The SBS already knew that if you dropped an AK47 in the water it still worked. They painted a few AKs black and green, swam ashore with them, pointed barrels down and opened the breach a quarter inch at the shoreline, then fired on unsuspecting trees without a problem.

I went back to the officer a few days later, only to find the US Navy hanging around. ‘What you need,’ I told him, ‘is a camera in a plastic case. You swim ashore, pop up, take a few snaps of some enemy battleship, and then swim away.’

They had a plastic mould made within days, a simple switch made to snap a shot, another to wind film forwards, no lens control; you had f8, and you made do.

‘Is that a seal in the inlet?’ Susan asked a few days later.

I had a look. ‘No, that’s the SBS trying their camera.’

The US Navy were now besides themselves, Admirals wanting a look. We invited them up, put on a barbecue near the hotel, and watched as heads appeared in the water, snaps taken. And without my nudging, the divers had used old socks tied end to end to try and hide the bubbles produced from breathing out. The officer came ashore in his clobber, rifle cleared and fired into the air, the Admirals closing in with burgers in hand.

I could not be bothered to argue with them. ‘Send a team up, we’ll develop the kit together.’ They would have spoilt our barbeque otherwise.

That summer was quiet, no conflicts erupting anywhere, and we slowly developed new kit and stockpiled things ready.

When our tanks numbered three hundred and fifty, I said to Jimmy, ‘We going to hold Belgium, or take Germany?’

‘They’ll have three thousand tanks, five thousand artillery pieces, and thousand of 88s.’

‘Tanks are only good if you can get good position,’ I countered. ‘In a small area with canals and rivers, tanks are bunched up and forced certain ways. They could have a million tanks and it won’t make any difference.’

‘True, oh wise one,’ he agreed. ‘So ship thirty to Po, in secret.’

‘Tanks? In Hong Kong, with crap narrow streets, steep hills and water everywhere? Have they flattened it out a bit since I was there last, put the hills in the water and made it Holland?’

‘Just do it, oh wise one.’

‘What are up to?’

‘You figure it out.’

A week later, Jimmy arranged for two thousand of the Nepalese Rifles to be moved to Hong Kong for garrison duty, asking the British to place additional artillery pieces around the mouth of the bay - just in case of hostilities with Japan, but to be discreet, and to move them at night. In addition to that move, a unit of three hundred and fifty veterans of the Canadian Rifles were shipped over for “experience”. Their kit went with them, plenty of ammo, the men landed at night.

Their new home would be next door to the Nepalese Rifles, the large base deliberately dotted with trees, many facilities built underground and into the mountain whose shadow the base rested in. The men were soon surprised to find that tunnels went right through the mountain to the other side, bicycles provided for those wishing to make the lengthy journey. They also found that their running track was a little odd, in that it wound around the mountain to the top. They ran up on the left, and ran down on the left.

They had the use of several bars, and a base brothel, life not all bad in the colony. It took the men a few days to adjust to the heat and humidity, but they had all completed at least two tours of Africa. Their shooting range was, once again, a tunnel in the hillside, a horrendous echo created. The colony did offer better ranges, outdoor ranges, but those were being operated by the British garrison, and time on them would have to be shared. It was also a boat ride to those ranges.

But Han had arranged the use of a stretch of coast that was uninhabited, the area made known to the Canadians and the English officers of the Nepalese Rifles. It offered up a wonderfully overgrown gorge that presented itself as a natural live firing range, and atop the first hill a flat expanse stretched out eight hundred yards. It was enough.

I queried the move with Jimmy over a Chinese meal in the town. ‘If other things have altered in this time line, will Japan alter its plan?’

‘Its other actions were in synch with our world.’

‘Yeah?’ I questioned.

‘Franco was early, a nudge from the Italians – who were largely behind it, and we nudged the Italians.’

‘Domino effect,’ I noted.

‘There’s no link between the Italians and the Japs that I can think of; very different cultures, worlds apart. If the Japanese are on time, they’ll invade Canton next year.’

‘Our boys could have a long time in barracks?’ I cautioned.

He shook his head. ‘I’ll rotate them every three months. That way, they’ll know the place if they come back – the layout. Same for the Nepalese.’

‘And the game plan?’

‘To resist the initial Japanese attack, and then to see how they react.’

‘They might just throw everything they have at the colony,’ I posed.

‘That … would upset my plans, yes. It’s a … wait and see game. But, I may have a rabbit in the hat.’

‘You always have a rabbit in the hat.’

A few days later a diver went into the inlet, and never came back, other divers recovering his body the next day.

I gathered the senior men. ‘The equipment you have is new and experimental, so there will be accidents. But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept them. There’s a dry dock in Vancouver that’s not being used, so I want you to grab it and flood it, then use that for testing this kit. All diving in the inlet is banned till I say so. I want two divers together at all times, no solo diving – even in the dry dock, and I want a rescue diver on the surface stood ready.

‘We have a month or two of good weather, so test that new kit thoroughly, and find out why the man died. Use the dry dock to see how long you can go at depth, and what the effects are. Use the Navy tables, and be thorough. Thank you, and dismissed.’

I took the senior man to one side. ‘It’s all dangerous work, and I don’t blame anyone. But let’s get this kit the best that it can be, and let’s develop reserves and safety procedures. Create a full-time team - you have other duties, and get my scientists on it.’

The loss of the man was not a great setback, and we all knew how dangerous diving could be. Still, we needed the stuff to work, not to simply learn from each death as they occurred.

Considering the US economy, Jimmy and I sat down with figures.

‘It’s ahead of where it should be,’ I noted. ‘We boosted the DOW Jones, and the job market in a small way; soup kitchens helped a little.’

‘My concern … is that war may kick-off early, and that America may not wish to be involved.’

‘May not wish to be involved,’ I repeated. ‘Hmmm.’

‘So, do we do anything more to help the economy?’

‘If we do, then it should be to help us as much. I’m thinking about aircraft carriers.’

‘The US Navy will order up a few in the years ahead, ready for 1940, not so ready for 1938,’ Jimmy stated. ‘They have the Lexington and Saratoga, but stuffed full of biplanes.’

‘Then we jump the gun by two years.’

‘Neither the US Navy, nor us, have suitable planes.’

‘Ah, but we do. We have prop fighters with solid undercarriage and big flaps, short take-off distance on full power,’ I insisted.

‘They … have to stay under wraps. We’d have to create a Boeing Mark 5 better suited to carrier operations,’ Jimmy suggested.

‘Fine, that’s a six month deal; Boeing are good these days.’

In the week which followed, I sat down with paper and pen and designed an aircraft carrier. I had a sneak peak on the scientist’s laptops at what the Yorktown originally looked like, and the layout of the Lexington. For a 1920 design, the Lexington had many good features, including armour plating at the waterline for torpedoes, armour plating around key areas, fire curtains, the works. They understood the needs, but I had the technology to make it work.

I grabbed a naval draughtsman and sat him down, the guy familiar with the Lexington. He was not at all surprised by the crazy innovations I wanted on my aircraft carrier, since the Lexington designers had thought of it all before. I gave him access to our tank armour guys, and he was allowed to review our sub.

When finished, I presented the drawings to the gang on an easel. ‘OK, it’s an aircraft carrier, and the components and features are not so outlandish, since they already exist. So don’t laugh. Right, this tub will be a thousand feet long, three hundred yards, making it the largest by around a hundred and fifty feet; economy of scale. At the waterline is armour similar to that of our tanks, in layers. The outer layer for the first twenty feet under the waterline is the outer layer of tank armour. Inside that is a painted layer the same as our subs. Inside of that is a honeycomb tank-armour layer twelve inches thick, stuffed with the goo that hardens on contact with seawater. There’s then another layer of stretch paint, and a second layer of armour, stronger than the outer layer. You then have a small layer of tank honeycomb, paint, and then regular hull steel, but not thick.

‘Each compartment in the lower level will be airtight, and each will have an independent high-pressure air source, low oxygen content; in case of water rising, they can be turned on. If it gets wet, seawater contact creates an electrical circuit and it kicks in. If it were to kick in accidentally – nothing would happen to crew or the ship.

‘The main oil-fuel for the engines will be in six independent tanks, rubber self-sealing, surrounded by the goo that turns hard on contact with oil. From the lower levels you’ll see ten submarine hatches, tubes with ladders reaching toward the upper decks, sealed at both ends with submarine-type hatches.

‘The second deck from the bottom will be airtight as well, hatches like submarines, independent high pressure air as well. The av-gas tanks are in six different places, self-sealing rubber surrounded by honeycomb surrounded by tank armour. The magazine will have tank armour and honeycomb.

‘Right, the deck on this monster will be regular hull plate, not thick. Beneath it is a four foot gap, filled with honeycomb aluminium and walls that buckle under pressure. The floor of that layer is then tank armour, not as thick as our tanks – two layers with honeycomb and fitted in such as way as to buckle, not to break. The rest of the ship is as per a normal battleship.’

Hal raised a hand. ‘So a Jap bomb will penetrate the deck, and be absorbed underneath?’

‘Not absorbed, but contained better than otherwise. We’re creating a mock up to test,’ I explained.

‘And it’ll be torpedo proof?’ Mac asked.

‘A good hit will break the outer hull, buckle the inner – but without taking on water,’ I replied.

‘Aircraft?’ Hal asked.

‘Boeing 5s with a few modifications, but as far as I know they already have short take-off and landing capability, and their undercarriage will take a beating. We’ll create a naval variant that will carry bombs, or fire thirty mil cannon; fifty cal rounds will do nothing to a Jap battleship. They’ll also have folding wings, beyond the fuel tanks. We’re also looking at a smaller torpedo that they could drop.’

‘Aircraft compliment?’ Hal asked.

‘A hundred, with extra aircraft stacked ready on support ships behind the action. And it’ll have a ramp for take off.’

‘No catapult?’ Mac asked.

‘Not needed,’ I suggested. ‘They’re not jets.’

‘You reckon it’s unsinkable?’ Handy asked.

‘I’d sail on her,’ I emphasized. ‘The lower decks are submarine technology; one or two torpedoes won’t take her down.’

‘Expensive tub?’ Hal asked.

‘Yes … and no. Yes they’re expensive to make – assuming the US Navy won’t buy it afterwards, and no – in that we’ll make the armour sections here, the honeycomb, and many of the internal systems. We’ll make the radar and radio, the aircraft, the bombs, the ammo, so – we’re paying ourselves, then the US Navy buys it when war breaks out.’

They exchanged looks.

‘Seems like a good deal,’ Hal agreed.

‘Place the project with our shipyard,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’ll boost morale and jobs. But how long … before you get a visit from the US Navy?’

Everyone laughed.

‘They’ve already sent in a request to see the drawings,’ I said with a sigh.

I flew down to San Diego with the drawings a week later, giving our guys the good news.

‘It’s too big,’ they said. ‘Our dry docks are too small.’

‘Make a bigger dry dock,’ I said. ‘And whilst you’re making it, start on components, materials and design.’

‘And the timescale?’ they asked, dreading the answer.

‘Two years, ideally.’

They were not too shocked, and relaxed a little. Leaving them, I drove around to the US Naval HQ before they came to see me! They welcomed me like an honoured guest, the top brass assembling at short notice. They already knew we had commissioned the carrier, and I handed over a sketch.

‘May we ask … what special features she’ll have?’ they risked.

