Magestic 2, p.38
Magestic 2, page 38
The British Prime Minister was happy enough, or more rather contented with the aircraft, but he knew we had better. Still, right now the RAF was dominant, and that they liked. The US Army Air Corp followed the RAF, and took delivery of eighty aircraft on advanced evaluation, a potential order for two hundred behind that. Since their pilots had already trained on it, conversion would not be an issue. Our Canadian Air Force friends bought forty for themselves, and the Boeing was earning a name for itself.
Orders followed from Argentina, Mexico, Australia, but we were selective of who the aircraft went to. A French request was turned down, since the aircraft might have been nosed at by German spies in the years ahead. I argued the case with Jimmy, since we wanted the Germans to think that these were the best aircraft we had. He relented, and the French ordered two hundred. Most were destined for their African colonies, where they would be used to shoot up unruly tribesmen on camels.
Boeing expanded, again, and more hangars and production plants were duly built, the company and its workforce delighted with the orders. They made gentle enquiries about equipment and practises that we restricted, and it would continue to be a source of tension between us – for a few years at least. Jimmy commissioned a prototype of a large transport, the B14a. The workers had dubbed the transport the “Buffalo”, because it was short fat and ugly, and the name stuck. The Super Buffalo was on the drawing board, some thirty percent bigger, larger engines, but still just two engines. Boeing had their hands full with the fighters, so the Super Buffalo was given a low priority, and deliberately so.
The US President made a point of visiting Boeing, revelling in their success, and using it as a rallying cry for the country – still in a recession. He even flew to Washing State on the Goose we gave him, cheeky bugger; he was stealing the limelight from us.
As the weather turned poor around Vancouver, I was enjoying the sun with a cold beer – an illegal cold beer from Canada, often to be found just sat thinking. Susan was showing a bump, and Mary asked if mummy was getting fat. We explained to her that she would have a sister, so she searched the house. No, there was no sister around. The fact that it would come out of mummy’s tummy took some explaining.
Bill and his wife popped down often, and we’d sit and chat around the pool, a slow pace to life down here. Many of the houses in the avenue were now sold, all completed, and a few of our engineers shared in two of them, a few rich folk moving in. I greeted them all, since I was selling the houses, and asked our friendly FBI guy to check out the new neighbours. With the houses nearly all sold, I placed a barrier with a guard on the start of the avenue – which was a private avenue, and increased the security. The other residents were fine with the barrier - it made their friends jealous, and made them appear more important. Life was good, life was quiet, but I knew that next year should see a change in pace, especially in Germany.
Jack was busy moving Jewish emigrants, the money available to him topped up. They now emigrated at a good pace, the world finally aware that Palestine might become a Jewish state. The numbers of Jews in the region now outnumbered the indigenous Palestinians, and the League of Nations debated the matter at length. Since the territory had been mandated to the British after the withdrawal of the Ottoman Turks, and the British were not protesting, there were few others protesting about the influx – countries that mattered that was.
Syria was still under the French mandate, as was Lebanon, but Iraq had been independent since 1925 and protested the Jewish influx, but quietly. Jordan, known as Trans-Jordan, was under British mandate, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia not yet vocal about the matter – but snuggling up to the Americans, who sought its oil reserves. Despite America being an oil exporter at this time, it had seen an agreement in place with the Saudi kingdom since 1920, a nice bit of forethought.
Jimmy increased the number of people assisting the Jewish exodus, knowing that the building of the Dachau concentration camp was only a year or two away. He offered incentives to the British Government, and they allowed more Jewish refugees in, the Low Countries happy to see refugees pass through without stopping. A trickle of Polish Jews started to take to the boats, at the promise of jobs and houses more than anything else. And in Palestine, Jack had built many large apartment blocks, the new immigrants put to work quickly and gainfully employed.
This was only possible now because the Arabs nations were not free or independent yet; that would come after the war. For now they were under British or French mandates, Egypt run by the British; there would be no 1948 style war. And this time around there would be a hell of a lot more Jews to fight.
