t need to stop, or to ditch in the Pacific thankfully, and landed in the Philippines, in Santa Cruz in the north, a dirt strip operated by the US military. We took on fuel, more than enough left to get us to Hong Kong, a short hop north. But we stayed the night on the plane, taking off at dawn, soon landing in Hong Kong and at the airport Po had built, concrete runway and all.

It also offered weary travellers a variety of shops, as well as two large hotels with rooftop bars, so we dumped our pilots and stewardesses in them, our plane door locked with a key. Like a group of tourists we boarded a boat, Po’s mansion across the lagoon, and Mary stared out at the colourful junks as we made the crossing. Po and Yuri met us at the harbour side, three of our own cars waiting. These cars, however, had rear-facing seats as well forward facing, and you could squeeze six people in the back. Po made a fuss of Mary, and we caught up a little as we negotiated the traffic up the hill and to Po Mansions.

His aircraft fleet were doing well, no depression in these parts, but the communists in China were worrying him. Han met us at the house with a polite bow, food being prepared, lots of food; Mary would be quiet and appreciative for an hour. Everyone settled about a large table and we settled, little talk of work yet, general chat about the colony, of aircraft … and of pending wars and invasions.

‘Next year,’ Jimmy told Po and Yuri, ‘I want you to create a barracks ready, big enough for ten thousand soldiers – I’ll clear it with the British. Tell them it’s for British reinforcements should the colony be threatened, and that you like to plan ahead. Then I want tunnels dug in secret, up to each mountain’s top. Cover them up and leave them till later, but create good firing positions towards the border. But do it in secret!’

‘When you send soldiers?’ Po asked.

‘Some in 1936,’ Jimmy responded. ‘You’ll have British, Canadian, and Nepalese Rifles, advanced weapons and aircraft.’

‘Aircraft?’ Yuri puzzled.

‘Fighters,’ Jimmy said. ‘Even a few bombers. And guys, in 1936 I want tunnels dug to house wheat, lots of wheat, enough for a year or so.’

‘Japanese surround us 1938!’ Po said.

‘Yes, but they will then meet some Rifles, and who will surround who?’

‘We will stay and fight?’ Yuri asked.

‘You don’t have to, but if things turn bad then you have the seaplanes to escape on at night. They can reach Guam or Papua New Guinea, or even India.’ He faced Po. ‘Just think … what the people will think of you afterwards … if you stay and fight.’

Po grew by an inch right in front of us, and I hid a smile.

Our man in Hong Kong now owned thirty-six hotels, forty warehouses, the airport and the seaplanes, fifty apartment blocks, two-dozen mansions, and eight shipping companies. The total number of ocean going tubs was close to a hundred, three of them sizeable passenger liners.

And over the next three days we viewed the damn lot. After a while, one building looked much like another. Jimmy liked the airport, but asked Po to extend it into the water a little, a longer runway, and to have large sheds made up for aircraft maintenance. We inspected the airport hotels, finding our crew sat sipping cocktails, later inspecting a tall control tower that was well ahead of its time. We mentioned the new radio direction finding sets to Po and promised to send one down.

From the tall control tower the airfield looked very efficient, coloured lines painted onto the runway, buses to ferry passengers to aircraft. Po showed us his “arrivals and departures” lounges, and they were well ahead of their time, luxury separation of those coming or going. Flyers who had to wait because of a storm were given a free room and a free meal, and Po’s airline had a hell of a reputation already for its quality of service.

That afternoon, Big Paul, Jimmy, and myself climbed the hill behind Po’s mansion and stared down at the Chinese side.

‘Get a map of this place, and start thinking about fire positions,’ Jimmy told Big Paul, the wind buffeting us. ‘Snipers will have fifty cal, and they’ll make a mess of the initial attacks. RPGs can rain down on the Japanese, mortars, the works.’

‘They’ll have artillery?’ Big Paul asked.

‘They’ll have artillery, and dive bombers, so sniper positions need to be small and hidden. They’ll also have a hundred thousand men over there.’

Big Paul and I exchanged looks.

Jimmy added, ‘If you have a cave with a few holes facing out and down, you can snipe at them without worrying about artillery. They’ll also have ships offshore to blockade this place, but our aircraft could chop them up.’

‘What aircraft will you place here?’ I asked.

‘The prop fighters, fifty of them, with plenty of spares and ammo.’

‘Be a siege,’ Big Paul stated, heaving a sigh.

Jimmy explained, ‘We’ll have around six thousand men with AK47s, sniper rifles, RPGs, mortars, grenades, even knockout gas for when the wind is right. And bomber air support from Burma if necessary.’