‘She’ll be unsinkable, for one,’ I told them. ‘She’ll have radar that can see a plane a hundred miles out, radio direction finding, but besides that she’ll be a regular tub. The key features … are the armour plating in the deck and hull. But I’m sure we’ll add a few innovations as we go.’

‘And the aircraft?’

‘Boeing Mark 5s; a naval edition with folding wings. But, by the time this ship is ready, we’ll be on a Mark 8 I’m sure.’

They laughed.

‘Expensive ship … for a prototype,’ an Admiral risked.

‘We have only you lot in mind to buy it, if you want it,’ I assured them. ‘Britain is building her own.’

‘And if Congress doesn’t approve the purchase?’ they posed.

‘We’d hand it to the British.’

‘Hand it … to them?’

‘Yes, because it would a shame to see it wasted, now wouldn’t it.’

Flying back up, I stopped off at Boeing, their site growing every time I visited. They also welcomed me like an honour guest – but like one that had brought gifts.

‘Guys, I want a navy variant of the Mark 5, with folding wings. But there’s no hurry, because the carrier we just commissioned won’t be getting wet for two years. I want you to experiment with short take off, good brakes obviously, short landings – and hard landings; we’ll need the undercarriage to be indestructible. We’ll also want it to have bomb points, RPG racks. So we’ll need to develop a short landing with a few heavy bombs on the plane. Oh, and while I think of it, how about a tail hook?’

‘Tail hook?’

‘Imagine this: a type of strong netting on the deck, held taut, yet elastic. The planes wheel’s go over it on landing, but a trailing hook catches it. The elastic rope then reels out and slows the plane. If the pilot’s not strapped in tight he’ll go through the forward glass.’

‘Not sure the frame would take such a jolt,’ they said.

‘There’s one way to find out. I’ll have my guys design a tail hook and the rope, and send them down with it. Create for me a separate runway, just sixty yards long.’ I stood. ‘If it works, everyone will want your planes for their carriers.’

I put a few guys on the tail hook and rope project, our engineers always keen to tackle seemingly impossible technical challenges. They had a hook on a prop fighter inside of a week, suitable rope made up and laid across the end of our runway, arrestor gears holding the rope that would play out fast, but then slow very quickly.

They set the arrested distance to a longer length to start with, the first trial a slow and steady deceleration, then shortened the rope each time. Our hook bounced over the rope one or twice, the prop fighter ending up on the grass, but it caught most of the time. The one innovation that they came up with by themselves was that of turning the undercarriage wheels before landing. A windbreak stopped air above the wheel, allowing air to hit the lower part of the wheel - and turning it. That helped.

At the point where the pilot told our people to fuck off, and that he wouldn’t do it anymore – because it hurt, we had the stopping distance down to twenty feet. To save any hassle, I invited the US Navy and Boeing up together to have a look, the pilot now offered hard cash - and soft pads for his harness. He landed at normal speed and arrested in twenty-five feet, the plane undamaged.

I said to the Navy, ‘If you have an inexperienced pilot, or just a deck full of aircraft, you can use this to land and stop. You could even have aircraft taking off at the front while landing at the back at the same time, a few on the deck in the middle.’

‘And the aircraft are not damaged?’ they asked, a logical question.

‘We’ll try it a hundred times on the same aircraft, then check and see.’

They pointed at the shiny prop fighter. ‘What type of aircraft is that?’

‘It’s a new prototype we’re experimenting with; should be in the shops for Christmas.’

They didn’t press the issue, and our prop fighter was not so different to a Boeing Mark 5 at a distance. Boeing, however, were very curious about the unknown plane, but I gave them no chance to nose at it. Wonder what they would have said about the jet.

A lull in the fighting

The end of 1936 saw a relatively quiet period, the Italians and the British sat staring at each other across the desert, each other’s infantrymen complaining in equal measure that a soldiers lot was not a happy lot. Jimmy had ordered the harassing to pause, and that may have helped to delay a war. Spain was stable, of sorts, and there were no signs of the civil war re-igniting. Hitler, however, was not so quiet, expounding the virtues of re-armament, and to hell with the existing treaties. He was banging the podium and belting out the rhetoric.

Given the serious lack of Jews now leaving Germany we stopped the money, but the Germans kept expelling them in small numbers, the people arriving in Palestine now just a few thousand a month, if that, and some of those were from outside Germany. Sykes did, however, inform us that his spies noted the concentration camps in Germany full of Roma and Gypsies, as well as political prisoners.

France took delivery of its Goose aircraft, its national flag carrier soon flying to its colonies in Africa and the Far East, such as Vietnam – French Indochina. We let them hire our engineers for six months, time for them to train their own, but no French pilots were allowed near our facilities in Canada; all the training was done in France. Those French pilots began with Cessnas, advanced to the Dash-7s, then the Goose. They made use of the remote airstrips in Spain, we made sure of that; it was part of the training deal the French had signed. That deal was stringent, in that we did not want any crashes due to pilot error; that would be bad for business. So even experienced pilots had to pass on a Cessna and Dash first, then complete a hundred and twenty hours in a Goose, emergency drills aplenty.

Our four subs had now been taken over by the Royal Navy under strict agreement, and were being tested off Hong Kong at night, Royal Navy surface ships trying to hunt them down – and failing. Practice torpedoes slammed into destroyers on an annoyingly regular basis, annoying for their captains.

The fast torpedo boats would also piss-off the destroyer crews by darting in at night, high speed, and slamming dummy torpedoes into the sides of the ships. The lair of those fast boats was straight out of a James Bond movie - a long tunnel dug into an island, wide enough for two boats side by side, concrete walkways loaded with fuel and torpedoes, boats only moving at night. All it needed was a few men in black jumpers and accented English, and you’d have a movie set. The submarines were housed at another island, one with a natural bay and a tight entrance, but deep water. Its sheer sides made any view of the subs very difficult, and a rope net had been raised, covering the subs. That net had green branches all over it, so a peek down from a Japanese plane would have revealed nothing of interest.

The Canadian Rifles had finally adjusted to life in the colony, to their regular training runs, weekly trips to the range, of friendly competitions with the Nepalese, and of much drinking and whoring about the flesh-spots of the colony. Food was both good and cheap, booze cheap, the women cheap. What more could a soldier want.

The disciplined Nepalese didn’t drink, and they avoided the hookers. They got on with their work, and in the evenings studied English, maths or geography, and learnt some Chinese. Military exercises would usually be of the same format for them, in that they’d rush inside the mountain, wait till night and move out to defend the colony from attack. On the side of their mountain facing the mainland they had dug hundreds of slit trenches, and holes for snipers, hiding the positions with local plants, the Nepalese good at growing shrubs to hide their positions.

The RAF stationed one squadron of twelve aircraft at the airport, infrequent exercises held with the Rifles. They had wanted to bolster their presence, but we had asked them not to through Timkins and Sykes – and our man Churchill. The RAF operated Buffalo transports out of Hong Kong’s one and only airport, and now Super Buffalos, a few Goose in the hands of the Royal Navy for maritime patrol.

Po had discreetly opened up many “machine storage sheds” inside of mountains, the metal doors welded shut when the tunnels were complete. Those sheds led to winding concrete steps that reached up into the mountain, and to numerous firing positions facing the mainland. The colony’s hills were now a labyrinth of tunnels.

Po had also been busy with the main roads connecting to the Chinese border. They had been “improved” for access and safety, yet would help to slow and funnel attacking armies, especially tanks. New buildings had been constructed overlooking the roads, buildings made so strong that an atom bomb would not have scratched them. They were, yet again, used for “storage”, and came complete with escape tunnels. And the windows? They would have made for excellent firing positions.

A section of road had been elevated, a fast transit for the locals and much appreciated, the road below it altered to stop tanks and vehicles. And this elevated section - it could easily be blown up at key points. Around the northeast of the colony, now sparsely populated, sandy beaches were dug out so that boats could not land, and sections of coastal paths were also dug out and made sheer. Roads leading to the northeast were improved, but did not drop down to the shore on the far side. A number of houses were commissioned and built, their lounges offering their occupants a good view over key areas, and across the water to the Chinese side. Each house came with its own cellar, and Po’s trusted employees were allowed to live there, a bit of a commute to work in the mornings.

The colony did not currently offer the crowded streets and the massive population that our era offered, but it produced little of its own food. Po did what he could to improve crops and smallholdings, but it was the one key weakness in a siege, and one which we were not sure about either. We could airlift supplies in at night, but that would be expensive.

The colony’s oil reserves were good, in that Po received cheap oil from CAR, stockpiling much of it. He totalled eight month’s worth of oil, more again on tankers sat idle in the bay. He dominated the rice market, and so always had a store. He would buy rice from the mainland and sell it on, but would always have dried rice stacked, a few months worth. He hadn’t just been enjoying himself, he had been preparing. But he had found the time for three consorts and six sons, the eldest boy now eleven, and all of them lived with him. Maybe that was why Yuri had moved on.

As the weather in Canada turned cold, then very cold, then downright bloody freezing, we all looked to Japan, and what she may do. So far, she had taken every step we had expected, so next year would see a build-up to an invasion of Canton in 1938. That in itself would give us a timeline, an invasion of the colony in 1941 – if this timeline was in synch with ours. The Japanese were due to attack Hong Kong at about the same time as the Pearl Harbour attack was due to take place, but we all figured that the historical trigger point of the Pearl Harbour attack would never happen now.

Our preparations in Hong Kong seemed premature, but hurried and visible preparations made after the Japanese had seized Canton would have looked odd, especially to local Japanese commanders with large binoculars. The Japanese would also have their spies active from 1938 onwards, very active in 1941; last minute preparations were out of the question. Besides, this timeline might throw up a surprise for us, and we did not want to be caught out.

Jimmy kept reminding us that we could not fight a war and be observed, by either Japan or Germany. If Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a war with Germany would be closely observed by the Japanese for a few years. They might learn from it. And a defeat of Germany before 1941 would be a disaster. The Japanese would go away and think, coming back around a few years later with better weapons, and better prepared.

New Year, 1937 saw us genuinely celebrate, the world quiet at the moment, save Israeli soldiers shooting Arabs, and we were used to that. We celebrated New Year in Los Angeles, a hotel booked for just us, and we all sat in the sun with cold drinks around the hotel pool. War was a long way off, and we were having a rest.

News then arrived that Germany would not honour its agreement with Britain to limit its surface ships. The naval arms race had begun.

Jimmy commented, ‘This puts them on track for a 1938 invasion of Poland, but it’s not certain. Spain caused them to stop and think, and the Italians shying away from the British made them reassess their relationship with Italy. So, it’s up in the air.’

‘Wars are started in the summer, allowing armies to move in fair weather,’ I pointed out.

‘Unless the generals are overruled,’ Jimmy countered.

‘Well, yeah, there is that with Hitler. And Poland was attacked in September. But they waited for spring to launch their air offensive against the RAF, so I stand by what I say: people start wars in the summertime.’

‘If we reach October, 1938, in peace, then it’ll be a 1939 kick-off,’ Jimmy agreed.

‘Last time, the Canadians sent a couple of infantry brigades to Hong Kong, including the Royal Canadian Rifles,’ I idly commented, Mary doing lengths in a one-piece red bathing costume.

‘They may do so again,’ Jimmy commented, observing Mac trying to chat-up a waitress. ‘I’ve allocated them some money, and they’ve modernised a bit.’

I sipped my drink. ‘Should we send them a few instructors?’

