Magestic 2
Copyright © Geoff Wolak
www.geoffwolak-writing.com
Part 4
Another child
The growth of United Airlines didn’t bother me - since we were not out to wreck the future of commercial air travel in the States, and that future would need healthy competition. I was then approached by a cheeky group of businessmen that moved parcels by rail, and by ship internationally – and could they please have planes on lease, and at great rates?
I made them an offer, provided we had forty percent of their shares, and without our planes they had nothing. They agreed, and I arranged for four Super Goose to fly coast to coast stuffed full of parcels and letters in cages, the seats removed. Given the size of the aircraft, there was an economy of scale – in that the pilot’s wages were the same for long journeys or short journeys. Ignoring the cost of the aircraft, the parcel runs were profitable and encouraging, even in a recession.
My second child with Susan was delivered a week after Doc Graham arrived, a simple “C” Section, and it was a boy. At last, I’d have someone to play football with, or to go and watch a match with, but also someone who left the seat down when he peed. Susan came home the same day and lay down, taking it easy, tinned meat downed – lots of tinned meat downed.
Jimmy flew down with Big Paul, cards and gifts from the gang – the cards suitably rude, my house full for a change. Dr Graham brought Jimmy up to speed on things in Kenya, and on some of Rudd’s excesses, repeating much of what he had told me. Susan and our maid cooked, and we had something of a party to celebrate the new arrival.
In the morning, I found Jimmy sat by the pool on a lounger. I eased down next to him. ‘I hear … Dr Astor has returned to the UK.’
‘When her father died she inherited a fortune,’ he idly mentioned.
A large pelican landed on my fence, eyeing my pool.
‘Fine woman,’ I said.
‘You trying to marry me off, young man?’ he asked without looking around.
‘We’re here a while, and I’m sure that she won’t be a burden, or get in the way of the cause.’
‘There’s a little lady in Canada I see…’ And he left it at that. He accepted my new son when he was brought out, going all paternal.
‘Could have one of your own,’ I suggested.
‘I have ten back on your world, and … there are several scattered about the cosmos – somewhere. It’s not new to me.’
‘Maybe you’re just selfish and lazy,’ I suggested.
‘Maybe. And maybe I’m too wrapped in scenarios and plans and outcomes … to stop and smell the flowers.’ He looked at my son’s belly button, and umbilical remnant. ‘He has the blood, all healed up already. Probably autistic.’
I wasn’t concerned. Then immediately concerned. Some of the autistic kids were a bit introverted, and I wanted to take my lad down the pub.
Jimmy and I toured the airfield the next day, talking with many of the young pilots, future Battle of Britain aces in the making, Big Paul greeting the soldiers stationed with us. With the props of their plane turning over, Jimmy and Big Paul boarded, heading back.
For the next few weeks I concentrated on being a good father, and an equal partner to Susan; changing and feeding. We decided on Toby as the lad’s name, since Susan liked it and I had no idea what to call him. Toby was a good sleeper, and not a screamer; too often. The maid helped out, even the bodyguard helped on occasion.
Exodus
September, 1932, found me glancing at the calendar more often. Time was ticking down to the inevitable. I asked Jack for stats, his human stats of misery and upheaval, and took some comfort in the numbers.
A few Jewish immigrants had been shot dead by Arabs in various places around the mandated territory, but the Jewish militia was growing, and the evolving state now offered up a kind of police force. The number of British soldiers had been reduced, and those that remained stayed off the streets, Jack assisting them to build a base and airfield in Gaza, right on the future border with Egypt.
Around Jerusalem, the local Palestinians were not a happy bunch, but they benefited from a flourishing airport and our package tours to the Holy Land, making a few quid from the western tourists with their shiny trinkets. We even saw American pilgrims visiting. The Jewish immigrants concentrated on an area between Haifa and what would be Tel Aviv, avoiding Jerusalem because we had asked them to. Still, settlements were creeping closer to the old walled city.
The total Jewish population now exceeded four hundred thousand, but it was impossible to count them or to organise a census. With permission from an ever-ineffectual British Governor, Jack organised a centralised Jewish police force in a new building - blue uniforms issued, and a new prison started. As one Jewish leader had once uttered on my world: you know you have a nation state when the first police officer arrests the first prostitute.
That lady of the night was arrested at the end of 1932, and fined. The prison was still being painted, and … could she come back later please. A civil administration building was raised, and the new leader labelled as Chief Administrator for Refugees. He had a cabinet of twelve, and the first row broke out across the table; all Jews were equal, but some were more equal than others.
Jack then took it upon himself to piss off the British Governor even more, if that was indeed possible. He had coins minted, gold coins with Hebrew writing. There were small ones worth twenty US cents, larger ones worth fifty cents, some worth around two US dollars by 1932 standards. They had been created so that the base gold value was roughly the exchange value, should the Arabs not wish to recognise the currency.
Jack issued them to the council, and they paid staff wages with them, police officers and administrators. The coins kept back were placed in a vault, the national bank created by accident, and the British administrators threw their arms in the air a great deal. The Jewish militia received uniforms, green uniforms, and new boots, the men soon to be seen on the streets. And the first Jewish soldier shot the first Palestinian farmer a day later. Progress.
For Christmas, many of the gang came down to me, a few of the scientists toughing it out in Lemming Base. The RAF pilots had come down to the airfield when the weather turned cold in Canada – curtailing safe aviation, and now flew all types of aircraft, as well as parachuting on a regular basis. They had been inoculated, and were required to undertake training with the Canadian Rifles in case they were ever shot down behind enemy lines. The “chaps” were toughening up.
Two houses just happened to be empty in the avenue, so the gang grabbed them, soon sat in the sun with bootleg cold beers – which were soon due to be legal again. Most of the flyers at the airfield had gone home for Christmas, back to loved ones, and the base was very quiet. On Christmas day the gang sat on the beach below the houses, we even tried a dip in the sea. Lunch was organised at my house, tables pushed together, silly hats worn.
After a huge meal, Jimmy said, ‘It all changes next year in Europe, the seeds of doom firmly planted.’ People took a moment. ‘We can’t move yet, but we can prepare … as best we can. We need the dragon at full strength ... to slay it. Any sooner, and it runs away and comes back around a few years later; it has to be a knockout blow. We have six years before a potential war in Asia, seven before Europe, and we have a great deal yet to do. To shorten the war … will not be easy; last time it took six years and millions of men. This time will be different, and as we progress we have to keep in mind the post-war years: communism, and … one or two problems after that.’
‘Aye, one or two,’ Mac said.
The doorknocker went, a telegram for Jimmy. He opened it and read it. ‘The Italians … have again landed in Libya.’ People exchanged looks. ‘And … they intercepted a Jewish refugee ship near Malta and searched it.’
‘Why they back in Libya?’ Mac asked. ‘They took a bloody kicking before.’
‘They desire their empire. If you’ll excuse me, I have some calls to make.’
The mood was off, several conversations breaking out at once, our Christmas spoilt, but at least we got lunch out the way first.
Jimmy got through to Timkins, eventually, and asked him to protest the interception of a ship in international waters. The Royal Navy was requested. A note went to the US President regarding ships in international waters, a gentle nudge. Telegrams, dictated down the phone and coded, flew off to Rudd, Ngomo and Abdi.
Back at the table, we held a war council. Jimmy began, ‘Ngomo and Abdi will be making plans, but they’ve been asked not to move yet. The Royal Navy has been asked to patrol the area around Malta. Now, the Germans previously went to fight in Libya because the Italians were not making much progress at pushing the British out of Egypt. Kind of … going backwards progress. So, we can aim to have that scenario repeated, with the Germans meeting our people in the desert, or we can harass the Italians now in the hope that they will withdraw, and be less inclined to take part in the Second World War. There are six years to play with.’
‘What’s the main objective?’ I asked. ‘If the Italians just sit there for eight years, so what?’
‘If the Italians sit there … then when war breaks out they’ll fight against British forces in Egypt, the Italians well prepared and used to the place. There is another problem. The Italians can now see that the Libyan resistance could not find their arses to wipe them, let alone massacre the previous Italian expeditionary force. They suspect that others were behind the previous attack on them, and they suspect the British. That could cause tensions and a conflict with Britain ahead of time – and alter the playing field.’
‘So we let them cook in the desert,’ Mac said. Hal agreed.
‘Their presence in Libya, could take them right up to our railway line towards North Africa,’ Jimmy reminded people. ‘And, it allows them to dig in and plan. They’ll also invade Abyssinia in three years, threatening the Suez shipping route. The Ethiopians will fight them, and do a good job of harassing them.’
‘Abdi could remove them from Abyssinia,’ Hacker said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So why leave them in Libya?’
‘This time,’ Jimmy began, ‘they’ve opted to land in the desert, and to set up camps well away from towns or locals, and are throwing up wire around Tripoli, creating a killing zone in the deserts.’
‘They learnt their lesson,’ Mac noted. ‘Be harder now.’
‘Would you have removed them from Abyssinia?’ I asked.
‘I would have had Abdi harass them and wear them down, leaving a bad taste in their mouths.’
‘Then that should be the policy for Libya,’ Hal said. ‘Slow sniper campaign; make life miserable for eight years.’
‘It’s a start,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘I’ll organise it. Besides, it’ll give the Rifles some practise. Mac, fashion a few landmines, desert colours. Big Paul, I’ll want two dozen fifty cals and plenty of ammo flown to Abdi, no hurry. And the new point-two-two-three rifles, plenty of ammo, and silencers.’
We had a policy, and had taken decisions, so we felt a little better.
The next day we received word that the League of Nations would debate the illegal stopping and searching of a ship in international waters, and that the Royal Navy were on the case. The British, meanwhile, protested to the Italians, as did the Americans and Canadians. But if the Italians had stopped other ships, Jack’s ships, they may have found something more interesting. Jack modified his approach.
For New Year 1932/33 we invited a few of the extended members of the family over. Po, Han and Yuri flew over on their custom Goose, Sykes flew from London, Jack having a family Christmas and New Year – as well as a crisis in Palestine. Our new arrivals stayed at a nearby hotel, and for New Year’s Eve we celebrated in their hotel, a room booked, security tight.
Po showed me plans for the defence of the colony, caves and firing points on the hills. He had also been working on the tunnel behind the airport. That tunnel’s mouth sat across a main road, but that was a detail that could be overcome in wartime. The tunnel was big enough for you to slip a fighter into it. Actually, by time he’d be finished, you be able to slip a hundred fighters into it. The rock now being carved out was being used to lengthen the runway and to widen the airfield, a good use for the material and an excuse for this odd local quarrying.
Big Paul took the plans of the colony and studied them as the party progressed. Yuri informed me of good mining profits from Papua New Guinea, much of the ore being sold to the Japanese oddly enough. He was refining the various ores on-site and shipping out the ingots, a great cost saving. He was also making a few quid, quite a few quid, including revenue from gold sales, some of which went to Mao and his communists.
Han greeted me with a slight head bow. ‘And how are your children, Paul?’
‘This brood? Fine.’
‘And your dear lady … partner?’
I smiled. ‘Fine, and we’re still not married. You?’
‘I have a housekeeper which … I am fond of. She is a widow, with two children, who I tutor.’
‘And Mao?’
‘We are now … close, I suppose you could say. But, you may also say that it is cupboard love.’
I laughed. ‘You feed him, so he pretends to like you.’
‘We often debate communism and socialism, and I admit to having altered his mind in some areas. But, I respect him less each year. He is … but human, with human weaknesses.’
‘Stalin lost a few wives to accidents,’ I pointed out.
‘Indeed.’
‘And the Nationalist Chinese?’
‘I play both sides off against the middle, in that I supply them arms to fight the Japanese in Manchuria,’ Han admitted. ‘I am … popular in many circles, and I dine with the British Governor of Hong Kong often, also the Governor of Singapore.’
‘They don’t suspect you?’
‘No, they see me as a pro-British capitalist.’
‘You whore, Han.’
‘Indeed, it is an apt description, I am afraid.’
‘Is Po behaving himself?’ I asked with a smile.
‘We help to modify his … excesses, such as a thirty-storey tower.’
‘Be a pity if the Japs blow it up,’ I pointed out.
‘Indeed, a point I make often.’
‘And when the Japs attack, where will you be?’
‘I will probably be with Mao, organising resistance to the Japanese.’
‘It all helps.’
‘But next month I will fly to Africa, to see again that country. I admit, I miss it sometimes.’
‘You enjoy yourself, have a break.’
‘It is a working break, since the Congo has ores that our fridge company desires. And I shall discuss cooperation with Steffan. And soon, I look forwards to plastic in fridges. But I believe you have invented fibreglass and carbon fibre.’
‘News to me, but the factory is always coming up with something new.’
‘I believe I heard that you make fibreglass boats for Canada, canoes I believe, for the Canadian Rifles.’
‘We also have radio direction finding and basic radar now, but it’s not that premature, just a few years.’
‘And the fighter aircraft?’ Han enquired.
‘The prop fighter will beat anything flying till 1946 at least, the jet 1970s era. And our bomber is good, dropping bombs from fifteen thousand feet very accurately.’
‘And the atom bomb?’
‘Coming along, a year from a test I think. But they have fuel-air explosives that’ll wake people up, big enough to demolish and area four hundred yards wide, damage out to half a mile. And incendiary by nature!’
‘Against Tokyo, they may be most effective.’
‘Can’t use them in the defence of Hong Kong, the Japs will be spread out.’