Hiking back down, we discussed war preparations, and I was tempted to suggest that I be here in 1941 when the Japanese were due to attack; I fancied the defence of the colony. Susan might have issues with it, but we were on a mission.

A final look around the airport impressed me, and I made a note to send Ted out here. Back aboard our Goose, the pilots powered up, no cocktails in hand, and we climbed into dark clouds, heading east and to Nepal.

The route we were taking was a worry because it was mountainous, and there was just the one runway to land on, the one we were headed to, and getting there involved crossing a great deal of jungle. I trusted these aircraft, but I had the family with me, and that always worried me more than my own safety. A storm soon buffeted us, and the pilots tried to skirt around it, finding the airstrip in dying light. After a bumpy landing we found a fuel truck, driven to Nepal for us and arranged by Sykes.

Sykes was stood waiting with a British Army officer, the men stood next to four of our own open-top jeeps. Good job it was not raining. They whisked us around to an old stone hotel, soon booked in and sat in the bar with Sykes, ceiling fans whirring.

‘How’re the preparations?’ Jimmy asked Sykes.

‘Jobs are hard to find, so recruitment is easy enough. We have four hundred young men ready, uniforms and boots being checked, fitness worked on. Doc Graham is with them now.’

‘Doc Graham?’ I puzzled.

‘Yes, inoculating the men,’ Sykes explained. ‘In this day and age inoculations don’t travel well, although Po has a fridge on a plane I understand.’

Jimmy faced me. ‘Doc Graham will be here for two months or so. Bit of a break for him, he’ll do some hill walking.’

Sykes added, ‘I brought up six officers from Kenya, and two of Ngomo’s men. We also have twenty-five NCOs that left the British Army and joined the Kenyan Rifles. They’ve all done at least three years, and they look like they can handle themselves. And there are thirty black Kenyans from the Rifles, good men with ten years experience. And, as part of the deal, we have twenty British Ghurkha officers.’

‘Sounds like a good start,’ Jimmy approved. ‘You get the weapons?’

‘They have a variety to train on, and we have two thousand bolt-action rifles, pistols, a dozen fifty cal, and fifty AK47s for training – plenty of ammo. There are grenades and RPGs as well, mortars, and 105mm.’

‘Will they receive jungle training?’ I asked.

‘In Burma,’ Sykes informed us. He faced Jimmy. ‘What number are we aiming at?’

‘At least four thousand of those should be of a high standard. Two thousand men will go to Hong Kong, the rest on standby ready. Closer to the time they’ll receive more weapons, and when they go to Kenya they’ll receive parachute training, as well as desert training. I’d say six to nine months here – with English lessons – then around six months in Kenya. That would be the basic grounding of each man.’

‘That’ll take us till 1932 to have a decent force, 1934 before we have NCOs out of them,’ Sykes noted.

‘Gives you three years to play with before 1937,’ Jimmy commented.

We chatted for an hour before dining at the hotel, the food spicy – but not like anything I had tried before; this world or ours, this was my first trip to Nepal. Mary gobbled down the offerings, so they must have been OK. In the morning we looked about the town, Susan loving the old buildings, especially the monasteries.

At dawn the next morning we lifted off, a single leg down to Mogadishu, flying right across India, down the edge of Oman and to Mogadishu’s airport, arriving before sundown on a concrete runway that Abdi had built. Unfortunately, Arrivals and Departures were nothing like Hong Kong, the terminal basic and dusty. A line of our military jeeps brought us to Abdi and his palatial home west of the city.

His sprawling compound rested mostly on one level, but seemed very large, many internal courtyards and gardens, armed bodyguards tucked away into discreet corners. And many wives wandering around in black veils. The ponds and fountains were relaxing, a nice touch, our rooms on the second floor of the central building, all done out in a traditional style of stone and marble; it reminded me of Saudi Arabia. Unpacked, we headed down, finding a large table packed with food.

‘Come, come, my friends: eat, drink, tell me of the cold place,’ Abdi let out, dressed now in traditional robes.

‘Do me a favour,’ I said. ‘Fly to Hong Kong and have a look at their airport. You may … get some ideas.’

‘Mister Po has a good airport?’

‘He’s … had a few innovations put in,’ Jimmy said. ‘But worth a visit.’

‘I will fly there, it will upset the British,’ Abdi said with a smile. ‘A wog on holiday!’

‘How are things with you and the British?’ I asked

‘I enjoy greatly upsetting them with my civility,’ our host explained. ‘And when we started to pump oil near Mawlini there was much grinding of teeth. You see, I bought the land first – from the British. Ah, yes, their teeth do make a most agreeable sound.’