Jimmy took a moment to answer. ‘I’d suspect that they have a few French, and men of German origins, so … maybe a risk.’

‘Not long left to train them,’ I cautioned.

‘It’s not an infantry fight. Belgium will see the best men of the Rifles – small group operations, plus tanks and planes. The same for Libya. Infantry will be needed for any push back against Germany, later on.’

‘Fair enough. We have enough men in the Rifles?’

‘Three thousand plus Canadian Rifles now, twelve hundred in the American Brigade, still around six hundred in the British Brigade in Kenya, and six hundred in the French Brigade in Kenya.’

‘African Rifles?’

‘Ngomo has the better part of seven thousand men, Abdi still around two thousand or less. The British have an Airborne Brigade with six hundred men in, most trained by us, and they could muster two thousand men who’ve had some training with us.’

Susan came and sat with us. ‘Reporters outside, you can see them over the railing.’

‘In which case, we should probably move on tomorrow,’ Jimmy suggested. ‘We have our enemies out there.’

‘No Mafia left, they’re extinct,’ I quipped.

‘But Herr Hitler knows we sponsor the American Brigade, and he will have put two and two together.’

I eased back, just as the sound of an explosion registered. We rushed to the railing to see smoke, and bodies. ‘That was a car bomb, and they got the reporters.’

‘So,’ Jimmy began, still holding his drink. ‘Tomorrow we’ll move on. Palm Springs maybe, then San Diego, a night or two in each place.’

‘Should we be worried?’ I asked Jimmy, observing Mary still doing lengths, water in her ears and not a care in the world.

‘Nothing has changed, we’re still very careful,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll get the lads looking for Italian and German agents around the States and Canada. Still, they got the reporters.’

The police threw a cordon around the hotel, ten times as many reporters now turning up, and interviewed us – for all the good that did.

‘Do you have any enemies?’ they asked.

‘Not that we can think of,’ I replied.

We left at 4am, no hacks about, or would-be bombers either; they were all sensibly still in their beds. We reached Palm Springs quickly, booking into a spa hotel without giving names, guards posted. I liked the rocks and the palm trees here, and the hotel had a great pool, shallow for Toby to swim in unaided. He was a complete daredevil and show-off, so he always needed watching; take your eyes off him and he was up a tree in a flash.

We left Palm Springs the following morning at 4am, a few hacks having found us the night before, and made our way down to San Diego in a long vehicle convoy of our bullet-proof cars. I knew the best hotels, and those which offered its guests good security, and so directed the convoy.

I slipped out with Susan and the kids after we had booked in, chase car and bodyguards, and returned to our old avenue, Mary recognising it. There was no barrier or guard these days, and we pulled up on Bill’s driveway. He peered out of the window, then opened the door, he and his wife pleased to see us, both now moving slowly due to old age. He still popped into the airfield once in a while, but I guess you could say that he was truly retired now.

From Bill’s garden I peered down at a familiar scene, cursing having had to move; this was still a great spot. I only allowed Toby to pester Bill and his wife for an hour before we returned to the hotel, giving the old couple a rest from the little monster I had spawned. I invited a few Admirals over that evening, and sat chatting about subs and tubs, and scuba gear; man talk. Susan took Mary to revisit an old friend the next morning, whilst Jimmy and I took Toby to our shipyard for a look around.

Jimmy either carried my lad, or placed him on a shoulder, Toby fascinated by the boats, always keen and curious about new things. Back at the hotel in Canada I had a set of playing cards with aircraft on, and he could name each one, more or less. He knew what a few of the overseas aircraft were, but couldn’t pronounce the foreign names.

Our new dry dock was now just a very big hole in the ground being finished off, soon to see the keel of an aircraft carrier - the future monstrous vessel would grow from the keel upwards – and would gainfully employ a great many people for a few years. Looking down at men setting concrete, they appeared tiny; this dock had to be at least sixty feet deep, if not more.

Stood staring down into the dry dock with a heavy frown, I said to Jimmy, ‘When they build it, and it gets huge, why doesn’t it fall over or crush under its own weight?’

‘Firstly, the bottom in the middle is flat, not a sharp keel, and second, most of the weight is at the bottom, not the deck or island. A carrier can be put into dry dock and stand its own weight. Some are very flat, and the Nimitz was said to have been made with a list to starboard.’

‘Just seems so big not to collapse under its own weight.’

‘At sea they load munitions and fuel, or you may have a problem with a buckle in dry dock if fully loaded. It’s worse for battleships, because they’re top heavy; a carrier is lighter at the top. Japs had decent carriers in 1920s, huge ships, still do now I mean. They pioneered carriers, and deck lifts. Right now the Japs have around twenty aircraft carriers, and the US Navy has just two that are worth a damn. But, the 1934 naval renewal programme will just about redress the balance … well, by time all the ships are built. But most are not due to be completed yet.’

‘They’re building two carriers with frigging biplanes in mind,’ I scoffed.

‘I think we might have changed that. They’ve halted their order for aircraft, did so a year ago. They had a review underway, to look at the Boeings, before you got involved with carriers. Always ahead of yourself.’

‘And if the States and Japan got into a fight now?’ I posed.

‘That … would leave the States at a disadvantage on the high seas.’

We exchanged looks.

The reporters were thin on the ground at the hotel, so we stayed a few nights, the guys going out to the airfield to potter around in the aircraft and chat to young pilots.

Battle plans

Back at the hotel in Trophy, Jimmy called a war council almost immediately, security tight, the hotel checked thoroughly before the meeting.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, and Mac,’ he began, people laughing. ‘I have, for some time, been secretly communicating in code with Mister Han, and Mister Han has been communicating with others. I can report that Mister Han has been a bad boy, a very bad boy, and may have manipulated a few people on my behalf – although I’m sure he got no pleasure from the duplicitous nature of what he’s been doing. I am sure, however, that the expression on his face was the same at each meeting.’

People smiled.

‘A short while ago, history should have recorded that Mao’s communists would be pushed out of the southern provinces they control, and to start The Long March north. But, thanks to Mister Han supplying them with weapons, ammunition, and money, that will not be the case. History … will not record a long walk, other than the defeated Chinese Nationalist soldiers walking home. I can report that Mao is now firmly in control of the southern provinces, and in control of the communist forces. Han’s dealings with the communists were a kind of – Mao is in charge, or I’m not helping you.

‘Han has also been dealing with the Nationalists, and supplying them weapons to fight the Japanese. But, more than that, Han has been nudging Mao to supply his communist buddies in Japanese held Manchuria with weapons and money, something that has aggrieved our Japanese friends greatly. They fear communists in Japan, and anywhere else that they may occur.

‘Han has also, quite slyly, been talking to the Japanese, posing as a wealthy Chinese businessmen from Mao’s region, and … could the Japanese help him, in return for the region accepting Japanese rule. After all, anything is better than communism.’

‘What a sneaky little bastard Han is, eh,’ Mac noted.

‘Indeed,’ Jimmy agreed with a false smile. ‘So, we now have the situation where Chinese Nationalists have been knocked back by the strong communists – a fact that worries Japan greatly. We have the communists supplying their brethren in Manchuria – urging them to bomb the Japanese, many Japanese having being killed or maimed in recent months. We also have the business leaders of the southern provinces asking the Japanese for help – since the Nationalist army has been pushed back - and offering mining concessions to the Japanese.

‘As of two days ago, Japanese forces landed sixty miles from Hong Kong -’ People sat up. ‘- and are moving towards the fictional stronghold of Mao. More than a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers are moving towards a town … where Mao expects them, thanks to that duplicitous bastard, Mister Han. The Japanese will not be massacred, they’re good soldiers, but there will be a bit of a scrap, and something of a standoff.

‘That standoff will give the Japanese time to consolidate, to bring in more men, and to bring in aircraft. Ladies and gentlemen, the Japanese have taken Canton a year and a half early, almost two years early, and now pose a significant threat to Hong Kong. The British are aware, and concerned for their colony, as you might expect.

‘The Nepalese Rifles were due to swap in a few months. Instead, their numbers will be doubled. The Canadian Rifles who are there, and enjoying themselves like drunken bums, have been placed on alert. Throughout the various Rifles brigades, a period of intense training will now begin, and in the months ahead additional men and equipment will be sent to Hong Kong, arriving at night.

‘We will soon have around four thousand Nepalese Rifles, a thousand Canadian Rifles, the British Airborne Brigade from … Britain, and the American Brigade will be on standby. We have four subs, the torpedo boats, and will soon enjoy fifty prop fighters at the airfield, to be stuck in a cave for now. Additional jeeps and half-tracks have been deployed, 105mm, mortars; our people will benefit from a full range of kit.’

‘Do you think the Japs will attack Hong Kong early?’ Hacker asked.

‘At this point in time, the Japanese do not … want a war with their old ally Britain, but are still furious at Britain for dropping the previous accord in favour of America. America is Japan’s largest oil supplier, and at the moment there’s very little chance of Uncle Sam turning off the oil tap. The conditions that led to the war … are not there, and are unlikely to be there this time around.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ Mac asked.

‘The plan … is to react to any attack on Hong Kong, when one comes. If, of course, it became clear to the Japanese that Britain, and those based in the colony, were supplying Mao with weapons to fight against the Japanese force now there, then … well, they may get a bit miffed. Especially if their casualties are high.’

‘The British wouldn’t supply the communists,’ Susan stated.

‘We should hope not,’ Jimmy quipped. ‘But Mister Han will, from his base of operation in Hong Kong. Where, at some point, the Japanese may stop and search ships for weapons.’

‘Which would provoke the British,’ Hal noted.

‘It may well do,’ Jimmy agreed.

‘And when will the Japanese discover Mister Han’s duplicitous nature?’ I asked.

‘At a time of our choosing, namely when German tanks line up on the Belgium border.’

‘War on both fronts,’ Mac noted.

‘And the American role?’ Hal asked.

‘That … is hard to say, so we’ll need to play American public opinion very well.’

‘Can we do it without them?’ Handy asked.

‘We can handle the first year or so,’ Jimmy said. ‘Maybe two years, but we’d never push the German Army back or be able to occupy the country. Then there’s Russia to deal with. So if we don’t get the Americans into the war, it will drag on for years.’

‘Did last time!’ Mac grumbled.

‘And Britain’s access to nuclear weapons,’ Susan asked.

‘I would never allow them to bomb Germany, nor do I see a need for that.’

‘And if Britain wanted to bomb Japan with a nuke?’ Susan pressed.

‘Again, I would stop it, since I have alternatives.’

The gang debated the turn of events, small groups huddled like conspirators, tea and pancakes made.

The next day Jimmy took me down to the American Brigade, where we assembled the senior men.

‘Guys, this is top secret,’ Jimmy began. ‘Very … damn top secret. No one must know, especially no one south of the border. As you may have heard, the Japanese have invaded the Canton region of China -’

‘How many men do they have?’

‘Two hundred thousand,’ Jimmy said with emphasis.

‘Ah,’ they collectively said.

‘And, that puts them right on the border with Hong Kong, and my business interests there. And my business interests pay your wages.’ He let them think about it. ‘So, we have an opportunity here, in that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. As you may know, if you read the newspapers, there are communists in China fighting the Japanese, and I know a few people who are supplying them with weapons. If we had a few instructors behind the lines, training these communists and helping to blow up the odd bridge, the Japanese would be bogged down, and dragged north away from Hong Kong – and then I’d sleep better at night.’