‘The defence of Hong Kong is a significant change to the timeline, and to the progress of the war,’ Han noted. ‘Jimmy admits that it is … a gamble in the best traditions of the Second World War. It will have a direct bearing on Pearl Harbour, in that Pearl Harbour is unlikely to take place. That risks the Americans not entering the war till later.’
‘I think, Han, the whole idea is that we fight the war, regardless of who’s shoulder to shoulder with us.’
‘Then let us hope that Jimmy is as brilliant in his tactics … as he has proven in the past.’
‘Can you think of anyone better suited, more experienced, or more capable?’ I posed.
‘Indeed no, but a late entry of America to the war … troubles me greatly.’
‘We’ll have nukes, so … don’t let it trouble you.’
Thinking about Hong Kong, I grabbed Mac. ‘When you get back, I want you to look at bunker buster bombs. Find the strongest alloy, and look at multiple blast stages, rocket powered descent for speed, I don’t care. I want to be able to penetrate ten feet of concrete, and I want a thousand pound bomb that will sink a battleship.’
‘A battleship?’
‘Yes, a bomb that will go through the deck plating, keep going, and make a large hole.’
‘I’ll have a think, and get the boys on it. But I know a late-fuse bomb will go through at least the first layer, if not two decks.’ He smiled. ‘And, Paul, Jap flat-tops are made of wood.’
‘Then I want something that will go right through and detonate on the bottom fucking hull.’
I found Big Paul. ‘For Hong Kong, you’ll need bunker buster bombs, thousand pounds. Drop them on a Jap tub and it’ll sink it.’ I could see his grey matter firing up.
‘That would keep them at arm’s length.’
Next I found Hal. ‘Hal, thermal sights. I know someone experimented with a green screen that was just a piece of plastic with some liquid in it. It reacted to light, so you pulled the shroud off at night and it gave you a better view of what was out there. If that was in a head’s-up display on a prop fighter, then a night time ground attack is practical.’
‘What was it called?’ Hal asked.
‘Fuck knows, get the scientists on it. But there’re no electronics involved, so we can get away with it in this era.’
‘It would have to have an aperture, and be fixed to the front dash like a large pinhole camera. Would restrict your view in daylight, on landing.’
‘We’re taking about night attacks of Spitfires here, mate.’
‘It would give us an edge for night fighting. I know the Germans experimented during the war, but don’t know if they got anywhere.’
‘We will,’ I assured him.
We rang in the New Year, 1933, with a few looks exchanged. Saying “happy new year” to 1933 seemed odd at best, cynical at worst. I caught up with Po, spent an hour with Sykes, people drifting away for some sleep around 3am.
The next day we held a big meeting, a few plans and ideas kicked around, a few plans altered. Po was nervous about the Japs, and about a long siege, Yuri no great military leader. Jimmy assured both that he wanted them out of the colony at the time, but Po pointed towards Jimmy’s earlier comment that staying may get Po praise from the people.
‘There’ll be a British Governor till 1997,’ Jimmy reminded Po. ‘You won’t be in office, but if you stay you’ll be invited to all the best parties.’
We laughed.
‘I think stay and fight, if you say we win,’ Po offered.
‘Greece … had Alexander, we … have Mister Po.’
We laughed all the more.
‘I no conquest great lands,’ Po insisted. ‘Only Hong Kong and business.’
‘It’s your choice,’ Jimmy offered him. ‘But Jack, Sykes and Timkins will stay in London during the Blitz; true bulldog spirit.’
‘I’ll be under my bed,’ Sykes offered. ‘So I’m hoping that you magic up some planes.’
‘We’ll need the Germans to attack to … justify things.’
‘So we take a few weeks of bombings,’ Sykes realised.
‘A few days at least,’ Jimmy said. ‘The Germans must throw the first punch.’
‘And Palestine?’ Susan asked.
‘Palestine is … cause and effect,’ Jimmy began. ‘Knowing what would happen from 1933 onwards - in the death camps - we can’t be seen to be doing nothing. And, the numbers of refugees that the Americans and British would take would be limited before they close their doors. So … we’re shipping the refugees to Palestine, where a Jewish state is already in effect. That will cause tension with many, including the British, but once all the refugees are on the ground there’ll be very little anyone can do about it.
‘Resources there are stretched,’ Sykes emphasised.
Jimmy nodded. ‘I have ships from Mombasa docking regularly. And, as soon as the immigrants grow a few oranges, we’ll get an export market going. Besides that, Israel was always top heavy and unsustainable without outside help.’
‘And will there be a Palestinian enclave someday? Han asked.
‘I hope not, because I aim to influence the Israelis to push out most of the Palestinians.’ People exchanged looks. ‘Then I’ll assist the neighbouring countries. That way, with no conflict within the borders, the following decades should be better. A few wars, but better.’
With the meeting finished, we stood around and chatted for an hour, people heading off to various places. Sykes was off to Singapore, catching a lift with Po, the gang heading back up to chilly old Canada.
Hitler got himself elected, and history repeated itself. Still, with his election the number of Jews voluntarily leaving increased, Jack busy, the new town of Tel Aviv bursting. Ships would simply arrive unannounced with goats and chickens from Kenya.
‘Who are they for?’ the administration would ask.
‘Dunno,’ would come back. ‘Hey madam, do you have a garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here, have a few chickens and a damn goat.’
Horses turned up, some seen running wild down the streets, donkeys, all sorts. The administration asked Jack, politely, if he could not just dump things on the fucking dockside. Jack continued to dump things on the dockside, people now waiting to see what would turn up. Wood, oil, bricks, stoves, blankets, sometimes a mini-riot breaking out as housewives grabbed what they could, the police kept busy.
People stepped off the boat to find neighbours from Germany, others knew no one and stood bewildered. ‘Hey you, come with me,’ the police would say. ‘That plot is yours. Tent, wood, shovel, goat, chicken. Get on with it!’
The signs were mostly in German, a few in English. Doctors set up shop and put up signs, as did dentists, musicians playing for a coin or two in the streets. Poverty was everywhere, but the Germans were nowhere near. Then one day, with none of us aware, Dr Astor turned up with fifty British nurses and thirty doctors, grabbing a newly finished building. There was some argument with the administration over the use of the building, but she would not budge. A new hospital was created, its doors opened, the service free.
She spoke German, so that was a bonus, and she had recruited German-Jewish doctors from London. Hell, they weren’t doing much in the east-end slums. On the second day she raised a flagpole, a large white flag with a blue Star of David, visible for a mile in any direction. The hospital was soon full of screaming kids and sick adults.
When Jack next visited, the administrative council protested her pinching their building, whilst applauding the good use that it was put to. Jack listened patiently, then said, ‘She’s Jimmy Silo’s mistress.’ The new lady doctor suddenly got anything she wanted, when she wanted, day or night, awarded a seat on the council as Deputy Health Minister.
Her first official act was to quarantine sick arrivals, a shed near the dock appropriated, an isolation ward created in the hospital. Anyone who was sick on arrival was checked thoroughly before they could start an outbreak in the main population. Seeing the slums growing, Dr Astor forcibly told the builders to create new settlements further away. Sanitation was looked at as a priority, some areas simply huge tented slums.
Refugee doctors, with little to do but raise chickens, were recruited by Dr Astor and given small satellite clinics in outlying regions, all reporting back to her. Stores were centralised, her own money used to bring in medical supplies and dish them out. She imported several trucks and turned them into ambulances, a dozen ex-British Army ambulances from Kenya bought cheap. More trucks were bought from Egypt and driven over in convoy, used for distributing anything that arrived at the port.
She asked Jack for radios, and he organised twenty thousand of them. To start with, all that people could get was the BBC Empire Service, later to become the BBC World Service. A transmitter was found, the first Jewish DJ hired, but most broadcasts were often appeals for missing family members, or simply government announcements. Dr Astor helped to start the national registry - a kind of census, and people could search for lost family members, friends or neighbours.
I heard about it in the spring of 1933, not long after Jack had informed Jimmy. I called Jimmy on scrambler. ‘Did you … ask her go there?’
‘No, but I told her the history of the Jews.’
‘She must have felt that she could do some good.’
‘She inherited a fortune, so … yes, doing some good. She’s also aware that it’s part of the plan.’
‘She is, apparently, their Health Minister,’ I mentioned.
‘She’s a bossy-boots when she gets going.’
‘Did we send more money to the Germans?’
‘Yes, and so far they’re keeping to the deal. They enjoy molesting the refugees at the dockside and pinching their stuff, but they are letting them go.’
‘Palestine is bursting, one big tented city,’ I mentioned.
‘By time war breaks out, Palestine will tip the Levant into the sea. I reckon on maybe a million people, maybe one point five. But the Americans are taking refugees.’
‘Is it stretching us, money wise?’
‘The Congo is making an obscene amount of money, so no. Britain is due to spend seventy million on re-armament over the next five years, something they’ve just agreed. We contributed twenty-four of that.’
‘So they’re happy little fuckers then.’
‘They’re both afraid of us, and afraid of losing us, in equal measure. I’ve asked them to hand control of Palestine over, and I’ve told the new Israeli administration that they only get my help if they request a British presence and cooperate with London, including a base for the Royal Navy on a fifty year lease.’
‘The Navy? In Israel?’ What you up to?’
‘Keeping the children playing nicely.’
‘Will they hand over?’ I asked.
‘They have no choice at the end of the day; they’ve already spent what we’ll contribute for the next five years.’
And in a move that made the news the world over, Britain relinquished its rights to Palestine, a five-year handover period signed. The move was condemned by many in the Arab world, but they were powerless to do anything at the moment.
The next ship to arrive offloaded five hundred Kenyan Rifles and their NCOs and officers, the black soldiers a shock to the locals. The soldiers marched out, and took up station around the borders and in several camps, and would stay until replaced. The following ship also disgorged Kenyan soldiers, but they simply offloaded dozens of boxes of gold bars destined for the central bank. The administration could now buy whatever it wanted.
Jack encouraged a Borders Police to be created, and an increase in the numbers serving in the militia, the slums not short of people looking for work. Thousands of men were signed up, uniforms issued. And east of Gaza, in the Negev, the Rifles set up a secret and unpublicised training camp; assault course, barracks, canteen. The first young recruits stood in a line a week later. They spoke little English, and the Kenyans spoke no German.
In Libya, fifty of Ngomo’s best snipers, and fifty of Abdi’s best men, were killing one Italian a day each – their maximum allowed. They could wound two, and kill one. They could also blow up one truck a week, using a landmine.
Life for the Italians would be miserable for as long as our snipers remained, and the enlisted men were soon convinced that they were being shot at by ghosts. Small calibre sniper rounds would crack past sentries and hit someone, no sniper ever seen, shot at, or killed.
Having killed thirty men, our soldiers would be rotated out, back to the train track and a holding camp, many getting back and forth on camels or horses, half-tracks used on occasion. The local tribes had been bribed, and Italian patrols were shown false trails in the sand.
The Italians also developed a problem with their aircraft, in that their spotter planes rarely came back. Any aircraft flying below a thousand feet was hit by accurate sniper fire, plummeting to the desert floor and disturbing the camels. Wreckage was often found by Italian patrols, snipers were not.
In May, the US President was out electioneering for his party, and would be in Los Angeles. I received a note, and he would like to meet.
I sent a note back. ‘Hoping to be photographed with a good looking and successful man like me? After a few votes?’
I received another note. ‘A private chat, if you have the time.’
I agreed, but called Jimmy, scrambler on. ‘President wants to meet.’
‘Be your normal charming self.’
‘Any clues?’
‘No.’
A week later I met the President in a hotel, the Secret Service frisking me. Well, someone had tried to assassinate the poor guy recently.
‘Paul, come on in, have a seat,’ he urged, waving me over.
‘No photographer?’ I teased.
‘You have a cynical view of us politicians.’
‘I’ve spent a lot of time around politicians,’ I said. ‘They’re creatures I know very well.’
He took a moment to study me. ‘You know, some bright young fellows we employ believe that you and Mister Silo are worth more than twenty million English pounds.’
‘They’d be wrong. We’re worth way more than that.’
He took his glasses off and cleaned them. ‘Yet Mister Silo lives in a small hotel room, and you yourself live in a modest house.’
‘Like a President, we care nothing for ourselves, and work tirelessly for others.’
He looked at me over the top of his glasses. ‘Like the Jews.’
‘Like the Jews. This Hitler fanatic is expelling people, rounding them up and putting them in camps, and you, sir, are sat on your hands.’
‘You’ve not asked me to get involved, Paul.’
‘Do you need a kick in the pants, or do you get reports each day?’
‘You don’t mince your words, Paul, unlike most of those around me.’
‘I’m not a politician, I work for a living.’
He again looked at me over his glasses. Looking away, he said, ‘Your new telephone gadget is clever; it means that phone calls can be private. And your planes, they’re very clever.’ He faced me. ‘At the risk of upsetting you, I’d like to ask a few direct questions.’
‘Fire away, you won’t upset me.’
He took a moment. ‘There are some of our best engineers that have looked at a wing section from one of your planes, a crashed one, and they can’t make head nor tail of it. They say it’s impossible. Still, I flew here on such an impossible plane. I also had a flight on a plane that flew itself, the pilot coming back for a coffee.’
‘Auto-trim.’
‘Yes, clever again. And there are rumours of a secret base in Canada, where you have planes that fly very fast and very high.’
‘They fly at over a thousand miles per hour, at thirty thousand feet.’
