by gerald hall
“Will our aborigine employees continue to be harassed by the local politicians though? A concerned Dorothy then asked.
“That is the most positive outcome of my meeting with Minister Hughes. It appears that he is going to intervene to provide our people with some legal protection. Hopefully, he will follow through with his commitment. I would hate to have to start looking again for someone else to help us protect humanity’s future.”
Cavill Industries Corporate Headquarters Derby, Western Australia
April 22, 1932
“I was very impressed by the use of the mail delivery plane during a journey where I sailed on SS Brementwo years ago. Then when I read about the advanced proposal by Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eycourt and John Harper Nerbeth for a passenger liner with a flight deck for aircraft, I decided that we should design and construct something along these lines for both civilian and potentially military purposes. Did, you know that Sir Eustace designed many of the Royal Navy’s warships including HMS Hoodand HMSRenown.”
“What exactly do you have in mind, Mister Cavill?” Harold’s in-house naval architect Alexander Portman asked. He continued to be amazed by the ‘suggestions’ that Harold had made about ship designs. Harold’s ideas often seemed to be initially very unorthodox. Yet when Alexander took a closer look, he found Harold’s proposals to be very promising. Harold also mentioned about another proposal for a flying-deck liner that had recently been made by Brown Boveri and Company for the Blue Ribbon Line. What Harold didn’t mention was that he had learned of these flying-deck liner proposals from doing research on his computer database, not from any contemporary news reports.
“I believe that we should take this basic design, enlarge it slightly and add some features that will make the vessels suitable for possible military use.” Harold said before beginning to roughly sketch out on a piece of paper an expanded version of the d’Eycourt design that would displace more than thirty-thousand tons at full load and would incorporate some features of the Blue Ribbon Line proposal as well. This vessel would have three levels of passenger cabins above the main hull on either side. Between those two rows of cabins were maintained storage for the light mail and passenger aircraft in addition to cargo, subsidiary ship’s boats and a variety of amenities for the passengers.
A large flight deck running the entire two hundred and fifty meter length of the ship was supported by the reinforced structure of these passenger cabins. Two large centerline elevators were to be used to bring aircraft back and forth from the flight deck. The ship’s bridge and funnel were located on the extreme starboard side of the flight deck in what appeared to be a traditional aircraft carrier island structure. A large hatch along the center of the port side had a heavy ramp that could be extended down to transfer vehicles and large pieces of cargo. The bow was extended upward and merged into the front of the flight deck to protect the flight deck and forward hull from heavy seas.
Harold also explained to Alexander that he wanted this ship to be able to efficiently cruise the vast expanses of the Pacific at high speeds without having to be frequently refueled.
“How much power are you going to need for this liner of yours, Sir?” Alexander asked after listening to Harold’s initial description of the vessel.
“She needs to be able to reach at least thirty knots at maximum speed. That would likely require the production of close to one hundred and twenty thousand horsepower from her propulsion plant. Of course, for the safety of the ship and its passengers, the propulsion plant machinery will have to be as highly compartmentalized as possible. We don’t want to suffer a total loss of power due to a single point of failure.
Also for the safety and comfort of the ship’s complement, the hull will need to be bulged as well. We don’t want to ever have the blood of aTitanicorLusitaniamagnitude disaster on our hands.”
“That’s a lot of power. That could require a lot of internal space to accommodate a sufficiently large power plant.”
“It might, if we used earlier generation steam turbine and boiler designs. One of my other engineers from America has some experience with high-pressure boiler and turbine designs. He is in the process of building a propulsion plant that can reliably operate at nearly seven hundred pounds per square inch pressure. It would give you a very compact and efficient propulsion system that would fulfill your needs.”
“If he can build these engines as you have described them, I can design a ship that will do the job that you want.”
“I am sure that it can be done. The Germans are building engines that run at nearly twice the pressure and at higher temperatures already. But ours will be far more reliable.”
