‘You aim to save us a few pounds, Mister Silo?’

‘Your cut of the gold has already saved you a few pounds, Prime Minister,’ Jimmy floated.

‘Indeed, and we are … grateful for the business.’

‘There will be greater business year by year. Your Chancellor may factor that into his budget.’

‘Our Belgian friends have made gentle enquiries about you over the years,’ the Prime Minister thought he might mention.

‘I recently met with their Ambassador to East Africa, and offered him twenty million pounds for a stretch of land in the Congo.’

They all blinked.

‘That … would be a very expensive stretch of land, Mister Silo.’

‘I think there’s more … business to be had there. It’s difficult land to tame, but if you have a few well trained soldiers … it is less of a jungle.’

‘And they say that the tribal chiefs welcome you.’

‘They do, or we fight to the death.’

They blinked again, exchanging looks. ‘We’ve all heard some quite colourful tales. But do you seriously aim to tame that area?’

‘It will take twenty years of hard work.’

‘And twenty million pounds!’

‘Yes, but I aim to live long enough to see the mines profitable.’

‘Planning on living to a hundred, Mister Silo?’ the Prime Minister asked.

‘And beyond,’ Jimmy answered with a smile, making them laugh.

‘And what of British Airways? Will the corporation expand its fleet of aircraft and its routes?’

‘We aim to create a base in this Heathrow place, and to fly to all parts of the globe. Perhaps, gentlemen, you could improve road and rail links to it. That way, Londoners could reach it quickly and then catch a flight to far off places.’

They made a note. ‘We will, most certainly,’ they offered.

‘And if you assisted with concrete runways in Edinburgh, Belfast, Penzance, Jersey – then we could offer services to those locations.’

They were keen.

With the meeting concluded, we journeyed through the trams and around to Jack’s London home, a fine Georgian building over three floors and with a cellar, even a coal-chute for coal deliveries. His wife, the nurse, cooked us a meal, Sykes popping around with Timkins for a private chat. As well as a little plotting and scheming.

In the morning we enjoyed a cold walk around Regents Park, the zoo, a glimpse of the Thames later for Mary. She threw a stick in. It took us another hour to reach Heathrow, some things never change, our plane sat waiting. With the air crisp and chill we set off, soon heading northwest and over the west coast of Scotland, on towards Iceland. Beyond Iceland we glimpsed Greenland, the windows a little frosted on the outside, and entered Nova Scotia’s airspace. Refuelled in Toronto, we started the last leg, back to a snowy airfield. Warned-off risking a landing on the ice, we touched down on the inlet safely, in sight of the hotel, our round the world jaunt complete. My house was nice and warm, the maid in attendance, the food on. It was a week before Christmas, and Mary was excited.

The next morning I visited all of the factories in turn, enquiring as to how various things were progressing. Radio direction finding was working, some early experiments with radar underway - a man walking in front of an antenna with a large metal plate to see if the radar saw it. Well, at six feet away I would have been disappointed if they didn’t see it. In the alloys research facility they called to me keenly, a new alloy to show me.

‘Guys, a bit of metal looks like a bit of metal,’ I said.

‘This is a new alloy, and we think it would be great for a rifle barrel. Feel this.’

They handed me what looked like the barrel from an AK47. ‘Shit, that is lighter; half the weight. It won’t explode if fired?’

‘It would be stronger, if anything. And we’ll put fins along it at the thicker end, covered by the grip.’

‘Guys, make up an AK47 – or ten – immediately, using this stuff, even for the body. I want a folding stock, and hard plastic pistol grip and barrel grip. You have a green light.’

‘They would be expensive production weapons,’ they cautioned.

‘I only want a hundred. Go to work.’ I was pleased with the new alloy, and its potential, finding Hal and Hacker wrapped up warm and working hard. ‘Fuck me. All we need is some dodgy Vietnam War music,’ I told them.

‘Like it?’ Hal asked.

‘Hal, it’s a bit of a leap from the bedstead; it looks like a fucking Huey on a diet.’

‘They had thirty spare engineers from the jeeps and half-tracks, so we pinched them while you were off enjoying yourself.’

‘How’re the US soldiers you were training?’

‘Most are down in the desert,’ Hacker reported. ‘Staying warm.’

‘They coming along?’

‘They’re not Rifles, but they’re better than they should have been for this era. There’s an airborne unit now, five hundred men, and they are good. When their stint is up we’ll pinch some of them.’

‘You keep the Huey out of the skies around here, fly it off someplace quiet,’ I warned.

‘Sikorsky is already tinkering with them,’ they argued.

‘He’s tinkering with flying bedsteads, not Apocalypse Now.’

‘She’ll take a year or two to get right,’ Hal admitted. ‘Besides, Jimmy has commissioned anti-aircraft missiles.’

‘He has?’ I caught up with him later. ‘Missiles?’

Jimmy reported, ‘Unguided, altitude detonated, but I am thinking about a simple magnetic proximity detonator as well.’

‘What the hell for?’

‘To shoot down planes. What’s the one characteristic of warplane strategy in this era?’ I waited, Jimmy adding, ‘They fly in tight formations.’

‘So a big bang in the right spot gets them all,’ I realised.

‘They teach formation flying as a safe strategy; many eyes looking for the enemy, many tail guns brought to bear.’

‘All bunched up nicely,’ I realised.

‘It’s like flak, only more effective if well aimed and adjusted for wind and speed.’

‘They just invented an alloy for rifle barrels that’s half the weight,’ I mentioned.

‘And it doesn’t blow up when fired?’ he puzzled.

‘Nope.’

He led me back to the alloys people, and received a briefing. ‘See your department manager, tell him I said to make this a priority. Make airframe shapes and spars from it, and give them to the aircraft boys to test as a priority.’

‘Yes, sir,’ they enthused.

‘How did you make it?’

‘We mix things up at random all the time, and this one we cooled very slowly under high pressure.’

Leaving the excited men, Jimmy said, ‘They didn’t even have that alloy in our day, not that I know of. They may have stumbled across something by accident, a leap forwards. But, as far as rifle barrels were concerned, people were always mindful of mass-production, so quality was secondary.’

We returned to our daily routines, and a week later I was presented with an AK47 at the indoor testing range. It was light, very light, partly alloy and partly plastic grips. I loaded it, cocked the weapon and fired, finding no practical differences to any other AK, except the weight.

I took it back to the hotel, unloaded, and showed Big Paul. I think he had an erection. ‘It’s a new special alloy they found. A bit expensive, but … it works.’

‘Shit … she’s a beauty. When can we test them?’

‘Just as soon as they make a few. Go show the gang.’

And he did, everyone amazed by the new alloy. Then everyone started nagging for them. I confirmed the order for a hundred, and each of our military types had one issued; the SAS given twenty, the SBS given twenty, some held back, a few sent to Ngomo and Abdi to test. The boys in the alloys research facility all got a bonus equal to three months pay, the man directly responsible receiving six months pay – and were all told they’d be shot with their own rifles if the formula or methods were released.

Then the aircraft engineers called me down. ‘Jees, boss, this new metal is great.’

‘And expensive,’ I mentioned.

‘We could use it for certain things, like engine mountings, main spars,’ they offered.

I held up a hand to them, and found the department manager for the alloys. ‘How much is it to make, compared to the aluminium alloys?’

‘Well, it takes a lot longer, but that’s just time, not money. Cost wise, it’s about ten percent more.’

‘That all? Shit, I want loads of it made up. I want it tested to destruction, especially corrosion.’

‘Oh, it’ll never corrode.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ the man said with a smile.

‘Then get testing it for tensile strength; twist, break, heat and chill it.’ I gave him all the largest dollar bills I had on me. ‘Good work.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

I found one of our scientists. ‘What do you make of this new metal?’

‘There are millions of various combinations, many yet to be discovered, even in our era. When we left, they were slowly cooling metal casts whilst surging electrical currents through them, an attempt to influence lattice formation.’

‘That ... sounds expensive, but we have this, and we’ll use it on the aircraft.’

‘And in the jet engines,’ he added. ‘Possibly a great benefit, as well as one that would be hard to reverse-engineer by others.’

I waved a finger. ‘That’s a good point.’ I found Jimmy sat with Cookie, having a coffee. ‘This new metal is cheap, just takes a while longer to make it. And … it couldn’t be reverse engineered; they’d never get the mix and process right.’

‘Excellent,’ Jimmy said. ‘Now instead of being way too forward in our plans, we’re way way too forward.’

‘There’s no pleasing some people,’ I quipped.

‘We risk an arms race,’ he said. ‘Still, it strengthens our arm – no pun intended. And some of our people have mild radiation poisoning.’

I was immediately concerned. ‘They OK?’

‘They have the blood, so symptoms go after a few days. Still, procedures will need some tightening. Since they have the blood, they’re not as careful as they should be.’

‘How’s that project progressing?’

‘They’ve refined some ore, got the chemical process going, and now centrifuges going. They should have enriched Uranium in a year, but they’re inventing and building the support equipment first.’

Cookie said with a smile, ‘They call themselves The Lemmings.’

‘Lemmings?’ I puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘They live under the tundra,’ Cookie explained. ‘Coming up in the spring.’

‘Ah. They need to get out more often. Literally!’

Cookie added, ‘They would, if there wasn’t six feet of snow over them half the year. Still, it’s well camouflaged from satellite recon.’

‘I don’t think they’ll be any satellite recon for a year or two,’ I told our out-of-touch cook.

Christmas with the family was great, an occasion that I had missed in the past twenty years or so. I was now making up for it and going all parental in the festive season. I arranged bonuses and gifts for the workforce, a crate of beer for everyone, mince pies, the works. Decorations went up around the offices, and in the last week before Christmas nothing much got done, one long round of parties.

Susan was a traditionalist, and she got into the spirit of things as well. But Christmas Eve she sat me down in our well-festive lounge. ‘I think we should have another child.’

‘Yeah? Well, yes, they need siblings, or they’re … the only child.’

‘Mary seems fine, but … I think two. Or three.’

‘Three’s a handful, even with help. Trust me, I know.’

‘Do you … want more?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but I’m thinking about … well, whether this is the best place to raise them; winters are no fun here.’

‘Where were you thinking of?’

‘I don’t know. I need to stay close to the work, but … there are things that I could be doing in the winter if there wasn’t six feet of snow outside. I’ll chat to Jimmy, see what he thinks.’

The next day we journeyed down to the hotel after lunch, gifts exchanged, lots of gifts. I got a knitted jumper that said “too much, too soon”, and other equally useful items. Later, I mentioned to Jimmy a warm climate for the kids.

‘I know you’ve had enough of building up Africa…’

‘Yes, and I don’t want to be in the Congo in this day and age with kids!’

‘We could do with a testing ground near San Diego, a pilot training school. A lot of our staff head down that way to test things they can’t test here in the snow. You could build up a large-scale testing facility.’

‘Miramar!’

‘That’s a way into the desert,’ he pointed out. ‘But the same idea.’

‘I’ll take a holiday down there after New Year and … get a feel for the place.’

‘There are dockyards we own down there. You could make a start on a few warships.’

I wagged a finger. ‘Aircraft carriers!’

‘There you go, you had an idea. A bit early…’

‘Fuck … right … off.’

After the endless rounds of parties I needed a holiday, and on a fine crisp morning a Goose carried myself and my family south, along with two bodyguards and a bunch of engineers that were due in Los Angeles. I also persuaded our nanny to come along, since she also longed for a warmer climate. We spent a day in L.A. at a hotel near the seaport, and I checked in on the airlines operation there, mention of how good Hong Kong airport was. They got the message. I signed off on nearby land that would hold a concrete runway, and travelled on down to San Diego.

We booked into a hotel for a week, not sure how long it would take us find a house to rent or to buy. I set out the next day with Susan, a drive around the various neighbourhoods. Then, thinking like a parent, I grabbed a map and marked all of the schools. Only one posh suburb seemed to fit, so we journeyed to it the next day, finding a cliff top with a view to die for. It was close enough to everything, so I enquired about land at a realtor down the main road leading to it.

