Magestic 2, p.56
Magestic 2, page 56
‘I hunted possum, sir.’
‘Thanks, it’s … been good talking with you, son.’
Franco and his Nationalists were now up against over a thousand of the nastiest fighters you’d not want to meet on dark night, the men armed with sniper rifles with telescopic sights. I smiled every time I thought about it. But the Canadian Rifles were miffed, and wanted a word with Silo and Holton.
They stood with folded arms. ‘We … eh … not being asked to go fight in Spain, boss?’
‘Gentlemen, if you went to fight in Spain, then people would know that I sent you.’ He waited.
Someone raised a hand. ‘I sound American.’
‘And I sound British.’
‘I speak French, and I can put on an accent.’
‘You can’t all go, there’s a great deal of work to be done here,’ Jimmy explained. ‘Without you lot, we wouldn’t get the new weapons tested, and we wouldn’t develop tactics.’
‘Not everyone wants to go,’ they explained.
‘How many do want to go?’ I asked.
‘I reckon about three hundred,’ a senior man said.
‘And what damage will we do to the development work if some of our best people go?’ I posed.
‘The tank lads don’t want to go,’ they said. ‘Nor the pilots.’
‘Draw up a list of people who want to go, and their units and specialities. And Captain, don’t bring me that list if all of a unit is on it, or all of our specialists in one area.’
‘We’ll have it in a few days, boss.’
And a few days later they presented the list. Jimmy ran a finger down the list and ticked twelve names. ‘Bring these men to me,’ he ordered.
When the men had assembled, Jimmy said, ‘You’re down on the list for Spain, but I know each and every one of you – and your specialities, and you’re too valuable to waste. Spain will be a lot of sitting around, some shooting, then more sitting around. It’s not that clever, and it won’t be that much fun. You can choose to still go by resigning from the Rifles, but if you do the regiment will suffer, and I won’t welcome you back. If you go, you won’t ever come back here – and I have a big operation to launch in nine or twelve months. Dismissed.’
A command centre was created in our hotel, in a vacant room, maps pinned to walls, lists of men, details of kit and supplies. Big Paul ran the show with Jimmy, kept busy, telegrams coming and going at all hours of the day and night.
Our men on the ground, that would soon total fifteen hundred sets of boots, split up and moved out along the Spanish south coast, a few groups moving inland, ambushes set up on roads from the north. The local Spanish resistance groups would stop army convoys and ask who they were - and who they were loyal to. If they got the wrong answer they ran away and dived down, the signal to the men in the rocks above the road, who would open up on the Spanish soldiers.
I studied the reports, and found pockets of fighting in places that would someday be overrun by fat and pale Brits on holiday; Malaga, Marbella, Estapona, Torremolinos – most now just small fishing villages. I would pop in to the command centre each day, just to check the latest reports. We soon had one man wounded - from a bar fight of all things, another shot dead by mistake, one missing, but the reports listed some five hundred Spanish soldiers shot dead after just two weeks.
Our front line, marked on the map, moved ever outwards, groups travelling up the coast towards Barcelona. They avoided the cities typically, and sat waiting along the roads that led north. A few staged attacks took place with sometimes as many as sixty or more of our men, attacks against Spanish Army garrisons loyal to Franco. The newspapers soon reported that the “south” had broken away and was resisting the coup, Franco’s men holding the northwest, Morocco and the Canary Islands.
Winter, 1935, saw continued fighting in Spain, and more trouble in Israel, a few countries now condemning the new Jewish administration for is treatment of the Arabs, more countries condemning the British for allowing the treatment of the Arabs in the first place. Riots broke out in Trans-Jordan, and in French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, but they were just stone-throwers venting some anger.
I started to read the papers as often as Jimmy, the two of us soon known as the “two old nannies” as we sat together, the only sound being the turning of pages. We’d make comments as we went, or we’d bring each other’s attention to a story, sometimes debating it.