I laughed. ‘You are becoming a diplomat.’

Jimmy faced him. ‘And your new emperor to the north?’

‘I met him at the border and we talked; he thinks I should start a revolution against the British and take the country. Will he attack the British?’

‘There’ll be border skirmishes, but he’ll help the British fight the Italians,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘And in a few years the Italians will invade Abyssinia.’

‘I have many spies there, and Italian businessmen are always to be seen.’

‘Yes?’ Jimmy puzzled. ‘They may be ahead of schedule because of Libya.’

‘Should I increase my spies?’ Abdi asked.

‘Yes, the Italians may invade sooner,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘And create a base on the north coast, close to the border. Keep some men there.’

‘I journeyed to Tunisia and back, to see this marvellous new railway line that Mister Steffan created. It floats on a sea of sand.’

‘When the Italians and Germans invade Libya, use it to move troops up,’ Jimmy told our host as we ate.

‘I found a German spy ring, my friend, six men,’ Abdi reported. ‘They confessed when left in the sun for two days, names for Mister Sykes and Mister Jack to use.’

‘Good work,’ Jimmy commended. ‘Keep watching them.’

‘Mister Sykes has given my men the James Bondage toys.’

‘Uh … Abdi, that’s James Bond toys,’ I corrected him.

‘Yes, yes. They look with the small lens around the corner and listen from across the street.’

I exchanged a look with Jimmy, hiding a smile. ‘And how many wives do you have now?’

‘I lose count. Maybe thirty or so.’

‘Thirty?’ Susan queried.

‘Yes, but one ran away and I shot two.’

‘You shot them!’ Susan barked.

‘What?’ Abdi asked.

‘When we get back to our time I’m going to have a word with a few people,’ Susan threatened.

‘I am playing the role, behaving like someone like me should … in this time. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’

‘What!’ Susan shot me a look.

‘Don’t look at me love, I’m being a good boy … in Vegas.’

‘You do not marry this fine sturdy woman,’ Abdi noted.

‘Sturdy?’ Susan asked. If looks could kill.

‘Different times, different customs,’ Jimmy cut in with. ‘Abdi is a method actor, a good one. He fully embraces the role.’

‘Yes, see,’ Abdi said defensively. ‘I often sleep in a tent to play the role, to be with my people.’

‘You’d best be back through the portal first, and running,’ Susan said.

Jimmy faced Abdi, tipping his head. ‘Not everything that happens in Vegas … stays in Vegas. She may write a book.’

‘And I may stay here,’ Abdi said. ‘This time is more agreeable; no reporters.’

‘I still appreciate you,’ Jimmy offered. ‘And after the war you’ll be a national hero, and president.’

‘Ah, political office again,’ Abdi lamented. ‘What a burden it is to be the chosen one.’

After the meal we sat in the garden, Mary inspecting ponds and fountains, Jimmy and Abdi plotting and scheming. I joined them when Susan took Mary to bed.

‘What you plotting?’ I asked.

‘War,’ Abdi responded. ‘But not for a few years I’m afraid. But I look forward to these Germans, they are a most disagreeable people. I aim to meet the German soldiers and cut out their hearts.’

‘How many soldiers do you have now?’ I asked.

‘Less than two thousand now, as Mister Jimmy asks. But after 1935 we make ready for many years of fighting.’

‘The problem with soldiers,’ Jimmy began. ‘Especially of Rifles quality, is that they are hard to turn back into good citizens afterwards.’

‘Yes, yes, they like their fighting,’ Abdi agreed. ‘So we keep numbers to a small group of well-trained men, and after … to be the policemen as before.’

‘Sounds like you learnt a thing or two,’ I noted.

‘Second time is easier,’ Abdi agreed.

The next day we reclaimed the Goose and flew down the coast to Mombasa; the Navigation was easy enough. Big Paul spent an hour at the controls and brushed up, one of our three rotating pilots landing us smoothly at a dirt strip that would someday become Mombasa Airfield. It was a far cry from Hong Kong airport.

Cosy met us, now driving one of our cars, and drove us to a nearby beach hotel that Rudd had built. And it was a beauty. The aircrew were in the same hotel, and yes – it even had a rooftop bar with a great view of the ocean. The land around the hotel had been landscaped, mown grass and tall coconut trees, the beach backed by a handful of coconut trees bending towards the inviting ocean, the sand clean and white. This could have been our era.

Susan took Mary to the beach, our daughter stripping to her pants and plunging in with a scream as I accepted a cold beer, a very cold beer. Steffan turned up ten minutes later, joining us as we sat drinking.