He stopped dead. Looking away and fiddling with a pen, he said, ‘I should have just come and asked you. And these planes, these incredible planes, are not for sale to anyone?’
‘They’ll be for sale to you if you should need them - such as in a war, and they could be delivered quickly.’
‘Might I ask … why we have not been shown them?’
‘If you have a pistol, and your enemy has a bow and arrow, will you show him what you have? Will he not go away and come back with a pistol. And if you then invent a rifle, will he go away and come back with a rifle. But if you have a pistol, and he has a bow and arrow, you wait till he attacks you, then you shoot him dead.’
‘Showing my pistol … may prevent a war someday.’
‘How much faith do you put in mankind, in Herr Hitler or the Japanese? How much faith do you put … in them acting in a rational manner, when some of them state they are the chosen people to rule this world, that they’re doing the world a favour by invading poorer countries and civilising them.’ He stared at me. ‘Someone once said, if you want peace prepare for war. Well, you can prepare for war by letting the other guy know exactly what you have, or you can be coy … and trick them, offering a knockout blow, not a long drawn out conflict between equally matched sides, where the working man becomes cannon fodder.
‘Jimmy and I make money by seeing trends in things, especially in people. Radios, fridges - we see what’s needed, and we’re good at seeing what’s around the corner. What is around the corner … is the rise of Germany, and the rise of Japan. We’re making plans, as much to make money as anything else. You, sir, should be making a few plans on behalf of those you’re supposed to represent.’
He took a moment. ‘I must admit, I’m at a loss to figure you out. You make more money than anyone else, live modestly, run soup kitchens, and lecture me as if you have all the answers.’
‘Our relationship would be no fun at all … if you understood me,’ I quipped, making him laugh.
‘True, true. So might I conclude that your clever aircraft would be made available to us in a time of war, but not before?’
‘We’ll supply you with aircraft that will keep you just ahead of the competition, not allowing you to fall behind. That way, your enemy’s bow and arrow is transparent to us. But should America be attacked, or provoked, or find it necessary to enter a war, we would use all of our means to assist you, and all of our resources.’
He nodded. ‘I won’t claim to understand your motives, but at least it’s nice to know that your clever planes would be available to us. Might I ask who else … they would be available to?’
‘Britain, since we are British, and enjoy good relations with our parent state. No one else.’
‘And I’m reliably informed that you have clever rifles as well.’
‘Again, they would be available to you, and have been stockpiled ready.’
‘It’s an odd arrangement, and it’s apparent that you could make a great deal of money by selling such aircraft. But I can see the logic behind holding them back, which suggests that you’re about more than just making money. But you wield a great deal of power, and that frightens some folk around Washington. I tell people that you’ve never involved yourselves in our political arena - save criticising a few Congressmen who criticised your Jewish policy. Still, they fear your potential.’
‘They can always come and talk to me, buy me a beer, sit and be civilised.’
‘Is there … anything I could be doing for you?’ he asked.
‘Is there anything I … could be doing for you?’ I countered.
‘Fix the economy,’ he joked.
‘How much would you like?’ I asked.
He stopped dead and stared at me. ‘Would there be some sort of … trade–off?’
‘Not necessarily. I’d like you to take a few more Jews, but we’re on top of that. And we’d like you to keep an eye on Herr Hitler, for your own benefit. So, speak your mind, what would you like?’
He took a moment. ‘Anything that creates jobs, or boosts the stock market, would help.’
‘And you’ll take more Jews?’
‘I’ll work to that aim, yes.’
‘Then leave it with me, and I’ll chat to Jimmy. We’ll let you know soon. So, would you like a boost right now?’
‘Right … now?’
‘There are reporters outside.’ I stood, and shook his hand. ‘We’ll be in touch, Mister President.’ Outside, I approached the bank of reporters, several hand-cranked cameras pointed my way.
‘I’ve just met with the President, and we’ve being working hard to try and find ways to boost jobs here in America. The President is assisting us greatly in trying to create jobs, to boost factories, and to be innovative with our products and services. Having met the President, I feel renewed and invigorated, keen to try and find ways to create new jobs, and I was mightily impressed by the President’s passion for helping the little guy. Rest assured, that with the President urging us on, we’ll find more ways to boost American trade, and jobs for the little guy. Thank you.’
I flew back down to San Diego in a Goose, calling Jimmy on scrambler from my home. ‘I told him we had fast planes, and he hinted that there are those who fear us. He’ll take more Jews if we can boost jobs.’
‘We could easily absorb ten thousand American workers into the mines in Africa, as well as recruit another forty thousand soldiers, and I’ll boost the Dow Jones.’
‘You expected this?’
‘Of course I did, I’m me.’
Smiling, I sent the President a telegram. ‘May we sponsor another forty thousand soldiers? And we’ll hire ten thousand for African mines to start with.’
I received a “thank you” telegram within an hour. Jimmy then made the President’s eyes water, a huge buying programme into stock we knew would do well, even buying into some of our own companies. The Dow Jones rallied strongly, the largest one-day rise in years. And Jimmy kept buying that week, optimism returning in the financial press.
Given the millions unemployed, our contribution was not huge, but it all helped to take men off the streets. Jimmy then commissioned our shipyards to develop six prototype submarines, work that would keep a few thousand men busy. The designs were handed over, basic wartime designs with a few improvements, quite a few. A few new alloys would be involved as well.
When I received a copy of the designs from the shipyard, I noticed something odd. These subs were double-hulled, reinforced with alloy rims, and were almost twice as long as normal subs of this period. They would be leviathans of the deep. They offered no gun on the deck, and were streamlined. Several add-on bulges were shown, but not their use. The propeller was enclosed, and the sub possessed large planes at the front.
Studying the drawings, I could see that our subs would be sliced into ten compartments, each watertight, and that it offered six escape hatches. The nose was more pointed than round, the conning tower trim and thin, this sleek fish designed for speed. No less than ten torpedo tubes were shown on the diagrams, two at the rear. Since I was just down the road from the yards I went and visited, grabbing the senior staff.
‘Kinda hoping you’re going to explain some of the strange stuff on this sub,’ they said.
‘Our … people will be coming down to explain it all,’ I said, taking a guess. ‘But, first things first. This sub will contain a few design secrets, so I want security tightened. And I mean … tightened, armed guards everywhere. No one photographs it under construction or in the dry dock. Ever.’
They glanced at each other.
‘Put up signs. I also want you to start checking staff, all your staff, and to look for Germans especially, then any Italians or Japanese. I’ll have the FBI go through all of the names.’
‘Why the security?’
‘As with our aircraft, we don’t want our research to be copied by others; if these subs are effective we’ll want to sell them to the Navy. If others copy them, then we lose out. So tighten security, or I’ll replace you with someone who can.’
They got the message.
‘Now, I want three eight-hour shifts devised -’
‘Three shifts? You … in a big hurry, sir?’
‘Always. Now, with three shifts of eight hours, when could they be ready?’
They glanced at each other. ‘Flat out busy, eighteen months.’
‘You have a year, or I’ll sack the lot of you. Hire more staff, and better staff, and spend some money. I’m not short of money, I am short of patience.’ As I said it, I realised I was becoming Jimmy. ‘And make sure that there’s a canteen for each shift, and plenty of coffee; I like to look after my staff. And a doctor or two in the yard for accidents. Is there a union?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll meet with them on a regular basis. Oh, do you provide free buses at night?’
They shook their heads. ‘You do now, so get a few to take people into town. Let’s start looking after the investment we have in the skilled workforce, eh.’
A few days later a team of engineers came down from the aircraft factory, asking to meet me at the shipyard. They smiled when I told them about the changes I had made. I found them desk space near the main draughtsman’s office, and they got to work advising the shipbuilders on bits and pieces.
The alloy rims that would strengthen the outer hull would be made in Canada and brought down in two pieces, a few of the sub’s fancy gadgets to be made in Canada as well, many of the delicate bits and pieces due to be fitted when the tubs reached Vancouver. Hell, we had a deepwater inlet right next to the factory. I called Jimmy. ‘Deep water landing at the factory?’
‘In progress.’
‘Just checking.’
I sat down with the factory engineers in my house, huge drawings laid out over my dining room table, and they explained some of the innovations. Seems that we were building a sub to take a beating, but did not intend that it should go deep. In the event of destroyers coming after our subs, our subs would fight, or run.
In order to operate, the sub had a powerful diesel engine capable of outrunning most surface ships. That engine needed air, and so a series of large compressed-air cylinders would be fitted around one particular compartment, each around six metres long. They connected to the oddly shaped periscope, and came with a high-speed high-pressure compressor. As the sub chugged along at periscope depth it could suck in air till the tanks were full. Then, when the sub needed to dive, the valve closed and the engines received air at the right pressure, about six hours worth before it switched to batteries.
In one section they pointed out a mini-desalination unit, the unit producing just a few litres of fresh water a day. Advanced air-scrubbers were being worked on, both for the sub and our aircraft, and a CO2 reclamation unit would remove as much CO2 as possible.
Both hulls were steel, but thinner than normal for this period, cross sections and bulkheads also steel. Everything else would be aluminium or plastic, the sub a lightweight. On the rear of the long sub would sit a hatch with anti-ship contact mines. When being pursued, the mines would be released in pairs, a wire between them, and would float just under the surface. If a ship neared the mines, or caught the wire and dragged the mines in, they would blow, but with just enough force to crack a hull plate or pop a few rivets. A destroyer, hundreds of miles from base, would break-off its sub-hunting activities to repair the leak.
‘We’re going to cover it with stick-on rubber blocks,’ they informed me. ‘All over, four inches thick. Sonar pings will be deadened.’
‘Good idea,’ I commended.
‘We’ll also have a decoy behind the prop, and it will run out twelve hundred yards, giving off a hell of a ping.’
‘Clever,’ I commended.
‘The prop has a skirt, and it makes less sound underwater.’
‘Torpedoes?’ I asked.
‘Smaller than normal, but very fast. They’re powered by jet engines.’ They laughed.
‘Jet … engines?’
‘There’s a binary liquid in the torpedo. When combined, it expands rapidly, then heated – this stuff don’t explode, and it drives a turbine which drives the propeller. The liquid then comes out behind the prop – bubbles ahead of it would interfere. They’ll approach a ship at fifty knots or more, and they detonate if they’re near any metal, so a glancing blow will set them off. They’re designed to be just powerful enough to cause a leak.’
‘Any other innovations?’ I asked.
‘They’re mostly to do with Silent Running Mode; on batteries she’ll be very quiet. The air supply is good, three days under, and that air supply can be replenished using an extendible boom to the surface, twenty metres, or via the periscope.’
‘And radio location,’ one man said. ‘The sub will emit a strong radio signal under the water, so another of our subs will detect her at about five hundred yards and … not run into each other. She’ll also have big ears.’
‘Big ears?’
‘Directional listening under the water, aiming to detect a destroyer miles away.’
‘Seems like she’ll give a destroyer a run for her money,’ I noted.
‘She can fire ten torpedoes in quick succession, so that destroyer better have wings and fly!’ They laughed.
I spent days poring over the drawings, thinking about all those old movies with Richard Widmark in a sweat-stained shirt, being hunted by warships above. Thinking of an innovation, but not on subs, I caught a lift up to Canada on a Super Goose. I found Jimmy with the senior men, so grabbed them all.
‘Guys, we sell the Mark One and Mark Two aircraft, but some of the countries that buy them - and operate them already, may wish to use them for ground attack. So I want to design a strongpoint for the RPGs on both types of aircraft, firing controls attached to the cockpit controls, and then left dormant. If they come back and ask, we could ship out a bolt-on kit for them to attach RPGs, we don’t need to rip the wings apart. And from now on, all the aircraft could have that as standard, in case someone asks for it. And I’d like test firing the RPGs on both models.’
They made notes.
‘Will that be difficult?’ I asked.
‘No, easy enough, it’s just a bolt on,’ they said.
‘What about older models?’ I asked.
‘They could be converted easily enough.’
‘Then I want a team to convert those in Africa, as a test, whenever you’re ready.’
‘Good idea,’ Jimmy said when we were alone. ‘The older models can be made battle ready. We’ve also got a thirty mil’ cannon pod that will fit nicely on a Goose, any variant. Anti-submarine warfare has arrived early.’
In the munitions factory, he led me to the armoury, even more AK47s now stored ready.
‘How many now?’ I asked.
‘There are sixty thousand here, greased up, a steady six thousand a month produced and quality tested. And eight million rounds tucked away. They’re building up a stockpile in the Congo as well, and Po has a secret stockpile that’s growing.’
‘What’s the latest from Libya?’
‘The Italians are losing around thirty men a day, dead or wounded, so I’ve asked the snipers to just wound from now on.’
‘Must be hell to be stationed there,’ I noted. ‘Heat, dust, flies … and our snipers for company!’
‘The Italian soldiers were never that keen to be there in the first place. And now they’re sniffing around Abyssinia; it looks like they may move early.’
‘Will we push them out? Completely out?’
‘The last time around, the British Indian Army pushed them out when the Second World War started. I may just harass them a bit, unless they affect Suez shipping.’
‘And the subs?’
‘For Hong Kong, but …’
‘Still undecided?’ I realised.
‘We need the Americans in the war. If we knock back the Japs, and no Pearl Harbour … then I’ll need another way of getting them in.’
‘Have you considered an “M” Group style meeting?’
‘I just don’t think they’ll accept it all, since they’ll then know that we … are guiding the future direction of the planet. They’re not too fussed on what we do with other countries, but if they know that we’re interfering with the US, then I don’t think they’ll like it.’