‘We can do it,’ they firmly offered.

‘You’d have to go in by parachute, and if you got caught you’d be sliced to pieces,’ I pointed out.

‘Hey, it’s all a risk,’ they countered.

‘I’d want twenty men to start with, and they’d be gone a year, re-supply by plane,’ Jimmy told them. ‘And no discussion about this with anyone yet. Tell the men there’s a job in … Burma someplace, dirty dangerous stuff, and see who’s interested. They’d get normal pay and a good bonus at the end, but they’d have limited kit – no fancy rifles. You would teach the communists to fight with what they have, plus some of these new rifles we’re supplying to the US Army. We’d need a few people in Hong Kong as liaison, a few Buffalo pilots.’

‘Easy job,’ they scoffed. ‘We’ll get it done, boss.’

‘I’d probably expand the instructors to fifty or sixty people within a few months,’ Jimmy added.

‘We could go on live missions to blow Japanese positions?’ one asked.

‘We don’t want the Japs to know you’re there, so you’d have to be very careful; no ID on you. If you get caught, tell them you’re British.’

We left them huddled and whispering like conspirators, but without tea and pancakes.

On the way back, I said, ‘They’re going in to train the communists, but we’re not making use of any technology?’

‘No, not yet; we can’t have the Japs examining our kit. They can examine a Battery Grenade, because that’ll get them nowhere. But, if the need arises, we’ll drop better weapons in to our people. For now, the new rifles are better than the pitchforks the communists have!’

‘Those rifles … are only used by the American Army,’ I pointed out. ‘Would be unfortunate if the Japs captured a few, they might think that the Americans were supplying the communists – as they did during the Spanish Civil War. And if they captured American instructors, they made be … vexed.’

Jimmy made a face and nodded. ‘I hadn’t considered that.’

The various Rifles brigades around the world were given extra budgets, extra ammo, and told to improve standards in the months ahead. Meanwhile, south of the border, the various American units were taking shape; Airborne, The Rangers, Mobile Infantry. The US Government had paid us for the kit, which was nice, and our half-tracks and our jeeps were put to good use. They had also purchased 105mm rifles, mortars, and radio sets, the men now starting to be trained on the kit.

The Air Wing had received its aircraft, the Parachute School had received its new parachutes from us, and in various bases around the states boots now stamped on tarmac roads, or collected mud on assault courses. The Canadian SAS and SBS had set the selection process with Jimmy for their American counterparts, and then handed over the details. Volunteers were soon trying to strip, clean, and fire rifles - whilst being so tired they couldn’t even remember their own names. The best men had been selected, and had joined the Canadians in their training programmes in Canada and Kenya. The first part of that programme was HALO, high altitude low opening skydiving, a test of nerve and character.

The SAS recruits would then start ticking boxes after attending courses, some as obscure as house-breaking, knife throwing, home made bombs, downhill skiing, and sailing. SBS recruits started with scuba diving, to see if they’d freak out, but they also had to complete HALO. And all recruits to the SAS and SBS had to pass flying a Cessna to a good standard, in case they needed to fly themselves to an insert.

It would take time, but the reorganisation would have a seriously beneficial effect on the structures of the basic infantry units, the changes dramatic. There were dissenters amongst a few old army officers, those who still thought that a horse was a soldiers’ best friend, but a great many officers wanted to be involved with the new outfits - since the day to day life of a soldier without a war to fight could be very tedious. The new units were busy, glamorous and exciting, and had an annual ammo budget that staggered officers from other units.

And these changes had not come about because the Joint Chiefs believed a war to be imminent. They had come about because of the American Rifles, and our advanced technology. We had never tried to push the idea on the US Army, in fact we had avoided them – and the US Navy, till they asked. They were proud of the American Brigade, but damned embarrassed that we had created it and operated it.

That American Brigade now offered twenty names, just one officer, the rest NCOs. Jimmy ran an eye over the list and agreed the deployment. The men were flown in a Super Goose direct to Hong Kong, and were met by Han. That evening at sundown, the men grabbed parachutes, and boarded one of Po’s old cargo Buffalos. Two hours later they spotted a circle of fires on the ground below, and dropped their kit tethered to parachutes. On the second pass they dropped rifles and ammo, and on the third pass they jumped, the Buffalo returning to Hong Kong.

The senior man, the officer, had brought a radio with him, but Mao also possessed a radio - to reach Han with. The men were whisked away in the dead of night, the parachutes carried by many hands, the fires doused. With very little English being spoken by the communists, and the Americans speaking no Chinese, sign language was adopted. Our men spent their first cold night in a farm building of mud walls, a small fire for company, rice provided.

They rose early and checked their kit, thirty keen young local men assigned to them – all dressed in a uniform communist grey; the first guinea pigs. Within an hour the Chinese were lying down with rifles prone, the Americans correcting position, or kicking the muzzles to see how tight the weapons were being held. Shots rang out, scaring the chickens and pigs, china pots in the distance being seriously worried, but not shattered; the local boys couldn’t shoot for toffee.

The first demonstration of a battery grenade went off better. A local lad ran to an empty compound, pulled the pin and threw the grenade over the wall, running back in a sprint. The compound disappeared, the locals lifting themselves up of the floor and wondering what the hell had exploded, a cloud of dust two hundred yards in diameter expanding outwards.

The Americans said, ‘Chuff chuff, choo choo – bang!’

The locals got the message. A few days later a bridge to the east blew, much to the surprise of the Japanese convoy crossing it at the time, since it was crossing a very deep gorge. The American Brigade was back in action.

Sat in the hotel with a coffee, the sun beating through the windows for a change, I read reports on many of the latest aircraft available around the States. In the space of a few short years the manufacturers had moved on from biplanes to monoplanes, and I could now start to see the evolution of some of the aircraft that may grace the skies during the Second World War. On our world, the rise of the Japanese, and the tensions in Europe in 1938, had focused the mind of the American military machine, leading to orders for aircraft that could meet or exceed those flown by the Germans and the Japanese. The Zero and the Bf109 were the standards of the day on this world, met by the Boeings. Other US manufacturers now tried to catch up.

Everyone knew that aluminium was the way to go, and all had seen magazine articles about our frames. Those frames were not so different to old wooden frames, but new ideas had sprung forth. But the single most important factor was the engine, and the power to weight ratio; you didn’t need a biplane wing when you had the power to weight. And with a jet engine you were into flight ballistics, the engine with its own ballistic thrust as important as the wings themselves. Some jets would go on to have very small wings, yet very powerful jet engines; they were, in effect, rockets with directional fins.

But my quiet study time was interrupted by a phone call, and could I come to the tank range. I grabbed a bodyguard and vehicle outside, a fifteen-minute ride to the range in speed and comfort in the latest variant of our cars, but still bullet-proof. At the range, the excited tank managers met me.

‘A new innovation?’ I knowingly asked.

‘Yes, sir, and we think a very good one.’

A vehicle was waved forwards, a tank recovery vehicle with what looked like a multiple launch rocket system on the back, a large metal box with about fifty tubes in rows.

‘What’s in the tubes?’ I asked. ‘Rockets?’

‘We’ve modified the RPGs to be more rocket and less concussion launch.’ They had just invented the MLRS a few years early.

The vehicle trundle towards us belching smoke, and halted. The box moved left, right, up and down – I guess to show what it could do, then settled pointing down the range. A whistle was blown, a red flag waved.

Then all hell was let loose. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Fifty RPGs flew out in sequence, each with its own smoke trail. A few seconds later, the ground at the end of the range - some two thousand yards away, erupted skywards, mud and moss, huge plumes moving in a sequence from left to right then starting again closer to us. Five lines of explosions tore up the dirt, the effect reminding me of blasting at a quarry. When finished, an area the size of two football fields had been ‘ploughed and turned over’.

‘That would make a mess on an enemy formation,’ I noted. ‘Quite a mess.’

‘Yes, sir,’ they keenly agreed.

‘Range?’

‘Five thousand yards, sir. But it could be fired almost horizontally.’

‘So … you could batter a building a hundred yards in front of you,’ I thought out loud.

‘Yes, sir. And flatten it. We can fire anti-tank or anti-personnel shells, or even airburst shells. And because we have the RPG manufacturing here it was very cheap.’

‘I like it. Have ten made up and given to our tank brigade. I then want another ten shipped to Hong Kong with plenty of ammo.’

Back at the hotel, I said to Mac, ‘They’ve made a multiple launch rocket system; it works well. Against advancing infantry or tanks - it’ll wipe out an entire advancing formation.’

‘Towed?’

‘No, it’s stuck on the back of a tank recovery vehicle. That way they can get right up close and fire without leaving the vehicle.’

‘Sounds good. Oh, we’re shipping new long range mortars to Hong Kong.’

‘Surprised they haven’t put RPGs in mortar tubes,’ I quipped.

‘They have. Some of them going out there as well.’

I reclaimed my seat, Cookie bringing me a coffee, and went back to the aircraft reports.

In the Chinese hinterland, Mao stood with Han and observed the American instructors teaching run/shoot/duck to the locals. Mao, a soldier at heart, tried the new rifles, impressed by the rate of fire.

His “people’s army” now possessed an additional six thousand rifles, more promised, along with plenty of ammunition. They also had the Battery Grenades, and keenly set about blowing up the Japs wherever they could. A plan was soon made, a trap set for the advancing Jap army, the new rifles to be used. Knowing some of the detail of the plan, Han returned to Hong Kong by Cessna that night, a road used for take-off just after sunset. And our duplicitous triple agent met with his Japanese contact in the colony, the detail of the trap handed over. At least, some of the detail of the trap, enough to convince them that he was genuine.

A week later, Major Hiroto bowed his head to his superiors in Tokyo, the men assembled in front of a large map of Canton.

‘Good to see you again, Major,’ the senior Japanese General offered. ‘What news from Hong Kong?’

‘Sir, I have – as you know - made contact with the representative of a group of rich businessmen who wish to assist us remove the communists from their land. They have provided me the details of an ambush being set by the communists for our advancing forces.’

‘Well, done, Major. But you trust this man?’

‘This man is a wealthy landowner, or at least he would be if he could recover his land. He wears gold jewellery, has many servants, and always a dozen ladies on hand.’

‘His exile in Hong Kong sounds … most unpleasant,’ the General stated, the men laughing.

Smiling, the Major said, ‘Yes, sir, most unpleasant. This man is like the others – very decadent, and someone whom the communists would kill on sight. I trust him, because he is a dog, and the communists are cats. And there are many like him in Hong Kong, all enjoying the decedent western ways, the western motor cars, soft beds and good hotels.’

‘Your posting to this location sounds like a very great burden, Major,’ the General noted, the assembled men laughing.

‘Indeed, yes, sir.’ He approached the map and detailed the ambush.

‘We will be ready,’ the General stated. ‘What news of their strength?’

‘The core army is made up of sixty thousand men, if you could call it an army. They are peasants who have been handed a rifle, no formal training at all.’

‘And yet we have reports of devastating attacks on our convoys using mining explosives.’

‘I have no knowledge of that, sir.’

‘And the weapons that they use?’

‘Definitely imported, sir. They are receiving outside help, some weapons shipped through Hong Kong.’

‘The British are aware of the shipments?’ the General asked.

‘I do not believe so sir, since they seize any weapons they find, and fear greatly the communists. Communists holding meetings in Hong Kong are arrested.’