‘Hello stranger,’ I offered. ‘Been a while.’

‘Been a long while,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve … taken a wife, second kid due.’

Jimmy was surprised. ‘A local?’

‘A half-caste local.’

‘Nice house?’ I asked.

‘I designed one: eight bedrooms, on the coast, with gardens.’

‘When in Rome,’ Cosy commented.

Steffan made a face, and commented, ‘I figured I’d be here till we open up the Congo.’

‘You can travel if you like,’ Jimmy offered his brother.

‘I like it here,’ Steffan replied.

‘How’s the track?’ I asked.

‘Were not far off the coast in Angola,’ he reported. ‘Now laying extra track around here and in the Congo, and down towards South Africa. But I work on roads mostly, and bridges, even started a dam in Uganda.’

‘It all helps,’ Jimmy said.

‘And the war?’ Steffan asked.

‘Will hardly touch this place,’ Jimmy emphasised. ‘But develop Mombasa field to a concrete runway; taxiways, hangars. During the war we’ll house heavy bombers here. And underground bunkers for munitions storage. But while you’re doing that, keep in mind that as soon as the war is over we’ll want it operating as Mombasa International Airport.’

‘Rudd is developing Nairobi Airport,’ Steffan mentioned. ‘Concrete runway.’

Jimmy nodded. ‘And put a concrete runway at Mawlini for emergency landings during the war. No hurry. Although, with the combined base there now, we could use it for re-supply.’

Steffan showed us his house the next day, Susan and I jealous. As well as jealous of the weather here.

When Jimmy noticed our looks, he said, ‘You can spend the winters here if you like, a second home like this.’

‘It’s a long flight, and a dangerous flight,’ I said. ‘If we had a second home … then maybe in San Diego, or Hawaii.’

‘It’s your call, we’re not short of cash.’

The drive to Ebede was in one of our own cars, powering along the roads that Steffan had helped to improve. And what an orphanage it was now. We clambered up to the roof of the main admin building, finding a small bar and a few seats. And east of us stretched out forty buildings, the farm beyond.

‘How many now?’ I asked Anna, her daughter entertaining Mary in the yard below.

‘Now we top four thousand, but there are some boarding school students as well.’

Jimmy asked, ‘Between now and 1936, how many eighteen year old boys?’

‘I think we have a hundred sixteen-year-olds next year, and around a hundred and fifty become sixteen every year, a few more in Nairobi. I think we can only produce maybe a thousand soldiers.’

‘Offer boarding school for twelve-year-old boys, a separation from the others, and in two years time start a cadetship, a small wage paid. Get the numbers up. How about nurses?’

‘There are more girls, so a good number of nurses,’ Anna reported.

‘Again, in two years start a nursing education programme; we may deploy them as early 1937. Sit down and do the numbers, make some plans. War … is coming.’

The kids chanted at us and sang as we toured the orphanage, greeting many of the teachers. Back at the hotel we hit the beach, and it had been a while since I had been swimming here. The waiters brought out cold drinks, and the day was just great, sat with a beer under a coconut tree in the sun, the sound of the waves, Mary playing in the sand.

We delayed our trip up to Nairobi by a day and enjoyed the hotel, Anna and Cosy joining us, their own kids soon playing in the sand. We took our own train to Nairobi, First Class, and I remembered when we first arrived in this world, the pompous English Army officer. Now we chugged along in comfort, enjoying the scenery in regal splendour.

Nairobi station had grown, many new buildings to be found around it, a few tall towers visible in the distance. They weren’t tall by modern standards, but tall for this era in Africa. Rudd met us off the train, a line of police officers with him, cars waiting. He whisked us around to his hotel, our hotel, and I was soon fiddling with his air conditioning. It worked, cold air seeping out.

Up in the roof bar we ordered cold beers, mingling with guests, Big Paul and his mate armed with pistols under jackets. This all seemed familiar. But where was Judy in a bikini? And where was the damn pool?

‘Come,’ Rudd requested, and we walked to the wall. He pointed. ‘That tall tower is another hotel, but with offices on the first three floors. That building is apartments, so it that one, and down there is the fridge company headquarters. That tower is just all offices, and that’s the hospital. Over there you can see the airport, now a long concrete runway and hangars, your aircraft there. They fly to many places, the small ones and the bigger ones. And now some private owners.’

‘Progress,’ I said.

‘And many new roads,’ Rudd enthused.

Back at the tables, we reclaimed our beers and sat.

‘How’s money?’ Jimmy asked.

‘The businesses make good money, but profits go to the orphanage or the Rifles.’