This was not going to be an ordinary ocean liner by any means. It was very clear to Alexander that Harold wanted this design to be easily modified to become a warship or to produce new warships based on the specific features that he had already described. The specifications given would be far too costly for a mere commercial vessel to employ. Of course, there would have to be certain other features added to the design as well that Harold had left unsaid during the conversation. This included provisions for defensive weapons and light armor protection that would have to be added to the military version of the design.
“I will get working on the design immediately, Sir. How soon will you need the blueprints to be ready?” Alexander quickly answered.
“I want to be able to begin production on the first ship of the class within the next year, Mister Portman. I will have the overall specifications ready for you to work from within the month. I have been promised that the final production design engines themselves will be available for installation as soon as you have hulls ready to receive them. The prototype ship engines are already in the process of being installed into our special project at Dry Dock One. They are based on the land test unit at the power station. The land unit gave us valuable test information as well providing additional power to the town of Derby.”
It would take a lot of long arduous hours to create such a ship design. But Alexander had already learned that this Harold Cavill had a very good idea of what was possible. It almost seemed as though Harold had already seen in reality what he had been asking for based on the detailed descriptions that he always given Alexander.
“It sounds like you have almost everything well in hand. But how are you going to be able to finance all of this with everything else that you are building, Mister Cavill?”
“Don’t worry about that, Mister Portman. I will be able to pay for everything just fine. You just get your team working on the new design.”
“I will get on it right away, Sir. Do I have your permission to hire some more people to help with the design work? All of my people now are busy with the commercial freighter refits as well as the new destroyer and submarine designs that you wanted us to design. All of those projects are pretty advanced but they still need additional research and design work.”
“Yes, you can hire four more people for your design team. But I want you to put them exclusively on the freighter project. I need people that I can already trust working on the liner and the military-specific projects. Do you understand?”
“No worries, Sir. I’ll make sure that the job gets done and none of our secrets get out.” Alexander answered. Harold quietly chuckled when he heard the American engineer and naval architect using Australian slang. Alexander was becoming quite comfortable here so far from his home in America. Since Alexander’s arrival, nearly fifty more American, British and even a couple of German engineers had joined Harold’s various industrial enterprises to provide additional technical support. Their technical expertise also provided a plausible cover for the technical innovations that Harold would incorporate in the equipment that he intended to produce. He would simply make a few ‘suggestions’ drawn from his computer database to the engineers. Then he would let them take the concepts to the drawing board and beyond. The engineers never saw the computer. They only saw hand sketches and notes that Harold would periodic
ally provide to them.
Of course, Harold would have more military-related design work coming up for Alexander and his team quite soon. Harold had been looking at his historical files for theKing George Vbattleship recently. He had always wondered what could be done to make that battleship class more effective against the aerial and surface threats that it faced in the previous timeline.
The time would soon come for Harold to present these design challenges to Alexander. After that, the real challenge would be to convince Harold’s friends like Churchill to implement those suggestions.
At the end of the day, Harold met back at the main office with Dorothy and Judith to go back home. Even though Dorothy had resumed working, she still took Judith with her everywhere that she went.
“Hello, Sweetheart. How was work today?” Dorothy asked as she carried Judith into Harold’s office.
“Pretty normal, which is to say, full of challenges. How about with you?”
“Judith has been a very good girl today. We went to the hospital so that Doctor Phillips could take a look at us.”
“Judith hasn’t been feeling good?”
“Judith has been just fine. I just happened to take her with me to the hospital rather than leave her at home with a babysitter. I have had an upset stomach the past couple of weeks. So I wanted to find out what was wrong. Doctor Phillips did a few tests on me several days ago.” Dorothy said before suddenly smiling.
“She told me today that the test results say that I am pregnant again. Isn’t that wonderful, Sweetheart?”
“That’s amazing, Dorothy. I guess that we will have to go ahead with that expansion on our house now.”
“That’s not the only place that needs to be expanded, Harold. It is obvious that with our growing population, you are also going to need to expand the school and the hospital as well. It’s only proper if you are going to take care of the people who are working for you here.”