‘Then who is supplying these communists with rifles?’ a man asked.

‘I cannot answer that yet, sir, but I think we all know the answer to that question.’

‘We have no proof that the Russians are supplying weapons, Major, and we’ll not make that charge till we do.’

The Major bowed his head. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you seen Russians make use of the port at Hong Kong?’ a man asked the Major.

‘Russians? No, sir, but there are new army units stationed in the colony, part of the British force.’

‘What new units?’

‘There are now two thousand men from Nepal -’

‘The ones they call Ghurkhas,’ the General noted.

‘Yes, sir. And a detachment from Canada.’

‘Canada? What … detachment?’

‘Their uniforms say Rifles, sir.’

‘Canadian Rifles fought in Spain, on the side of the socialists, and armed the Italian communists,’ an officer reminded the General.

The General nodded. ‘These men, these Canadians – how do they conduct themselves?’

‘Always drunk and fighting, sir.’

‘Are there … pilots amongst them?’ the General asked.

‘Yes, sir, many have wings on their uniforms.’

‘How many are stationed in Hong Kong?’

‘They say about five hundred, sir.’

‘Five hundred ill-disciplined Canadians, with pilots in their ranks. You fool! They’re not Canadians, they’re the American Brigade!’

‘Apologies, sir, but … I could not be certain if they were, they sound and look very much alike,’ the Major said with his head lowered.

The General faced the assembled officers. ‘They armed the communists in Spain, and now they are in Hong Kong drinking and whoring, whilst the communists across the border magically receive weapons.’ He faced the Major. ‘Do they have aircraft?’

‘Yes, sir, transports.’

‘And have you seen or heard planes flying there at night?’

The Major bowed. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Return to the colony, buy drinks for these men, and find out all you can, Major. Ask your contact what he knows of these men.’

‘Sir, surely the British would be opposed to arming the communists.’

‘They would … if they knew about it,’ the General softly stated. ‘So we need facts. Thank you, Major.’

With the Major gone, an officer said, ‘I do not believe this American unit can operate without the knowledge of the American Government.’

‘They are supposed to be mercenaries,’ another officer said.

‘Mercenaries?’ the General baulked. ‘Would Canada allow these men to have a base on its territory? What nation would allow five hundred heavily armed men to run free and do as they please?’

‘They are only a few miles from the American border,’ an officer noted. ‘Far enough to be outside the law, close enough to control.’

The General nodded. ‘And for the Boeing aircraft company to issue these men with fighters, bombs and ammunition? Where was their license to receive such things?’

‘Only a government can hold such a license.’

‘This is a deliberate provocation,’ the General stated as he stood. The officers followed him up. ‘But we must have solid evidence. I will not take theories to the Emperor.’

A week later, the Major was stood in the bar at a brothel when a group of ‘Canadians’ stepped in.

‘Welcome,’ the Major offered. ‘Drink?’

‘Sure thing buddy,’ the man slurred. ‘And one for my American buddy here.’

‘American, not Canadian?’

‘He’s a pilot, a smuggler, and a lousy card cheat. Get some drinks in!’

‘Pilot … on a seaplane, yes?’

‘No … American Brigade. Sshhhh.’

When the Major left, Han was stood with Po in a building opposite.

‘He take bait?’ Po asked.

‘My good friend, we are as low as whore house rats,’ Han noted.

‘We not so low like this man,’ Po said, jabbing a finger towards the Major as he walked off. ‘They massacre Nanking.’

The drunken Canadians stepped out five minutes later, a glance up at the window Han and Po stood at, a nod issued.

Jimmy showed me a coded note from Han a day later.

I blew out loudly. ‘So, it’s done then.’

‘It’s started,’ Jimmy said before we walked off.

The Japanese attacked the communist ambush site, the communists firing down from the hills above, throwing down Battery Grenades from cliff tops. The Japanese took heavy casualties, but their aircraft turned up in numbers after an hour and strafed the communist positions at length, inflicting heavy casualties and forcing a retreat.

Numerous rifles were recovered, a few prisoners taken alive. The Japanese General stood in front of his Prime Minister and the cabinet, reporting the facts, those of western instructors, American weapons, and the American Brigade in Hong Kong.

The American Ambassador in Tokyo was formally asked if America was arming the communists, and he gave a formal reply a day later. They were not. The US Secretary of State then came on a surprise visit to us the next day, having put two and two together. I welcomed him into the hotel bar, Jimmy out at the moment.

‘Might I enquire, Mister Holton, about any knowledge you have of weapons being smuggled through Hong Kong and to the communists, since I believe you have Hong Kong sewn up tight.’

‘We’re supplying the communists, yes,’ I answered. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Might I enquire as to … why?’

‘I would have thought that obvious, to a man of your skills and learning.’ He cocked an eyebrow. I added, ‘The Japanese have invaded the region around Canton, and as we speak they have spies in Hong Kong looking the place over. We’ve millions of dollars invested in the colony, so … if the Japanese end up with a bad taste in their mouths for being in the region – heavy losses fighting these communists – they might just go away.’

‘And is not the safety of Hong Kong … a British issue?’

‘It is, which is why we’re starting to supply the British with sophisticated weapons.’

‘I see.’ He took a moment. ‘And if the Japanese threatened the colony?’

‘We’d use some high flying planes to threaten them, planes operated by the British in the defence of their colony. We would … make a very big effort to protect our interests. We’re secretly stuffing the colony full of weapons, some of which your guys don’t know about yet. If the Japanese attack the colony, there’ll be a few very loud bangs.’

‘The British would risk a war with Japan?’

‘The British Empire … would lose face if it failed to protect its colony. How would it look to other British colonies around the world if they just accepted a Japanese invasion? Besides, if the British didn’t protect the colony, and our interests, we’d be … most unhappy about it.’

He eased back, thinking. ‘Are any of the American Brigade in Hong Kong?’

‘No, the Canadian Rifles are there, and I’m reasonably sure that there are no Americans embedded with them – although there could be; one or two on exchange postings. Might I ask you a question?’

‘Of course?’

‘Will America sit by whilst Japan colonises the whole of China?’

‘We … have no intention of getting involved there.’

‘Yet if Japan were to seize all Chinese ore production, it would grow to be a powerful nation, the dominant force in the region.’

‘That … is something that we are considering. Are you, in any way, suggesting that we should do more, and that our relationship with you would be … tested otherwise?’

‘Not at all, we like to stand on our own two feet. We have no desire to see you get involved in someone else’s problem.’

And we left it at that. In the weeks that followed nothing happened, the American Brigade steadily training the communists, our arms supply to them steady, the number of Japanese casualties steady – steadily increasing. But the Japanese were in no doubt at all about the American presence, more spies wandering around Hong Kong, Po’s men following the spies.

The British bolstered their defences in the colony, a message to the Japanese that they would resist any aggression. Three Royal Navy destroyers dropped anchor in the bay, two support ships alongside. Everything seemed set for a conflict, but the Japanese didn’t move. We figured they would consolidate their forces around the region first, build air bases, and build up supplies. And that was a long process, no Japanese soldiers yet visible from hilltops in Hong Kong, even with a big telescope. There was also the question of the Royal Navy, a considerable force in 1937. Not yet tied up in a war in Europe, the full force of the Royal Navy could have been brought to bear against the Japanese. At the moment though, the Royal Navy’s presence in the region was limited.

We secretly shipped extra ammunition to the colony, tens of thousands of RPGs alone. The Nepalese practised their deployments, training with renewed vigour; they knew there were a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers out there. The Canadian Rifles also knew about the Japanese now, and took to reviewing positions on nearby hills, hotels, roads, the works. Half of our SAS and SBS were in the colony, making plans for its defence if necessary.

In Palestine, now called Israel by most people, the British had finally had enough and pulled out, leaving just their one base in Gaza and their naval facility. Israel was finally a nation state and took responsibility for its own borders, its currency, the police and the army. That final step enraged the indigenous Arabs, who revolted, causing widespread violence. That violence was not of the kind seen in the 1948 war, not least because of the size of the current Israeli population, and its well-trained army.

The revolt was put down, Arabs shot, wounded, or thrown into prison camps. Many were expelled. Riots broke out in Beirut and Damascus, Amman and Cairo, the colonial British and French overlords seen as not doing enough to assist the Arabs in Palestine. The League of Nations convened, but were not about to call for the Jews to leave; where would they go? They did, instead, come up with the brilliant idea of “internal partition”, and suggested that the Arabs live on the west bank of the Jordan. I threw my hands in air and cursed several timelines at once.

Without anyone planning it, the Arabs were mostly camped around the west bank, the Jews mostly around Tel Aviv. Jack took a deep breath, then made it clear to the Israeli administration that if they did not expel the Arabs they would be forever fighting them. He would make money available for compensation for those expelled, and made it clear that Jimmy - now funding the new state, would be very annoyed if the Arabs remained. Well, it was like telling a kid to eat his ice cream, or else!

The Israelis moved people by force across the Jordan: here’s some money for your land, now be gone. That compensation was enough to buy a small piece of land in Jordan or elsewhere, and to keep a family going for a year or so, things cheap in the Arab world in 1937. And every time someone criticised the expulsions, it was cited as being down to “security reasons” - and the people were being compensated.

I read the reports most days, Jack’s reports – his eldest son now twelve, and considered what the future of Israel held. I was certain that a war or two was on the cards. Jack paid us a visit when the weather improved, March time, and brought the family along.

‘I figured we may not get another chance to travel for a few years,’ he told me when I welcomed him into the hotel.

‘All quiet on the Jap front,’ I told him. ‘How’s Herr Hitler?’

‘Well ahead in his rearmament. We think he’ll move on Austria in a week.’

‘Not much of a move, they welcomed him last time.’

‘And the German-speaking Czech territories are calling for a union. He’s upset the British with his naval programme, and they’re worried. He’s also building up one hell of a Luftwaffe.’

‘More than we think he should have?’

‘For this year, yes. And a few aircraft that we don’t recognise.’

I sat up. ‘Like what?’

‘Fighters that appear oddly shaped. We don’t have performance figures on them.’

‘Could just be a natural aberration in this time line, we’ve seen others.’

‘Could be,’ Jack agreed. ‘But we all know he learnt from Spain.’

‘He was supposed to gain experience from it anyway. So, how’s life in dreary old England?’

‘For one, it’s not as cold as this place, and we seem to have better summers than our era. As a family we enjoy long holidays on the coast, and it’s great to be in an era where there’s little bustle and a greatly slower pace to life. If my lads get a wooden model to make they’re excited; no Gameboy or mobile phones.

I smiled widely. ‘I know that feeling. My daughter doesn’t have magazines with boy band pin-ups in!

‘Are they bright?’

‘So far … no sign of it. Mary is smart, and she’ll study, but not like Shelly.’

‘Given who her parents are, that’s a surprise,’ Jack noted.

‘Maybe she’ll be a late developer. And Toby – he’d climb a tree and pee off the top.’

‘My lads both attend boarding school, but I make sure that we see them as much as we can. I book a hotel near their school some weekends and they come and stay with us.’

‘They bright?’ I asked.

‘Above average, but not overly bright. They are musical though, which surprises me greatly, since neither I nor their mother are musical.’

‘Wedded life … OK?’ I risked.

‘Fine, she’s a 1930s woman, happy in the kitchen.’

‘You old chauvinist.’

‘I do my share, but I have a lot of work to do,’ Jack insisted.