‘The President hinted as much,’ I said, sighing. ‘It was hard enough in our era, what’ll they be like now?’
‘Communism was the thing that changed their attitudes the most,’ Jimmy said. ‘Now – this era - they’d be better, but still … paranoid.’
‘We’ve been very helpful to them so far,’ I pointed out.
‘But they fear what they don’t understand, and that which they don’t control.’
Back in San Diego, I received a call from the Navy. Could we meet? I headed off to the shipyard a day later, and met the admirals there.
With cold drinks organised, I said, ‘How can I help, guys?’
‘We heard you’re building subs and, well … you guys come up with some nifty innovations. We were wondering if we could be involved with the subs.’
‘When they’re ready, and working, we’d be hoping to sell them to you, so you’d be involved then, very involved. You’d have sailors on board for evaluation.’
‘When do you think that would be?’ they asked.
‘A year, I’m hoping,’ I said, eyeing my managers. ‘And, as with our aircraft, we desire our company secrets to stay secret – very secret.’
‘We know all about security,’ they reminded me, seeming a little put out.
‘Then closer to the time you can send a liaison. Right now it’s just a hunk of metal on wooden blocks.’
‘And the drawings?’ they pressed.
‘Would be available at a later date, and viewed here – not taken away.’
Now they were put out. ‘If we bought the damn things, we’d know what was in there.’
‘Yes, but I’d like a few months more of security. So humour me. We’ll lift our skirts when ready.’
They were not a happy bunch, life on the ocean wave not all plain sailing.
I cornered my managers afterwards. ‘I want each drawing numbered, and for them to locked in the safe when not in use. A breach of security will cost some of you dearly.’
‘Do you think we’ll get orders for the subs?’ one asked.
‘Once tested, yes I do; possibly the British as well as the US Navy. And since our subs will be reliable - very reliable, I’m hoping that the Navy will buy just ours. Lots of them.’
I left wondering if our managers were more loyal to us, than to the Navy. I guessed the Navy. Still, the final fit for the subs would be in Canada.
1933 saw the Germans start to re-arm, and the British start to re-arm in response. It was like watching a slow moving train wreck, and that feeling of inevitable doom kept coming back. I was confident about our chances, but just disappointed with the world for moving towards such an inevitable clash.
The summer of 1933 saw a Boeing fighter Mark IV arrive, and I could imagine it fighting the Germans; it was now starting to look like it had would have a chance against an ME109. The young pilots flocked around it, the prototype soon being tested by all. It was marginally faster than its predecessor, but a larger wing surface and greater weight hampered its rate of climb. If offered four hardened points on the wings, and twin .303 Vickers machineguns from Britain. I guess that touch was to make the Brits want it more.
We put it up against earlier models in mock dog-fighting and it turned in a tighter circle, it also had a smoother throttle - you could abuse it without stalling the engine. In a dogfight you could turn the power up and down without risk of either flooding the engine, or starving it. It would also fly upside down without stalling. Six more appeared a week later and we put them to good use, but a US Army pilot went chasing rabbits a few days later. Few of the other pilots were concerned about it, the man not popular, the accident most likely his own fault. If flown normally, these planes were reliable.
The US Army evaluated the Mark IV and ordered sixty additional aircraft, the RAF ordering two hundred spread over the next two years, most destined for far off corners of the British Empire.
Monoplanes were common in 1933, partly due to us; if you were building a biplane to sell to the military you were wasting your time. A few nicer looking monoplanes appeared, and their performance wasn’t too bad. Aluminium frames were the norm, although a few were still cloth covered. And De Havilland, they were building some nice aircraft – but from wood still.
I split my time between family and work, although the work was never drudge; I enjoyed most everything I did. We now expanded the Canadian Rifles and their pilot programme, many getting a chance to fly - and to see if they were potential future pilots. Every once in a while, a fit-looking soldier would take to the sky and land flawlessly. They were soon given a twin-engine to try, and if they were a natural we pinched them for Columbia Airlines. A few of our Goose pilots were ex-Airborne, and troublesome passengers would not be an issue.
American Airlines continued to expand its routes, and Brazil to Europe now involved two of our Super Gooses, plus two British Airways Super Gooses coming the opposite way, all fully booked every flight. We typically flew them overnight, taking off at sunset and attempting to land after sun-up; that way people would sleep on the flight, the passing of time seemingly quicker. The one change that was made to the Super Goose, for long distance routes, was a second toilet, and a natural split between men and women; a fourteen-hour flight could get uncomfortable in the cabin.
Chicago became a hub, and it connected the east coast and the west coast, its hotel enjoying brisk trade. Airports sprung up with names that we were familiar with in our era, but most still had “field” in the name. Columbia Airlines still dominated the Pacific American routes, but we handed a few slots to American Airlines where the passenger numbers were good.
Boeing released the Buffalo Mark III, larger in size, better range, more load capacity, the Buffalo Mark IV to be a four-engine beast - but still aimed at cargo; big wings and large flaps, sturdy undercarriage.
On a trip up to Canada with Susan and the kids, I spotted the new docks as we came into land, landing on the inlet. Examining the docks the next day, I found that the water here was very deep, and that ships would now dock on a regular basis, vessels that could ship out our planes, tractors, half-tracks, or munitions.
In the hotel, Jimmy said, ‘Po is building an aircraft carrier.’
‘Po? Why, for fucks sake?’
‘To carry … aircraft, not to fight with it. Aircraft carrier.’
‘Ah…’
‘It’s a big old grain ship with a flight deck on the forward two thirds. You can bring a plane up from below, put the wings on, and they can take off - but you couldn’t land.’
‘To deliver planes to airports,’ I realised. ‘In Mombasa they take off on the road outside the dock, land at Mombasa field, and then they’re checked over.’
‘The Congo Rifles Air Wing now has two squadrons of older Boeings,’ Jimmy informed me.
‘How many men?’
‘Around six hundred locals have been signed up, with about three hundred ex-Canadian Rifles there. They keep the peace and patrol the borders.’
‘And the American workers in the region?’
‘It’s like the bleeding Klondike. Forward Base is growing rapidly, and small towns sprout up near the mines. We’ve created a corporation to run the place.’
I smiled. ‘Sounds like a good idea.’
‘And guess who sits at its head now?’
I puzzled that. ‘Rudd?’
He nodded. ‘Lord and master of all he surveys. He has a Health Minister, Defence Minister, Roads Minister -’
I laughed. ‘How long before he has a few canals and a casino?’
‘Don’t joke about that, he’ll be on the case soon enough.’
‘And the British?’ I nudged.
‘They’d prefer fewer American workers, but it’s not their territory. Kenya is advancing – which makes them money, and we’re developing Somalia and Tanzania, so they can see the tangible benefits. Many Brits now see East Africa as somewhere to find a job.’
‘And … how’s the good Dr Astor getting on in Israel?’ I risked.
‘She’s stepped down as Health Minister, telling the new administration that the post should be filled by an Israeli.’
‘Seems fair.’
‘She’s now an advisor to the Health Minister, and runs the hospital – as well as anything else she wants to touch.’
‘Any trouble there?’
The Palestinians are not happy, many being pushed out in an … inevitable process. But they are being compensated, for the most part. Sykes brought over photographs, a kind of … before and after series. The land of Christ is now all concrete; he’d ride in on concrete roads covered with palm fronds, shaded from the midday sun by tall towers.’
‘Any countries recognising the new state yet?’ I asked.
‘Only those in the Far East … who have no idea where it actually is.’
‘Not even Britain?’
‘They’ll recognise it in 1938. Remember, phased withdrawal with honour.’
‘And their port?’
‘In Gaza, a big concrete jetty, always a warship docked there.’
‘The Kenyan Rifles based there?’
‘Shooting the odd Arab who wishes to shoot at Israeli settlements.’
‘Don’t know why, but that seems familiar,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Germans still allowing them out?’
He nodded. ‘For now. Total population of Israel is over seven hundred thousand, and they’re seeing Jews from around the Arab world arriving. Is the … US Navy still pissy about the subs?’
I made a face. ‘They’ll get a look when they’re ready.’
‘Well…’ he sighed, checking his nails.
‘Well … what?’ I nudged.
‘They’ll come up here for the final fit, we’re even creating a dry dock in Vancouver, and then the clever stuff gets added. We’ll then give the subs at least six months to iron out the glitches and faults, and then … then we need to test them to destruction.’
‘Who’ll be daft enough to be inside one at the time?’
‘We’ll put some on the surface and shoot at them; fifty cal and thirty mil.’
‘Waste of an expensive sub!’
‘We need to know what will happen.’
‘I’ll make up a dummy hull for you. Shoot that.’
‘Fair enough. And we’ll rig up an automatic depth tester, see what the crush-depth is.’
‘Again, it’s a waste of an expensive sub. How about … we cover over the dry dock with a steel frame and … three feet of concrete. Pump in air and pressure test it for leaks, then up the pressure.’
‘You’d never get a good seal on the lock gates,’ he said. ‘At least one sub has to go down and try it.’
‘Then let’s make sure that we take out all the good stuff first. I’ll have one semi-finished just for the test.’
‘That’s … very efficient of you,’ he toyed. ‘And then we’ll borrow four of them and give them to Po to have ready for 1938. He’s creating a secret base on an island, where the subs can take on supplies at night.’
‘So what about the US Navy?’
‘We’ll give them one on a year-long test. If they want to buy a few, we’ll build them.’
‘And if they ask questions about the others?’ I pressed
‘Then we’ll say that they went to the British, which won’t be too far from the truth, because we’ll have Royal Navy submariners on board.’
‘They’ll make a mess of the Jap fleet, silent running and jet torpedoes,’ I suggested.
‘The Japs have hundreds of ships,’ he reminded me. ‘And sailing at full steam in rough seas will make them near impossible to hit. We’d need a good day, and the element of surprise.’
‘Will the rubber absorb their sonar?’
‘Most of it, but not all, and not close up.’
‘And if we had more subs?’ I posed.
‘Then the British would sink the Jap fleet, Pearl Harbour would never happen, and the balance of power would shift towards the British in 1945. We need the American war machine geared up and ready to take on communism.’
‘Korea,’ I let out with a sigh.
‘We have to be careful. What we do now in 1933, or 1938, will affect 1953 and 1965. And any significant shift in the war will affect every country in the world to some degree.’
‘You have a detailed plan?’
‘I have a detailed plan,’ he agreed. ‘But, it’s warfare, and things can change quickly.’
Cookie stepped over. ‘Just took a phone message from Sykes.’ He paused. ‘Italians fired mortars indiscriminately, got two of our snipers. They’ve recovered their bodies … and their kit.’
‘Thanks, Cookie,’ Jimmy offered, Cookie withdrawing. He faced me. ‘They never carry ID cards, or personal effects.’
‘And they’re black,’ I pointed out.
‘But the kit is ours, and very unusual. Still, the rifles don’t have factory stamps, nor the ammo. And the telescopic sights are Swiss!’
‘They’re rare rifles,’ I pointed out. ‘People know we have them.’
‘Then … we say that we sell many around Africa.’
‘Which is ninety percent run by the British!’
‘And could be an issue with the Italians. If Sykes knows, it’s because the Italians are showing off the bodies and weapons to the Press, making claims.’
‘But are the claims against us, or the Rifles?’ I thought out loud.
Jimmy rang Sykes on scrambler, and returned to me. ‘They’re making claims against people supplying weapons to the rebels, not of supplying the warm bodies. And so far they’ve not blamed anyone, just hinted at the British. Our weapons are on their way to Rome to be shown off, and I think that once the Press sees the fifty calibre rifle they’ll not believe the weapons to be that of the local tribesmen.’
‘You think they’ll want to get at us?’ I asked, now concerned. ‘There’re lots of Italian Mafia dons around the States.’
‘We’ll have to see who they blame, but we’d be seen as arms dealers, not politically motivated. Up to now we’ve not gotten involved in politics, or been seen to be involved in African disputes. And we’re not known for Kenya anymore - we’re here.’
The next day we received an update from Abdi. It had been two of his men that had been killed, and so the rest of his snipers had exacted revenge, hundreds of Italians killed overnight, entire garrisons wiped out. It was all we needed; an escalation. Jimmy ordered them back to the railway line, a long old trek, but about a week for the message to get to the sniper teams.
Security around our installations worldwide was tightened, especially around my home. There were not many Mafia families on the west coast, but I was still concerned. As was Susan.
We then had a surprise visitor at the hotel, that of the Deputy Italian Ambassador to Canada. And the cheeky bugger flew over to us on one of our planes. Jimmy made sure everyone in the gang was briefed, and Mac was ordered to play nice, those outside the gang having no idea about Abdi anyway.
I welcomed the man and his associate outside the hotel - all smiles, escorting the men into the hotel bar, Jimmy awaiting us. Jimmy greeted the man with a smile and a handshake.
Settled, drinks ordered, Jimmy said, ‘How can we help the Italian Government?’
‘Well, as you know we have discovered rebel tribesmen in Libya using the rifles that are made here,’ the man said with an accent.
‘How can we help?’ Jimmy asked.
‘May I ask … who they are sold to?’
‘Some are sold around Africa for hunting, some to private users, many to the British Government -’
‘The British … have a stockpile?’
‘They do. But the largest users are the private militias in Somalia.’
‘The man known as Abdi?’
‘Yes. He has bought many.’
‘I see. And are there manufacturer’s stamps on the rifles and ammunition?’