But opposition to the influx came from Greece and Italy, worried about the change in ethnic make-up and politics of the region. Since the land still held British soldiers, albeit sat in barracks getting a tan, no one was about to attack the small strip of disputed land. Those soldiers watched helplessly as Jack threw up buildings, repaired roads, and sunk water wells. Jack also worked hard at buying up Palestinian land in what would be Gaza and the West Bank someday soon.
The world watched with puzzlement at the Jews returning, then one day a Movietone Newsreel showed the building work, and labelled it all as having been paid for by Jimmy Silo, the world’s richest man. People started asking if Jimmy was Jewish, a communist Zionist, and what the hell was he up to. When a few US Congressmen questioned the action, Jimmy went public, a statement made.
‘We’ve all been watching with some trepidation the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and their intolerance for others. I’m not a Jew, but I can see what’s happening … and I don’t like it. The Nazis are driving out the Jews and others, anyone who is not a member of their fanatical cult, and mark my words well: there will be trouble from this Herr Hitler fellow if he gets into power, a lot of trouble for everyone.
‘I’m not a Zionist, nor a communist, but I will help people in need, as I feed a half a million Americans in my soup kitchens. If the US Congressmen who question my credentials have issues, they can go to those soup kitchens and do an honest day’s work for a change, instead of sitting on their fat backsides in Washington and drawing good pay for talking nonsense.
‘The people of this country need leadership in this time of crisis, they need hope, and they need jobs. Their taxes go to pay for the salaries of those in Congressmen … who blow out hot air all day, so they deserve better. I create jobs in America, thousands of jobs, and I will create more and more every year. That is, of course, unless I am no longer welcomed here by your Congress. Then I’ll take my jobs elsewhere. Thank you.’
I read it in the morning papers. It was to the point: what the fuck are you doing? I’m creating jobs, and I could take them away as well!
The US Army regiment that we sponsored had crept slowly towards forty thousand men, housed in several bases around the country, and Jimmy could pull the plug, putting the men on the streets. The White House knew it, and we knew. They would be nervous in the corridors of power.
Jimmy then made a move that stunned me. He sent our good buddy Herr Hitler a telegram, the man not even in power yet. We knew that there were six million unemployed in Germany, and that the German economy was screwed and suffering hyper-inflation – a loaf of bread now costing a million Marks, and so hard cash was always going to be an incentive. Jimmy’s telegram was straight to the point: allow the Jews to leave, and you get ten million English pounds to play with.
I was aghast at the idea, since they would use the money to re-arm. Jimmy insisted that the money would not make such a massive difference, and that we had only a year left to do something. History would judge us, because we knew what was coming.
That part was worrying me, since I knew all about time travel and history. And the death camps, they were warmed-up well before the war started. The cold hard reality of why we were here was starting to bite, hard to comprehend sat around my pool in the sun. It was now like the build-up to 2025, that horrible feeling that the party must end. And then reality got even closer, and tried to punch me on the nose.
One pleasant Saturday afternoon a car pulled up to the barrier. A shot rang out. I heard it, so did my bodyguard. He ran to the street, 9mm pistol out, and I grabbed a new lightweight AK47, magazine slapped in. I rushed downstairs, Susan horrified at the sight of the weapon, grabbing Mary. Outside, my bodyguard had reached halfway down the avenue before he started to exchange fire with the men in the car, our gate guard dead.
I stepped brazenly out into the cul-de-sac, angered, very angered. I lifted the muzzle, gripped tightly, and fired an entire magazine into the car as it sat beyond the gate. With the final empty click I lowered the weapon, staring hard at the car, my bodyguard running towards it with his pistol prone. I waited as he checked the car from the side, its occupants now quite dead. Paul Holton, armed with an AK47 alloy special edition, had just killed Machinegun Kelly and his gang, the four men armed with Thompson sub-machineguns.
