Magestic 2, p.29
Magestic 2, page 29
‘No, they’re for observation and communications around the empire’s hotspots,’ Timkins explained.
‘Ah.’
With Churchill and his team looking again at the sports car, we took Timkins upstairs, hugs and greetings exchanged with the gang, a thousand questions fired at him. The car kept our guests busy for an hour, after which they ate and rested, giving us time to chat to Timkins at length.
‘All on track?’ I asked him.
‘All on track,’ he confirmed with a smile. ‘And now Churchill quotes Jimmy, even in speeches.’
‘He names him?’
‘No, just pinches a few lines.’
‘Cheeky blighter,’ I mocked with an accent. I introduced Timkins to Susan, their first meeting, and my daughter - now running around and under everyone’s feet. I sat her on a stool at the counter and Cookie fed her, Holton family girls always quiet when food was around.
‘Churchill had been advocating a peace approach in recent years, but he can see the Nazis taking power in Germany, so he’s coming around to the idea of re-armament.’
‘It happened before, so it’ll happen again,’ I said. ‘What, 1934?’
Timkins nodded. ‘The Germans will re-arm around 1933. But you caused a hell of a stir with these planes and new weapons. They’re pleased that you’re on our side, but scared as hell that others may get hold of them first.’
‘They won’t, it’s a bitch of a manufacturing process to copy,’ I assured our man in London.
Jimmy joined us. ‘I hear congratulations are in order.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I’m engaged,’ Timkins replied. ‘And to a Tory heiress, Lady Helen Chastleton. We met on a flight back from Cairo aboard a Goose.’
‘If the British establishment is trying to rope you in … take one for the team,’ I encouraged, checking where Susan was.
‘I’m an odd mix of high society … and socialist values,’ Timkins confessed.
‘Have you altered anything over there?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes, a great deal. Where I knew that our overseas polices would be unpopular I’ve influenced things, averted a few uprisings in far off corners. I’ve affected trade and industry as well through businesses I have seat on the board with, pushed them in a few new directions.’
‘To the benefit of the British?’ I asked.
Timkins nodded. ‘For now we need Britain stronger, to take on the Germans, and Jimmy has plans for the empire. If left unchecked, the war will leave Britain broke, whilst loans from America become dependent on Britain giving up its empire.’
‘Ah…’ I let out. I faced Jimmy. ‘You figure that a post-war Britain would be easier to influence than America, especially around Africa.’
He nodded. ‘It’s a work in progress. But keep in mind that right now the British Empire is stronger than America. It’s not until the US industrial machine gets going during the war that America truly takes over, and that’s down to Britain shrinking in the war and going broke. Right now the Americans are jealous of the British Empire; they want it down-sized. Right now … Uncle Sam has little more than a hundred thousand soldiers, the British have ten times as many if you include the colonial soldiers!’
Sykes stepped in with Jack. ‘Didn’t know you were here?’ I said.
‘Just landed,’ Sykes said. ‘Fresh from Hong Kong.’
‘Congratulations,’ Jimmy said to Jack.
‘He’s been married a while,’ I pointed out.
‘A son,’ Jack said with a smile.
‘A son?’ I queried. ‘Lucky bugger; I just produce girls.’
‘I wanted a girl,’ Jack admitted.
‘How’s Hong Kong?’ I asked.
‘Po and Yuri are buying up every damn business they can afford,’ Sykes reported. ‘Their ships go everywhere. They even have a few cruise liners, and they bought mining rites to Papua New Guinea.’
‘It’s a good area,’ Jimmy agreed.
‘But what happens when the Japs invade?’ Jack asked.
‘The Rifles would defend it, along with their little air force,’ Jimmy said with a grin.
‘Ah,’ Jack let out. ‘That’ll give them something to think about. But won’t our people be cut off and surrounded?’
‘Feel sorry for the Japs,’ Jimmy told him.