‘There are on those sold through normal channels, but Abdi requested that they be absent.’
I wondered what the hell Jimmy was up to.
‘I see,’ the Deputy Ambassador repeated. ‘And this man runs a … fiefdom of his own within the British governed territory?’
‘The British tolerate him, because there would be a tribal uprising if they didn’t.’
The man nodded. ‘An uneasy marriage of convenience.’
Jimmy forced a smile. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. If the Italian Government wished to buy aircraft from you or Boeing, would you see any difficulty in such a request?’
‘The British are our largest customers, and have asked that we not sell anything to you.’
The man stiffened. ‘I see.’
‘We’re here to make money,’ I put in. ‘We can’t upset our largest client.’
‘Indeed not, it would be … poor business practice. Well, I thank you for your time, Mister Silo.’ He stood. ‘May I return if I have further questions?’
‘Yes, if we’re here. We don’t wish poor relations with anyone, but we must look after our best customers.’
‘I understand … entirely.’
With the visitors gone, I said, ‘You just put them on a collision course with Abdi, and dropped the British Government in it.’
‘The one thing the Italians won’t do ... is go and repeat what I just said. They will, however, have a go at Abdi, which will please Abdi no end – and make our lives a little safer. And the Italian regime can’t stand the British Empire, because they don’t have an empire of their own, so we’ve not soiled that relationship.’
As I headed home, Jimmy contacted Abdi and gave him the good news. Within hours, the Italian Ambassador in Somalia had been killed, a silenced shot from eight hundred yards. Abdi had faced Rome and dropped his trousers, showing some bare cheek, as well as his talent for diplomacy.
I made sure that the security around my home was tight, and double-checked my AK47, just in case. But two days later a Buffalo landed at the field, a car driven out the back, one of our cars. It was delivered to me at my office at the airfield with a note. ‘From Jimmy. Popemobile. We have them.’
The Popemobile in our era was a bullet-proof vehicle for the Holy Roman Pontif, meaning that this new car was also bullet proof. I tried her out, and she felt a little heavier, but not sluggish by any means. Winding down the windows took some effort, and I could see how thick the glass was, and that it seemed to be two thicker layers and one thinner layer. I figured the scientists knew what they were doing, but I was not about to test the glass by shooting at my own car.
I showed Susan my new wheels in the evening and she felt better, insisting that the bodyguards drive Mary to pre-school in it, then come back for me. But that was not the only safety feature my life adopted. Glass panels appeared, fitted to the outside of my existing windows, as well as a type of plastic covering that was adhered to my patio doors. Once on, the doors were clear again, but somehow the plastic layer strengthened them.
I spoke to Jimmy on the phone, and it seemed that the hotel had received a makeover, now bullet-proof, a few extra guards, snipers hidden in the loft with spy holes and telescopes. The gang also made use of another innovation, but it was only a year or two ahead of its time. We had built walkie-talkies, and they were not much smaller than those I saw on old John Wayne films. A smaller version was about to be released, and pre-sale interest from the police and army was huge, both here and around the world. We were about to make a buck on the road to mobile phones, the bane of our era.
When the new radios were ready we sent fifty to the White House, the Secret Service making use of them, the handsets coming with rechargeable batteries and sixteen channels. A thousand were flown straight out to Ngomo for his use in the region, and now our Congo police would be able to stay in touch with headquarters - if they were within two miles of headquarters. On a good day, on a hilltop, you could get four miles out of the sets. The next variant would be better, but we had to take it slow.
We did, however, offer a military field radio wired to a jeep – its engine running – that would reach twenty or thirty miles on a good day. They were also in demand, and were being fitted to all of our jeeps for Africa. The same units, fitted to our smaller aircraft, were good for fifty miles at altitude. The Goose and Super Goose series had possessed for some time short-wave radios that could pick up a signal hundreds of miles away, Morse Code weather updates. The phonetic alphabet was now being taught at our flight schools, Morse Code, and how to use the radio, “over”.
Winter, 1933, found me spending time fiddling with the subs, the shells of two prototypes now complete, and teaching Mary to use her new bike. Our people had inspected the subs hulls, informing me that they were fine. I then told a group of workers they’d get a huge bonus if they found a fault. The men found a small hole, and got their bonus, my engineers having their pay docked. I then had the entire hulls checked again, inside and out.
With the first hull now complete, main air tanks fitted, I informed the managers of the crush depth testing. They knew it was necessary, but a lot of work had gone into the black tube sat in dry-dock. The dock was flooded, the sub towed out by a US Navy destroyer. Inside the sub sat some smart equipment, and outside it ran numerous cable attachments.
I had hired out a large ship that was normally employed laying undersea cables, and it attached cables to the sub via a hefty crane. A plastic coated wire ran into the sub, a very long wire. When the switch was thrown, air gushed from the sub, and she slipped under, coming to rest at about fifty metres. They hauled her back up with the cables, slowly, and attached high-pressure air hoses, the water forced out of the air tanks. A crew went aboard and opened the hatch, reporting all dry inside, newspapers having been deliberately laid out to highlight damp areas.
The next day, and with me on board the cable-laying ship, our sub again blew out air and sank, this time right to the bottom of where we had positioned ourselves – the depth checked just in case. That bottom was estimated to be a hundred metres, give or take some sand and an octopus. Raised again, our sub revealed no water, one or two drops around seals and hatches. She would take a hundred metres, more than enough for what we wanted the subs for.
On the third day we let her sink in a hundred and fifty metres of water, a destroyer alongside us for a nose. Hauled back to the surface, they attached the air hoses and blew water out of the tanks, a team of four clambering inside. They appeared ten minutes later, reporting just a few leaks around hatches and seals again. She had not imploded.
On the fourth day the Navy Admirals were with me, something of a day out of the office for them. With two hundred and ten metres of water below it, our sub blew out air and headed slowly down before settling on the bottom. It took an hour to raise her slowly, hoses attached. I saw no damage on the hull, and clambered across with an Admiral who wanted a nose inside. We found her intact.
‘Two hundred and ten metres,’ I said, my words echoing, clattering along on metal grills. ‘Twenty dollars says she makes two fifty.’
‘Two fifty? That’s well beyond any sub I know about.’
‘Safe bet then.’
‘Not with you it isn’t.’
With enough daylight left, we edged out to two hundred and sixty metres of water, and let the poor old sub sink down into the inky black depths. I knew that if she imploded there would be a surge of bubbles breaking the surface, but none came. Hauling her back up they said she was heavy. Bummer, she was full of water.
With the hoses attached, tanks clear, we boarded her, finding twelve inches of water under the lowest level metal grill. She had sprung a leak, but had not imploded, and I decided not to tempt fate. The crush depth was placed at two hundred and seventy metres, the sub towed back into dry dock. I told the managers to go over every inch, and to see where she had leaked. And, if she was in one piece, to now complete her.
The US Navy were impressed, having lost many prototype subs in recent years, the British losing many sailors to the depths. Jimmy and the gang were pleased, but he informed me that the scientists had predicted a crush depth of three hundred and sixty metres at least, if constructed properly. We kept the crush depth at two seventy, the wartime average around two hundred.
For Christmas, 1933, most everyone met in Hawaii - Po, Yuri and Han meeting us there, Sykes and Jack remaining in London. The news from Europe was not great, the news from Israel very encouraging, but bombs had gone off in Mogadishu, probably down to the Italians. Our teams were not harassing the Italians at the moment, the Italian diplomatic presence removed from Somalia.
We had requested Rudd’s presence and he arrived a day late, missing Christmas. Boxing Day was spent around the hotel pool, catching up. As requested, Rudd had brought maps and figures. We laid out a large map of Eastern Congo and Kenya on a table, and Rudd gave a two-hour long breakdown of progress; railways, roads, hotels, towns, mines, police, army, aircraft, revenues, and any problems. Everyone had their say, comments made and taken, a discussion of practical steps in the region. Since Rudd was using my old cooperation group route-map, there was little to argue over.
He had taken it upon himself to create a parliament, although the members were not voted in yet - and would not be for a long time, and the sitting council now consisted of twelve men. They all had deputies and a staff, offices and budgets, plans and directions. And most were British ex-pats with suitable experience.
The Defence Minister was the old Kenyan Rifles colonel I had met, the man wishing to rest his old bones away from soldiering, the others a mix of people who had worked with Rudd in Kenya. Former and current board members of CAR and the Mombasa Steam Company held positions, Steffan not wishing to move over yet, although he exercised a great deal of influence from Mombasa – and his very comfortable beachfront home.
Everyone took a look over Rudd’s plans, even Cookie and Sandra made a few comments. Jimmy and I glanced at figures – tonnage and revenue, and our kingdom in the jungle was seen to be making a fortune by today’s standards. It helped that Po bought up a lot of the ore at a fair price – not cost, and then used the ore in the Far East, some for his own shipbuilding. I jokingly suggested that he make the ships in Kenya, and that he open a Chinese enclave. He immediately went and asked Jimmy if he could.
Jimmy gave me a look. ‘Are you being premature again?’
I shrugged. ‘It’ll create jobs in Kenya.’
‘For Chinese citizens … from Hong Kong!’ Jimmy pointed out. ‘Still, it’s all in the family.’ He gave Po the go ahead, an area north of Mombasa picked out. Dry docks would be built, and we’d tell the British Governor after we had started them.
Yuri wanted to be more involved in the Congo, but I suspected that he wanted to be away from Hong Kong before the 1938 Japanese invasion of Canton. That or he was fed up with Po. Jimmy suggested that Yuri should get a city started, and that was that. Yuri would be based in the Congo, a long way from Japanese dive bombers. Po was not fussed on the jungle at the moment, and had no desire to live there. Rudd appointed Yuri as “City Planner”, and that was that.
We retired to the beach bar and relaxed after a busy session, a few decisions made, Mary taking her young brother to the water’s edge, Susan close by and watching, bodyguards watching Susan. An American Airlines Goose flew past, a Columbia Airlines Goose flying the opposite way, and I reflected that we had made considerable progress since arriving on this world.
I faced Jimmy. ‘It must have been odd for you, doing it six times.’
‘Odd … is not the word I would use. It was hard, very hard, but … you woke up each day and took a step. And, you took great comfort in finding the bastard who screwed up your plans the time before … and killing the asshole.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, you knew what they would do later, the king of Groundhog Day.’
‘The final time was difficult, because I had fixed everything the time before, then 2025 happened. That final time, I thought that I may fix 2025 – and then another disaster could strike five years later; where does the process end? At least here I don’t have that hassle, but I don’t have the benefit of trial and error either. If I screw up the war … it stays screwed up.’
‘The outcome of the war was not too bad anyway -’
‘Ha! Sixty years old the Cold War; Korea, Vietnam.’
‘Well, there is that, but it turns out OK.’
‘Without our help they’ll lose the planet around 2017.’
‘I meant, up to that point.’
‘No such thing as turns out OK, just degrees of failure; bad, or less bad.’
‘You think we can prevent a Cold War?’ I asked, a pleasant breeze off the sea now cooling me.
‘If Russia doesn’t fight with the Germans ... then yes – to a degree. And then we have to influence Mao in China. But another headache will be that of the British Empire surviving. Some British hot-head may come around and try and hang onto it after 1945.’
‘If we propped-up the empire, it would be the world’s superpower,’ I noted.
‘No, its already crumbling, and the revenue stream would have been dwindling without us. India will become independent, but some idiot may see our revenue stream and figure that it’s sustainable and, more importantly, that they could grab it. The British Empire was slowly dying, but we’ve injected it with the blood - because I wanted a smooth handover in Africa when I was ready, around 1950. But Rudd is helping there.’
‘Rudd?’
‘If he develops the corporation, the African nations will say: who needs Britain, let’s join the corporation.’
‘I see a flaw with that, in that we’ll get the blame from the fucking British!’
‘Yep,’ he slowly let out. ‘But I will keep pressing the business angle to the British; Churchill already understands it. If they lose the colony, but still get the same revenue and access – then what the hell has changed?’
‘Just the flag.’
‘Exactly. The African peoples will have their pride - their corrupt leaders stealing the national treasures, and Britain has the revenue.’
We enjoyed a few pleasant days on the islands, mindful of what lay in store for Hawaii in the future, then set off home on different flights, east and west. I reclaimed our house in San Diego at 3pm, having left Hawaii at midnight, and settled with a cold beer.
A long way off, it was midnight in Somalia. A crew of Italian sailors lowered a small boat from a very large battleship, and chugged towards shore. At the shore, they secured their boat and lugged heavy bags up the dirt bank to the top of the cliff, soon stood in sight of Abdi’s grand residence.
Everyone in Somalia knew where Abdi lived, his compound a giant sprawling complex southwest of the Mogadishu, its location easily fixed by the tall white and blue minaret of his private mosque. With the minaret lit for all to see for miles around, the Italians created two signal fires. One was on the cliff top, the other four hundred yards inland, on a direct course to the minaret.
Out at sea, the battleship gunners gave adjustments to the ship’s captain as the Italian shore party withdrew. The gunners knew their range well enough, and now the gunners had both fires in line of sight, and in a straight line. They opened up with sixteen-inch guns, a quick salvo before the battleship turned south at flank speed.
The residents of Mogadishu heard distant rumbles, reports soon reaching the British garrison and British Governor of explosions at Abdi’s palace. They were secretly delighted.