‘How long before we cut loose Israel?’

‘They are starting to grow their own food, and I’ve made it clear that the money will not last. Tourism makes some money, but little else does. We’ve built up a surplus of goats, chickens and donkeys, so they’re sold around the Middle East – the British Army in Egypt buying some. Still, they have an internal market, and we’ve made that as efficient as we can. But I now have gold coming up from the Congo, and diamonds, and they’re making jewellery to sell -’

‘Where did you get that idea,’ I teased.

‘I may have borrowed your idea there. It’s a growth industry, and the jewellery makes its way out by plane, much to the States.’

‘Tell them not to invest too heavily in Holland’s diamond business,’ I quipped.

‘No,’ Jack said with emphasis. ‘But I have tempted a number of Jewish jewellers from Amsterdam, quite a few.’

‘We have scuba gear now, so they can develop Eilat.’

‘Their border doesn’t go that far down. That area was captured during … a war.’

‘Ah,’ I acknowledged. ‘Sykes still with his woman?’

‘No, but he does keep his private life … separate.’

‘And Timkins?’

‘A boy and a girl in boarding school. His wife just inherited the father’s estate, so they have a few quid now, quite a few quid.’

‘Dr Astor still in Israel?’

‘No, she’s running clinics in the east end of London, clinics for the poor.’

‘And Churchill?’

‘He accepted the post of Defence Minister, an aberration in the time line, but with a little nudging from us,’ Jack informed me. ‘He’s now getting the country ready for war, plenty of rhetoric against Hitler – and the Japanese.’

‘And the cabinet’s view on us?’

‘Their view is simple enough: you have an atom bomb, the planes, and they need your money and your influence in Africa. They may not like the fact, but you’re pulling their strings. Still, they don’t see any interference day to day, a fact that I remind them of. But I have introduced a new phrase into the English language ahead of time: the elephant in the corner. The cabinet members now say: Silo and Holton are the invisible, yet ever present, elephant in the corner of the room.’

I laughed. ‘It fits well enough. And Timkins is still Business Minister?’

Jack nodded. ‘He has a great reputation for innovation, and the back benchers want him to knock the incumbent off the throne, but he won’t. Not yet at least. If he stood against Churchill – well, he might win.’

‘Their view on Hong Kong?’ I asked.

‘They know that they’ll lose face in the empire if they back down and lose the colony. They also know that the Japanese have hundreds of thousands of men and the shorter supply lines. We have the Navy, but … there are people who don’t want a fight with Japan. And militarily, even Churchill admits that re-supply by sea for a siege would be damn hard.’

‘So … they’re just sat on their hands and undecided.’

‘They’ll defend it, to a point,’ Jack offered, his hands wide.

‘No mention of nuking Japan?’

‘Not over Hong Kong, no. Most of the cabinet don’t appreciate what aircraft you have, or the bombs. They still live in a world of cannons and swords.’

‘There’re enough munitions in Hong Kong right now to alter the earth’s orbit,’ I emphasised. ‘If the Japs attack they’ll get a nasty surprise, and need a few more men.’

‘You’ll operate independently?’

‘The forces there are under the direct control of the British commander,’ I said, less than convincingly. ‘If he asks them to defend the colony, they will of course.’

‘How’s Han doing, I miss him sometimes?’

‘He’s a lying cheating bastard, playing off one side against the other. He’s in bed with Mao, the Chinese Nationalists, and the Japanese, carefully orchestrating them all.’

‘Sounds like work that he’d probably hate.’

‘He seems to be good at it,’ I noted. ‘He’d give Sykes a run for his money.’

I spent time with Jack’s lads, showing them tanks and planes, and they absolutely loved it. They even got to fire a few weapons, made to promise they would not tell their dad till after they got home. And then without mum around. Jack’s wife wasn’t easy to talk with, she was from this period and very old fashioned, no sense of humour.

Jack and his family spent a week with us, the weather good enough for a little fishing, as well as a flight in a Dash-7 for the lads. Leaving us, they flew down to Los Angeles for a few days, finally across to Washington to board a Super Goose bound for London, his boys always thrilled to be in plane and staring down at the topography far below. They’d sit up front and watch through the public viewer, the ground below studied for interesting features.

After their departure I followed them down the coast, and to San Diego and the shipyards, finding our prototype landing craft – the vessel immediately reminding me of the D-Day landings. With a suitably sized truck acting as a would-be tank we set out to sea, and hit a nearby beach. The front ramp lowered, the truck driving off, turning around and driving back aboard.

I was pleased with it, and ordered that this prototype be tested very thoroughly, and in poor weather. Not bad weather and high seas, but poor weather, today being fine and calm. Checking their production time back at the shipyard, I ordered twenty for the US Navy, for use with the new Mobile Infantry. Only then did I go and tell the Navy what they’d be getting, and what it was for.

Before I left the shipyards, I had a copy of the craft’s plans sent to a shipyard in Scotland, for them to make ten prototypes for the Royal Navy; making them here would have made delivery to Britain impossible. These new landing craft could handle either six jeeps, two trucks, fifty soldiers, or one of our tanks with a few men riding along.

Before I left San Diego I popped into the airfield, now seeing Boeing Mark 5s used for the training of pilots, a Super Buffalo sat awaiting a few paratroopers or some cargo to haul. The pilot school housed a hundred and twenty US Army pilots, thirty RAF lads over from England – no large moustaches, six Canadian Rifles learning to fly, eight men from the American Brigade, and now eight US Navy fliers. Courses were three months long, and thorough.

Across the airfield I found eleven RAF pilots, already qualified, and now learning how to handle the Buffalo and Super Buffalo, a four-week course involving a few long flights of twelve hours or more. American Airlines operated a hangar here, a Goose on the apron being used for pilot and crew training. It sat next to a United Airlines Goose, and I had no problem with the competition being here.

Their Goose was new, the latest variant. It offered improved engines, better fuel efficiency, and greater range. But no toaster, I checked. Then they pointed to a hatch, and I opened it, finding a toaster. Well, they had to keep the passengers happy. The galley was now larger, warm food available, the toilets also larger. I had an idea.

Back in Canada, I grabbed the chief design engineer, and gave him a sketch.

‘Well, yes, it could be done.’

‘We’d want two of them, if not three or four. Convert the first one, and tell me when it’s ready.’

‘I’ll put a team on it, it won’t take long,’ he assured me.

And it didn’t, hardly ten days. Still, they had twenty-two thousand staff. Jimmy came down with me when the Super Goose conversion was ready, and we peeked inside.

The passenger seats had been removed save the first two rows, the galley and toilets kept. Beyond the galley ran two rows of seats, four on each side, small tabletops fixed in front of them. They backed onto a wall, a door leading through to a meeting room, a central table with chairs around it, chairs that were bolted down. More seats were fitted to the walls, fold down seats. At a pinch you could get twelve people in here.

Through the next door we found a sumptuous lounge, a central coffee table, room for perhaps six people. It offered a liquor cabinet, bookshelves, and a desk with drawers. The next door led to a corridor, single file access only. The first room held six single bunk-beds tightly packed, overhead storage space. The next room contained just a double bed, cabinets by the side, more overhead racks, a wardrobe with hangars. Finally we found a room with another toilet, a large shower, and more cabinets.

‘Air Force One,’ I said.

‘Should keep the President happy.’

I flew down with the plane, down to Washington, handing it over, the nice man in the White House delighted. ‘Another on its way for your other staff to use,’ I informed him. ‘Or for use as a spare.’

‘Most kind, Paul, most kind.’

They must have been happy, because they made me a cup of tea later in the Oval Office. With the pleasantries out of the way, the Vice President and the Secretary of State came in and sat.

‘Mind if we talk business for a bit, while you’re down here?’ the President asked.

‘Not at all.’ I eased back and crossed my legs.

‘You openly admit to supplying the communists in China, yet our British friends deny such things go on, and we figured we had an open and transparent relationship with the British – especially as far as the atom bomb is concerned.’

‘The British suspect … that we supply the communists, but need us just enough to stop short of difficult questions. Besides, their cabinet is split; some see the communists as a tool against the Japanese, others disagree. It’s a bit like a wife finding out that her husband is cheating, but says nothing for the sake of the kids.’

The President looked at me over the rims of his glasses, the others smiling. ‘An interesting analogy, Paul. But the Japanese have asked us directly if we are supplying the communists, since that could be seen as a move against them.’

‘It is a move against them,’ I said. ‘They invaded Canton, and now surround our interests with a hundred thousand men or more. I’d call that making the first move, and a very large and aggressive one. They’re in no position to criticise anyone.’

‘No, quite,’ the President agreed. ‘Might I ask if there are any men of the American Brigade involved?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Not … yet,’ the President repeated.

‘Should the situation require it, we would use them to defend our overseas interests. That is, exactly, what they were set up for.’

‘Americans … in a minor conflict with the Japanese, could upset our relationship with the Japanese.’

‘Has your relationship with the Germans been upset because of Spain? No. The Germans sent an official body of men to fight an illegal campaign, and people saw the American volunteers as just that – volunteers. The Japanese have invaded another country, and are in the wrong, the American Brigade volunteers not sanctioned by yourselves.’

‘We would still prefer … that they not be used in that manner.’

‘Why do you think they’re based in Canada? They’re there … because they’re beyond your control, Mister President. But, we wouldn’t wish bad relations with you, so I’ll discuss it with Jimmy and see if we can use other brigades. We have the American Brigade in mind to fight the Italians in Africa.’

They sat up.

‘Against the Italians?’ the President repeated.

‘They’re attacking our interests in Chad, across the sands of the Sahara.’

‘Again, it could look bad for us,’ the Vice President noted.

‘You did nothing to stop the thousands of Americans who sailed to Spain, and you could have.’

‘They were not a cohesive military unit,’ the Vice President countered. ‘No uniforms.’

‘True,’ I said, nodding. ‘But we created them, trained them, and paid for them. It would be odd if we just used them in conflicts that you fine gentlemen agreed with politically.’

‘We appreciate that,’ the President stated. ‘We’re simply asking for some input, so that others don’t believe the Brigade to be carrying out our policy.’

‘And if Japan overruns Hong Kong, British soldiers killed, a short war fought. Where will America sit?’

‘We’ll not get involved,’ the President stated.

‘That’s what we figured. So, we’ve a few new toys that we’re supplying to the British, who’ll sink the Japanese ships, shoot down their aircraft, kill their soldiers and … emerge much stronger afterwards, their colonial attitude intact, much respect from the peoples of the world … and occupying Japan.’

They sat up again. ‘Occupying Japan?’

‘Well of course, to stop the Japanese building up an army again. Manchuria as well, parts of Canton. I would expect … that the British Empire would grow considerably after victory. Then, given that the British would have our aircraft designs, they would have the strongest air force in the world, and the strongest navy with the ships we’re designing for them.

‘And I’m sure that, following a war with Japan, the British would build our planes under license and sell them, dominating that market. You’d be buying fast aeroplanes from them.’

The President took off his glasses and cleaned them at length. Placing them back on, he said, ‘If the Japanese land in Hong Kong, it’ll trigger a series of events … that will prop up the British Empire.’

‘We have to protect our interests, and we are British, so we have no choice in the matter of helping Britain.’

‘You didn’t make that point for nothing, Paul,’ the President nudged.

‘I was simply trying to illustrate that … one thing leads to another.’

‘Why try and … assist us with that knowledge?’