‘What’s the balance?’ I asked.

‘There is some money left over, and we own the buildings and land. That does not include CAR, which sells the oil. That makes good money, but the British Navy takes a lot of oil.’

‘That’s OK,’ Jimmy said. ‘Keep fuelling the Navy, and keep building up around here. But we’ll want the diamonds sold before 1938, as many as we can.’

‘I’ll dig some up and send them to America,’ Rudd offered. ‘Oh, the fridges make good money, I did not include that.’

‘Show me the figures in the morning,’ Jimmy suggested.

A man approached. ‘Mister Silo?’ he asked with an accent.

Jimmy stood and shook the man’s hand. ‘Yes.’

‘I am the Belgian Ambassador to East Africa. Am I … disturbing you?’

‘No, not at all, have a seat.’

Big Paul and his mate moved away after a nod from Jimmy, the Ambassador sitting.

‘How can I help you?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Your manager here, Rudd, asked about land for sale in Eastern Congo.’

‘He did?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Rudd answered. ‘For new mines.’

‘Do you wish to sell land?’ Jimmy asked our guest.

‘It is not very valuable land, and is plagued by rebels. You would need an army to defend your mines, which I understand you do now.’

‘There may be more ore under the ground,’ Jimmy said. ‘We won’t know till we look.’

‘True. And in answer to your manager’s question, we would consider selling land.’

Jimmy took out a piece of paper and a pencil, drawing a crude map of Eastern Congo. ‘What area would you sell?’

The Ambassador circled a few areas.

Jimmy drew a line straight down, a swath of land about two hundred miles deep. ‘How about that area?’

‘That … is a large area, sir.’

‘That … is swamp and jungle and hostile natives.’

‘And what would you offer for it?’

‘Twenty million English pounds, paid over ten years.’

The Ambassador’s eyes widened. ‘You would need a hundred profitable mines operating … to recover that.’

‘I would need twenty years to recover that,’ Jimmy admitted.

‘I would guess longer, but it is your money.’

‘Convey my offer, please. There’s no hurry.’

‘Do you believe there to be valuable mines in the area?’

‘The mine in Zambia has gold, and it’s close to the border, so yes.’

‘A costly gamble, but I think one that you can afford; I fly on your aircraft all the time. Bravo Monsieur, Bravo.’

Jimmy bowed his head. ‘Enjoy my hotel, and cable me of an answer.’

With the Ambassador gone, Rudd cautioned, ‘That is a lot of money.’

‘It’s over ten years, and we’ve already nicked more than that. Beside, it’s worth it for the long term. In 2020 people will pay that for a house there. And within the next five years we’ll make treble that in the US stock markets.’

‘We could take it by force,’ I suggested. ‘A revolt here and there.’

‘When we start to profit from the region the League of Nations would kick up a fuss,’ Jimmy suggested.

Big Paul jumped up, pistol out, a kick to a man’s groin. His buddy followed suit, and we all closed in. ‘Frisk him,’ Big Paul calmly stated, his buddy removing a pistol from inside the man’s jacket.

Jimmy stepped closer, the other guests now nervous. ‘Who are you?’

‘Henri Duchain, a businessman,’ was squeezed out, the man’s ball sore, his face contorted.

‘Why do you have a pistol in your armpit?’ Jimmy asked.

‘It’s ... Africa, it’s ... a dangerous place.’

‘Nairobi has armed police officers on every street corner, and the local by-laws prevent the unlicensed wearing of a firearm,’ Jimmy pointed out. ‘So … you are under arrest.’

They lifted him and took him out, Rudd calling down to reception for the police officers that always stood outside the hotel.

Sitting, I said, ‘Belgians?’

‘No, probably Herr Hitler,’ Jimmy said, none too fussed. ‘But we’ll find out.’

The man was shown out of the back of the police station and taken to the Rifles barracks, the police all in Rudd’s pocket these days. By time we had finished our evening meal he had confessed, an agent of The Reich, still pissed at Jimmy trying to bust out communists. If only they’d come and sit down for a nice cup of tea and a chat.

Dr Astor stepped in as we sat drinking, striding over. We stood for her, fetching a seat, but Jimmy led her away from us for a quiet chat.

‘Why doesn’t Jimmy just marry her, for fucks sake?’ Big Paul asked. ‘Good looking girl.’

‘She’s from this era,’ I sighed. ‘But, you never know with Jimmy.’

We left them to it, and the two of them sat there for hours. She spent the night with him - I saw her leave in the morning, but I didn’t ask; he could be a moody bugger when it came to balancing women and the cause.