Sirens registered as I dumped the AK inside my door, soon walking down to the bullet-ridden car. Neighbours were peering out, Bill now on his flat roof with a pistol.
‘You OK, Paul?’ he shouted.
‘Yeah, we got them. Go wait with Susan for me.’ I approached the car, walking around the barrier as a patrol car pulled up, its siren wailing. Two officers ran forwards, pistols drawn.
‘You OK, sir?’ they shouted.
‘These men killed our guard, so we fired back. I used a machinegun I keep in the house.’
They holstered their pistols and examined the men. ‘Jeez, what a mess.’
The bodies were pulled out as other patrol cars arrived, just the one assailant still with a recognisable face. ‘That’s Machinegun Kelly, sir.’ I was, apparently, now due a reward.
The local police chief turned up, reporters kept back, and he walked me to my house. ‘You got Machinegun Kelly.’
‘He … nearly got my family,’ I pointed out. In the house I showed him the AK47, Bill with Susan and Mary, his pistol stuffed down his belt.
‘Wow, what a … strange gun. Pretty though.’
‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.
‘They came for you, Mister Holton, shooting up the place. You have the right to defend yourself, so don’t you worry about those stiffs. Did us a big favour getting Kelly.’
‘Drink?’ I risked, breaking the law.
‘Well, a small one.’
I fetched a cold beer from my fridge. ‘Can you leave some men around for a day, I’ll have some of my own brought down.’
‘Sure, no problem.’ He sipped his illegal beer. ‘Nice house. But I kinda pictured you in something … larger.’
‘Jimmy and me, we don’t waste money, it goes to the poor.’
‘Right good of you, sir.’
I made the national newspapers for all the wrong reasons, and four men from US Army Airborne Brigade came over from the airfield, men chosen by Big Paul. There were a few houses unsold as yet, so the soldiers now had one to share.
After the shooting, one neighbour moved out – I gave him back his money and apologised, but two moved in. And Susan, she asked for her own 9mm pistol and practised using it down the beach. An AK47 was kept in the car, and I took to wearing a pistol on occasion. I spoke to Jimmy on the phone, and the gang were concerned.
Shootings aside, Jimmy indicated that the Belgians would now sell the Congo, and if the League of Nations didn’t like the fact, then that was tough. The bank of England paid the Belgians the first two million, and Jimmy was Governor of Eastern Congo again, land that included Rwanda.
Ngomo was told to quell any and all fighters in the region, and Steffan made plans to tame the jungle. A Kenyan Rifles base was established near the old Forward Base – at the end of the existing northern train route, and a Congo Rifles Regiment would now be formed. A concrete runway would be built quickly, Goma Hub now on the drawing board. Timkins then sat down with the British cabinet on Jimmy’s behalf.
‘Prime Minister, I’ve been instructed by my good friend Mister Silo to negotiate on his behalf. He would like your assistance in the Congo, and points out that he knows where gold mines exist, mines far larger than the one already tapped. Far … larger. There are also diamonds, and ores. He did not buy the region for nothing.
‘Further, he intends to open an airport in the region, and to allow flights from London to land there for refuelling before flying onwards to South Africa or Rhodesia. He points out that the hidden wealth in the Congo is considerable, and that he wishes us to be his first and preferred business partners – for a few concessions.’
‘Concessions?’
‘He … would like us to leave Mandated Palestine in 1938.’
That caused a stir.
‘Prime Minister, is that strip of dust and sand worth what Mister Silo indicates is in the jungle? The deal in the Congo could net us four million pounds a year, not including the indirect business benefits, which I believe would net us at least as much again, growing year by year. And he promises to help us safeguard the British presence in the region.’
They went off to think about it, but they had little choice; they feared what may happen in East Africa and Hong Kong if they said no. Sykes had been working his magic for ten years, and we now had many of the cabinet members in our pockets.
My quiet family life had been shattered by Machinegun Kelly, but Susan was not too bothered, she was more angered that someone might come for us. And unlike Helen, she would have shot him herself! The police decided that Kelly had come to kidnap us for ransom, and the case was slowly forgotten about.