Abdi was on the ground floor at the time, occupied with a wife and rudely interrupted, his house collapsing around him. He and his men had heard the whistle of the rounds before impact, correctly recognising them as artillery shells. His first thought was that it was the British. Knee deep in dust and dead bodies, Abdi sent people to check on the British, the reports coming back suggesting that it was all quiet at the British garrison, and odd report of signal fires on the coast nearby.
At dawn, Abdi stood examining a petrol can, Italian writing. A ship, he had been attacked by a ship. In the dawn grey light, he surveyed the carnage that used to be his palace; deep craters, bodies everywhere. He had lost twenty wives, and would now have to find replacements. He had also lost sons, and guards, two men from our era killed.
There were no Italians left in Somalia to take revenge on, so Abdi sent Jimmy a telegram. Jimmy ordered him to wait a few days, and then promised that he would take revenge for Abdi. The British soon received reports of a ship seen firing, but played down the reports. They were mad at the Italians for firing on British colonial territory, but just as mad at Abdi for killing the Italian Ambassador. Abdi’s status, that of being alive, was a great disappointment to the British in Somalia, but they pretended to be concerned.
At the hotel in Trophy, Jimmy opened a map, the gang around him. He tapped the coast of Somalia. ‘The Italian battleship won’t try the Suez Canal, it’ll be seen – and be vulnerable to attack from the British. No, they’ll sail south around Africa, up the central Atlantic and slip into the Med at night, pretending to have been in South America all the time.’
‘What we going to do?’ Mac asked.
‘We … are going to exact revenge for Abdi, before he starts a war early. We, gentlemen, are going to find that battleship, and blow it out of the water from fifteen thousand feet.’
Everyone focused on Hal. ‘A ship at sea, and moving?’ Hal queried.
‘There’ll be a distinct lack of witnesses mid Atlantic,’ Jimmy pointed out. But first … first we need to find it. Hal, Hacker: grab a few trusted pilots and take the three heavy bombers to the new strip in the Congo. On each aircraft I want twenty thousand pounds of bombs, fuses out, and lots of extra fuel.
‘I’ll signal Steffan now to get extra av-gas to Forward Base, and Rudd to get it ready. I’ll also have pilots from Mombasa out searching for that tub, in case it’s hanging around. We have a Goose in South Africa, so we’ll grab it off passenger service and have it checking the Mozambique Straits. Hal, Hacker, you know what to do, so pack a bag, food and water, and see if you can reach Forward Base without stopping.’
They exchanged looks and set off. Jimmy grabbed trusted pilots and a few aircraft, sending them down to Brazil for “Advanced Pilot Training”. They would search the Atlantic for our tub. Fortunately, they had advanced kit for radio direction finding, and could detect a ship’s radio hundreds of miles away and lock onto it. All we’d need would be some chatty Italians.
I had a long phone conversation with Jimmy on scrambler, the detail of the plan a worry. What was more of a worry was Abdi going off and doing something stupid. Jimmy had, however, allowed Abdi to attack Italian spies in Abyssinia as a compromise. No official response came from the British, a serious lack of interest shown in the attack, and the western newspapers made no mention of it.
Hal loaded a portable fuel tank into a bomber, the unit coming with a hand pump, its hose attached to a dedicated nozzle. They wiped down any fuel with detergent, checked for leaks, and wrapped the hose in cloth. Bombs were loaded with their fuses out, ready for a long distance bombing test in central Canada, which was routine; no one on the ground thought anything of it. With extra water and tinned meat, Hal lifted off, Hacker taking off behind him, a third plane taxiing ready. At altitude they grouped, a mile of lateral separation and a thousand vertical feet of separation, auto-trim selected. Their con trails were distinct, so keeping an eye on each other was easy enough. With the aircrafts trim checked and adjusted, the water heater was turned on, tins opened. It would be a very long flight.
At Forward Base, two hundred men walked down the new concrete runway looking for stones, throwing them to the sides. Rough lumps were hurriedly chiselled down, debris removed, this runway having only been used so far by Boeing Buffalos, and only officially open for just a week. The men toiled all day, “polishing” the runway, touching up the white centre line. Av-gas was already available, more on its way by train from Mombasa. Although our local distillery made fuel for cars, its quality was not good enough for aircraft yet.
As I stood lecturing new pilots on the basics of dog fighting in San Diego, Hal was nearing the North African coast, fuel consumption as expected and not a concern. When bored, he would hand-crank a little more fuel into the wing tanks.
The three bombers landed at Forward Base in the dark, the runway brightly lit, the local weather reasonable. The plane’s large wings created a nice “ground-effect”, always a bounce for unskilled pilots. Hal used the effect to gently touch down, soon winding down the engines on the apron and giving the bomber a well-earned rest. He was greeted by Ngomo and Rudd, food cooking on a stove. Now they would wait.
At dawn the next day a Goose took off from Cape Town, heading straight out to sea. Fifteen miles out it turned east, all eyes now on the sea below. Its radio direction finding kit was fired up, the dial slowly turned to look for signals. Two hours later, and it was coming back down the Mozambique Straits, this particular track closer to Madagascar than the outbound leg.
‘Ship ahead,’ the co-pilot called. All eyes peered forwards. ‘A big ship.’ He grabbed his binoculars. ‘It’s a battleship. One … two big guns forwards, one … two … three at the rear, two funnels. Can’t see any markings.’
‘That’s got to be it,’ the pilot said. He turned for Cape Town. On the ground he telegrammed his findings and observations in code. Jimmy called Sykes on scrambler, waking him.
‘Two funnels, two guns forward and three aft?’ Sykes asked. ‘Sounds like it, and they don’t have many. I’ll check with the Admiralty.’
A few hours later, Sykes was back on the phone. ‘We have nothing that big in the area, it’s got to be her.’
‘Get me a definite description of something about her that we can use from the air.’
‘I have her silhouette here.’ Sykes listed the features.
Jimmy sent a telegram to Rudd, in code, a list of features. It ended with: “Three to four days, off West Africa. Track it from tomorrow.”
Hal lifted off at dawn, extra fuel on the plane, the bombs removed for this flight. He set a course south west, and headed for the coast of Angola. Reaching his target area, he turned out to sea, calculating that the ship would be at least twenty miles off the coast. A zig-zag search pattern was started, radio direction finder on. After two hours they detected a Morse Code transmission, but this message made no sense; it was in code. Merchant ships used Morse Code radio all the time, but their messages were in “clear type.” Hal altered course for the signal.
Twenty minutes brought them to a large white wake in the dark ocean below. Using the aircraft’s powerful telescopic bombsight, they peered down. ‘It’s her! She’s on heading three-two-five.’
‘Mark the position and heading,’ Hal said, immediately turning northeast. On landing at Forward Base he informed the others, a map consulted. Using the ship’s estimated speed, position and heading, they calculated where she would appear at dawn the next day.
‘Hitting it from fifteen thousand will be more luck than anything,’ Hal said.
‘If the bombs detonate near her they’ll crack her hull,’ Hacker pointed out.
‘True,’ Hal agreed. ‘But they’ll need to be close.’
‘We’ll get behind her and drop staggered groups, one after the other. That’s sixty bombs spread over an area half a mile long. And we only need the one good hit.’
Hal nodded. ‘From fifteen thousand, a thousand pound bomb will go straight through the deck plating.’
‘If she’s damaged mid Atlantic…’ Hacker posed.
‘Yeah, a long way to get some help,’ Hal agreed. ‘A long swim for those poor lads.’ They exchanged looks.
‘It is war,’ Ngomo reminded them. ‘And when Japan and Germany attack, you will be dropping bombs on cities.’
‘I know,’ Hal said with a sigh. ‘Just wish we could hit the leadership, and not the enlisted men.’
‘Get some food and rest,’ Ngomo encouraged. ‘You take off before dawn.’
Rudd arranged for the planes to be fuelled, the bomb fuses attached, the bombs re-loaded. They were set. Hal and Hacker caught a little sleep, the guys up before dawn to check the planes over, engines started, hydraulic pressures checked, fuel levels checked.
‘Hal for Rudd,’ Hal said into his radio.
‘Go ahead, Hal,’ came back from the tower.
‘Taxiing. Wish us luck.’
‘Have a good flight,’ Rudd offered.
Hal lined up with the runway, the edges now lit with flickering paraffin lamps, and powered up, soon over darkened jungle, the creatures below disturbed by an unnatural sound to the jungle. Hacker took off five minutes later, followed by the third plane. At altitude they formed up, landing lights on till they found each other, normal lights left on afterwards.
At fifteen thousand feet the dawn presented an amber glow to the east, a pale blue line of high cloud to the west, con trails now visible. After two and a half hours, Hal transmitted, ‘That’s Kinshasa down there, two o’clock.’
‘Should hit the coast soon then,’ Hacker commented.
‘I can see it, I think; ten o’clock. We can use the Niger Delta for a position fix, just in case our navigation is crap.’
From the delta they set a new course, their onboard slide rules working out distance from speed. If the Italians were cooperating, our guys would find the ship on this track in one hour. After an hour there was no sign of the battleship, the planes turning south, a fruitless fifteen minutes spent searching. Nothing. They turned west in a line, looking for a large wake, hampered by intermittent cloud.
‘Radio signal up ahead,’ Hal’s co-pilot called. ‘Morse Code, and it’s not clear type. Change to heading three-six-zero.’
‘Heading three-six-zero,’ Hal transmitted to the other aircraft. ‘They’re using their radio. Go line astern, one mile. Altitude … dead on fifteen thousand. Set Auto-trim to reduce speed to three hundred dead.’
‘Roger that,’ that came back.
Hal’s co-pilot eased out of his seat and opened the bomb-aiming box. With an eye to the scope, he checked its settings, turning the dials for speed and altitude. ‘Cross wind?’ he called.
‘Only chance we’ll get is her smoke,’ Hal responded. ‘A last minute change. OK, speed now three hundred, bomb bay doors opening.’
Hal’s co-pilot walked back to the rear bulkhead and peered through a glass spy-hole. Back up front, he reported, ‘All four doors open.’
Hal transmitted, ‘Report status, Hacker.’
‘Bomb bay doors open, auto-trim set, bomb sight set.’
The message was repeated from the third aircraft.
‘We’ll get one chance only, guys,’ Hal reminded them. ‘So get that staggered release right. At this altitude, one second on the switch is half a mile on the deck!’
‘Smoke!’ Hal’s co-pilot called.
Hal transmitted, ‘Changing heading to … three-five-four. Standby.’
‘Smoke is sloping right,’ Hal’s co-pilot noted.
Hal transmitted, ‘Adjust for ground wind left to right, say … fifteen miles per hour.’
Hal’s co-pilot made the adjustment to the bombsight. ‘I have her in forward scope. Change heading one point to starboard.’
Hal transmitted, ‘Changing heading one point to starboard.’
‘Steady,’ the co-pilot called. ‘Shit, she’s at a slight angle to us.’
‘Aim for her nose,’ Hal suggested. ‘In fact, aim two hundred yards in front of her nose.’ He transmitted, ‘Guys, she’s steaming at probably fifteen knots, so aim in front of her nose, at least two hundred yards.’
‘Hal,’ Hacker called. ‘Our bombs will take two fucking minutes to hit her. At fourteen knots she’ll make a mile!’
‘Breaking off, circling left. Follow me,’ Hal instructed. He knocked the auto-trim off, and flew in a large curve. ‘Someone work out the exact distance.’
Five minutes later, the combined maths suggested that the ship would advance just under half a mile as the bombs fell. A wider release pattern was selected, and Hal’s plane would aim five hundred yards ahead, Hacker six hundred, the tail plane seven hundred. Each staggered pattern would cover an area at least four hundred yards long, if not twice that, so now it was up to the bomb aimers sat squatting over the sights.
The three aircraft came back around, this time making sure that they were squarely behind the battleship and on the same compass bearing.
‘Smoke ahead,’ Hal transmitted. ‘Get ready, and check everything. We may just make a big splash, and get the blame.’
‘Cheerful fucker,’ came back.
‘Standby,’ Hal’s co-pilot called. ‘Altitude set, speed … set, ground wind … set. OK, I see her on my forward scope. Standby … standby … dropping!’ He knocked the switches in quick succession, just a fraction of a second making a big difference at this altitude. Darting to the rear bulkhead, he put his eye against the spy hole. ‘All bombs gone!’ With the co-pilot back in his seat, Hal now banked the aircraft, a stopwatch in his hand.
‘Thirty seconds.’ Hal banked sharply the other way, the image of the battleship coming into view. ‘Five … four … three …’ They peered down, soon noticing the ocean around the battleship turn white, and reach skyward. It was as if giant blades of white grass had suddenly sprouted.
A flash of yellow.
‘A hit!’ Hal shouted.
Then three more in quick succession.
‘That’s at least four hits,’ he transmitted.
Turning in a slow circle, they watched as smoke rose from the battleship, then an almighty explosion forward.
‘Magazine has gone!’ Hal transmitted. ‘Fuck, she just broke in two.’
They observed for another minute as the dark sea quickly claimed the battleship. Exchanging a look with his co-pilot, Hal transmitted, ‘Heading zero-eight-zero, guys, auto-trim on.’
Abdi received the news twelve hours later, about the same time that we did: twelve hundred sailors lost. It was a full ten days before the Italians launched a search, delicate inquiries with merchant ships in the Atlantic. Had anyone seen their battleship?