That day we inspected the hospital, Doc Graham now off enjoying Nepal, and I spoke to Dr Astor at length. She had created several small clinics, and now trained nurses to go off and work out of villages, our first aid packs carried. She even had a flying doctor service running, a few of our Cessnas ferrying doctors to outlying regions when necessary, the odd breach birth or appendix. I asked her to ask Rudd to expand the service. ‘Call them … flying doctors,’ I told her. ‘Paint the planes white, put red crosses on them, and have a team of doctors and nurses fly around visiting villages.’

She liked the idea, but delicately asked about life in Canada, Jimmy’s life in Canada, surprised that Jimmy was not married yet.

‘He’s dedicated to the work,’ I told her. ‘All work, all day, always trying to invent something new.’

‘I had a lover, a doctor,’ she admitted. ‘But I did not respect him … as much as I should have.’

‘And you were engaged once, I hear.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘A nice enough man, but grounded in his ways and old fashioned. He lamented the old times, whilst I embrace anything new – such as your cars. I tear around in them, and the police try in vain to tell me off.’

I smiled. ‘Women drivers.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ I quickly got out. ‘Do you fly?’

‘Yes, I’ve had lessons. I aim to try this parachuting next, that looks like great fun – floating down to earth.’

‘You are adventurous,’ I admitted. ‘You’re more like a woman from our time period. We have women soldiers and pilots, and prime ministers and presidents. One of my daughters became Prime Minister of Britain.’

‘Sounds like things change a great deal,’ she noted.

‘Well, it takes another eighty years, but pioneers like yourself help the cause for women.’

‘Pioneers … like me?’

‘Lady doctors running clinics.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose.’

‘What ... are your long-term plans?’ I broached.

‘I had fully believed that I would be married with children by now. I am rapidly becoming an old spinster.’

‘You’ve been injected, and you’ll live to be a hundred a fifty, so you have plenty of time. First time around I didn’t get married till I was forty.’

‘Forty? That does sound old, but I shall not age, as you do not.’

‘So never say never, doc; you’ll be around a long time.’

The gang had a nose at a few offices, inspected a few fridges, and glanced at the airport buildings. Jimmy and Rudd studied figures, Jimmy making a few changes to Rudd’s master plan. Ore would now be mined from Tanzania, a big push for the next two years, and the bauxite mine would be expanded, even if it meant that we stockpiled the aluminium bars in Canada. Rudd had built a large plant in Guinea, the chemical process of extracting Aluminium a complex one.

Jimmy took Dr Astor out to dinner that evening and the rest of us kicked back and relaxed, a pleasant warm evening in the rooftop bar, old acquaintances greeted. I hadn’t noticed them on the first night, but the bar had fly traps, sticky paper that would not let go of a hungry fly attracted to it. It was another invention of the scientists at Ebede, and was selling well. Fly Paper had arrived in Africa.

The next day we drove our own jeeps up to the Rifles base, Major Ngomo and his men greeted, hours spent in Ngomo’s sumptuous house, drinking and chatting, his kids running around in the garden. In the evening we enjoyed a meal in the officer’s mess, chatting to the British officers, some of who had only just signed up – looking for a bit of adventure.

We stayed the night in the officers mess after drinking till late, inspecting the men in the morning. The base was now huge, well laid out and organised, and with signs everywhere: British Liaison, Medical Bay, Motor Pool, HQ Company, Education Wing, Canadian Liaison, Parachute School, Armoury, 1^st Brigade, 2^nd Brigade, Support Brigade, Airfield, Bar, Canteen. It had changed a great deal. Big Paul greeted the Canadian Rifles permanent liaison officer and the man’s team, the men all having trained under him. There were now always four hundred British NCOs here being trained, usually a few hundred Canadian Rifles. And the base now supported a combined bar, where anyone of any rank or any nationality could drink and swap stories, they even allowed the Kenyan soldiers in.

The gang fired off RPGs, 105mm, and we fired AK47s at targets, greeting the men and NCOs, taking the time to talk with many of them. There now seemed to be a hundred of our half-tracks housed here – many covered in sheets, something of a stockpile. At sundown we drove back in convoy, police at the front, a short drive back down to Nairobi.

Packed up, we grabbed a quick bite to eat, used the toilets, and took off at 11pm, aiming to hit UK airspace in the daylight, whilst avoiding Italian airspace. Everyone believed that we would fly to South Africa, but that was a rouse, and we turned north after flying south for ten minutes.

The dawn came up over the Mediterranean, southern France ahead of us. Our Goose cruised over France at fifteen thousand feet, the other aircraft of the day not being able to intercept us if they had wanted to, and the aircraft’s high vapour trail must have been a puzzle to many on the ground. The Goose landed at this new place west of London called Heathrow, a strip of land we had recently purchased.