Jimmy hired mining engineers, a thousand of them, and put them on a ship bound for Kenya. Equipment was bought from around the States and shipped out, including our stockpile of tractors that we couldn’t sell. They could have shovels fitted to the front, and before you knew it you had a bulldozer. Four hundred were dispatched by ship to Kenya, and production resumed on our tractors, many of the men having been moved over to other things. Half-tracks were shipped out, chainsaws, and thousands of shovels and pickaxes.
In a move that would kill two birds with one stone, if not four, Jimmy started hiring Americans to work in the Congo; two year contracts, all costs met, a bonus at the end. With the recession still biting, and some people having been hungry for years, we had a willing army of volunteers.
The natives of the Congo were not yet an option, education and skill levels very low. So we raised an army of two thousand out-of-work Americans and shipped them out. That led to enquiries from the British about the jobs for Americans, and we pointed towards the unemployment situation here. They pointed towards the unemployment situation there, so we hired a few hundred British workers, and promised to hire more.
We did, however, buy steam engines from Britain, to be shipped out, and that created jobs. They made good steam engines, so we would have probably used them anyway. Around Kenya, Rudd advertised for British NCOs and officers for the new Congo Rifles, immediately finding willing takers, not least those after a little adventure in the untamed frontier. Existing members of the Kenyan Rifles, and a few Kenyan police officers, were recruited to the Congo Borders Police, and we started to check those coming and going in our region.
By the Christmas of 1931 we had shipped some six thousand people into the Congo, tented cities everywhere. Doc Graham was busy inoculating people in the territory, Anna starting the first small orphanage there. All day long, trees were cut down and cut up, jungle track cleared, roads made, a relentless creeping invasion of the jungle. We knew where oil seeped to the surface, and cut a road straight to it, northwest of Forward Base, which was now a tented city.
They found the oil, tapped it, and started to collect it. A small refinery was created nearby - little more than a big distillery, and petrol for our vehicles was duly produced. Jeeps and halftracks now enjoyed cheap fuel, the first tangible benefit. That fuel went by truck to Forward Base, and then south so that all of the vehicles in the region would benefit.
Coal for the trains came next, and we knew where it lay just under the surface, soon extracted and fed to the trains at various points. With that phase achieved, we dug down where we knew there was tin and copper, the ore to be refined on-site, and shipped the finished ingots to either Kenya or down to the Angolan coast. It all seemed familiar.
Spring, 1932, saw the British “agree in principal” over Palestine, the flow of oil and ore in the Congo helping in their decision making process. They would look at a staged withdrawal, “with honour”, by 1938.
Jimmy then sent them a note, asking that they leave some troops and an airfield behind, since it would benefit both the British and the Jews. Jack then informed a stunned Jewish leadership in Palestine: the British had agreed a withdrawal by 1938 – and between now and then … could you please be nice to the British?
We had no answer from Hitler yet. He wasn’t in power, but he wielded the power, his party holding a majority of seats in their parliament. I then met with Jimmy in San Francisco, checking out the new civil airfield there.
‘If he does let them go, then … Palestine ain’t big enough. They’d be at modern day levels of population,’ I pointed out
‘True, but many would come here to America, and we’re talking about German Jews, not Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians or those from the Baltic states, or from France. The German Jews probably number two million.’
‘Because he hasn’t invaded those other countries yet,’ I realised.
‘The current exodus is at a good level, but many still stubbornly doubt that he’ll actually get into power. Anyway, we need pilots for the war, so recruit and train bright eighteen year olds; they’d be the right age in 1939. House them, feed them, and give them a small wage, but cut them loose at the end; when war breaks out they’ll have a head start. Train them on the Cessna, Dash-7, Boeings, the works – a six-month course, or make it a year. In England, I’ve created two flying schools linked to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, so future RAF pilots with large moustaches are learning to fly.’