No one suspected that a high-flying bomber could sink a battleship under steam mid-ocean, and that worked in our favour. And this was an eye opener for me, the war creeping closer. Unfortunately, it was jolt for the Italians as well, who suspected that a submarine had sunk their battleship, possibly a British one. The Italian dictator made a choice, actually two. He sent his troops into Abyssinia a year early, and placed large rewards on our heads with the Mafia - because we had sold the sniper rifles to Abdi.
The Italians were not stupid, and they knew we had associations with Abdi. They put two and two together and decided to try and kill us. The FBI came calling a week later, a shifty suspect picked up in Los Angeles, newspaper clippings about me found on the man - as well as a machinegun and a pistol. When I heard the news I worried, eight men of the Canadian Rifles soon coming down to me, a few soon hidden in the sand dunes near our house.
Calling Jimmy on scrambler, he said, ‘We can’t allow the hit-men to interfere with out plans, so … they all go.’
‘All of them?’
‘It will help the States, so all of them.’
‘Bloody hell…’
Big Paul put together a large team, and that team involved former FBI agents. The FBI men had trained with the Rifles, had done well against the bootleggers, and had developed a taste for adventure - not desks in Washington. A few of them were even busy assassinating people around the States for Jimmy. Task Force Delta was duly created, the FBI men getting for us the details of all currently known Mafia hit men, Mafia families, and freelance killers in the States. It was a very long list.
The task force started with the most prominent Mafia family in New York, just to make a point. Over the space of a weekend, twenty-two of the senior men were killed, including the elderly boss. It made the papers, who labelled it as “Mafia War!” And why wouldn’t they, the Mafia were always killing each other’s people.
Within two weeks the New York morgues were full of the city’s criminal class, most of the men having been hit from six hundred yards out, the shooters never spotted. The Mafia took to getting into their cars in their garages, so our boys took to using fifty cal rifles with Teflon rounds. The police and FBI would examine cars where the bullet had gone through the windscreen, through the driver, through the intended target, and out the trunk.
With a body count of over sixty, the newspapers were going wild with “Mafia Wars!” Every day the police would turn up and find a wanted felon with a large hole in his chest or head. But wishing to leave the heat behind, our teams soon split up and headed for Chicago and Miami, Philadelphia and Boston. Those cities soon started to see their Mafia gangs being wiped out, and a month after starting their operation, Task Force Delta had killed a hundred and twenty men.
I read the newspapers every day, and every day there were two or three stories about Mafia men being killed. Task Force Bravo, meanwhile, had a different approach. They were offering large amounts of money to hired guns, to kill a certain person in a certain motel room. When the hired shooter turned up he was killed quietly, the body hidden.
In every city, the former FBI guys approached known gunmen, sending them off to their deaths. And where the Mafia and mob bosses hid behind high walls and many guards, we knew of a few good men who could get in quietly, kill everyone, and get out quietly again. If anything, attacking the mob bosses in their country retreats was easier than sniping at them.
The President then called for a national task force to be created to hunt down the Mafia gunmen, at a time when his own police were suggesting that there would soon be few Mafia bosses left – and what’s the hurry? Crime was down, police successes in raiding Mafia strongholds was up greatly, and the average citizen was happy enough with the turn of events.
But one day a gunman got to within a hundred yards of my house, the man killed and buried in the sand. I kept it from Susan, but it shocked me. I informed Jimmy, and he agreed to play ball. He spoke to Susan on the phone, described a new threat level, and insisted that the family return to Canada. We packed quickly, boarded a Goose, and we returned to the hotel, which was the safest place. When people asked, people from outside the gang, we simply claimed that we had a lot of work do up here, and that wasn’t too far from the truth.
With winter coming on, we got used to the hotel again. Mary was not a happy little bunny, plenty of tears and tantrums at first because she missed her friends. Toby was too young to care, and so long as he was fed he was happy. We explained to Mary that she would have gone to another school next year, and missed her friends then. This was … just a premature move.
When sulking, she would sit at the diner’s counter and eat pancakes, Cookie always managing to cheer her up. Jimmy made a fuss of her, and they played board games often; chess and checkers. He also taught her to play poker, and she would sometimes join poker night for an hour or two before we insisted she go to bed.
Fortunately, the hotel offered her lots of interesting people, and many things to do, and she enjoyed her swimming. When she became fond of a young Huskie we didn’t argue, the dog soon popular with the gang, who had to look after it when Mary forgot. These dog things did, apparently, need feeding every day. Jimmy would often take it for walks along the inlet when Mary forgot, or when she just couldn’t be bothered.
On the first Monday morning after moving back I began a grand tour of everything, one that would last a week. I started first with tractors, since it seemed the most innocuous part of what we did. I entered the factory and found larger tractors with larger wheels, sat gleaming. They had been improved greatly, the aircraft engineers and scientists lending a hand. Sales were good, despite the tractors hefty price tag, because our tractors were not only reliable – they came with a warranty and a national chain of repair centres in Canada and the States. They could also be hired or leased. And, if your farm operated ten or more, you received on-site maintenance for a small annual cover charge.
Sales to Africa were good, not just to our own interests, since these tractors could have diggers fitted, plus a whole host of adapters for things to drag along behind. Around Canada, they busied themselves dragging felled trees. Ngomo put them to a similar use as the jungle was cut back, roads cut into virgin territory. I could find very little wrong with the tractors, and they even had detachable cabs these days to keep the rain out.
Moving on to half-tracks, I inspected them at length, and asked a long list of relevant questions. They gave me a quick lesson and I powered around the field used for testing them, the vehicles nifty, a top speed of forty miles per hour on a good day. They came with large storage bins under the rear seating, tents and provisions stored. They also offered a water heater that worked when the vehicle was moving, steaming hot water available when the vehicle halted - and the men desired a quick cuppa. A field radio was standard for our people, but the half-track also offered re-charging points for the batteries of smaller radios. Fittings on the sides allowed for sniper rifles or machineguns to be held and fired, a floor fitting allowing for a 105mm to be fitted. Its canvas roof was detachable, and could be erected or taken down quickly.
But most of all it was reliable, junior members of staff being punished by having to drive the damn things around the fields day and night. Each vehicle was said to break down every fifteen hundred miles and, if you were in desert and fighting a war, that was a good thing. I was happy with them. It was winter, 1934, heading for 1935, and our half-tracks would hold up to the rigours of North Africa and its sand.
The next day I dropped in on the munitions people, finding Mac and Handy in white lab coats. ‘You look pretty,’ I quipped.
‘We’re office workers today,’ they retorted.
They showed me a new fifty cal rifle. ‘We can’t think of any way to improve this, we just go around in frigging circles,’ Handy informed me.
‘Then maybe it’s ready,’ I said. ‘Don’t over invent it.’
They showed me anti-personal mines that were very nasty, the damn things jumping up eight feet before detonating like a grenade. Most had a two-second delay, others ten seconds or a minute - to catch the tail end of a patrol. We now made a type of claymore mine with a shaped charge, and a remotely detonated “Jumping Jack.’
‘What does that do?’ I asked.
‘Wire activated, it pops up to around ten feet and explodes, bomblets reaching out to fifty yards before they explode,’ Mac explained. ‘If the enemy is making a happy home around it, and singing around the campfire, they all get a frigging piece.’
‘You could wound sixty men with it,’ Handy pointed out.
I had a look at the .223 rifles with sniper sights, hitting a coin at a hundred yards at their indoor range. With its silencer fitted the clanking reload was louder than the discharging bullet. The technicians showed me pistols with long silencers, made for the “Q” Branch of assassins, and delay action bombs that looked like cigarette packets or boxes of matches.
‘This is a dummy,’ the technicians said, offering me a box of German matches. ‘Open it.’
I checked their silly grins, then opened the box, a firecracker sized “pop” going off.
‘You drop them around the enemy troops, who always look inside,’ they explained. ‘Abdi has them in Italian match boxes.’
‘Would they kill someone?’
‘Possible, but they’d certainly be out of the war and on their way home. They can be dropped by aircraft.’
‘And found by civilians,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s a terror weapon,’ they pointed out. ‘So that’s the idea. But they would most likely be dropped on enemy positions.’
‘Any other terror weapons in the making?’ I probed.
‘Well, the standard two hundred pound bombs have late fuses and delayed fuses.’
‘Why?’
‘If you drop a big bomb it will demolish two houses in a street. If you drop a smaller bomb it will still demolish a house or two, or set them ablaze – and the two hundred pound bombs have magnesium and phosphorous granules in them. But the delayed fuses mean that some go off straight away, whilst others wait for at least half an hour for the air raid to be over.’
‘For when people come out to clear up,’ I stated.
They nodded. ‘And when people know that the bombs will go off at random for up to a day, they’ll stay in their bomb shelters, unable to go to work – or to make any repairs.’
‘Drop them every night, and no one moves around in the day,’ I thought out loud. ‘That’ll affect any work getting done in a factory, if the factory is bombed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I was led on to the mortars, now 81mm standard and with a range of three thousand yards, the shells now very powerful. And, as expected, some possessed delayed fuses, others offering airburst timers. All told, the weapons were not that far away from our era, at least not that far from the era we spent fighting in Africa. I glanced at costs, production levels, staffing levels – and listened to any gripes.
What came next was a shock, but somehow expected. A senior man led me to a large steel fabricated shed, inside of which sat a tank. And this was no First World War effort, nor a Sherman, it was circa 1980, and came with a monster a 150mm gun.
I stood and stared at it, then walked around the big beast, the tank painted in green and black camouflage colours, and looking menacing. ‘And the armour?’ I called, my words echoing.
‘This way, sir.’
I followed, soon in a machine room with large overhead cranes, and stood next to a piece of armour in cross-section. The man pointed. ‘Outer layer is an inch of a new alloy. Then you have a simple separation layer, then the same alloy again, half an inch. Inside that is a two inch soft-zone, which is actually quite hard.’
‘Come again?’
‘If you punched it – it would hurt. If a shell hits the outer layer, then the soft core moves and absorbs some of the force. Behind that is another alloy layer, again half an inch. Inside that is a type of plastic that will bend, but not shatter; it’s designed to catch splinters. Each section of armour is mounted on a kind of spring that also absorbs force, so the tank wobbles a bit when hit.’
‘Have you tested it?’
‘I’ve sat inside that tank and been hit by a 105mm dozens of times. I won’t say that it’s pleasant, but you do survive. Earplugs are essential!’
‘They expensive to make?’
‘Oh, hell yes. But they can take the punishment and dish it out. That 150mm gun is very accurate, high velocity and spin, alloy rounds that penetrate other tanks. It may cost twenty times more than another tank, but it’ll kill a hundred of them and keep going.’
‘The engine?’
‘A larger version of the tractor diesel, but that’s the weak point at the moment. She’s a heavy lady and could do with more power, so we’re working on the engine.’
‘Speed?’
The man made a face. ‘Twenty miles per hour at best; she’ll not move out of the way quickly. But we’ve hit her with everything, and the pilots regularly use her for target practice - fifty calibre and thirty millimetre. People have been known to sit inside when that’s happening, just for a bet.’
‘And the wobble?’
‘The scientists say that it distributes the force around; a single point hit is spread about.’
I went back and had another look at it, from the front. ‘Fuck me, lady, you’re going to upset a few Germans,’ I told her.
In the next shed I found 105mm recoilless rifles being made. ‘How’re the anti-armour shells?’
‘Good, but they won’t crack that bloody tank, sir.’
‘Our weapons are to stop the enemy, not our own toys.’
‘Mind if I ask, sir – but we don’t sell this stuff, or much of it.’
‘If there was a war someplace in a year or two, we’d ramp up and sell a shit load. No war, so no ramp up. If there was a big war someplace we’d make enough money to last twenty years, so we’re not in a hurry. Better to have good weapons ready.’
‘I don’t understand business, sir, but I’m sure that you and Mister Silo have a crafty plan.’
‘We always have a crafty plan,’ I said. ‘Carry on and … good work.’
Back at the hotel, I found Jimmy and sat with him, ‘A tank? Fuck’s sake.’
He took a moment. ‘If things go wrong, then … we’re prepared. And, I was thinking of the German attack into France. We should, should we not, draw a line … and let them advance no more, whilst the aircraft fight?’
‘It’s a big frontier, a long border, and we’d need a shit load of tanks and support vehicles,’ I pointed out.
‘Not necessarily. We know where they’re likely to attack, and the choke points. If we held them, they would call in their forces to that point, to encircle it. What military commander is going to leave a hole in his flank, a large hole?’
‘Well … yeah, true.’
‘They won’t be pushing for Paris … if they’re bogged down in Belgium.’
‘And the Fuehrer will be pissed at his men for being bogged down,’ I pointed out. ‘No doubt making a stupid tactical move. It’s almost as if you’re trying to play him.’
Jimmy tipped his head. ‘Almost. But the problem would be that of a defeated German Army withdrawing to the Rhine and digging in, then waiting. We wait while they build up their forces and their weapons technology?’
‘If the losses were high enough…’ I posed.
‘Unlikely. The force invading the Low Countries will be a tenth of the main force. And, we could only slip a small force into Belgium before he alters his tactics. He may go around that force and encircle them, a separate push on Paris. The force we put into Belgium could be no more than five thousand soldiers and sixty tanks.’
‘What chance do they have?’
‘My initial idea was to inflict heavy casualties whilst the air campaign was going on, and to cause a pause for thought – in both arenas, the air campaign taking priority and shocking the hell out of them.’
‘If they withdrew, they’d have their army intact,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s a work in progress, but we should be able to force a surrender, and a change of leader.’
‘Those fanatics won’t go away, they’ll bide their time and try again in a few years.’