We held a formal meal downstairs for all of our guests, Sykes and Churchill having been members of the same club for almost six years and now great friends. The British establishment knew that Sykes also worked for us, but the intel’ he provided to them was too valuable to complain about.
The group discussed aircraft, there was no getting away from it, and our British guests seemed a bit jealous of American Airlines. Well, they had British Airways, so what was the problem? Seemed that they wanted to fly to South America as well, and every other bleeding point on the compass. There’s no pleasing some people, I thought, keeping my thoughts to myself. Jimmy promised to expand British Airways, and asked about a runway closer to London, maybe west of London, round Heathrow way. They would look into it, since there was a small strip there already.
Churchill told stories of the Boer War, and of daring exploits in his youth – and he liked the sound of his own voice. Sykes would then make up incredible stories about Jimmy killing someone hand to hand and pulling an arm right out the socket and beating the man with it. I had to hide a smile. And Sykes, he was so sincere in his story telling that Ted and Bill were both fascinated and horrified in equal measure. At least there were no ladies at the table; this was 1928 and business. Man talk, as I later described it to Susan, getting a slapped head.
‘You’re courting the British Government,’ she said in bed, ‘yet not the Americans.’
‘We need their help in Africa. No Americans in Africa at the moment, love. Or later, come to think of it.’
‘And talk of propping them up after the war, holding onto some of the empire.’
‘Only around Africa, and only till we’re ready to take over. Besides, right after the crash we’re going to give the US economy a significant boost that’ll put them years ahead. 1940 will seem like 1950.’
She dropped the issue, my spy in from the cold. I wasn’t unhappy with what I knew about her, I was enjoying my family life and sex life greatly. It was like … a second chance, a second time around, and I was very grateful. Those twelve years fighting had reset all my registers, and I was like a twenty-year-old again, not the ninety years I actually was.
Our guests had a good look around the huge Canadian Rifles camp, and again tried a few weapons, Churchill always keen to have a go at anything. He drove a half-track - and damaged a jeep, before eating in the enlisted men’s canteen; he wanted to see what conditions were like. He was impressed, the food great. It needed to be; our people had been injected and they ran twenty miles a day.
At the end of the day our guests admitted that they had grabbed the returning British NCOs from Kenya and formed their own Airborne Brigade, parachutes bought from us – and our Dash-7s to jump from. The teams would be used for advanced recon, which was the whole point. Jimmy promised them a plane that would carry eighty paratroopers, within a year or so. It was news to me, but it turned out that a variant of the seaplane had been sidelined. It would have a more shallow float, but still be able to land on water, and benches instead of luxury seats. Two new doors at the rear would allow paratrooper egress. At the moment, it was still on the drawing board, but would prove an easy enough conversion.
Our guests signed a deal for more jeeps, and now half-tracks for use in Africa, and we bade them farewell at the inlet, Sykes and Jack catching a lift back to cold old England. If that particular plane crashed we’d have a problem.
But our safety record was excellent; it was why people wanted to fly our planes. And when the Goose fleet did have a problem they set down on water. Some flew their entire routes on three engines, some limped in on two. One had landed next to a battleship when a fuel line broke, and so far the only fatalities had been a heart attack, and some guy who had missed his footing and fallen into the water between the plane and jetty – and drowned.
A few of our Cessnas had ploughed into the ground in bad weather, but our guys had not been flying them at the time. And of those accidents, many lives had been saved by the aircraft’s crumple zones. A few Cessnas had hit hard, the passengers surviving, one or two Dash-7s hitting things without splitting apart or catching fire.
The “stretched” Goose, known affectionately as Mother Goose, was very stable, both pilots sometimes going back to calls of “who’s flying the damn plane?” Passengers were amazed by the auto-trim, and it became known as the plane that flies itself. The US Navy came calling, desiring the aircraft for maritime patrol, and we could not build them fast enough.
When I had a quiet moment I helped Hal with the flying bedstead, which was looking more and more like a Huey every day. ‘We’re seriously taking the piss with the timeline,’ I commented one day.