A lady showed me twenty-six plots that had been set aside for building on, shaped into an avenue that was yet to be laid. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll take the lot. Do you know a builder?’

She was bemused. ‘You’ll take … them all, sir?’

‘I’m Paul Holton, business partner of Jimmy Silo.’

‘Oh my word.’ She needed a glass of water, her boss coming out.

The guy said, ‘Figured we’d take a year or two to sell the plots and build on them.’

‘Now you can have a nice long break. I’ll want the paperwork tomorrow, then to meet the builder. You’ll arrange the avenue as it’s laid out here?’

‘Yes, sir, we can get right on that with the town council.’

‘Good. So, tomorrow: paperwork and builders. And … have a nice day.’

I made the morning edition of the local paper, a loud announcement of my arrival. Susan and I met with the builders after signing a large cheque, and each plot was joined to its neighbour to make larger plots. Our plot would be at the end of the avenue, and would cover four of the proposed plots joined end to end. It would also be the first house started. I drew a quick sketch, and asked the builders to improve upon it and come straight back – as in two days time.

That evening, I said to Susan, ‘Why don’t you design the other houses, each one different. And you’ll have to help me out with the internal decorating, because I’m crap with that stuff.’

Her feminine side was tapped, paper grabbed off Mary, as well as a few coloured crayons. Mum and daughter scribbled quietly on paper in our hotel suite.

Studying a map of the area the next day, I headed towards the town clerk, a map rolled up.

‘Mister Holton,’ he said with a smile. We were off to a good start.

I opened the map. ‘I’m looking for land to buy, big enough for an aircraft factory. If the land is owned by the government then that’s fine.’

He raised a pointed finger, smiled, and drew the outline of a large area that was only three miles inland from my proposed new house. ‘It’s owned by the Navy, but the town doesn’t allow them to bomb it any more.’

‘Quite wise too.’

I headed off to the nearest telegram office, and after waiting in line asked the nice lady to send a telegram to the President. She stared at me, and called her boss over.

‘You wish to send a telegram … to the President, sir?’

‘Yes. Is there a problem?’

‘People don’t normally send telegrams to the President, sir.’

‘Oh. Well, I do. Name is Paul Holton, business partner to Jimmy Silo.’

‘I’m … terribly sorry, sir, I didn’t recognise you. I heard you had moved into town. Would you like to dictate the message, sir.’ He readied a pencil.

‘From Paul Holton and Jimmy Silo, stop. Want to buy abandoned US Navy land in San Diego to build factory, stop. That’s it, the rest they can work out.’ I handed over a few dollars.

Two days later the US Navy came to the hotel, an Admiral and his staff. I was invited out to lunch. They were delighted that I was going to build an aircraft factory here, quoting the newspaper story about it.

I began, ‘We’re interested in an airfield, a pilot training centre, an aircraft testing centre to start. That should create plenty of jobs locally. Then I’ll be looking at ship building, we own yards here.’

‘What kinda ships?’ they asked, keenly attentive.

‘Aircraft carriers.’

‘For your planes, no doubt.’

‘We’re working on planes suitable for aircraft carriers,’ I lied. ‘Fighters and bombers, and spotter planes.’

‘Spotter planes?’

‘They’d fly out a hundred miles and find the enemy ships for you,’ I explained to my keen an attentive audience. ‘Besides that, I have to keep quiet for now. You know, secrecy and all.’

The Admiral said, ‘We have a few of your Goose aircraft on maritime patrol. Damned fine aircraft, damned fine; we never have a problem with them. I’ve flown them to Hawaii and back, and the foods better than at home!’ They laughed.

‘You need to be comfortable on long journeys,’ I commented. ‘So what land do you have for me?’

They opened a map and showed me, an area similar to that which the clerk outlined, a square with a bulge, some two miles long and three miles wide. And it already possessed a fence. It also offered a few unexploded bombs, which they said would be removed.

‘We have bomb disposal experts, leave it to us,’ I said.

They offered to mark the areas where ordnance was still to be found.

‘So, how much?’ I finally asked.

‘The Department of the Navy is asking for only two hundred thousand dollars, but will strike a good deal on the next order for your aircraft. It’s just a case of how many.’

‘I’ll discuss it with Jimmy, but I’m sure we can come to an agreement.’

After lunch I travelled out to the proposed site with a young naval officer, the man showing me the existing buildings, water wells, roads, and the dirt airstrip. That dirt strip was solid, almost like concrete. I got a call through to Jimmy, eventually, and he would look at aircraft, a mix of the maritime Goose and a few Dash-7s. Since we had a few old ones to get rid off, it would be a good deal.

Jimmy struck his own deal with the Navy the next day, the land signed over, an army of builders engaged. As Susan sat drawing houses, I stood directing builders. I started with the access road, which was fine, the main gate OK, and I knew what I wanted first. I commissioned a large motel just inside of the wire, and ordered the wire moved. The motel would be “outside”. Next, I asked for fifty temporary workers huts to be brought in and assembled.

Thinking about a parachute school down here, I commissioned eight two-storey barrack blocks in a corner, a mess hall and armoury, an admin block, a separate fence around it when done. Using the existing buildings between the gate and the dirt strip, I created a civilian flying school, the buildings already suitable. Six veteran pilots came down from Canada, ten Cessnas and six Dash-7s. Lessons were offered immediately, to local paying students.

That attracted an odd mix of people, mostly rich men who flew as a hobby, a few young men hoping to get jobs flying, a few sent by their bosses to learn on our aircraft. That gave me an idea. I informed the Navy that we had a flying school, and that their guys could learn on our aircraft at low rates. They ran their own basic flying school, but that was still based around biplanes, and they always needed cross-training onto our aircraft. I offered to take a pilot right through from Cessna to flying the Goose, and they agreed, the first young men destined to stay at a nearby naval base whilst coming out to us by bus.

Our pilot instructors started teaching the first naval aviators in the classroom, advancing on to the Cessnas, the dirt strip now busy. That led to the start of a control tower and admin building beneath it, the installation of good radio equipment and radio direction finding. The Navy’s pilots would soon be trained on the equipment.

Jimmy then sent down a hundred willing volunteers from the US Army regiment we sponsored, and a note: “Can never have enough pilots.” I found the men temporary accommodation in workers huts, ordered more huts, and hurriedly expanded the small canteen, hiring six new ladies. Ten old Cessnas flew down, four more Dash-7s, and we had 1939 in mind.

I then altered the course structure and made it a bitch. They’d now each need eighty hours on Cessnas, not including certain exercises, a hundred and twenty hours on the Dash-7s, parachute training – which some already had, and forty hours on a Goose. By time they left they would be good pilots, but also experienced pilots.

We now had the Army and the Navy on the base, the men getting on well enough, all talking about aircraft. I brought in Navy meteorological staff, and they gave lectures to both groups whilst the base grew in size. I commissioned five large hangars in a row, workshops behind them, and parallel to the dirt strip we made a start on a concrete runway.

All day long the place buzzed with aircraft taking off or landing, a few near misses, hops and bounces performed by the beginners. Seeing the men waiting their turn to try, I commissioned a spacious pilots room with a rooftop bar. The men would soon be able to sit with a cold drink and watch their colleagues bounce and hop.

A thousand builders toiled all day, buildings going up at a steady pace. Water pipes were laid, electrical cables hung off posts, phone lines added. Dawn would see the soldiers running around the airfield, the navy lads turning up at 9am in a bus. My own future dwelling was also reaching skyward, the pool dug out and covered in concrete, tiles now being set. I didn’t interfere in the house, and Susan didn’t comment on runway directions.

With just about enough new accommodation at the airfield to spare a few rooms, our service engineers moved in and set up home. Once a week, a Goose with wheels would land and have something swapped or repaired. Po took delivery of the old Goose variants, those without wheels, since we were now phasing them out. These aircraft, the ones needing minor repairs, were mostly from the Hawaiian and Pacific routes. Store sheds appeared, lorries bringing in parts after they had journeyed down by train, including entire engine assemblies, and tarmac roads crept ever onwards around the dirt airfield.

The concrete runway was completed at around the same time as my house, and I was delighted with what Susan had achieved. The road outside still looked like a builder’s yard, but the house was great. My bodyguard had his own room, and two private guards patrolled both the cliff path and the builder’s yard outside, day and night. The first few houses in the avenue were under construction, their designs down to Susan.

My new house offered a lounge with huge glass doors that opened onto the poolside, a great view down the coast, great sunsets laid on each evening. My bedroom offered similar glass doors to the lounge, opening onto a large balcony above the lounge, the same view. Coffee in the mornings would be spent on the balcony, listening to the ocean below.

All pilots needed first aid training, so I started taking Susan to work with me. She had the first aid packs sent down, and gave talks and lessons, exams held: what would you do if a passenger had a heart attack? She also stitched up damaged fingers for engineers messing with planes, being kept busy, and was glad to be back home and on the poolside each evening. We started to appreciate the weekends.

Settled into the house, Jimmy flew down and stayed the night, explaining that the Boeing team would open up shop the next day. They opened a shed and grabbed spare office space, three of their ugly fighters landing later in the day, as well as one of their prototype twin engine transports. Their pilots would put the aircraft through their paces in the good weather, and some of our pilots would also test them, offering comments.

That Boeing transport plane had been designed by us for the most part. It offered large wide wheels for dirt strips, an undercarriage designed for rough landings, and a sturdy frame. And the damn thing took off on a dime. With huge flaps, it landed on a dime as well, and I watched the thing come in at a steep angle and land, power up and take off again, over and over. In order to assist Boeing - to assist us in the long term, we ordered thirty of these transports for Africa, Ngomo to receive five.

When the US Army brass came down to the airfield for a visit, I showed them the Boeing transport plane. ‘You could use them in jungle and desert – they can land on any surface. And they only need a short runway. They’ll carry forty soldiers, or a jeep or two.’ An idea had been planted.

We numbered a great many parachute-trained soldiers in residence at the airfield, and so they geared up and took off in the Boeing one morning, the aircraft now called the B13, and jumped over the scrub near the base. With static line chutes wired up to an overhead rail, they managed to all get out in a minute, landing in a tight group. Two of these prototype B13s were duly dispatched to the New Mexico parachute school.

Boeing’s ugly monoplane fighter, the B11, was given a thorough testing by our staff, the second variant of it utilising our materials and techniques from the B13 transport. They had no buyers for it yet, the US Army having two on trial, but the B11 Mark II fighter would be better. And much better than the Stearman biplane that the Army were now using.

The flying school down here soon attracted would-be pilots from all over the States, and even abroad, and more of our own pilots started to teach private students. Class sizes were around twelve pupils per instructor, a great deal of time sat around waiting your one-hour thrill and post-flight analysis. But, with the Cessnas offering four seats, I had people sit in the back and observe, two or more in each Dash-7. It speeded up the process. And our pilots got used to modern day flying: “Pattern is full, go around.”

Both the dirt strip and the concrete runway were in constant use on weekdays. You turned left off the concrete, right off the dirt, and a few screams were heard when the pupils mucked that up. And if a Super Goose was coming in, you got out of the way or you got squished. I decided on a third runway, on the far side, and work started on another concrete runway in earnest.

Not everyone learning to fly understood why they should also learn to parachute, and a few refused. We explained the benefits, and the confidence of having a chute, but they still refused to try it. In time, a few private planes appeared on the airfield, licenses granted, a few biplanes sat about for weekend hobby flyers.

Mary attended a nursery each day till 3pm, now four years old, and made a few new friends. She was, however, booked in as Mary Blake, her mother’s name and not mine – for security reasons. I met a few of the parents and invited them around on weekends, a while since I had done this whole school thing. I made out that Jimmy had all the money and that I was just his assistant, conscious of the security – that and not wanting them to be a right pain in the arse. I just wanted to be an ordinary Joe.