‘I have a son, and I have a daughter; I don’t choose between them at Christmas. You … are our largest customer, but Britain is our parent country. We have to walk a fine line, and I don’t see a conflict of interest; we love you both in equal measure.’

They thanked me again for the plane, and I left them to consider a British occupation of Japan, and enlivened British Empire and Britain running world’s strongest army.

‘They hate the British Empire,’ Jimmy calmly stated when I returned. ‘They’d love to see it broken up. You actually told them that the British would occupy Japan?’

‘Yep.’

‘Shit,’ he blew out. ‘That’ll cost them a few nights sleep.’

‘Would the British occupy Japan?’

‘No, especially not with the Germans on the rise. Still, you scared the crap out of them.’

‘Should we alter our plans at all?’ I asked.

‘Yep, send half the American Brigade to Hong Kong.’

‘They did ask that we consult with them over use of the Brigade,’ I lightly pointed out.

‘You did consult with them, you told them very clearly to fuck right off, but in a very nice way. I’m proud of you.’

‘The Japs may see it as provocation,’ I pointed out.

‘Really? Bummer. Send them when ready.’

‘Do we keep them under wraps?’

‘Hell no; send them all into the town for a drink the first night.’

A day later, the American Brigade’s Colonel said, ‘About fucking time we saw some action.’

‘No planes yet,’ I told him. ‘Just get a feel for the place. You’re full kit will be hidden for now, we don’t want to upset the local population, or let the Japs know what you have. So use those new rifles in public.’

A week later, with the men of Brigade in place - drunk that first night and fighting, I made sure that the newspapers in the States reported their presence. ‘American Brigade off to fight the Japs!’

When I saw the headline I shook my head, wondering just how loud the screams would be in the White House. The President made a speech, denying that the American Brigade were linked to any American foreign policy, that they were just mercenaries. The US Ambassador in Tokyo was called in, fingers pointed, un-diplomatic language used.

Fifty men of the Brigade were sent to Mao, parachuting in at night, additional arms dropped. But we may have pushed a little too far with the embedded reporter and the camera that he took along. Two weeks later, as the weather improved in Trophy, pictures appeared in US papers of the Brigade training communists to fire our rifles, those only used by the US Military. The screams in the White House could be heard up here, a chuckle from Churchill as he believed the Americans would defend his colony for him.

It was the summer of 1937, and we were on the brink with Japan. But the Japanese were not stupid, and a war with Britain and America seemed like a very bad idea to them, no matter how much provocation there was. They drew a line a few miles from Hong Kong and created a blockade, a blockade of potential weapons that may reach the communists, but they did not stop food reaching the colony. They were being very sensible.

They did, however, make good use of their aircraft, and pounded the hell out of the communist positions, or anything that looked like it may be a communist position, or anything that may someday be a communist position. They pounded the hell out of everything around Mao. Artillery was brought close, and it too pounded the hell out of any town or village that resisted the Japanese advances.

The net effect was that the communists lost ground bit by bit and eased back, taking a bit of a beating. When they appealed for more weapons we assisted, but we issued just enough for them to hold the line. The Japanese High Command, seeing its advances and consolidation in the region, decided that the US arming of the communists was half-hearted at best, and not working. And we were fine to let them think that. We rotated soldiers and in and out, we even sent the Nepalese home in groups of four hundred, making sure that all of our people spent three months in the colony, and that they were all familiar with the layout.

In a significant aberration in the time line, the Austrian’s voted in a new government, who then promised a referendum on a union with Germany. The ballot papers went out, the voting began, the odd brass band playing cheerfully in the Austrian Alps, men in short trousers and long socks, silly hats and braces blowing into brass instruments. It was all very civilised, the children playing in the streets, sausages cooking for hungry voters to nibble on as they made up their minds on a greater union with Germany.

A week later they announced the result, a seventy percent swing towards union. Germany and Austria had now tied the knot, celebrated with a bit of a sing-along, and not so much as a shot being fired. The Czechs were worried, they were next. The nice man in Berlin suggested a referendum in the Sudetenland, but was told firmly to fuck off. At least this part of the timeline was holding up.

Then Jimmy showed me a report from 1918, sent over by Sykes. Hitler had not had his testicle blown off by a British artillery shell, he had been promoted to sergeant and led a successful charge against a British position.

‘Random changes,’ Jimmy mentioned. ‘And it will have an effect on his psyche. Sykes thinks that our good buddy is over confident, the original Hitler was less sure of himself.’

‘Do we use that?’

‘We do, especially since three squadrons of Bf109s have arrived in Libya.’

‘New and improved models?’

‘New and improved.’

‘Against a Boeing Mark 4?’ I nudged.

‘Comparable speed and climb, I’m guessing.’

The German squadrons in Libya wasted no time, moving discreetly at night to the oasis airstrip closest to our railway line, along with squadrons of Italian fighters. They began air patrols, and soon spotted a few of our Boeings. But, in an odd move, they flew parallel to them. Seeing the new German aircrafts markings, our planes did not engage them, and our planes were over their territory anyway.

The senior British officers contacted London, who ordered their planes to operate only inside Chad, and then ten miles inside Chad, where our railway track lay. We ordered our aircraft to do likewise, and the man in Berlin got his message loud and clear: Britain would shy away from a confrontation.

‘Pieces on a chessboard,’ Jimmy had commented.

Two hundred men and officers of the American Brigade were brought back from Hong Kong, a rotation set up, the men with Mao to be replaced every three months from now on.

Life at the hotel in Trophy plodded on, everyone working on production, and on storing the things that we made. I got involved with a heavy transport variant of the Super Goose, not allowed to call it the Super Duper Goose. The prototype was to be called the Hercules, although it was much bigger than the Hercules in our time period. It was twenty feet longer than a Super Goose bomber variant, the biggest plane we had, possessed a thicker and wide wing, but not a longer wing, and came with a larger fuselage. Its rear fuselage displayed more of a steep angle to it, save scraping on the ground when landing and taking off, and it would operate a hydraulic ramp at its rear, two side doors for paratroopers.

This would be the world’s largest plane, its four engines upgraded. Use of our special alloy allowed for a light aircraft, despite its size, its main wing spar four feet tall in cross-section, four such spars running across its back. All of the engineers wanted to be involved with the project, and with more production going on than design the new bird had many helping hands available.

When the frame and landing gear had been assembled in a special hangar, I stood inside the cargo hold to the clatter of a hundred men working. ‘Fuck me,’ I said, the chief engineer stood beside me. ‘How high is that roof?’

‘Twelve feet.’

‘You reckon she’ll take the weight?’ I challenged.

‘She’s just a scaled up Goose, so we’re confident of the load predictions.’

‘Power?’

‘She won’t be fast, but she’ll lift her nose and fly.’

‘How many men could you get in here?’ I asked as I watched a doorframe being fitted.

‘We think she’ll take a hundred and fifty paratroopers, in their full kit.’

‘I take it that we won’t be testing her to destruction.’

‘No, we’re beyond that now. We can predict the load patterns, or use small models to test things. We did mock up the central spar and load-test it without a problem.’

‘And?’

‘You could overload the plane and it wouldn’t take off, but you couldn’t break the wing from overloading or a rough landing.’

‘Undercarriage?’

‘Two wheels in the nose, four on each of the two rear legs, all with small motors to make them spin before landing; saves on wear.’

‘Be interesting to see her fly.’

‘We have the best men volunteering to work on it, so it’s getting good care and a fast fitting.’

‘Any innovations?’ I asked.

‘The plane will have a parachute speed-brake, the hydraulic door is a marvellous piece of engineering, lightweight as well, and her auto-trim could probably land the damn thing.’

‘Crew?’

‘Pilot, co-pilot, optional navigator – they’ll be a station for one, two loadmasters, both trained in basic flying just in case. But Mister Silo has asked that she always fly with her own engineer and spares, so we’ll train someone with good engine skills in maintaining the hydraulic door, and other systems.’

‘Toilet?’

He smiled. ‘Toilet, two fold down crew beds, galley – with a toaster, a sink for washing in. We have four portable toilets that can be linked to pipes and used for soldiers in here, air suction system.’

‘Part-pressurised?’

‘No, and no CO2 scrubbers either; it will fly low and slow.’

‘Range?’

‘With a medium load it will make London from here.’

‘Armour?’

‘Very little, but the skin will offer thick honeycomb that will stop a bullet, should anyone shoot at it. The floor and ceiling are bullet-proof by accident, due to thickness, and the fuel tanks are self-sealing. But it would be a large and soft target if it encountered a fighter.’

At Lemming Base I met Hal in his grey flight suit. ‘What you doing up here with us workers?’ he asked, leading me towards a jeep.

‘Checking you’re not enjoying yourself too much,’ I told him as we hopped into the jeep, the driver pulling away. As we rounded a hangar, a jet screeched down the taxiway, one of the prototypes. I pointed, raising my voice to be heard, ‘How are they doing?’

‘Little left to do,’ Hal shouted. ‘They handle well, decent payload and mission profile.’

We passed four large hangars before stopping at the Huey shed. I smiled as I stepped down, four green Hueys sat there awaiting some Rolling Stones music.

‘And how do these fly?’

‘You’ll not find much difference. If anything, we’ve improved the damn design.’ He pointed. ‘Door mounts for guns, even a winch now for fetching-up downed RAF crews in the British Channel.’

‘English … Channel, not British.’

‘Fucking Limeys.’

‘Range?’

‘She’s good for just about two hundred when loaded.’

‘Extra fuel tanks?’ I asked as I inspected one.

‘Side clip-on drop-tanks, and they’ll take her to four hundred no problem. Still, ya wouldn’t want to be shot at with them fitted!’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Armour?’

‘She’s a tough bird, she’ll take a fifty cal and keep going.’

‘Perspex?’ I nudged.

‘Will bend and go white, but not shatter. You’d just have to stick ya head out the window to fly.’

He led me next door, four Cobras sat proud and looking menacing. Each was single seat, RPG pipes on the sides, a thirty mil cannon sticking out the nose at an angle.

‘Is the mission profile any good on these?’ I asked.

‘Their anti-tank role is fine. These new RPGs will fly two thousand yards at a tank and make a mess, and the bird has a night sight. In the desert it’ll kill tanks just by looking at them.’

‘The cannon?’

‘Pilot has a tube to look down. If you can see something you can hit it. But against a Tiger … I doubt it will crack the armour. Any other vehicle is fine, and soldiers don’t fare too well when hit with a thirty mil shell.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘You reckon this will fit in the new transport?’

‘Already checked, and they do squeeze in. We could get three of these in, or two Hueys with no fuel. Rotors come off, and the tail rotors, then they’re workable packages for the hold.’ He tapped the rear of the fuselage. ‘Storage bin. We can get twenty RPGs in there, but ya have to land and fit them yourself.’

Mounting the jeep again, we drove past two hangars, past Goose aircraft parked on the apron, past Super Goose bombers, and to the jet bomber. Halting without getting out, Hal said, ‘She flies like a dream now, so end of the design line for her, for now at least. Three more being made.’

At the next hangar we passed a jet prototype, finally stopping at the last but one hangar. Stepping down, my face took control of itself, and smiled.

‘Oh, yeah baby,’ I let out.

‘Thought you’d like it. She’s the final variant of the jet fighter.’

‘She ... is an F15 Eagle.’

‘I named it Eagle, and it stuck.’