‘Instead of Vietnam, US Marines will use them on Iwo Jima,’ Hal remarked. ‘No big deal. That’s only – what – twenty years early.’
The bedstead now had a skin, and was looking like a helicopter. When Jimmy saw it he ordered it moved to the secret factory, not to be flown over the town. He was, however, pleased enough with it, and no one thought the helicopter strange. Since many people had tried in recent years to make one it was no great shock. Hal told the engineers what he thought may help, and they argued it around, Hal always making it appear as if it was their idea.
With a heat-bonded honeycomb skin and aluminium frame, it was a safe bird to crash land in, something we kept reminding Hal of. We even advanced basic Huey technology along with springs and dampeners in the skids. If you hit hard, the bird bounced. We enclosed the tail fan, but high-speed rotor tests often ripped the main axle apart or tore off the blades. Where was carbon fibre when you needed it? Hal opted for more blades, wider, and less radial speed. It did the trick, and the helo behaved like it should. Jimmy would not sanction a second prototype yet, so testing had to be gentle.
I took her up with Hal sat left seat, and this all felt familiar, as well as feeling like something I did sixty years ago. The bird behaved, and hovered, slipped sideways, backwards and forwards. I flew her out over the woods behind the factory and up the inlet, returning without incident. It brought back a lot of memories, but I didn’t inform Susan of the stunt; spy or not, she nagged like a real wife. The only problem with the Huey was the sound effect, and I told Hal, ‘It’s got to sound like a Huey.’
‘They were twin blade, so a different sound. In time.’
When Big Paul saw it he wanted them for the Rifles, and pleaded with Jimmy to the point of raised voices. It was 1929, for fuck’s sake; we couldn’t risk releasing them yet.
My home life was busy, in that there were no modern conveniences, and always something to do. Vegetables had to be cleaned and peeled; there were no processed foods yet. Fruit needed washing and careful examination, floors needed sweeping - I had a mind to invent a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
The heating boiler needing fuelling and kicking on a regular basis, garbage had to be driven to a spot where it was handed in, milk needed to be picked up each day – it didn’t keep, and floors needed washing regularly. There was no washer-drier, just a place you took clothes to be washed, a launderette in town or in Vancouver. I was forever threatening to invent things, getting the pointed finger from Jimmy.
October crash
The news of the October crash came by rumour, phone call, and finally by newspaper. People started to fear for their jobs. We waited to see what the effect would be on our flights, but instead of being booked ten times over we were now booked five times over. A few advanced orders were cancelled, naturally, but we focused on British Airways and on Hong Kong flights – and aircraft that had been cancelled were sent that way. And we were still short of damn aircraft.
Jimmy said that the crash would take months to affect the UK, a year to affect the rest of the world; we were not yet an integrated digital world. And with many companies going to the wall, or about to, we pounced, buying stocks in a great many companies before offering them loans. We picked up more Boeing stock, a film studio, two ship builders with Navy contracts, and a shit load of property from people who were desperate to liquidate their assets. Tall towers in New York, and many other cities, fell into our hands, whole apartment blocks with hundreds of apartments in.
It was a fire sale on a grand scale, and we bought property around Los Angeles for next to nothing, large estates that movie bosses had owned. In Seattle, we just decided to buy the whole damn town; apartment blocks, hotels, businesses, they all went for a song. We knew what we would need in years to come, and bought a few Texas oil companies, as well as a few mines. Those of our suppliers that came to us cloth cap in hand, literally, were bought into.
In the space of three months we had increased our value more than fifty-fold, if you used the factories as a start point. And we still had money in the bank. Since we now owned that bank’s parent bank, it was all in the family.
Bill and Ted could not believe, nor fathom, how much money we had spent – nor where it had come from. With the winter turning bad for many American factory workers, we made a move that would make the newspapers; we started soup kitchens. First in Seattle, none needed in Vancouver yet, then in San Francisco, dozens of them. They snaked ever south across the map, but we concentrated on the north, right across America. By time we had hired the staff to run them we were numbering twelve thousand people.