Italy, Portugal and Germany were now citing “provocateurs” in Spain, and outside interference from America. I smiled widely, so did Jimmy; this was exactly what we wanted. The embedded reporters had sent back numerous stories of Spanish soldiers rounding up civilians and executing them, and of brave boys from Pigs Town Kentucky fighting back. Movietone newsreels ran in the cinemas, our boys to be seen sniping at the Spanish.
A few of the lads admitted to being Canadian, some of the British lads giving stories of why they came to fight for a cause. Our middlemen journeyed down to New York and Washington and greased the palms of a few reporters and editors, making sure that the story kept going. And, in a time honoured tradition for Silo and Holton, we set a group of writers from our studios to write a script, a love story about a lad who follows his father to fight in Spain, meets a local girl – whose family are executed, and brings her home. They had the story outlined in a day, plots not complex in 1935, and we gave them a good bonus to get it finished very quickly.
Back in chilly old Canada, we raised more sheds for our cold tanks, now a hundred and twenty main tanks and three hundred lightweight tanks sat shivering. Fifty half-tracks went out to Ngomo, to be stored at his base under shrouds, all nice and warm. A further hundred jeeps were shipped to Kenya, to be stored ready for use. At Forward Base, a huge hidden armoury was created with thick concrete walls and metal frames, twenty thousand AK47s stacked ready, millions of rounds of ammo.
Our main tank now came equipped with a detachable snorkel, but the manager had sat down to eat with his aircraft buddies once too often. He called me to the testing ground, and now showed me a tank halting ahead of a water-filled, and very chilly looking ditch. The tank moved into the ditch, and stopped. Bubbles burst to the surface for a minute, the man smiling like an idiot, the tank moving out and onwards.
‘No snorkel,’ I noted.
‘Compressed air, thirty minutes. I figured that they used Mustard Gas in the last war, so we made the tanks air tight. It uses submarine and aircraft technology to keep the air-tank full. When the main intake doesn’t get enough air a valve opens, and the main intake shuts off if it’s in any water – the water can’t get in. The compressed air keeps the engine going. In fact, it runs at a slightly higher pressure and performance is increased, sir, like a turbo-charger. And the men can switch to internal air if there’s smoke or gas around.’
‘Excellent work, but does it push up cost and production time?’ I posed.
‘Oh no, sir, we have all the bits sat around the airfield as surplus. A few rubber seals, some special paint, and the compressed air equipment itself is easy to fit.’
‘Good work, very good work. We now have … a submarine with a 105mm gun. Any other innovations?’
‘It makes toast,’ the man offered, getting a wagged finger from me. ‘No, sir, it does. The Major had a toasting rack fitted inside and … well, they all wanted one fitted.’
‘They have a toaster … in the cabin?’
He nodded. ‘Runs off the engine, sir. They, eh, make toasted cheese sandwiches as they go, cup of tea, so that they don’t need to stop.’
I stared at him. ‘Well, that … saves time on journeys, I suppose. Any other useful attachments?’
‘They now have smoke shells. When the shells land they make smoke - so that you can blind the enemy.’
‘Good.’
‘And airburst anti-infantry shells. They could also be fired at aircraft, sir, timed fuses.’
‘And the lightweight tanks?’ I asked.
‘They have the waterproofing now, sir, and the men in the back have an air reserve for smoke and gas. Oh, and snorkels on jeeps now, sir.’
‘Sounds like you are thinking.’
‘The aircraft managers like to have a nose and to make suggestions.’
‘If you put wings on a tank, you’re fired.’
At the prop fighter factory I had a nose at our latest variant, which they labelled as 22-6, whatever the hell that meant. It wasn’t any faster, but had a more powerful engine. If you opened the throttle you received more of a kick, and you could now inject oil onto the hot exhausts.
I faced a man. ‘Hot oil?’
He smirked. ‘It creates smoke, sir, and you look like you’re on fire.’
‘You sly old dogs; the fighter behind will break off. But a bit … defeatist, is it not? I don’t expect our pilots to lose an engagement.’
‘Might not be our pilots flying them, sir.’
‘A good point. Does it make toast?’
He laughed. ‘No, sir. But there is a piss tube, and a water tube.’