Hal and Hacker paid a flying visit to the airfield one day, delivering a Goose for the Pacific route, and we caught up for an hour; seemed that the new metal was revolutionising a few things. It also seemed that Mac had made a fat grenade, the metal twice as thick as normal, and when thrown it blasted twice as much metal around. It just looked a bit stupid, the size of a baseball and hard to grip.

They were now using the new alloy for aircraft parts, and the jet engine boys had pinched much of it. Main spars would now be made of the material, and dorsal spars up to the tail. Since it was half the weight, they made the spines twice as thick for extra strength. Now you would need an artillery shell to bring down one of our planes.

Hal informed me that an engineer had designed a baby Cessna, and had built it in his spare time. It was two-seat, smaller than ours, and made use of a smaller engine. It would, however, be great for private users. Jimmy had signed it off and production would start soon, the planes cheap enough. They would also benefit from a main spar and spine made from the new alloy, but would be so light they would blow over in a strong wind. Since we’d all seen Cessna 152s upside down after a storm in our era, we didn’t care.

And the new AK47s, they were so popular that Jimmy had banned talk of them for the nagging. They had more of a kick and recoil than their heavier counterparts, but were nonetheless sought after.

Spring, 1931

In the spring, I began visiting our shipyards more often, and peered at the designs for a new destroyer. I ordered a redesign. ‘If any compartment below water is holed, I want it isolated and watertight. I want you to tell me that a hole in one area won’t sink the ship. And if I don’t accept that, I’ll stick you in one, and blow a hole to see what happens.’ I was conscious of Pearl Harbour, and of battleships sinking after being hit by just the one torpedo.

Studying the design of a small coastal craft, I drew hydroplanes onto it. ‘Try that for me,’ I said. ‘Experiment. Weld them on an older model, and see how she fares. Call me when you’re ready to test her.’ They looked at me as if they thought me mad.

Called back a few weeks later, they had an older boat with hydroplanes attached, and fixed silly smiles on their faces. We walked down the dock to the boat and boarded, taking her out without scraping the hydroplanes. Outside the harbour they opened her up, the nose rising, the speed increasing.

‘Fast, eh?’ I said. ‘That’s because I think like an aircraft engineer.’

She powered around, other naval crews now staring at the boat racing along on top of the water instead of in the water. I asked for the planes to be hydraulic, so that she could be berthed dockside, and left them to experiment. But I returned a day later and had strips welded onto her hull in dry dock, strips that would catch air and bubble it under the hull. Small holes were made in the hull, and high-pressure air would now be pumped out as she progressed. Even without the foils she was much faster through the water. And that technique had first been used by the Vikings in their Longboats, and was employed by our seaplanes.

Looking at aircraft carriers, they were way too expensive for me to piss about with, so I went back to the airfield to see what else I could do. With the second concrete runway now finished, I moved people over there, hoping to avoid a few crashes, and the statistics suggested that we would qualify upwards of three hundred pilots a year. I sent Jimmy a note, and he said, “More, please.”

After whinging, I found more instructors – all of them working for us, good financial incentives offered, and asked for more soldiers. Canadian Rifles came down, a dozen at a time, the rest of my guests US Army enlisted men or officers. And the Army, bless ‘em, they looked at the report cards and pinched the best men for the Army Air Corp. Well, that was the whole point, so I assisted them.

A few of the men had enlisted with the sponsored regiment for something to do, being promoted to corporal, had then passed the pilot’s course and were now NCOs or officers in squadrons. But the Army had a hard time when handing the pilots biplanes to fly; there was dissent in the ranks. That was eased with the first two squadrons of the Boeing fighter, the ugly one, soon to be followed by the much better variant. We gave the Army Air Corp twenty-four on trial, two whole squadrons, and the Department of Defence began looking at the Boeing B11/2 as its basic fighter, some fifty ordered.

Jimmy then ordered sixty for the British Army in East Africa, as a standard fighter; it would carry two .303 British standard machineguns fitted, and two small bomb racks. Since we were paying for them, as well as opening a flight school in Mombasa, the British had little to complain about.

Not many B11/2s would ever be made, since the B11/3 was on the drawing board already. It wasn’t a Spitfire, but was a decent fighter. Our own prop fighter was back in production, a surprise when I found out, and they were being stockpiled. There was also a new variant being worked on, with spars made out of the new alloy, guns of the new metal, and a larger wing with greater load capacity. It would offer four fifty calibre machineguns, generous ammo storage, and bomb racks on the wings and belly; it was a Spitfire on heat. It was also ahead of its time, with armour plating for the pilot and the fuel tanks - made from the new alloy, its Perspex canopy twice as thick as normal and moulded with fine wire mesh. Jimmy was designing it to survive a good kicking and to come back smiling.

He then sent me a note: “Pilot survival gear, rubber rafts, etc.” I got to work, looking at the existing kit. Thinking of the future, I grabbed two engineers and told them what I wanted. They stared at me, but got to work. A week later, with a group of pilots observing, the crude prototype was tested. It looked like a large yellow rubber football with a red cord. When I yanked the cord it hissed loudly, everyone stepping back, and it burst into life as a one-man dinghy. It came with a sea anchor fitted, a whistle, a hood, and a paddle that could be unfolded and clipped together. The production model would have a tin of water and dried biscuits, fishing line and hook, a mirror to signal. I told the men to make four prototypes and to fetch me additional staff from Canada.

I pencilled a design for the Goose series and sent it to Canada, to our chief engineer, ordering the changes. A compartment, in fact three, would be fitted to the planes. Anyone outside the plane, unhappily bobbing in the cold surf, could put a finger in a hole with a red arrow pointing at it, pulling open a hatch. If they grabbed the handle inside and yanked, a door burst open and a four-man dinghy burst out and inflated. There would also be a release from inside the aircraft.

Next came a similar approach for the Dash-7, a standard wilderness survival kit and dinghy. The dinghy would be in the rear fuselage, the survival kit next to it; water and dried biscuits, fishing line, matches, plastic sheets, etc. Our prop fighter would get a dinghy behind the fuselage fuel tank, same design, for pilots ditching in the sea. Considering Boeing, I sent them a note and the designs for their fighter and transport, the transport to have four dinghies in the top of the fuselage.

I then designed a jungle survival kit in a green bag, and would have them issued in Africa only. Jimmy sent a “thank you” note, so I took a long weekend off with the family when I received it.

A month later I was sat chatting to a Super Goose pilot back from Africa, and he mentioned the flying school there – and the size of it. There were now twelve Cessnas operating, six Dash-7s, and already twelve Boeing B11/1s and /2s. And they were teaching dog fighting and ground attack to British pilots. I was near Miramar, and the damn action was in Mombasa.

I asked to borrow Hal for a month, and grabbed a few Boeing B11/2s. Hal spent a few days getting used to them, and their limits, then devised a dogfight programme. Now, Army and Navy pilots would receive dogfight training and ground attack scenarios. Hal put the instructors through their paces first, and taught a few basic techniques for shaking a tail and getting position, which he admitted was great fun. He’d want to spend more time here in the future.

When Hal headed back north, on a Goose needing some fixing in Canada, Jimmy flew south aboard a new prototype. One sunny morning, a Super Goose Bomber landed at the field, its distinctive bubble domes quickly identifying what variant it was. Powered down, everyone wanted a peek at it.

Jimmy stepped down and came over to me. ‘She’s been flying with forty thousand pound bomb loads, no problems so far.’

‘Bomb bay doors OK?’ I asked.

‘They stick now and then, but there’s a team on just that. They open and close them for twenty-four hours, sat watching them.’

‘Bomb release OK?’

‘They mocked up a ten thousand pound bomb, and it got stuck, so they had to redesign the release. Smaller bombs drop OK, but if you load it with forty one-thousand pound dummy bombs then one always gets stuck. That’s no big deal because they won’t go bang unless they strike something very hard. Still, you wouldn’t want to land with one in there. The rear gunner, who doubles as a secondary navigator, has been known to open the hatch and kick loose the odd bomb.’

I smiled at the image.

‘How’s the bomb sight?’ I asked, leading Jimmy towards the tower.

‘They regularly drop bombs from ten and fifteen thousand feet, into an oval shaped lake to the northeast, and so far it looks good. Was a problem when a few guys went fishing on the lake; they got the surprise of their lives. Our crew only spotted their boats after the bombs had been released.’

I laughed. ‘Cold drink?’

‘Definitely.’

We climbed up to the roof, cold beers grabbed, and stared down at our monstrous creation.

He pointed. ‘We now have a thin sheet of the new alloy fashioned with fins over the fuel tanks, around the engines, around the pilots, and they make tubes of it to put the control wires in. If an ME109 shoots it up from above it’ll take a beating.’

‘I think an ME109 tops out around ten thousand, if that.’

‘The problem would come if one of these was caught somewhere low, maybe landing or taking off. That’s why they have a tail gunner.’

I sipped my beer. ‘What’ll he have to play with?’

‘Twin fifty cal with a good rate of fire, long barrel, tracer and phosphorous rounds. He’ll have armour plating around himself as well, but his Perspex is still vulnerable. Next I’ll put countermeasures on it?’

‘Countermeasures?’

‘Chaff - aluminium strips to confuse radar - as well as a grenade launcher. It’ll fire out grenade-like shells, and they explode five hundred yards back, hopefully convincing an enemy fighter to bug out; a kind of mini-flak. They’ll also have bright lights to blind night fighters.’

‘Max altitude?’

‘They’re working the partial pressure system, that helps, and the inside is kept warm. Oxygen would be a partially demand-value system, a good supply onboard, but they’re thinking about a pressurised cockpit as well. It’s been to thirty-two thousand feet already.’

‘Nothing will fly above twenty during the war, if that,’ I scoffed.

‘The next variant will have a swept wing, ten degrees, swept tail and fins, a bit faster.’

‘Will we lose some load?’

‘No, because the wing will be larger, almost delta,’ Jimmy explained. ‘Oh, I’ve just sanctioned the main spar, dorsal spar and tail strut of the Boeing B11 Mark Three to be made in Canada from the alloy, and we’ll make their undercarriage.’

‘Should improve things, although their Mark Two hasn’t fallen apart on us yet.’

‘The Mark Three will handle better. So, is your missus cooking?’ Jimmy nudged.

‘I’ll telephone ahead.’

At the house we sat around the pool, Mary fishing up nickels and dimes, never quite figuring out where they came from. Susan came and joined us, cocktails handed out.

‘It’s a nice spot,’ Jimmy commented, ‘but Canada in the summer is unbeatable.’

‘We thought we’d pop up there when the nursery closes for the summer,’ Susan mentioned to Jimmy.

‘The factories are still growing,’ he responded. ‘But in a few years more of the production will switch to Boeing. The Mark Three and Four fighters will be the standard around the world till 1939.’

‘Will the Germans copy them?’ I wondered out loud.

‘They’re already looking at monoplanes, and they were ahead of the game before with the ME109 and others, so I don’t think they’ll be any different this time. Remember, it’s Hitler setting the tone and pace, so he’ll opt for what he thinks is best. Last time they didn’t opt for long range bombers, or big bombers. Since they were just bombing London – why would they? Their designers won’t have a plan to bomb New York.’

‘Any progress on radar?’ Susan asked.

‘Yes, we have a crude set-up in the control tower. It shows up a Goose well enough, the Cessnas are hard to spot unless they’re only a mile away. But they did jump the gun and give the Germans a hand.’

‘How?’ I puzzled.

‘In Hawaii they have a beacon on continuous transmit. A smart Goose pilot can use his radio to fix its exact heading, guiding them in if it’s cloudy.’

‘The RAF used that in the war, to triangulate German cities,’ I stated.

‘Till it was jammed,’ Jimmy pointed out. ‘Still, it makes commercial flying safer. They’re now rigging up sets for aircraft to find the beacons, and they’re going to install them all around the world. We could land at night, in bad weather, or fog.’

‘Progress,’ I said. ‘Safer air travel; this period wasn’t exactly known for its safe air travel.’