They doled out bread and soup each day, the sign above their heads making it clear who was paying for it. By time April came around we were feeding two hundred thousand people a day. And that was just the start.
Jimmy then sent a note to the US President himself. ‘Sir, as you may be aware I sponsor a Canadian Infantry Regiment, who turn out fine and disciplined men. Given the current crisis, and the good men out of work, I would like to sponsor a US Regiment in Washington State, say twenty thousand men. They would get three meals a day, a bed, and would be far from temptation and trouble. I would require your officers to run it, but would fund food, fuel, and additional equipment where needed. I await your response. Your servant, Jimmy Silo.’
The response came back within days; we had a go, an existing base selected, the officers and NCOs notified. We sent a team of our own roughnecks to advise on barracks and assault courses, running tracks and canteens, and the builders moved in.
The recruitment process began in earnest, newly recruited men encouraged to help build their own barracks. The pay was terrible, even for 1929, but they got fed - and they had a roof over their heads. They also received an inoculation organised by Susan, a puzzle to the US Army doctors at the base. We indicated that the men may train or exercise in Africa, and that seemed to do it. The first two hundred men assisted the builders, and got fed. Each had a twelve-month signing, renewable if we wanted them back.
Our own Canadian Rifles were increased beyond two thousand, most of the original intake now corporals or sergeants, some now officers. Forty were dispatched to Washington State, to bring the training along. We bought bolt-action rifles and plenty of ammo, sending it down to the base, several armouries needing to be built. The base received a better fence, and we insisted that there be a few internal bars for the men; it was not a prison.
As soon as a barrack block was finished, additional recruits would be signed up, stuffed inside, and asked to work on the next block. Inside a month of starting the base we had over a thousand men, all busy building things. At the end of the second month we had three thousand willing volunteers, uniforms brought in. The first batch of men to have been recruited were now fit, scaling the assault course a few times a week. Big Paul was stretched, but enjoying it all. Mac and Handy stopped designing weapons and put their boots back on, even Hal and Hacker went south and helped at the base. They were, after all, ex-US Army.
The Rifles NCOs, being Canadian, did not cause a stir with the US enlisted men, but the US officers were not best pleased. That was until they started measuring themselves up against our guys. Then they were just downright moody and miserable. Our guys offered the US NCOs money if they could knock them down, and kept their money. They challenged US NCOs to running competitions, and showed them up. The testosterone was thick in the air, but the groups eventually settled. Jimmy popped down often and made it clear that he spoke to the President regularly, and any officer who pissed him off would be scrubbing floors as a junior cook’s mate.
The men were kept busy learning new bits of kit; jeeps, half-tracks, mortars. But, most of all, they appreciated the food and the roof over their heads. Threats of being kicked out were taken seriously.
By June of 1930 the base held twenty-two thousand men, the fence pushed back time and time again. That led to the US Army opening a new base a hundred miles south of the original, in California, and eight thousand men moved down to it. So we hired another five thousand for the old base, just to be awkward, the sprawling base now creeping more than four miles end to end.
Then we asked for a base in the desert, near our parachute school in New Mexico. A fence was thrown up, wooden huts knocked together, water wells sunk. The first five hundred men moved down, housed in tents to start with, and they started building another camp from scratch. Supplies had to be brought in, but the camp soon took form, a hive of activity, dust scuffed up by boots. Jimmy sent down the existing Goose aircraft that had a rear door fitted, and large numbers of men were put through parachute training on a voluntary basis, six or seven flights a day.
Palestine
The British had relented after a little arm-twisting, and more Russian Jews were now being allowed into the region. Jack then made a visit, finding the Jewish elder responsible for recent immigrants.
‘You are Joshua Krevsky?’ Jack asked.
The man looked Jack over suspiciously, noisy kids running around the table he sat at. ‘Yes. You are a British official?’ he asked with a heavy accent.