‘Let’s hope they never get mixed up in a barrel roll, eh?’
He laughed. ‘They’re colour coded, sir. There’s a small compartment for food now, for long flights and patrols, small mirrors to see fighters coming in behind, a quick canopy ejection system.’
‘Armour?’
‘Light armour around fuel tanks and the pilot, the critical controls, and the fuel tanks are self-sealing. The fuel tanks also have a yellow goo that reacts with petrol and seals ruptures. It’s all around the fuel pipes as well. It’s easy to apply and remove, but a nuisance if it touches any petrol. The guns are faster and more reliable, hardly a jam ever, and there’s more ammo available. She’s a tough old bird, we had one accidentally shot up -’
‘How?’
‘Towing a drone, sir. New young pilot got behind the drone and fired at length, putting thirty holes in the other aircraft. But she flew OK and landed OK, trim shaky due to the holes.’
‘And the young pilot?’
‘Still cleaning toilets, sir, and grounded.’
‘Was he a good pilot before this?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir, good scores.’
‘Send him down to San Diego, have him re-do Cessna and Dash-7, two months, then give him another chance.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘I do,’ I emphasised.
Our submarines were now either in Vancouver and being fitted with toys, or undergoing advanced tests. None had sunk yet. I had delayed the US Navy as long as possible, then allowed a ten-man team onboard to evaluate “Nemo” - the subs all had names now, painted on the side. We had a Nautilus of course, Ghost, one called The Barry White – although few understood the reference, the Swordfish, Shark I and Shark II. Then we went and upset the US Navy again.
They suggested an exercise, a theoretical attack on San Francisco harbour by sub. We foolishly agreed. One of our subs, Swordfish, surfaced two miles out beyond the new bridge, seen by a US destroyer that was hosting admirals to watch the exercise. It then turned out to sea for another two miles, being shadowed. The rest of our submarine fleet were around Vancouver, clearly visible in case anyone suggested that we’d cheat with two subs in the water.
At the prescribed time the Swordfish slipped beneath the waves, a flotilla of six US Navy destroyers and two coastguard cutters stood ready to detect her entering the bay, dummy depth charges ready. Our agreement with the admirals was that any ship hit by a dummy torpedo would withdraw.
The tide was coming in, and the currents under the bridge were a bitch at the best of times, the water not that deep. The first three destroyers set up a search pattern outside of the bay, sonar active, hydrophones ready, eyes peeled. The Swordfish put three dummy torpedoes into the side of the first destroyer, firing up at an angle, something that most subs could not achieve. After a few rude words the destroyer departed. Another ship joined the search, but our sub had vanished.
The second destroyer noticed something odd in the water a moment before two dummy mines blew, scaring the hell out of the crew. They withdrew after some debate. The third destroyer picked up an echo, a distinct echo, and called in another ship. Depth charges burst from their launchers, small explosions under the water causing plumes on the surface. They slowed and turned to have a look, three dummy torpedoes hitting them from the seaward side, their depth charges having been laid on the bay side.
Swordfish burst through the surface a mile out to sea, creating a huge white displacement of water, before slipping below the surface again. Thirty minutes passed without a sighting. Inside the bay, not far from the new bridge, a destroyer pinged its sonar, coastguard cutters hunting around Alcatraz Prison, the jail now in its prime and fully occupied with dangerous men raising small birds.
A coastguard cutter then got shock of its life, its rear up-ended, its bow forced down, an almighty crash, men thrown to the floor. Peering over the stern, an angry Swordfish slipped under the water like the shark in the Jaws movie, its nose specially designed to ram other subs, a hydraulic dampener fitted to a large blade. The coastguard cutter now had a serious lack of propellers, and listed substantial damage.
Swordfish surfaced when the water grew too shallow, and sat in the middle of the bay, powering against the tide. The exercise was abandoned, Swordfish proudly leaving the bay on the surface. Since a US Navy admiral had been aboard our sub, they could not accuse us of cheating.