‘Ted went out to Hong Kong after you criticised Los Angeles airport. Now L.A. is much better, and Washington, hotels at the airports. The VIP lounge has rooms above it, so if your flight is delayed you can book a room with a shower.’

‘Couldn’t even do that in our era,’ I moaned.

‘Hawaii’s transit hub has a hotel being built, and new lounges, a rooftop bar, the works. The age of luxury seaplane travel is with us. Oh, and we think we know why the Germans are mad at us, and Herr Hitler didn’t have a hand in it.’

‘No?’

‘No. Jack gave money to Zionists in Palestine, to get more people out. They used some of the money to bust out communist Jews in prison, and killed a few officials. When caught, the pipeline operators said that I had funded it.’

‘Shit…’ I let out. ‘How many Jews are getting out of Germany now?’

‘The main exodus occurred after 1933, when Hitler came to power, so we’ve started the process early with the money. It’s not enough, but around ten thousand a month leave; Palestine can’t cope with them all, poor old Jack flat out busy. Half the poor buggers are in tents, some living in old cruise liners in the ports. But we’re not managing to persuade anyone from the Netherlands or Belgium to leave – and why would they; they can’t see a war coming yet. And Polish Jews ignore the requests. We’ll do what we can, but history is unlikely to remember us well.’

‘No?’

‘Given what we know, they may argue that we should destroy Germany now. Still, the Jews will only be attacked in a long, drawn out war. I aim to end the war in a few weeks.’

‘Do you have a plan?’ Susan asked.

‘I have a very detailed plan, one that I’ve considered since I stepped through a portal the very first time; I had notions of accidentally ending up in many eras. But … but it depends on the starting line-up, and before we get to the starting line-up in Europe there’s Japan invading Canton in 1938. If we used our best weapons against them, the Germans will see it – and will redesign their own.’

‘So we have to fight the Japs with one hand tied behind our backs,’ I said with a sigh.

‘If we can hold out in Hong Kong, inflicting casualties, it will look like an infantry fight. But, if the Japs get pissed-off and send everything they have at Hong Kong we’ll bomb Tokyo, and the Germans will start considering long range and high altitude bombers.’

‘Complicated scenario,’ Susan admitted.

‘There’s also Pearl Harbour,’ Jimmy began. ‘Before it, very few Americans were interested in the war in Europe, or wanted a war anywhere else; a great many US politicians were against getting involved. If the Japs don’t attack Pearl Harbour, the American delay could be … costly to the world.’

‘You’d allow Pearl Harbour to go ahead?’ Susan queried.

‘Without it, or something similar, the Americans will sit and wait till the Japs land in Los Angeles – which is a distinct possibility. And in this era, the American Army is skewed towards their old bases in the east; they have very little in the west. And one of the Jap plans was to seize the Panama Canal, where the Americans have only a few thousand soldiers right now. And let’s not forget – the Japs attacked because of deliberate provocation from the Americans.’

‘Come again?’ I said, not a history buff.

‘The Americans were against a war in Europe so soon after the First World War – and rightly so, and their isolationist movement would have modern day US Presidents in fits. In 1941, the Americans were more Woodstock, and less Vietnam. But they could see Japanese expansionism, and they secretly helped the Chinese to fight the Japanese in Manchuria. That pissed off the Japs. When the Japs took Canton they were close to the Philippines, and that was a worry, but the White House was at odds with Congress.’

‘Ah, how times have changed,’ I sighed loudly, getting a smile from Jimmy.

‘So when the US blocked oil sales to Japan – a nation very short of oil, and froze all their assets in the US, war was inevitable, Congressional support or not. And the White House promised Churchill significant help and assistance in the Far East. What that help was … was never made clear. The White House wanted a fight, and the history books were purged in a manner that would make Stalin proud.’

‘So how do we play it?’ I asked.

‘It all comes down to Hong Kong, and the Jap reaction. But the radar atop the hill in Hawaii will be a little better attended this time around. And, I may have a Goose in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pearl Harbour will still go ahead, but with the US fighting back. Without it, the pacifists could keep the US out of the war for a year or two, and that would cost the world. It would also mean that a few good old movies would have to be re-made, with John Wayne sat on the sidelines being a pacifist, a flower in the barrel of his gun.’

‘Not quite seeing that for the big fella,’ I said.

‘History is written by the victors,’ Jimmy said with a sigh.

‘In post-apocalyptic Canada,’ I began, ‘I had a look at where you lived, that old hotel that looked like a Wild West saloon.’

He smiled, thinking back. ‘How did Muriel take it?’

‘Your assistant? She was shocked that you were still alive, stunned that the time machine worked and that you had gone through, but pleased that you had made it. I sent her back, don’t know where she went in my world.’

‘It was a cold hotel in the winter,’ Jimmy sighed. ‘You went to bed fully clothed.’

‘And your room stank.’

‘I can imagine; hot baths were a luxury. I popped over to Manson a few weeks ago, had a look around, drove past the hotel – same as in my day. But if you dwell on stuff like that it screws with your head. But … but I don’t know when it was that I changed, changed to thinking that wherever I was … was home. Maybe sailing, or after, but I never really miss a place once I move on.’

‘I’m the same now, although I do have fond memories of the old apartment, the old house, the kids growing up.’

Susan looked my way, but made no comment.

I faced her. ‘They grow up … and don’t visit and don’t call. And ten or eleven years from now, our little limpet won’t want anything to do with her boring old parents.’

‘Well, good job I’m pregnant then.’

I eased up. ‘Yes?’

She nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘I want a boy, who I can teach to fly,’ I said.

‘Not while I’m alive you won’t,’ she threatened.

‘What? Flying will be safe by then,’ I quietly protested.

A week later, and with the nursery selfishly closing down for the summer holidays and handing us back our noisy daughter, we hopped on a Goose bound for the factory and soon reclaimed our dusty old house. Mary repossessed her old room without so much as a word or question, and I checked the suits I’d left behind.

The next morning I visited the hotel, catching up with Cookie and Sandra on the gossip, soon heading for the factories to see what they were up to. The jet fighter was now a large jet fighter, and looking a little like a Mig 21. The first prototype was up at the remote airfield and being put through its paces. Despite the extra weight - for the same engine, it pelted along at six hundred and fifty miles per hour at sea level with no difficulty.

This second prototype came with a new engine, or rather the same one with a few parts made of better materials; the engine itself now lighter. The aircraft’s flaps were a little bigger, and I noticed supplementary flight surfaces; this version had an auto-trim for long distance flights. Next door, in the engine bay, a larger engine was being tested.

They explained, ‘It’s about the same weight as the original, but it has larger fans and more burners. There’s also a new alloy that glows white hot - positioned in the outlet, so that it helps to burn up any fuel not ignited in the burners. There’s always some waste, you can’t help that, but this new feature gave us seven percent more power. Overall, this engine has thirty percent more power than the original. We’re now looking at this new alloy for the burners themselves, since it glows hot and helps to ignite fuel.’

‘Do they wear out?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you need to replace them, but you’d get a thousand hours from it at least.’

‘What range does the fighter have now?’

‘If steady, just around eight hundred miles; we’ve reduced fuel for bomb racks, although we do have these new drop-tanks that can be fitted. It carries a lot of ammo for the fifty cal guns.’ He smiled. ‘We’ve had it dog fighting with the prop fighter.’

‘And?’

‘At low speed and low altitude the prop fighter wins every time; better turn circle. But the jet stays high like a vulture, then swoops down and fires, pulling up at speed. The prop fighter can’t chase it.’

‘It’s a tactic, I suppose.’

‘A prop fighter could never intercept the jet, not on a good day,’ the man said. ‘If you see it, it’s already a mile past you and gone.’

‘And auto-trim?’

‘Yes, it works well at high speed and high altitude. Up there it would be bad for a pilot to turn too hard.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Wings would fall off. What are you working on next?’

‘Better payload, larger wing, capped speed of six hundred.’

‘What payload are you aiming at?’

‘At least six thousand pounds under the wings, three two-thousand pound bombs; the munitions boys have them ready. They explode under the ground, so will make a big hole in a runway.’

‘So … our jets could reach a target without being intercepted, bomb the enemy runway, and leave without being intercepted.’

The man nodded. ‘The propeller fighter has dropped those types of bombs, and if you nose down at speed the bombs dig deep, making a crater thirty yards across and ten yards deep. It’s the preferred tactic. They practise it with the Boeing fighters – to attack other airfields.’

In the munitions factory, I had a look at a new fifty cal rifle, and she was a beauty, the metal gleaming. And light! The previous model needed lugging around, but this variant was easy to handle.

‘Detachable barrel,’ they enthusiastically reported. ‘Longer barrel, so better range and accuracy. And now a fifteen round curved magazine – but it’s heavy and falls out now and then.’

‘Stick to eight round magazines, that’s plenty for a sniper,’ I said.

‘And now a fifty calibre machinegun for mounting to our jeeps and half-tracks.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing towards a rifle.

‘It’s a new sniper rifle, sir. It’s point two-two-three, high spin, and high velocity. It’s very light, easy to carry in its case, and comes with detachable barrel. Mister Paul Baines specified it.’

I tried the weight, finding it surprisingly light. It came with a clip-on bipod for the muzzle, and a telescopic sight. ‘Good workmanship.’

‘He shoots deer with them,’ they informed me, and in this day and age no one cared much about animal welfare.

In the control tower, I found the radio direction finding kit, an aerial on the roof. Looking at a basic cathode ray tube display, a line reached upwards when you turned the dial.

‘That’s the transponder of an incoming Goose, sir,’ the operator informed me. ‘Bearing … two hundred degrees.’

I lifted my head and peered out of the glass, seeing the Goose in the distance. The glass had small signs with compass degrees to help, and the plane was just about on two hundred degrees. ‘It works.’

‘The equipment is going out to all airfields now, sir.’

‘And the radar?’

He took me to a darkened room below, three men sat behind crude screens with orange glows. Pointing at a screen, he said, ‘That’s the same Goose, sir.’

I observed the fuzzy blip moving. Hell, we now had basic radar working. ‘How far can you see out? What range?’

‘At the moment it’s about thirty miles, sir,’ they informed me.

‘Keep at it; be able to see planes over Hawaii soon.’

‘No, sir, curvature of the earth,’ they pointed out, looking embarrassed for me.

‘I was joking.’

In a hangar, I found a Super Goose being fiddled with. ‘How are the escape rafts?’ I asked, noticing the red arrow on the side of the aircraft.

‘They work well, sir.’

‘How well?’ I took out twenty dollars.

‘Ninety percent of the time.’

‘And that ten percent, when someone is drowning?’

They glanced at each other as I pulled the cover off, yanking the lever. The dinghy burst out hissing, people looking around as it inflated on the concrete. I handed over the twenty dollars.

‘They take two hours to re-pack, sir,’ they thought they’d mention as I walked off.

Noticing a few people with bandages on fingers, and cluttered equipment, I went straight to Bill and asked for a dedicated Health and Safety Officer, with two staff assigned to the guy. He instructed his assistant to recruit from within, but then informed me that he was thinking of retiring.

‘Bill, work as many hours or days as you like, you’ll get the same salary and dividend.’

‘Kind of you, Paul. I was kinda hoping to get a nice place down in the sun near you.’

‘Then instead of retiring, help out at the airfield in San Diego a few days a week.’

‘Wife is keen, so … yes, probably will.’

‘I have a house ready and waiting, so you can stay there to start with. Pop down in September and stay a while.’

I made a point of taking time with the Health and Safety chief, raising my voice; I wanted fewer accidents. I wanted an accident logbook in each section, I wanted fire training, and I wanted the factories less cluttered. And I wanted the Health Inspectors to shout. I then supplemented him with a welfare officer, who listened to gripes and moans of the staff, and would report the consensus to myself or to Jimmy.