There weren’t any of our cars to be seen in England yet, so we bumped along in old bangers, winding roads leading towards London, no motorways yet. It took almost an hour. Thinking about it, I realised that when they did install fast motorways – it would take just the same amount of bleeding time. We booked into the Dorchester, Sykes, Jack and Timkins coming around that evening, not having expected us.

A little arm-twisting of the hotel staff and some hard cash secured a function room, food brought out as we caught up and gossiped till late. Jack’s child was growing, Sykes had a lady friend – a countess no less, and Timkins now had two sons.

Timkins, our man in Parliament, was now part of the coalition government, the Industry Minister, a good position for his apparent age; most of his colleagues were pensioners. He was slowly building up British industry ahead of the war, and gently nudging people towards re-armament early. He was also pushing hard for an expanded air arm, and now asked Jimmy for some suitable aircraft.

‘We’ll improve the Boeing monoplane, and sell you that in a year or so,’ Jimmy offered. ‘It’s a leap, but not as much as our other aircraft. We’ll also develop a larger version of it as a medium range bomber. That should do till you commission heavy bombers like the Lancaster and Wellington, around 1936.’

Timkins was happy enough. ‘What about tanks?’

‘We’ll start work on them in a few years, but a better policy will be jeeps and half-tracks with 105mm; mobile and effective.’

‘The traditionalists like tanks,’ Timkins cautioned.

‘We’ll develop one in time,’ Jimmy offered.

‘Not aluminium … I hope,’ Timkins said, making us laugh.

‘No, no Shermans,’ Jimmy assured him. ‘An alloy with layers of honeycomb, advanced stuff. But we have to be careful, we don’t want the Germans getting ideas.’

Sykes put in, ‘They’re developing a seaplane that looks just like yours.’

‘Good luck with that,’ I scoffed.

‘They may get a few ideas, but the frames will never compete with ours, or with our reliability,’ Jimmy said. ‘And I have the feeling that theirs will crash a lot. And if they don’t…’

‘We’ll make sure they do,’ Sykes finished off. ‘A laser hit from two miles away.’

Susan was aghast at the idea. ‘You’ll bring down passenger planes?’

‘They’ll land,’ Jimmy assured her. ‘On fire, but they’ll land in time; we’re not monsters.’ He faced Timkins. ‘What of the Jews?’

‘A trickle has become a flood, and now few stay here,’ Timkins reported. ‘And Jack here, he’s been busy creating the Garden of Eden in The Promised Land, concrete runway to boot.’

‘And the politicians here?’ Jimmy nudged.

Timkins answered, ‘Are not happy at the thought of giving up the mandated territory, but they like the gold and the fuel. They can’t have it both ways.’

Jimmy faced Sykes. ‘How many German Jews arriving in Palestine?’

‘A thousand a month now,’ he reported. ‘I guess they see Hitler as … not an ideal potential leader. Some of his speeches were a little … racist.’

‘No…’ I mocked.

Timkins said, ‘Many Russian Jews heading for the Promised Land, now that the rumour mill is in full swing. And the poor old Governor there … he just doesn’t know what to do; his soldiers have been ordered to stay in barracks. Jack has food and grain ships docking every week, and the place has more concrete now than New York.’

‘And the Palestinians?’ Susan asked.

‘Not a happy bunch, but they sell land – it’s not yet taken,’ Timkins explained. ‘Besides, most of it is unoccupied, scattered villages and farms. But for now, the Palestinians find work in Jewish project areas, so they’re happy enough.’

In the morning, Jimmy and I travelled around to the Foreign Office, to a meeting that included Timkins, the aim of the meeting being to see what we could do to assist each other – especially in Africa. They were impressed to hell with the railway lines, and grateful, and glad of the air service we provided on the continent. Whereas they used to send telegrams, now they flew down for meetings; a long sea voyage had become a one-day flight.

After two hours of detail, the head man got into politics, and the future. ‘May I ask a direct question, Mister Silo?’

‘Of course.’

‘What are your intentions in the region?’

‘To make consumers out of Africans; to educate them, to give them jobs, and to have them buy my products.’

‘And any political intentions?’ the Foreign Minister broached.

‘I have no interest in public office, nor in overthrowing British governors in power. I will, however, assess the situation at the time, and if the majority of an educated black populace wished for independence I would nudge you towards that, but ensuring that my people got in there first. Your governor would swap to one of my chosen leaders, and business would go on as normal. Any black leader hostile to whites, or to the British, would not get my support – they would feel my wrath.’