I approached, admiring her long and rounded nose, square intakes, high wing and twin tails.’

‘Power to weight?’ I asked as I walked around the plane.

‘If you don’t raise the undercarriage in time, it’ll break off,’ Hal reported. ‘Point her nose to heavens and open the throttle and she’s a rocket. Hacker had mach two out of her.’

‘I thought we limited speed for payload?’

‘We did, but the new engines just don’t want to fly slowly. The damn scientists were bored, so they optimised something or other, fitted a new alloy and the damn thing motors along, even with a good payload. Jimmy has taken her up.’

‘He kept that quiet.’

‘You’re married with kids; this is a single man’s toy.’

I wagged a warning finger. ‘She an expensive bird?’

‘Well … relatively. But they have this alloy crap coming out their arses now, and they can mould large frame sections at once, or some crap; those fucking eggheads are always improving something. They have an electric golf buggy that goes on forever without stopping, lightweight hang gliders. They even stuck a torpedo engine in an old frame and made a cruise missile. Flew so far they lost it.’

I was concerned. ‘It could be in someone’s back garden!’

‘No, it went north, so Stalin is wondering who fired the big red cock-shaped thing through his window, squashing wife number four.’

I laughed. ‘That would start an arms race, although he’d be happy to lose another wife.’

‘Mac made up the bunker-buster bombs,’ Hal informed me as we took in the F15 look-a-like. ‘It’ll break through ten feet of concrete. Would make a nice mess of a concrete runway; probably tear up a sixty metre stretch, a hole thirty feet deep. He’s working on a type of cluster bomb at the moment.’

‘Type of?’

‘It’s a big ‘ol dispenser that drops modified Battery Grenades with timed fuses. Some go pop after they hit the deck, then one every thirty seconds till they’re all done.’

‘Airfield suppression,’ I noted.

‘If you fly straight and level over the target at the right height and speed and flick the switch, yeah,’ he scoffed. ‘Never mind the damn pilot taking flack from the ground. And at night you’d probably miss the damn airfield altogether!’

‘And the existing airfield suppression bomb?’

‘That’s great. You fly in fast, nose up and over, release it, roll, and bug out at speed. It smacks into the ground and the bomblets disperse. Or you drop it from ten thousand feet in a dive and bug out quickly.’

At the F15 nose, I pointed at the gun pods.

‘Four fifty cal,’ Hal said. ‘For air-to-air if you need it. You can select one, two or four to fire simultaneously. One hard-point on each wing, one on the belly, and that’s it.’

‘Payload?’

‘We’ve had her up with three bombs, each two thousand five hundred pounds. There’s an RPG pod you can carry, fifteen RPGs in each, but she slows the bird down, and you have to drop to below three hundred knots to fire them. But she’ll make a mess of a battleship.’

‘How?’

‘Put three bunker-busters on her, fly in at fifty feet off the deck at four hundred knots, release, and nose up. That would spoil a captain’s day. I reckon just the one bomb would finish off a battleship or a carrier. And if you dive from ten thousand, drop at five thousand and pull up, the bomb will go right through at out the damn bottom – and then keep going!’

‘If one of these made toast of three Jap carriers, that would turn the war in a day,’ I pointed out with emphasis.

He shrugged and made a face.

I toured the underground labyrinth, greeting a few people I knew, stopping to chat to engineers and staff. The hotel was busy, its bars busy, a mix of nationalities; British, Canadian, American. A Chinese restaurant had appeared – with Canadian staff, an Indian restaurant – with Canadian staff, and a pet store. I stopped at the pet store – called the Pet Centre.

‘Excuse me, but isn’t it a bit cruel … for people to have pets and then rotate out?’

‘There are a fixed number of pets, sir, and when people leave they hand them over to us, and we allocate them again.’

‘Oh. You stock Lemmings?’

The man smiled. ‘No, sir, just leave your shoes on the floor overnight. We have cats, dogs – the huskies are popular, song birds, hamsters and mice.’

‘Do the animals not care about a lack of sunshine?’

‘They get used to it, sir. Even the Moose.’

I stared at him, ‘Moose? Are the rooms big enough?’

He laughed. ‘They keep them in the hangars, sir. A few orphans were found and hand-reared, so now the moose think they’re engineers, sir.’

‘What happened to the bear?’

‘It was sedated and taken to a zoo, sir, when it kept eating the Lemmings, and a cat, and some hamsters.’

I left, shaking my head.

The drive over to the atom bomb site took ten minutes along a straight road, no features visible. There were no guards or gate, and everyone knew everyone else. Down the first set of stairs I met one of our scientists, and he led me to a new section, a ride in an electric golf buggy, my bodyguard on the back. Here we did find a guard, to stop unauthorised or accidental entry. Inside, I found a massive room, considering it was underground, dozens of machines and lathes, metal casing, desks and cabinets.

‘Bomb casing assembly,’ I was informed. ‘Next door is the room for final assembly, below us the fissile material store.’

‘How far below us?’ I quipped.

‘Eighty feet. Quite secure.’

The man led me on, and to a room of desks, about fifty desks, maybe thirty in use, heads down, slide rules pored over, people talking in hushed tones. Next door we found a laboratory full of gadgets that would make for a great Flash Gordon movie, my guide explaining that it was for developing utility equipment, such as some of the two-dozen different types of Geiger counters. He showed me a room with shiny centrifuges behind a glass wall, and all the while I kept thinking about the serious lack of computers anywhere; these guys were doing it the hard way.

They had their own lecturer theatre with around thirty seats, a black board and chalk at the front. That was followed by a few meeting rooms - a few people meeting, a large canteen … and then I wondered why I was even here.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked an American scientist, lifting the tedium.

‘We’re looking at more efficient ways to enrich the Uranium,’ the egghead enthused.

‘That always helps,’ I said, no idea what I was saying. ‘Keep up the good work.’

Seeing a sign for “surface” I suggested we’d walk from here, to get some fresh air, and burst into sunlight after two flights of stairs. I could see the main buildings, and led my bodyguard towards them at a slow pace, the ground soft under our feet, moss and heather thick over the tundra, a few foraging Lemmings disturbed. A jet roared past, making me envious, the sound of a Huey on the breeze.

We hopped aboard our jeep, soon back at the main base, and to the tower. I spent an enjoyable hour watching the planes take-off and land, thinking of the future, and what effect the technological jumps would have on the world.

Mankind was supposed to advance from biplanes to jets and ballistic missiles during the Second World War, and then on to passenger jet aircraft with crap seats. But we were going to nudge them towards uncomfortable jet passenger travel in 1943, not 1963. We would soon inflict the horrors of taking the kids on holiday aboard a jet airliner upon the world, as well as over-crowed airports and duty free. How thoughtless and cruel we were being, how reckless with the timeline.

Back at the hotel, Jimmy said to me, ‘Motorbikes, cross-country- deserts, dispatch riders.’

I raised a finger, suddenly deep in thought, turned around and headed to the car factory. Halfway there, I said to my driver/bodyguard, ‘No, take me to the aircraft factory, design section.’

‘You sure, boss?’

‘Yeah, the guys in the car plant are busy enough. But I know a few guys that have some time.’

At the Design & Planning Department, I grabbed a senior man. ‘Find me six men who are not busy for a few weeks, for an odd project.’

He grabbed the men, all now working on production instead of design. Assembled, I said to them, ‘OK, new project. It may not seem it, but it is important. I want you to design for me a completely new motorbike.’

‘Motorbike?’ they queried. ‘Like a Norton bike from England, sir? Or the British Army dispatch rider bikes?’

‘Yes, like those, but one that can reach eighty miles per hour, has a good range, can cross deserts, mud, and not break down very often.’

‘It’ll be for the army?’

‘It will, they’ll use it to send messages back and forth. It will also be used for recon, and snipers, so it needs to be quiet. Use your alloy for a frame, design a four-stroke engine that’s compact, and build me a bike that won’t fall apart after heavy use, get clogged with sand in the deserts, or drown in the jungle. But no toaster, please.’

Intrigued, they got to work. Leaving the building, I could see an aircraft that I didn’t recognise, and journeyed around to the tower. In the tower I asked about it.

‘It’s a hobby plane, sir, a glider made from spare parts. It has a small engine to get to altitude, then it … glides, sir.’

‘Good. I want a two-seat prototype, and a team on it, and I want a few soon.’

‘For production, sir?’

‘For the military. They fly to a place, cut the engine and glide in real quiet.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Let the people involved know I want one added to our catalogue.’

I drove to the Canadian Rifles base after lunch with Susan, and found the SAS officers. ‘Right, I have a new toy for you. We have a plane that glides. It has an engine, so you can fly two men to a location - say five miles short of the enemy position, cut the engine and glide in real quiet and land on a road, or in a field. From ten thousand feet, hell – you could glide ten miles or more.’

‘At night no one would see it,’ they realised. ‘And we could use it to get out again afterwards.’

‘What if there was no road?’ a man asked.

‘It’ll land at twenty miles per hour, so if you rough it up it doesn’t matter. You’d just have to walk out.’

A man wagged a finger. ‘Or, we glide over a target down to three thousand feet, a man jumps, the glider carries on a mile or two, the pilot turns on the engine and returns to base.’

They liked the idea, and I left them with it, asking that they have some glider lessons.

They came back to me two days later with a list of requirements. A storage hold for kit and weapons, a rear canopy that could be locked open then closed with a rope from the pilot, a night sight of course, and a radio. I agreed to it all, handing it to the team now working on it, the hobby plane now taken seriously. There was a logical next step.

I grabbed the senior man. ‘Could you make a plane – without engines – that could be towed on take-off by a Super Goose, basically a big glider? The plane would be stuffed full of soldiers, and they’d land in a field quietly. Once down, the glider would be wasted, so it would have to be cheap. It would also have to survive a rough landing.’

‘How many men in the back?’

‘Say twenty or thirty with kit. But it would need to land slowly, with giant flaps, and airbrakes to slow it. No armour, no nothing, just a big glider.’

‘To get twenty soldiers into a place quietly at night,’ the man surmised. ‘A throwaway glider.’

‘Can you do it?’

‘Of course we can, sir.’

‘Good man, get a team on it.’

When I informed Jimmy he just nodded.

As the weather warmed up, so did things in China. Japan consolidated its hold on the Canton region, no intention of leaving, but still kept its distance from Hong Kong. The American Brigade, however, were getting restless. More and more had parachuted in to China, and the first mission against the Japanese soon took place, the ambush of a convoy.

That mission, and the subsequent ones, were a success, but we received news in June that two men had been captured, one killed. I went and found Jimmy.

‘Do we do anything? Rescue mission, perhaps?’

‘With a bit of luck, they’ll be on their way to Tokyo.’

‘Show trial?’ I queried.

‘Something along those lines.’

‘The Japs will force the men to confess,’ I said with a sigh.

‘Confess what? That they supplied arms, went to train the Chinese to fight the Japs? The world already knows that, and since the Japs invaded … no one will side with the Japs.’

‘Should we pull the rest out?’

‘No, but I will ask them to stay behind the lines and just teach.’

‘Do you care about those two men?’ I asked, not quite knowing why.

‘Two men, verses twenty million dead if my strategy doesn’t work. So … no, I don’t care about them.’

‘That’s what I figured.’

‘Do you care?’

‘Numbers on a page. But sometimes I get complacent here, and forget the big picture.’

‘A comfortable life will do that to you,’ he noted.

Part 6A