Bill’s deputy stepped up as Managing Director of the aircraft factories, a man Jimmy had worked with for six years or more. It was a seamless transfer of power. The Health and Safety department grew quickly, and a team of inspectors were put together to travel out to all airfields and to check on safety. They would have a small outpost in San Diego, and I keenly waited to see what they would make of our side-by-side runways and regular near misses.

Sept, 1931

September was noteworthy, in that we tested the first fuel-air explosive. These types of bombs did not do well in strong winds, or any kind of wind, and they would need to be dropped with parachutes, timed fuses so that they would go off above the ground – not an exact science.

These first tests were conducted by simply rigging the bombs to wooden towers that resembled the fire towers you might find in the forest. The first device, a small one, made a big bang as we stood watching from half a mile away, a mushroom cloud rising. Driving to the blast zone, we found trees on fire, but those trees that had been within a hundred yards were all grey and scorched from the super-heated air that had enveloped them. The soil was grey with ash. Two old cars that we had positioned nearby were now melted and warped, and looked like they had been sat under an atom bomb as it detonated.

Trees had been knocked down up to two hundred yards away, and a brick building we had cobbled together was just rubble. Goats, tethered at various distances from the epicentre, were in various degrees of “cooked”. Those closest to the centre were black and charred, those at two hundred yards dead, but appeared normal. Their lungs had experienced a pressure wave, followed by super-heated air, followed by the air being sucked out of their lungs. At three hundred yards the goats were dead, beyond that just a bit wobbly on their feet. Poor little things.

It had been a good first test, and the scientists and engineers were happy enough with their destructive handiwork. They’d now step up a size and make a bigger bang at the remote base.

On the way back, I said, ‘Timing will be critical.’

‘Yes,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘They could only be used when we know the weather conditions over the target. We need less than a ten mile an hour breeze, ideally five; a pleasant calm day. Still, we have ambassadors in foreign cities for that, and they can radio the weather conditions without raising suspicion. And we only need the one day.’

I set off back to San Diego, not least to put Mary back into nursery – she was missing her friends. We reclaimed our new house, which now felt like home, and searched top to bottom for anything out of the ordinary. It all seemed OK.

Bill was now occupying a house down the avenue, and we met at the airfield for a planning session. My first headache was that my own Health and Safety inspectors were unhappy with the crowded strips. Training was progressing, Army and Navy pilots put through their paces. I eased up on the Canadian Rifles and US enlisted men, now with a full airfield. I did, however, send six instructors to New Mexico, to the parachute school, and they opened a flying school there. It eased the pressure on San Diego immediately.

We still operated Boeing transports on the field, and parachute training took place over the scrub a few miles inland. We also trained our own pilots for Africa here, the men landing the transports and climbing steeply, going around and around all day. They would each need sixty hours minimum.

Getting the transports to Africa would have been by ship, wings detached, but an engineer had a good idea. He rigged up a huge fuel tank in the rear hold of a plane and anchored it securely. It came with a hand pump, and when the main wing tanks were low you could top them up, and no doubt keep yourself warm in the process. They loaded enough fuel to reach Europe, and a team of four men set off one morning, portable toilets onboard, food and water.

They flew slowly across America, taking on a small amount of fuel in Nova Scotia, then reached Iceland and kept going, down over Scotland to Heathrow, where they took on fuel. And, no doubt, emptied the portable toilets. They made Cairo and took on fuel, still with plenty left - I think they just wanted to stretch their legs, and they reached Mombasa safely, a journey that had taken almost three times as long as in a Super Goose. Who said being a delivery pilot was glamorous.

Ngomo grabbed the plane and rigged up parachute lines, his boys soon practising large inserts over the deserts, thirty to forty men jumping at a time. The Boeings that following the inaugural flight all reached Africa safely, and would now be used in remote areas either as a passenger transport, as troop transport, or simply cargo planes. They began landing at the gold mine with men and equipment, but also began flying the gold out. Jeeps could now be delivered to remote locations, many vehicles being moved to the interior.

The British depot in Kenya took delivery of two Boeing transports, and parachute training took a new dimension, large inserts being practised. In Mombasa, the flight school started cross-training pilots to use the Boeings.

At my airfield, we received the first Boeing B11/3 in late September, and it was now a nice aircraft, reliable and tough. It was faster than its predecessors, but topped out at a maximum speed of two hundred and eighty – and deliberately so; we did not want a race amongst our competitors to build faster aircraft now that the Schnieder Trophy was no longer run. And Mister Schnieder was French, not a German as I had believed. The final two winners of the competition had been Supermarine Swifts, seaplanes, and the forerunner to the Spitfire. They had topped three hundred and forty miles per hour. But, like my sports cars, their planes were not production models – nor very practical yet. It would be a while before the Spitfire graced the skies, another four years or so.

With the new Boeing B11/3s now showing off at the airfield we received an order from the British RAF for a hundred of the new variants, and the RAF got them at a good price. The new variants were shipped over, assembled and painted, tested by our pilots in Britain, and then handed over with their logbooks. Six new RAF squadrons received their planes, a central flying school for conversion and training created. It was 1931, and the RAF had a plane that could hold its own in a scrap, the Germans having little to match it at the moment, their military in as much disarray as their politics this year.

The British Prime Minister was happy enough, or more rather contented with the aircraft, but he knew we had better. Still, right now the RAF was dominant, and that they liked. The US Army Air Corp followed the RAF, and took delivery of eighty aircraft on advanced evaluation, a potential order for two hundred behind that. Since their pilots had already trained on it, conversion would not be an issue. Our Canadian Air Force friends bought forty for themselves, and the Boeing was getting a name for itself.

Orders followed from Argentina, Mexico, Australia, but we were selective of who the aircraft went to. A French request was turned down, since the aircraft might have been nosed at by German spies in the years ahead. I argued the case with Jimmy, since we wanted the Germans to think that these were the best aircraft we had. He relented, and the French ordered two hundred. Most were destined for their African colonies, where they would be used to shoot up unruly tribesmen on camels.

Boeing expanded, again, and more hangars and production plants were duly built, the company and its workforce delighted with the orders. They made gentle enquiries about equipment and practises that we restricted, and it would continue to be a source of tension between us – for a few years at least. Jimmy commissioned a prototype of a large transport, the B14a. The workers had dubbed the transport the “Buffalo”, because it was short fat and ugly, and the name stuck. The Super Buffalo was on the drawing board, some thirty percent bigger, larger engines, but still just two engines. Boeing had their hands full with the fighters, so the Super Buffalo was given a low priority, and deliberately so.

The US President made a point of visiting Boeing, revelling in their success, and using it as a rallying cry for the country – still in a recession. He even flew to Washing State on the Goose we gave him, cheeky bugger; he was stealing the limelight from us.

As the weather turned poor around Vancouver, I was enjoying the sun with a cold beer – an illegal cold beer from Canada, often to be found just sat thinking. Susan was showing a bump, and Mary asked if mummy was getting fat. We explained to her that she would have a sister, so she searched the house. No, there was no sister around. The fact that it would come out of mummy’s tummy took some explaining.

Bill and his wife popped down often, and we’d sit and chat around the pool, a slow pace to life down here. Many of the houses in the avenue were now sold, all completed, and a few of our engineers shared in two of them, a few rich folk moving in. I greeted them all, since I was selling the houses, and asked our friendly FBI guy to check out the new neighbours. With the houses nearly all sold, I placed a barrier with a guard on the start of the avenue – which was a private avenue, and increased the security. The other residents were fine with the barrier - it made their friends jealous, and made them appear more important.

Life was good, life was quiet, but I knew that next year should see a change in pace, especially in Germany. Jack was busy moving Jewish emigrants, the money available to him topped up. They now emigrated at a good pace, the world finally aware that Palestine might become a Jewish state. The numbers of Jews in the region now outnumbered the indigenous Palestinians, and the League of Nations debated the matter at length. Since the territory had been mandated to the British after the withdrawal of the Ottoman Turks, and the British were not protesting, there were few others protesting about the influx – countries that mattered that was.

Syria was still under the French mandate, as was Lebanon, but Iraq had been independent since 1925 and protested the Jewish influx, but quietly. Jordan, known as Trans-Jordan, was under British Mandate, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia not yet vocal about the matter – but snuggling up to the Americans, who sought its oil reserves. Despite America being an oil exporter at this time, it had seen an agreement in place with the Saudi kingdom since 1920, a nice bit of forethought.

Jimmy increased the number of people assisting the Jewish exodus, knowing that the building of the Dachau concentration camp was only a year or two away. He offered incentives to the British Government, and they allowed more Jewish refugees in, the Low Countries happy to see refugees pass through without stopping. A trickle of Polish Jews started to take to the boats, at the promise of jobs and houses more than anything else. And in Palestine, Jack had built many large apartment blocks, the new immigrants put to work quickly and gainfully employed.

This was only possible now because the Arabs nations were not free or independent yet; that would come after the war. For now they were under British or French mandates, Egypt run by the British; there would be no 1948 style war. And this time around there would be a hell of a lot more Jews to fight.

But opposition to the influx came from Greece and Italy, worried about the change in ethnic make-up and politics of the region. Since the land still held British soldiers, albeit sat in barracks getting a tan, no one was about to attack the small strip of disputed land. Those soldiers watched helplessly as Jack threw up buildings, repaired roads, and sunk water wells. Jack also worked hard at buying up Palestinian land in what would be Gaza and the West Bank someday soon.

The world watched with puzzlement at the Jews returning to Zion, then one day a Movietone Newsreel showed the building work, and labelled it all as having been paid for by Jimmy Silo, the world’s richest man. People started asking if Jimmy was Jewish, a communist Zionist, and what the hell was he up to. When a few US Congressmen questioned the action, Jimmy went public, a statement made.

‘We’ve all been watching with some trepidation the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and their intolerance for others. I’m not a Jew, but I can see what’s happening … and I don’t like it. The Nazis are driving out the Jews and others, anyone who is not a member of their fanatical cult, and mark my words well: there will be trouble from this Herr Hitler fellow if he gets into power, a lot of trouble for everyone.

‘I’m not a Zionist, nor a communist, but I will help people in need, as I feed a half a million Americans in my soup kitchens. If the US Congressmen who question my credentials have issues, they can go to those soup kitchens and do an honest day’s work for a change, instead of sitting on their fat backsides in Washington and drawing good pay for talking nonsense.

‘The people of this country need leadership in this time of crisis, they need hope, and they need jobs. Their taxes go to pay for the salaries of those in Congressmen … who blow out hot air all day, so they deserve better. I create jobs in America, thousands of jobs, and I will create more and more every year. That is, of course, unless I am no longer welcomed here by your Congress. Then I’ll take my jobs elsewhere. Thank you.’

I read it in the morning papers. It was to the point: what the fuck are you doing? I’m creating jobs, and I could take them away as well!

The US Army regiment that we sponsored had crept slowly towards forty thousand men, housed in several bases around the country, and Jimmy cold pull the plug, putting the men on the streets. The White House knew it, and we knew. They would be nervous in the corridors of power.

Jimmy then made a move that stunned me. He sent our good buddy Herr Hitler a telegram, the man not even in power yet. We knew that there were six million unemployed in Germany, and that the German economy was screwed and suffering hyper-inflation – a loaf of bread now costing a million Marks, and so hard cash was always going to be an incentive. Jimmy’s telegram was straight to the point: allow the Jews to leave, and you get ten million English pounds to play with.

I was aghast at the idea, since they would use the money to re-arm. Jimmy insisted that the money would not make such a massive difference, and that we had only a year left to do something. History would judge us, because we knew what was coming.

That part was worrying me, since I knew all about time travel and history. And the death camps, they were warmed-up well before the war started. The cold hard reality of why we were here was starting to bite, hard to comprehend sat around my pool in the sun. It was now like the build-up to 2025, that horrible feeling that the party must end. And then reality got even closer, and tried to punch me on the nose.