That caused a pregnant pause. ‘I see.’

‘It’s about doing business and making money, it’s not about ideology or politics. I would hope, that when the African nations do learn to stand on their own two feet, that British companies would be at the fore, selling goods and services in the former colonies.’

‘We are not unaware of your connection to Mister Wang Po in Hong Kong, or the fact that he now owns half the colony.’

‘More like two thirds,’ I said, getting a look.

‘And his intentions?’ they asked.

‘To make money, not to become a politician; he’s more of a capitalist than we are. He seeks to buy influence, not to cause a revolution.’

‘Indeed. And the good gentleman has just informed us that he intends to build a bigger and better barracks for our troops, as well as defences along the border.’

Jimmy smiled. ‘He’s worried that the Chinese may wish to take back the colony at some point, or that there may be trouble from these new communists. He’s keen for you to protect his interests.’

‘We’re not there … to protect his interests,’ the Foreign Minister stated.

‘His interests, and yours, as one and the same,’ Jimmy insisted. ‘A safe – and prosperous – colony.’

We left them to worry over Po, and had lunch back at the hotel, soon heading around to Downing Street, and to a meeting with the Prime Minister and his senior staff. It looked pretty much like the Downing Street of my era, except no gates, or armed police, or thronging reporters, or placard-waving nutters. They welcomed us in, tea made, six of them sat opposite us around a large oval table.

‘You should call this the Oval Office,’ I quipped, getting odd looks.

Settled, the Prime Minister formally welcomed Jimmy to England, his first time in their eyes. ‘From your … most unusual roots, you have done very well for yourself, Mister Silo. I dare say some regard you as the world’s richest man.’

‘Numbers in a ledger, Prime Minister,’ Jimmy replied. ‘It’s how you feel when your head hits the pillow that counts.’

They puzzled that. ‘And how are your marvellous inventions coming along?’

‘We’re always working on aircraft that can fly higher or faster or further,’ Jimmy responded. ‘But it’s hard work keeping the American administration at arms length; they seek closer ties each week.’

That had them ruffled, and I hid a grin, sipping my tea.

‘I understand that the White House operates several of your aircraft. Gifts … to them, no less?’

‘America is a large country; they need planes to get about. And the gifts were to encourage assistance on a few projects.’

‘Projects..?’

‘It would be rude for me to discuss their business with you, or yours with them. I keep separate mistresses in separate rooms.’

The Prime Minister cocked an eyebrow. ‘A good policy, for political leaders – and mistresses, I’m sure. May I ask if they have seen the special aircraft?’

‘No, they haven’t, but they are suspicious, possibly from information supplied by the Canadians. We will keep those planes secret for as long as we can, even from US presidents.’

‘That seems … an odd policy, since you make aircraft to sell to them?’

‘We have aircraft that are more capable than those of … say Germany, and we also have aircraft that are very much more capable than those of Germany. Should a threat occur at some future date, I would hope to roll out the middleweights in advance, then the heavyweights afterwards, causing a deep shock to whoever they go up against.

‘My greatest fear … is that I create a race amongst nations to build ever more powerful machines for killing people. And rest assured, that in a time of conflict I could produce many, and quickly. We will, however, be sending you aircraft next year on evaluation, aircraft that are a significant step forwards compared to those you operate now.’

‘But not … the best aircraft you have,’ the Prime Minister delicately mentioned.

‘Do you wish others to see those aircraft, to get ideas, and to then catch up to you?’ Jimmy asked. ‘The better the equipment you have, the more others will want to copy it.’

‘I must confess, it’s a policy that I don’t fully grasp.’

‘I’ll make it easy for you then,’ Jimmy offered with a false smile. ‘Our special aircraft are not available to you … or anyone else yet. That’s my choice, as the designer and owner of the product. But, should the empire find itself in a conflict – a significant conflict, my full resources would be committed one hundred percent, and with aggression.’

‘These Canadian Rifles are a most excellent infantry unit, the reports quite incredible. You push them into becoming automatons that run twenty miles a day, and seek painful endeavours at every turn and opportunity. Our returning NCOs have been described as indestructible.’

‘As with building aircraft, there is a technique to moulding men,’ Jimmy explained. ‘I developed that technique over twenty years, and we take the fear of death away from the men, and that helps.’

‘And this new unit in the Nepalese highlands?’

‘The Ghurkhas are excellent fighting men, so I wish to tap some of that spirit. Besides, I have them in mind for Hong Kong should the Chinese threaten us there. They can garrison well enough, and at my expense.’

Part 3B