Magestic 2, page 44
‘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 sub’s rubber absorb the Jap 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 via coded telegrams. 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 via telegrams and gave him the good news. Within a day, 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 at my house, 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 down to the White House, the Secret Service soon to be 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 prototype submarines, the shells of two prototypes now complete, as well as 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 great deal of work had gone into the big black tube sat in dry-dock. The dock was flooded a day later, 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 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 a curious 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 US Navy 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 set 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 having been 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 great deal of the ore at a fair price – not at cost price, 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 anticipated 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.’