One pleasant Saturday afternoon a car pulled up to the barrier. A shot rang out. I heard it, so did my bodyguard. He ran to the street, 9mm pistol out, and I grabbed a new lightweight AK47, magazine slapped in. I rushed downstairs, Susan horrified at the sight of the weapon, grabbing Mary. Outside, my bodyguard had reached halfway down the avenue before he started to exchange fire with the men in the car, our gate guard dead.

I stepped brazenly out into the cul-de-sac, angered, very angered. I lifted the muzzle, gripped tightly, and fired an entire magazine into the car as it sat beyond the gate. With the final empty click I lowered the weapon, staring hard at the car, my bodyguard running towards it with his pistol prone. I waited as he checked the car from the side, its occupants now quite dead. Paul Holton, armed with an AK47 alloy special edition, had just killed Machinegun Kelly and his gang, the four men armed with Thompson sub-machineguns.

Sirens registered as I dumped the AK inside my door, soon walking down to the bullet-ridden car. Neighbours were peering out, Bill now on his flat roof with a pistol.

‘You OK, Paul?’ he shouted.

‘Yeah, we got them. Go wait with Susan for me.’ I approached the car, walking around the barrier as a patrol car pulled up, its siren wailing. Two officers ran forwards, pistols drawn.

‘You OK, sir?’ they shouted.

‘These men killed our guard, so we fired back. I used a machinegun I keep in the house.’

They holstered their pistols and examined the men. ‘Jeez, what a mess.’

The bodies were pulled out as other patrol cars arrived, just the one assailant still with a recognisable face. ‘That’s Machinegun Kelly, sir.’ I was, apparently, now due a reward.

The local police chief turned up, reporters kept back, and he walked me to my house. ‘You got Machinegun Kelly.’

‘He … nearly got my family,’ I pointed out. In the house I showed him the AK47, Bill with Susan and Mary, his pistol stuffed down his belt.

‘Wow, what a … strange gun. Pretty though.’

‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

‘They came for you, Mister Holton, shooting up the place. You have the right to defend yourself, so don’t you worry about those stiffs. Did us a big favour getting Kelly.’

‘Drink?’ I risked, breaking the law.

‘Well, a small one.’

I fetched a cold beer from my fridge. ‘Can you leave some men around for a day, I’ll have some of my own brought down.’

‘Sure, no problem.’ He sipped his illegal beer. ‘Nice house. But I kinda pictured you in something … larger.’

‘Jimmy and me, we don’t waste money, it goes to the poor.’

‘Right good of you, sir.’

I made the national newspapers for all the wrong reasons, and four men from US Army Airborne Brigade came over from the airfield, men chosen by Big Paul. There were a few houses unsold as yet, so the soldiers now had one to share.

After the shooting, one neighbour moved out – I gave him back his money and apologised, but two moved in. And Susan, she asked for her own 9mm and practised using it down the beach. An AK47 was kept in the car, and I took to wearing a pistol on occasion. I spoke to Jimmy on the phone, and the gang were concerned.

Shootings aside, Jimmy indicated that the Belgians would now sell the Congo, and if the League of Nations didn’t like the fact, then that was tough. The bank of England paid the Belgians the first two million, and Jimmy was Governor of Eastern Congo again, land that included Rwanda.

Ngomo was told to quell any and all fighters in the region, and Steffan made plans to tame the jungle. A Kenyan Rifles base was established near the old Forward Base – at the end of the existing northern train route, and a Congo Rifles Regiment would now be formed. A concrete runway would be built quickly, Goma Hub now on the drawing board. Timkins then sat down with the British cabinet on Jimmy’s behalf.

‘Prime Minister, I’ve been instructed by my good friend Mister Silo to negotiate on his behalf. He would like your assistance in the Congo, and points out that he knows where gold mines exist, mines far larger than the one already tapped. Far … larger. There are also diamonds, and ores. He did not buy the region for nothing.

‘Further, he intends to open an airport in the region, and to allow flights from London to land there for refuelling before flying onwards to South Africa or Rhodesia. He points out that the hidden wealth in the Congo is considerable, and that he wishes us to be his first and preferred business partners – for a few concessions.’

‘Concessions?’

‘He would like us to leave Mandated Palestine in 1938.’

That caused a stir.

‘Prime Minister, is that strip of dust and sand worth what Mister Silo indicates is in the jungle? The deal in the Congo could net us four million pounds a year, not including the indirect business benefits, which I believe would net us at least as much again, growing year by year. And he promises to help us safeguard the British presence in the region.’

They went off to think about it, but they had little choice; they feared what may happen in East Africa and Hong Kong if they said no. Sykes had been working his magic for ten years, and we now had many of the cabinet members in our pockets.

My quiet family life had been shattered by Machinegun Kelly, but Susan was not too bothered, she was more angered that someone might come for us. And unlike Helen, she would have shot him herself! The police decided that Kelly had come to kidnap us for ransom, and the case was slowly forgotten about.

Jimmy hired mining engineers, a thousand of them, and put them on a ship bound for Kenya. Equipment was bought from around the States and shipped out, including our stockpile of tractors that we couldn’t sell. They could have shovels fitted to the front, and before you knew it you had a bulldozer. Four hundred were dispatched by ship to Kenya, and production resumed on our tractors, many of the men having been moved over to other things. Half-tracks were shipped out, chainsaws, and thousands of shovels and pickaxes.

In a move that would kill two birds with one stone, if not four, Jimmy started hiring Americans to work in the Congo; two year contracts, all costs met, a bonus at the end. With the recession still biting, and some people having been hungry for years, we had a willing army of volunteers.

The natives of the Congo were not yet an option, education and skill levels very low. So we raised an army of two thousand out-of-work Americans and shipped them out. That led to enquiries from the British about the jobs for Americans, and we pointed towards the unemployment situation here. They pointed towards the unemployment situation there, so we hired a few hundred British workers, and promised to hire more.

We did, however, buy steam engines from Britain, to be shipped out, and that created jobs. They made good steam engines, so we would have probably used them anyway. Around Kenya, Rudd advertised for British NCOs and officers for the new Congo Rifles, immediately finding willing takers, not least those after a little adventure in the untamed frontier. Existing members of the Kenyan Rifles, and a few Kenyan police officers, were recruited to the Congo Borders Police, and we started to check those coming and going in our region.

By the Christmas of 1931 we had shipped some six thousand people into the Congo, tented cities everywhere. Doc Graham was busy inoculating people in the territory, Anna starting the first small orphanage there. All day long, trees were cut down and cut up, jungle track cleared, roads made, a relentless creeping invasion of the jungle. We knew where oil seeped to the surface, and cut a road straight to it, northwest of Forward Base, which was now a tented city.

They found the oil, tapped it, and started to collect it. A small refinery was created nearby - little more than a big distillery, and petrol for our vehicles was duly produced. Jeeps and halftracks now enjoyed cheap fuel, the first tangible benefit. That fuel went by truck to Forward Base, and then south so that all of the vehicles in the region would benefit.

Coal for the trains came next, and we knew where it lay just under the surface, soon extracted and fed to the trains at various points. With that phase achieved, we dug down where we knew there was tin and copper, the ore to be refined on-site, and shipped the finished ingots to either Kenya or down to the Angolan coast. It all seemed familiar.

Spring, 1932, saw the British “agree in principal” over Palestine, the flow of oil and ore in the Congo helping in their decision making process. They would look at a staged withdrawal, “with honour”, by 1938.

Jimmy then sent them a note, asking that they leave some troops and an airfield behind, since it would benefit both the British and the Jews. Jack then informed a stunned Jewish leadership in Palestine: the British had agreed a withdrawal by 1938 – and between now and then … could you please be nice to the British?

We had no answer from Hitler yet. He wasn’t in power, but he wielded the power, his party holding a majority of seats in their parliament. I then met with Jimmy in San Francisco, checking out the new civil airfield there.

‘If he does let them go, then … Palestine ain’t big enough. They’d be at modern day levels of population,’ I pointed out

‘True, but many would go to America, and we’re talking about German Jews, not Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians or those from the Baltic states, or from France. The German Jews probably number two million.’

‘Because he hasn’t invaded those other countries yet,’ I realised.

‘The current exodus is at a good level, but many still stubbornly doubt that he’ll actually get into power. Anyway, we need pilots for the war, so recruit and train bright eighteen year olds; they’d be the right age in 1939. House them, feed them, and give them a small wage, but cut them loose at the end; when war breaks out they’ll have a head start. Train them on the Cessna, Dash-7, Boeings, the works – a six-month course, or make it a year. In England, I’ve created two flying schools linked to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, so future RAF pilots with large moustaches are learning to fly.’

I smiled at the image. ‘Chocks away, chaps. Tally ho!’

‘And the British Army is now sending larger groups down to Kenya to get the experience and training, all inoculated. There should be a good batch of NCOs for 1939 – or earlier. Some will be garrisoned in Hong Kong from 1937 to 1941.’

‘Six years,’ I noted. ‘Getting closer.’

‘Quite a few of the Canadian Rifles have applied for the Congo Rifles, veterans with a lot of years under their belts.’

‘Itching for some action,’ I noted.

‘Most of them are still busy teaching the Americans, but there are now a few Americans who are NCOs and officers themselves. I’ve reduced the size of the British groups travelling to Canada in favour of training them in Kenya. And some of the sponsored American soldiers are quitting, and heading to the Congo to work; the depression is helping us there.’

‘Stocks doing OK?’

‘DOW Jones has recovered far more than it would have otherwise, now three times what it should be at this point thanks to our buying. Those stocks that I knew would recover well have made us money, but I’m hanging onto them for now. Our radios are selling well, now on the fourth variant, and fridges in the south are making a killing. We’re now shipping them to Europe, competing with Rudd and Po.’

I laughed. ‘Our airlines are competing as well.’

‘It’s all good,’ he sighed. ‘All in the family.’

‘Han still selling fridges?’

‘Yes, and radios; he’s making a killing. And he’s sending money and weapons to Mao.’

‘If he gets caught by the British…’

‘He won’t, he’s just the front. Po is sending the weapons, making it look like he’s fighting the Japanese in Manchuria – applauded by the British Governor in Hong Kong.’

‘Did he build a barracks?’

‘Yes, several of them, and on a grand scale. He’s now making tunnels into the mountains, and smaller tunnels zigzagging up to the top, fire positions ready. There’ll be plenty of good fire positions available for 1941. Problem will be the airport.’

‘They’ll bomb the crap out of it on day one!’

‘They will, so he’ll dig a large tunnel into the mountain behind it, large enough to get our fighters in end to end.’

‘We’ll use the best prop fighters in 1938 if the Japs attack early?’

‘We won’t have a choice, unless we want to lose the colony. It’ll be a difficult enough siege with the planes there, but without them the Japanese can sail into the lagoon and pound the hell out of our positions with their destroyers, and they have more than a few tubs to play with; they could level the colony if it holds out. Still, we’ll paint the planes like Spitfires - and people will think them Spitfires.’

‘And the jets?’

‘Strictly a reserve, and for 1940 in Europe,’ Jimmy emphasised.

I flew back aboard a Goose seaplane, out from San Francisco bay, a glimpse of the new bridge being built as we took off. Back at home, and sat with a cold Canadian beer, I considered the world at large, and what horrors awaited it.

Back at work, I performed a review of the airfield, and thought about what else I should be tackling. Seeing an America Airlines Super Goose land, probably for a repair, I decided that a trip to Washington DC was in order. I grabbed Susan and Mary, packed a case, and we flew the AA Super Goose back to Washington via Dallas. Booked into the hotel that the airline had placed on the edge of the airfield, I met with the managers. On a large table, they had laid out a map of the States ready, aircraft models and red monopoly houses indicating airfields and aircraft.

‘Which are the profitable routes?’ I asked.

‘They all make money, or we don’t fly the route,’ they insisted.

‘OK, then where are they most popular – and in most need?’

‘That would be the South American routes,’ they said.

‘Fine. Which do we cover?’

‘Here down to Rio and Buenos Aires, Mexico, and the Caribbean. That’s it.’