The exercise was a mistake, the US Navy both hugely interested in the subs performance - and damned annoyed - in equal measure, much banging of tables with fists in Washington and elsewhere.
And Jimmy, he said, ‘You can forget Pearl Harbour, it’ll never happen now.’
‘Maybe it wouldn’t have, given the changes to this time line.’
‘Maybe,’ he agreed.
‘What have our guys found wrong with subs?’ I asked.
‘Not much, if you compare them to this era. They have a list of modifications, but as it stands … those subs are twenty years ahead of the field. All they lack is aircraft.’
‘Aircraft?’ I puzzled.
‘The Japs have large experimental subs, aircraft in a hold that you can assemble, fly off a railing, or put in the water with floats.’
‘How weird is that.’
‘And they have subs that can ram other subs, which is necessary to destroy an enemy sub in this era; one sub firing on another with a torpedo is pissing in the dark. The Japs even worked on cruise missiles of a kind, launched from a sub. And the Germans, they dropped a radio-controlled cruise missile from a plane and sunk a British destroyer.’
‘And we think we invented that stuff in our era.’
‘It’s all been done before,’ Jimmy said, issuing a sigh.
The US Navy soon came calling, not a happy bunch of nautical types. Sat in the downstairs bar of the hotel, they began with, ‘We’d like to hire you to invent us up something to find quiet submarines.’
I replied, ‘Guys, there are two ways to detect a sub: sonar and hydrophone, unless she’s on the surface. And the fact is … we don’t know how to get around that. If we built a destroyer ourselves, with as many clever gadgets as we could magic up, we still couldn’t find our own subs.’
They weren’t buying it.
‘You know how to make them quiet, so you must know how to spot them!’
It was a logical argument, but not a scientifically sound argument.
‘Guys, we designed the damn thing to avoid sonar and hydrophones, so how could we build better sonar to detect the subs?’
‘You must have something, because right now we’re open to attack!’
‘You’re not open to attack,’ I emphasised. ‘We have spies all around the world, looking at other people making submarines, and they all show up on sonar. We … are the only ones with subs like these, and they’re years ahead of anyone else, and you guys will get to operate them. So … relax, huh.’
‘You’re sure that no one could copy your subs?’
‘Have you been able to fathom it?’ I teased.
They exchanged looks. ‘Well, no.’
‘Then if you can’t work it out, who could? You have people on the subs, and you still can’t figure it out. What chance does anyone else have?’
They seemed more relaxed when they left, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that four of our subs would soon set sail for Hong Kong, British sub-mariners now being trained on them. One shock at a time.
Finding Jimmy, I said, ‘What’ll we do if the US Navy places an order?’
He took a moment. ‘May as well order up the next four from the shipyard, to keep them busy; they’ll take a year at least. Once the US Navy is operating those four they’ll be happy enough. Besides, they’ll give the subs a six month shake-down period of their own.’
‘And the variants we give them?’
‘Will be good, just a few gadgets removed.’
Christmas, 1935, saw Franco controlling the north of Spain – but not Madrid, a few areas of the south, but his forces were taking heavy casualties – unsustainable casualties. Malaga was a free and independent city, much of Granada and the south coast still free of Franco’s jackboot. The US media was reporting the conflict most every week, and a small army of American civilians had gathered in Washington to set sail for Spain, to go and fight.
Before Christmas I had taken Susan and the kids down to Florida, two weeks spent travelling around the state, much time spent on the Gulf coast in a hired yacht, often mooring in shallow inlets, dolphins and manatees glimpsed, even swum with. Mary and Toby both loved the water, both spending hours each day splashing around, Mary looking after her baby brother.
I slowed right down to a different pace, that holiday pace, but on occasion called Mary “Shelly” by mistake, Mary now a lot like her step-sister had been at that age. They even swam in a similar style.
We sat on golden white sands when the days were warm, and toured inland when it rained, Gator Farms visited, little snappers fed, their parents destined to be a lady’s handbag real soon. Political correctness was not yet with us, and animal welfare was a long way off. Right now, animals were to be shot at for sport.