He nodded. ‘Same for Japan. So, we need at least a few months of fighting to make it hurt.’
‘A knockout blow, or attrition?’
‘That, young man, keeps me awake at night, since we have to find just the right measure of each. Anyway, what have you looked at so far?’
‘Big shiny red tractors, half-tracks that make a cuppa, and munitions - and the tank.’
‘Have a look at the Super Goose production tomorrow, then come with me the day after, have a look at a new toy. In fact, a few new toys.’
The next day I looked over the Super Goose aircraft being put together, the assembly line seemingly a mile long these days. We did, apparently, employ thirty people just to maintain the roofs of our buildings.
I could see ten aircraft shells in varying states of completion, the aircraft without their skin yet. They contained colour-coded control wires that looked like veins and arteries, rubber fuel tanks fitted to a few. Lonely flight controls sat waiting for pilots - no seats yet, thousands of men buzzing around.
‘How do you keep track of it all?’ I asked the senior man.
‘Teams, and a branching hierarchical structure.’
‘Come again?’
‘Each plane has a team leader, and he follows it all the way through, but the teams under him may change. He has a very long checklist, and he works down it. When he gets to hydraulics he requests a hydraulics team and the necessary parts, and that team gets assigned to him for fitting and inspection. Then he requests a team for frame testing, one for skin fitting, one for undercarriage – and so on. At the end he signs the plane off, and it’s his responsibility.
‘You’ll hear team leaders say: “I built ten-oh-six, and she’s a good bird” or stuff like that. They sometimes get them finished early, or late, and they get points deducted for failed inspections at every step.’
‘Points?’
‘It affects their bonuses. If someone put a skin on a wing with a part missing inside the wing, then he gets deducted a week’s pay.’
I smiled. ‘Seems like a good system.’
‘And then there’re the bastards.’
‘Excuse me?’
He smiled. ‘The inspectors, but they don’t mind being called that, they like it. Their bowling shirts have that on.’
I cocked an eyebrow. ‘And why, pray tell, are they called that?’
‘They inspect parts and planes at random after tossing a coin, and if they find anything wrong the team leader is in trouble.’
‘Ah.’
‘Worst we had was when a fuel tank was tested on a near complete aircraft. It flooded the wing and dripped out the flaps, a hose left unattached. In cases like that, everyone concerned gets some crap. Worst sanction is to be grounded.’
‘Grounded?’
‘They’re not allowed into the town - no bars or cafes, for a month. And they have to wear the hat that says so.’
I laughed. ‘And the safety record?’
‘Our safety record is excellent. When we receive returned aircraft it’s usually engines eighty percent of the time, the rest down to seaplane bashing.’
‘Seaplane bashing? We have people who bash our seaplanes?’ I teased.
‘Landing hard in a storm will shake them to pieces; things break or come lose. And they hit floating debris in the water. The runway aircraft fair much better, although we did have a bird taxi into a bus last week. We think the bus was in the wrong place.’
‘Damn right,’ I said. ‘Planes take priority. Much damage?’
‘The prop took the top of the bus off, which was a concern for the bus passengers on board. Had to replace the prop.’
‘And innovations?’
‘Between the Six series and the Seven series -’ He pointed. ‘- those are Seven series, there were three hundred and forty alterations.’
‘That all?’
‘Most were very small, including a warmer toilet seat.’
‘Warmer … seat?’
‘At altitude they get chilly.’
I smiled. ‘Yes, those toilets are not heated.’
‘And there’s now a variant with four beds in the rear, curtained off,’ he informed me. ‘And the in-flight movie is popular.’
I was shocked. What did this man know of our era? ‘In-flight … movie?’
‘There’s a pin-hole lens in the forward section, and it displays the image on a white screen about two foot across – quite crisp and sharp the image is. People can sit at the front for half an hour each and peer down as they fly over towns and cities.’
‘Ah,’ I let out, now relieved.
‘And auto-trim is always being tinkered with. Be landing the damn planes soon.’
‘That’ll save on pilot’s wages,’ I said, making him laugh. ‘What’s the frame lifetime?’
He took a moment. ‘For an older Goose, we believe twelve years, because they take a bashing in the water. For a runway Goose, we say fifteen years, but the truth is we don’t know. We’ve not found any corrosion yet, and cracks are down to sea landings. We have an old frame in the thermal room, and it’s had a hell of a time in recent years - hot, cold, damp - and it’s still structurally sound. We think that particular frame has had the equivalent of twenty years flying.’
I inspected a newly finished aircraft, many signs stuck to parts, with instructions about what to do - or not to do - before flying, then grabbed one of the golf-cart type buggies they used to scoot between factories – and engine like a lawn mower. I headed for the secure factory, soon stood next to a prop fighter. It looked the same.
‘And new innovations?’ I asked the manager.
‘We have the night-sight fitted and tested on a few.’
‘How’s that working out?’
He made a face. ‘It’s clever, very clever, but the illumination is limited. You could fly at night and see towns and mountains, but if the lights were out in an enemy stronghold you’d be hard pressed to hit the right building.’
‘What about seeing other aircraft?’
‘Oh, that works much better, because it sees hot engines a long way off.’
‘So it could find an enemy plane at night and shoot, and they wouldn’t see us.’
He nodded. ‘Good for that sort of flying, yes, sir.’
‘How far away could you see a plane on a dark night?’
‘If it was a Super Goose, you’d see it a mile or two away.’
‘That’s good. Any other changes?’
‘Better radios, always better radios. They seem to change every damn week, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.’
‘Progress, I guess. What’s air to air radio range these days?’
‘A good thirty-forty miles,’ he informed me. ‘The sets get power from the engines and you can push the power up or down, down if you are close to the other aircraft and don’t wish to alert anyone else that you’re around.’
‘They can change frequency?’ I asked,
‘Oh, yes, about thirty settings now. Talk of an onboard scrambler, but I don’t see the point.’
‘Someday, the enemy may listen in, and get a hint of an attack.’
‘Oh, there’s something called a jammer in there now. Apparently, you select the channel the enemy is on, broadcast static, and then crank up the power. They can’t use their radios if they’re close.’
‘Good. It all helps. How many do we have?’
He sighed. ‘May I ask, sir, why we stockpile them – when the Americans and British would certainly buy them?’
I repeated my previous comments about war preparations, and he seemed to understand. But it was an odd situation. And we now had two hundred stockpiled; wings off, props off, covered in layers of our own blue plastic sheeting.
The next day I joined Jimmy on a flight up to the secret base, both of us wrapped up warm in Parkas, the weather poor around Trophy, cold but clear at the base. As we came in to land I noticed several new hangars, massive hangars, and more half-sunken buildings again dotted about the tundra.
Stepping down from our Goose, our breath now visible in the cold air, we found jeeps waiting, Jimmy directing our driver to a large hangar, a chilly five-minute drive. We thanked the driver, who waited, and entered the hangar through a man-sized door, a cold-looking soldier opening it for us. Inside, I could see a big shiny monster stood proud, dozens of people working around the edges of the hangar. She was a Super Goose bomber variant, but she had four jet engines slung under her wings. We approached.
I pointed at the engines. ‘They look huge?’
‘There’s a thick layer of alloy armour-plating around them, honeycomb between the layers. If the engines are hit by ground fire they’re protected, but the extra layer also helps if an engine explodes.’
‘Do they explode?’
‘Hell, they exploded on airliners in our era.’ He led me to the rear of an engine, and we peered inside. ‘We opted for more burners, smaller and stronger.’
‘What are the cross-hatched fins for?’
They help with strength, but they also help with burning up excess fuel. They, and the burners, are coated with a special alloy, painted on, and when the engine is running the alloy glows white hot, bits sparking off. They last about three hundred hours before you paint them again, and they burn up more of the wasted fuel. Out-pipe is also longer than our era to burn extra fuel, and the fuel is pre-heated and vaporised before it hits the burner nozzle. Fuel consumption excellent.’
‘What height will she cruise at?’
‘She’ll happily cruise at thirty thousand plus.’
‘Pressurised?’
‘Part-pressurised, common cockpit oxygen as well as individual, big CO2 scrubber like a submarine. Thirty thousand feet feels like fifteen. As she flies, a pump pressurises tanks, and if necessary they can be breathed by the pilot like a re-breather scuba tank; don’t need pure oxygen on long flights.’
‘Cool. And the range?’
‘She’s clocked nine thousand already without much effort. We think we could go to twelve thousand miles.’
‘Tokyo, from here?’
‘About four thousand five hundred in a straight line.’
‘Long old flight,’ I noted.
‘Would probably need to refuel somewhere to get a good bomb load off the ground,’ Jimmy commented. ‘But we have improved its take-off weight. Outside is a steam catapult - as on an aircraft carrier, quarter of a mile long. It saves a lot of fuel on take-off, helping the initial thrust. There’s also a ramp with a gentle ten degree angle and a drop off at the end; it adds ten thousand pounds to the bomb load by itself.’ He pointed into the engine. ‘See that small hole at the base?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It can be opened on landing and take-off; downward thrust. Adds more weight to the maximum bomb load.’
‘Vectored thrust. You out to make a Harrier Jump Jet?’ I asked with a grin.
‘Not … yet.’
‘How much will she lift?’
‘We’ve had fifty thousand pounds of dummy bombs in there. That’s the equivalent of … two hundred passengers.’
‘A lot more than a Lancaster bomber!’
‘The RAF pilots freaked when they saw her; they’re convinced she’ll reach the moon.’
‘Will she be ready in time?’ I asked, my thoughts on atom bombs.
‘It’ll be 1935 in a few months, so we have three years before the first flashpoint, and it will take till then to get a few of these ready.’
‘The nuke?’
‘First underground test in four months or so.’
‘Are we going to let anyone know about that?’ I posed.
‘Not yet, but I will show them the fuel-air explosive and make them think it’s a nuke. Come, next toy.’
In the next hangar we found one of the larger fighter jets being fussed over by twenty cold engineers, but now the aircraft had two air intakes, and resembled an old F4 Phantom. I walked around to the rear, my hands in my pockets, and found two jet exhausts.
‘Twin engine,’ I said.
‘Better payload and speed, and two engines is always safer. She’s about twenty percent bigger, with a good range. At a steady cruise she’ll cover twelve hundred miles with a decent payload.’
‘England to Berlin?’
‘About … five hundred miles, from East Anglia.’
‘What do you call a decent payload?’ I asked.
‘Eight thousand pounds; four two-thousand pound bombs. She’s light, so she’s got the power to weight ratio, but the engines still need a few years of tinkering.’
‘And without the payload, just as a fighter?’
‘Oh, then she flies like a rocket. We’ve had a thirty mil cannon underneath and full ammo for the fifty cal guns and she’s light and agile. She’ll make a mess of an ME109, if she slows right down. Hal is working on a whole new strategy: how to fight something a lot slower than yourself! Best bet is a high cruise, then to swoop down and shoot at distance, break away and climb. The Germans could never follow in a climb.’
‘And in a dogfight?’
‘She’s sluggish at that speed; the prop fighter would kick her ass. No, best use for this lump of a plane would be precision bombing, or to attack bombers with the swoop-n-shoot tactic. We have slung fifty cal pods for the wings, and they’d make a mess of a bomber formation. C’mon, last toy before we freeze to death.’ We walked toward another hangar. He added, ‘You know, there are more than a thousand people beneath our feet.’
‘How’s the spa?’
He smiled. ‘There are three now. And a pet bear, some Huskies, and a pet snow fox. They feed the Lemmings to the other animals.’
‘They all go stir crazy,’ I said, glancing up at parachute silk used as a thermal layer, the material fluttering.
In the next hangar I stopped dead. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ I stood staring a green Huey. ‘It looks more like a Huey than the Hueys in our era!’
‘Hal says he’s being nostalgic,’ Jimmy said with a grin.
‘Does it fly?’ I asked as I opened its door.
‘It flies very well. Engine lacks power, but it’ll get there.’
‘Are we going to use this at any point?’ I asked, scanning the controls.
‘Dunkirk to Dover is only thirty miles.’
I stared at him. ‘We are so … fucking with this timeline. What did the RAF boys make of this?’
‘They get an erection around it. They all want one.’
‘I want one as well, but Susan would kill me.’
‘Does she ever act ... as if she may go talk to the White House?’
I took a moment. ‘No. She’s either a brilliant spy, or just plain lazy.’
‘I think she’s waiting till around 1950; Cold War era,’ Jimmy suggested.
‘Well I don’t think she’s sending Magestic letters,’ I quipped. ‘What credibility would she have?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the father of her kids will provide the credibility.’
‘Ah,’ I let out. ‘Well, yes – especially after the war.’ I climbed down onto cold and damp concrete, Jimmy leading me towards a set of steps descending into the bowels of the Canadian tundra. Pungent warm air registered with my nostrils, a sharp contrast to the chilly outside air, and we found a busy corridor.
‘Right, boss,’ someone said in passing as we negotiated around people.
At the end of a long corridor that appeared newly constructed - the walls not adorned with signs yet, we opened into a large foyer, a hotel style foyer.
‘This is a new comfy zone for the engineers,’ Jimmy explained as we took off our Parkas and carried them. The walls were lined with wood, and I ran a hand over them, finding them warm to the touch. Turning left into a corridor, one of many offshoots, we found a long corridor of wooden panelling, dozens of wooden doors. Jimmy knocked on one, a surprised face opening the door a moment later.
‘Boss?
‘Just showing Paul what these rooms look like.’