‘Then let’s think about the following routes: Florida to each Caribbean island that warrants it, then Los Angeles down to Peru and Chile, stopping along the way. Internally in Brazil they must want seaplanes on the rivers, so our Goose seaplanes should be popular. Then let’s look at each capital in South America and fix a weekly route, going down on a Monday and back on a Wednesday; there must be plenty of diplomats wanting to travel.

‘Then there are the routes from capital to capital, and between the major cities. We can try them, and then we’ll see, so ask for permission to operate the routes. Then let’s think about Brazil up to Europe; non-stop to Madrid, to London, or to Paris. OK, US cities. How many hotels do we have at airports?’

‘Six at the moment,’ they informed me.

‘We should be aiming for a hotel at each, and to be making some money from passengers staying at our airports. But what long distance internal routes could we be flying … that we’re not?’

‘We don’t cover Chicago to the west coast, and we have little in Colorado, Utah, and down to Houston.’

‘And those routes would pay for themselves?’

‘Chicago to the west coast would,’ they agreed.

‘Fine, organise it, I’ll find some aircraft. What else?’

‘Florida to Houston to San Diego would help. At the moment, people have to fly north first. And we don’t touch many of the southern states.’

‘I’ll sanction the aircraft, you work out the best routes, and let’s experiment. But how about an east coast city route? Washington, to Philadelphia, to New York, to Boston - aiming at the domestic market.’

‘Should have enough passengers.’

‘Feel free to ask for aircraft guys, I want us to dominate this industry. But think first of long distance passengers who can pay, like Brazil to Europe, or Washington to West Africa. Make use of the diplomats.’

A week later Jimmy received a note from Rudd, the main gold seam now located and tapped. It was the gold seam that needed little refining, and was the main reason for us being there. Gold leaving the Congo increased six fold, and the “chaps” at the bank of England must have been whispering in the corridors.

With a surge in available funds, I hired a team of managers who knew the real-estate business. I sat down with them, marking several places on a map of Los Angeles, places I knew would be good for house prices in years to come. I then marked a few places in Florida, and the Upper East Side in New York, or around Central Park. They were dispatched with instructions to find bargains, and to haggle.

I then recruited a team to fly to Cuba and to buy up land and plantations. Jimmy sent me a note: “What, pray tell, are you up to?”

‘Trust me,’ I said.

I sent out our American Airlines staff, and they began expanding a little used dirt strip near Havana. I bought hotels on the coast, the place already a holiday destination for rich Americans, but mostly I bought plantations and cigar factories. In a move that I didn’t advertise widely, I sent Big Paul and a team down with a list of names, most of the named men just kids now. We knew where the future revolutionaries were born, it was part of our history, so the villages and houses were known. Several could not be found, but the Castro family suffered a sudden bout of death, others blinded.

Having bought the plantations, I would control them – and their workers welfare. I installed a doctor or nurse in each, raised wages a small amount, created welfare officers to listen to gripes, and removed any managers that were unpopular. Holidays were extended, hours cut, and my competitors in the country must have thought me mad.

West of Havana, on the coast, I bought land and sunk an oil well. After two weeks of drilling they found oil. I ordered up a refinery, US workers and equipment sent out, the aim being to provide cheap fuel, and to boost the local economy. I had learnt a thing or two from Jimmy.

He sent me a note. “Well done.”

Without clearing it with Jimmy, I sent Rudd a note, telling him to keep back five percent of the gold, and to develop Kenya and Tanzania, and routes down to South Africa. We needed consumers for the Congo ore.

In the months that followed, I sent American workers by ship to what would become modern-day Angola, and to the end of the railway track. They were to build a deep-water port and an airfield with a concrete runway. That was the fun part of my work. The bad part was reading the newspapers sent over from Britain and elsewhere, and the rise of the Nazis; we were letting them get to their feet just so that we could knock them down.

Seeing a photo of one of our trucks being used for logging in Canada, I asked if we could send a few to Kenya, quite a few. Jimmy agreed, twenty shipped out, more earmarked for Africa in general. I then paid a flying visit up to our factories, and to the people who knocked together our half-tracks.

‘Could you put a big shovel on the front of those, a detachable one?’

‘Sure.’

‘And a large rake behind it, and a large roller for flattening things behind.’

‘For road laying?’ they asked.

‘Yep.’

They got on the case, and I requested fifty for Africa. At the hotel, I sat with Jimmy for a coffee.

‘Congo administrators,’ I said. ‘British, local mayors, town planners?’

‘Ask Jack to find some, send them down. But it will take time, there’s very little there at the moment.’

‘The work … will attract workers,’ I pointed out.

‘True, there will be a draw from surrounding countries. But between now and 1980 will see the largest growth in population. It’s still quiet around there, not many consumers.’ He took out a typed letter, from the Nazi Party representative in Toronto.

‘There’s a Nazi Party representative in Toronto?’

I read the note: Herr Silo, we are willing to discuss your desire to expedite and assist with the emigration of certain members of our society who may have entered our country illegally in the past. The natural return of those who do not belong here is desirable, and meeting the administrative and practical costs would help to expedite the process.

‘That it?’

‘So far.’

‘It doesn’t say anything directly.’

‘They don’t want to be seen to be pushing people out, or taking the money. So, as we speak, I have some people off to see the Chancellor in waiting. He’ll give the nice chap a big bag of diamonds, and ask for the forced expulsion of two hundred thousand Jews, on boats through Hamburg.’

‘He won’t have the authority yet,’ I puzzled.

‘No, not till next year, but what he’ll do is harass the Jews to leave using the Brown Shirts. It’s that nudge that I want – if he plays ball. Thing is, the diamonds are in the party’s hands, not the country’s, so that’ll please him no end. It also keeps the transaction off the books.’

‘And Palestine?’ I asked.

‘Is starting to experience problems. The Palestinians can see what’s happening and they’re kicking off a bit, so too their Arab neighbours. Those neighbours have camels - and guns from 1850, so it’s not a problem yet. And there’re two differing Jewish groups fighting each other, even the odd shot exchanged. All is not well in the land of milk and honey. I asked Jack to smuggle in old bolt-action rifles, and there’s now a small Jewish militia keeping the peace in some areas.’

‘There’s no easy solution to it,’ I sighed.

‘Money,’ he said. ‘You taught me that. So we’ll use money. The airport will now be used to transit and refuel passengers bound for India, jobs created. We’ll also offer holidays to the Holy Land.’

‘Hotels on the Dead Sea?’

‘Why not, but the Dead Sea is part of Trans-Jordan right now. But we may need to nudge the British aside before 1938. That, again, comes down to cold hard cash, and they’re making good money from us – when they know full well that we could go elsewhere. The British economy is getting a significant boost from us.’

I stayed for a bite to eat, and to meet the gang.

‘Hello stranger,’ Mac said. ‘Back off holiday already?’

‘You earning your bloody keep, old man?’

‘More than some; I go to bed tired each night.’

‘Give your wrist a rest,’ I quipped. ‘What you up to these days?’

‘Working with the Rifles, the US Airborne, some munitions. Always fucking busy.’

Big Paul came and sat with us. ‘She dropped yet?’

‘Baby is due in a few weeks,’ I replied. ‘Doc Graham heading over for a bit of a holiday – and to perform a “C” Section.’

‘Not long till Hong Kong gets interesting,’ Big Paul noted.

‘You fancy being there?’ I puzzled.

He made a face and shrugged. ‘Be a good fight; outnumbered, surrounded, limited supplies.’

‘If they send in their battleships … they’ll flatten the place,’ I reminded him.

‘Air power is critical,’ he said.

‘And they’ll bomb the hell out of our runway on day one!’ I suggested.

‘There are roads that our fighters can take off from, fuel trucks that can disperse. It’s doable.’

I faced Mac. ‘You think it’s doable?’

‘We know the layout, we know the timing, we have the caves now, and we have Rifles with advanced weapons.’

‘They’ll … have a hundred thousand men, four hundred aircraft, and a large fleet of battleships,’ I said. ‘Still be fucking hard.’

‘I have some ideas,’ Big Paul said.

Jimmy came and sat with us.

‘You think we can hold out in Hong Kong?’ I asked him.

‘Key … is to keep their ships well away, and that means a first strike on their tubs, after defeating the local air patrols. With the improved RPGs, anti-armour, we could make a mess of a tub. We could stay high and swoop down, or come in at wave-top height at speed. A few hits side-on with the RPGs would set the tub ablaze. Now, if you attack the tubs at night, or dusk when they’re silhouetted, you have an advantage. If the first strike on their ships is good, they’ll stay further out. Then it’s a siege.

‘But Hong Kong is a crucible, the key to the entire war – both there and in Europe. We can make heroes of a few groups, and we can affect public opinion. A defeat rallies people, but not so much as a victory against difficult odds. Hong Kong … is the first move, and the most important one.’

‘You’re up to something,’ I said.

‘Definitely,’ Mac agreed. ‘That’s why we’re creating an American Rifles outside of America.’

‘Outside of America? Mercenaries?’

‘Of a kind,’ Jimmy answered.

‘Where will you use them?’

‘In Kenya to start with, maybe Abyssinia, the Congo for sure. By time we get to 1938 they’ll be well trained and very experienced – those that stay. And they’ll be trained to fly a Cessna, maybe fighter aircraft. Those fighters need pilots with balls for brains, not nice chaps flying them.’

An hour later I sat with Hal and Hacker. ‘What toys you playing with these days?’ I asked.

‘Jimmy took us off the soldiers, so we’re back on aircraft,’ Hacker said.

‘Jets?’

‘All sorts,’ Hal said. ‘But we test the jets.’

‘And the latest jet?’

‘The first one felt OK, but this one feels much better. You have a greater wing surface … and a better response to turns, and we can hang on four thousand pounds of bombs without an issue. We’re up there tomorrow to greet the new British team.’

‘British team?’ I queried.

‘Jimmy asked the Brits for a cooperation group, a group of pilots to learn the aircraft – keep the old fucker in Downing Street happy. Ten of them arrive tomorrow, in at the fucking deep end.’ They both smiled.

‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘Be worth it to see their faces.’

At dawn we lifted off in an old Goose, relief crews on board with parts for the base, and made good time as we flew northeast. It was a fine day, a clear sky, but came with a chilly bite to the northerly wind.

Landing, I noticed additional buildings, but each was just a single storey, most with mud banks up their sides, many half-submerged. The hangars threw up tall towers at each corner, sturdy towers with wires supporting the hangar roofs, taut anchor wires down to the ground. They made me a coffee in the pilot’s lounge, a cartoon motif on the wall of a Lemming flying a jet, “Hal” painted on the side of the jet.

With half an hour to spare, I wandered down a set of steps, many signs indicating places and functions: canteens, toilets, workshops, hangars. It was an underground city, people coming and going. I said hello to one of our scientists, then noticed a man holding a wriggling Lemming by its tail.

‘You’re not going to cook that, are you?’ I asked.

‘They find their way in then get stuck. Come, have a look.’ He led me on.

In a large communal lounge, sofas spread out and men sat reading, he dropped the Lemming into a large wire-mesh cage that ran along an entire wall. It offered earth at the bottom, small wooden houses, runs and climbing frames. And a dozen Lemmings.

‘You guys need to get out more often,’ I told them.

‘I am studying the habits of the species, and writing a paper,’ the scientist informed me. ‘They like cheese and lettuce, and large juicy worms.’

‘Smells a bit in here guys,’ I said.

‘That’s us, not the Lemmings,’ they joked. ‘You get used to it; damp concrete and body odour.’

‘And in the winter the toilet outflow freezes, so we have that as well. The crazies go and shit in the snow.’

‘Does that oil furnace work OK?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, warm as toast in here in winter,’ they admitted. ‘Hot showers. Have a look at the spa.’

‘Spa?’

A man led me along the corridor, past the canteen and a few dorms with men sat reading, and to a door labelled as “Spa”. Inside, we were met with warm and pungent air, soon passing through a locker room with benches and hooks – a man dressed in gym kit nodding. He looked like he was policing the spa. Through the next door, fashioned from white plastic, I found a sauna, steam room, and a large communal pool of steaming water, three men sat in swimming trunks. They waved lazily.

‘All the creature comforts,’ I said.

‘Gets a bit chilly up top in winter,’ my guide said. ‘So half an hour in here sorts you out. People sell or trade their rations.’

‘Rations?’

‘You get three half-hour slots a week issued. Rest is barter.’

We withdrew, now with moist faces. ‘Do you live up top in the summer?’

‘Most do, but some can’t be bothered moving rooms, so they stay.’

‘Do they go a bit crazy in winter?’ I asked as we negotiated the concrete-lined corridor, passing many people.

‘They’ve developed a few odd habits, and a few odd games. Many hunt, or go on overnight treks and sleep out – in summer I mean. Some spend downtime with the soldiers and learn to strip weapons, and some rig up parachutes to skis. They tear around at high speed, and sometimes take-off and have to be rescued miles away. Still, it breaks the routine. We have huskies here and the men adopt them, sled races in the snow for money.’

‘Got a good library?’ I quipped.

‘Very well stocked, and Wednesdays and Saturdays are movie nights.’

‘You get booze?’ I asked as we found daylight again.

‘It’s rationed … just in case.’

We exchanged looks as a Super Goose came in, the bird having flown from Britain. Ten RAF pilots in their blue uniforms stepped down, bags lugged. They looked around, wondering what the hell they had let themselves in for. With the “chaps” welcomed, but none with a big moustache yet, they stood in a line for me to address them, Hacker at my side and smirking.

‘Gentlemen, welcome to Lemming Base,’ I began. ‘What you are about to discover will change your lives forever, and scare the hell out of you.’ I had their attention. ‘You’re here … to study our aircraft, and to fly them. First, you’ll need detailed briefings, then some parachute training – who’s parachuted before?’ One had. ‘You’ll also need to learn to free-fall. That means jumping at fifteen thousand feet, opening the chute at one thousand.’

‘Crikey.’

‘But that’s not the most scary thing you’ll do.’

A high-pitched wine began from beyond a hangar.

I continued, ‘You will learn to fly our slow aircraft, then our fast aircraft, then our very fast aircraft, even our very large aircraft.’

The larger version of the jet taxied out, Hal at the controls. I should have brought a camera to freeze the moment; they all that that “fuck me!” look etched into their young faces. Hal taxied around to the end of the runway, powered up and blasted down the runway, disappearing into the distance.

‘That, gentlemen, is a jet fighter, second variant. It flies at six hundred and fifty miles an hour straight and level, faster in a dive.’

Hal came back over at two hundred feet, our new arrivals ducking. Looking up, they saw Hal climb, with smoke on, up to twenty thousand feet and come around. We had their attention.

I led them inside, getting the kettle on in the pilot’s lounge, and discovering that they all flew the Boeing fighter, and that this lot were the best of the best. Hacker wound them up, Hal joining in when down. I left the poor saps to be taunted, and flew back with a few engineers being rotating out, certain that the posh British pilots would return to England with a few new colourful words and phrases in their vocabulary – as well as plenty of bad habits.

At the hotel I phoned Susan, down in San Diego, talking with Mary for ten minutes about swimming in the sea, large birds, and where seaweed came from.

That evening Jimmy took me to the town’s new Indian restaurant, the Indian chefs found in Seattle and pinched. Locals to the town of Trophy, Canada, 1932, were now tasting chicken curry and rice. After drinking in the local bars - and there were now seven, the men could have an Indian meal afterwards. Progress.

Back in San Diego, we made plans for a “C” Section in a local clinic, rooms hired, and nurses. Doc Graham arrived a week later, given a room in our house, Mary fascinated by the newcomer – and his gifts from Africa; shields and spears.

‘How’s Rudd behaving?’ I asked, sat by the pool with a cold beer. ‘You gave him a bigger budget, so now he thinks he’s you in 2010 in the Congo. And for the money he gets from the gold he can’t find enough to buy with it.’

I laughed. ‘Good old Rudd.’

‘He’s bought farmland near Ebede, a massive project, but Steffan has nicked a lot of Rudd’s budget for big projects. They’re improving the port, deep water jetties, and the road up to Nairobi is now four lanes in most places, a good road up to Mawlini, and now a good road heading through Tanzania to Rwanda and Goma, a big bridge being constructed over the river between the lakes. And Steffan is pushing the train track south along the coast, down to Mozambique and South Africa.’

‘And in the Congo?’

‘There’re three trains a day taking things in, a small town growing up around Forward Base, mines popping up everywhere. And now British companies being allocated concessions to mine, in areas where we know there’s ore. Some sections of train track see ten trains a day. And where the trains have refuelling stops, small villages grow up.’

‘Progress.’

‘Mombasa is growing quickly, always full of ships, and CAR is buying up many businesses, Zanzibar growing. And the directors of CAR have mining concessions as well.’

‘We own seventy percent of CAR,’ I reminded him.

‘Mogadishu is receiving money as well - and growing! Its port is bustling as well – I flew up there. You know, it’s odd to see police on street corners in this era, you know, our type of African police. And clean streets, taxis, buses.’

‘Abdi must be doing a good job.’

‘He has schools everywhere, colleges, and they all learn English. He has a large central hospital to rival ours, and he hires doctors from Europe. And you see kids walking around in neat uniforms, books in hand. It’s well ahead of where it should be.’

‘How’s Dr Astor?’ I asked.

‘She went back to England a while back, her father now dead. She inherited a fortune, they say.’

‘And … did she get a full briefing on what lies ahead?’

‘Apparently, yes. She always seemed very knowledgeable about it when I spoke to her in private. Sykes is watching her, just in case.’

‘And her flying doctors?’

‘I run them now, forerunner to Rescue Force. We have ten Cessnas, and two Dash-7s for passenger transport; we can get two stretchers in the back. Got twenty good doctors, and they travel around conducting village medicine.’

‘Anna’s nurses?’ I asked.

‘She’s started a nursing college with about thirty of the brightest girls, aged sixteen to eighteen, and there’s a cadetship programme for young soldiers. They start as young as fifteen, education and military training, go on to the Rifles. Oh, there’s a Rifles Air Wing now.’

‘Air Wing?’

‘They have a few Boeing fighters, Cessna spotter planes, a few Dash-7s, and four Boeing Buffalos. About thirty pilots – a proper little air force, at an airfield north of Nairobi, and now one at Forward Base. But some of the British officers in Nairobi are quietly concerned; they think Ngomo could start an insurrection. He has as many armed men as the British!’

‘Many of those will move over to the Congo soon,’ I said. ‘Besides, we have the British Parliament sewn up.’

‘Palestine sounds … tricky,’ he broached.

I gave him a look. ‘When was it not tricky?’

‘Rumour of a Jewish state in a year or two.’

‘The British have agreed to hand over power in 1938, but Jimmy thinks it will happen sooner,’ I explained. ‘We’ve offered Hitler money if he kicks out Jews.’

‘That … could be an interesting footnote in history.’

We exchanged looks. Nodding, I said, ‘We have to try and get as many out as we can, or there’ll be another footnote in history – the condemnation of us lot.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose.’

‘We knew, we should have acted – will be the headline.’

A letter arrived, handed to me by Susan. ‘Thanks, babes.’ I opened it.

‘All OK?’ Doc Graham asked.

‘Boeing have made their Buffalos look nice, and sold them to United Airlines. Twenty of them, so I guess we’ll have competition on a few domestic routes. Still, good for Boeing. And … oh, we’ve given thirty Boeing fighters to the Canadian Air Force, offered them fuel, and pilot training here in the winters. Good of us.’

‘Canadian Air Force can hold its own now,’ Doc Graham noted. ‘But, more importantly I guess, they’ll have experienced pilots for 1939. Many flew with the RAF in the war, my mother married one.’

‘Then your father – on this world - could be amongst these guys.’

‘Strange to think of it like that, but no - he was twenty-one in 1942. He flew Wellingtons, then Lancaster bombers. Shot down twice, and escaped twice.’

‘When you were a kid, did you … make model planes?’ I teased.

He gave me a look. ‘I could name every damn aircraft of the Second World War!’

‘My father did his National Service in the RAF, a radio technician. He spent most of his time in the pub.’

The following day I received a parcel, a large parcel delivered to the house by Bill; it had been brought down by a pilot. Opening it, I found a phone, a plastic one, and a box. Scramble on, or off. It was simple enough.

I called the operator, asking for an international call to Jimmy, the ladies in the exchange familiar with me now. When Jimmy came on, I said, ‘I have the little box plugged in.’

‘Switch … now.’

‘Hear me?’

‘Yes, just a slight distortion, but to any nosey exchange operators – or the FBI – this will be gibberish.’

‘Technology, eh?’

‘I’ve sent twenty to England, so that our people can use them, but also so that our politicians can make long distance calls discreetly.’

‘So what’s new up there?’

‘Jack has been on, using his scrambler -’

‘He got one before me?’ I teased.

‘He does real work.’

‘Ouch!’

‘The Nazis put seven thousand Jews on a boat designed for five thousand, standing room only, and many were beaten, their possessions tossed over the side.’

I took a deep breath. ‘And this was our doing.’

‘Better than the alternative … I’m sure the passengers would agree. It’s a ten-day sail to Palestine. Jack sends in another cruise liner as soon as one leaves, and they fill up quickly. He now has four from Po, and a few hired, but we’re trying to keep it from the media.’

‘Why, for fucks sake?’

‘We don’t want it stopped because of bad publicity,’ he said. ‘At this rate we’ll get out a hundred and sixty thousand this year at least.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Crossing into France and the Low Countries in droves now, and that’s causing a stir. But I struck a deal with the Belgians, who we owe money to – so they’re being nice. They’ll allow in any number of Jews and put them on liners, billed to me. I gave them a few mining concessions. And Jack has a boat in Marseilles; when it’s full – it sails, and then comes straight back.’

‘And the British Government?’

‘Can finally see what’s going on, and what I was on about. They’re now starting to be concerned about Hitler coming to power.’

‘Takes a while with some people,’ I quipped.

‘They’ve ordered more Boeing fighters, which is good, and will order twelve Boeing transports for the RAF’s transport wing.’

The line went dead. ‘Hello?’ I called him back.

‘Don’t worry, the operators do that when they test the line and find static,’ he explained. ‘Up here we have dedicated lines to various places. We’re working on a radio scrambler for aircraft now, already have the prototype on the jets. And Bell telephones will be installing them for transatlantic calls for paying customers.’

‘And if the FBI got hold of a box?’

‘Have a look on the top for a long number. See it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You have an eight bit code, and this box has fifty eight-bit codes programmed in. I selected “Paul-home” to talk to you.’

‘Clever.’

‘Every year we’ll alter them, and the algorithm used – which is created with valves and resistors at the moment. If they want to, they’ll waste a great deal of time trying to decipher one.’

‘I was thinking … of air-to-ship missiles,’ I broached.

‘They’d be no good without sensors and directional stabilizers, and that’s a bit advanced for now. But the modified RPGs on the prop fighter have a better rocket now, tungsten alloy head, and they’ll punch a hole in a ship if fired from twelve hundred yards out. If they don’t, they explode and punch a hole, second charge going off a fraction of a second later.

‘Mac is also looking at Teflon fifty cal rounds, Tungsten fifty cal rounds, and phosphorous fifty cal rounds. They’ll make a mess of a lightly armoured ship, fired from new long barrel fifty cal machineguns; high velocity. We’re also looking at thirty millimetre cannon pods for the fighters, and they’ll slice through the tub’s armour. The prop fighter is a bit small for them, and tends to stall when you fire it.’

I laughed. ‘Laws of physics, backward force.’

‘The larger fighter will have a thirty mil cannon pod and high velocity tungsten rounds. That’ll tear-up a ship nicely, but some of the older tubs have an inch of steel, half an inch on the vertical sides, less in some places.’

Part 4A