“Dorothy, I have been planning on doing that all along. Obviously, the hospital needs to be expanded so that it can provide more services. The school expansion that I will be starting soon will increase its capabilities even more than that. I need hundreds, if not thousands of people who are not only secondary school graduates, but also have more advanced technical training to work for me as my companies continue to expand.
Some of the advanced training can be accomplished through apprenticeships and vocational training. But I need people with more advanced technical training as well. There are no universities that offer such training anywhere near here either. That means that some of my engineers will end up also being instructors for advanced technical studies here in addition to their regular work. We have been doing that almost from the beginning anyway, but at a much smaller scale.
It won’t mean that I will be able to offer university degrees to any of the students here. But we should be able to teach men and women here to be the next best thing to an engineering technician. That will help my engineers and workmen a tremendous amount in addition to the apprenticeship programs that we have already started.”
“It all sounds very expensive, Harold.”
“It could be. However, the education of our workers and their families would be an incredible investment for our businesses as well as our future. An educated workforce would be far more efficient and productive than one that merely relies upon strong backs and empty heads. In the long run, I think that this will save us a tremendous amount of money.”
“What impact will it be on the future? Will educating these people help prevent that final terrible war a hundred years from now?”
“Maybe. I would hope that they would help create a world where mass genocide would be unthinkable. Perhaps, they can even be advanced enough to be sending people to live on Mars and elsewhere in space. That way, mankind will have a much greater chance of surviving any calamity.”
“First, we have to survive the prejudices of our own times. You know that some of the politicians here will not like that you are going to educate the Aborigines alongside whites, especially with the children. Some of them realize that knowledge is power.”
“That’s true. But we are going to wield the power that comes with the knowledge of the future. This way that we will be able to change things around here.”
“I pray that we will have the wisdom to change things for the better though.”
Cavill Industries Corporate Headquarters Derby, Western Australia
May 19, 1932
A well-dressed white man in his mid-forties with long graying sideburns entered the main office for Cavill Industries and quickly asked where he might find Harold Cavill. A few minutes later, Harold came out of his office and met with the unexpected visitor.
“What is your name and business here, Sir?” “My name is Richard Barnard. I represent a group of Commonwealth businessmen who would like to invest in your enterprises. They believe that their capital would help you further expand your business. Of course, they also believe that you would bring them a very favorable rate of return on their investment in return.”
“Where exactly are the people that you represent from? I will only consider offers from investors from countries that I deem reliable.” Harold said, fearing that some of the investors would actually be from hostile nations like Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union. They would not only be interested in profiting from Harold’s work but also would be far more inclined to try to gain access to the technology that would be used.
“Some of the people that I represent are from the United Kingdom, but the rest are from here in Australia.” Richard explained with a smile.
“I see. Please understand that I have some very strict criteria that must be met before I will
allow anyone to become involved in my business activities. This includes any outside investors.” “What are your conditions, Mister Cavill?”
“The first is that I maintain full control of all business decisions. This includes the direction of my
corporations, all personnel actions as well as research and development. I maintain full control of all
technologies that are used or developed at my companies.
I will also need the names of all of the parties involved in this group of investors. I will let you
know later if I am willing to accept them.”
“I am willing to provide a list but it will take a few days.”
“I can wait.” Harold confidently replied.
This was the third such group that had attempted to enter into a partnership with Harold. So far,
none of them will either willing to accept his conditions or had connections with countries that Harold
did not want to be involved with. While Harold really didn’t need their funding to continue his quest, the
involvement of outside investors could broaden his financial base and divert attention from some of his
other, potentially more controversial projects as well.
Three weeks later, Richard Barnard contacted by Harold and asked to return to the latter’s office
in Derby. Harold took a couple of days before sending his acceptance of the investor’s request to visit.
When Mister Barnard arrived, Harold was waiting at his desk for him.
“Good morning, Mister Barnard. So far, it appears that your investment group would be
acceptable to me, provided that the group agrees to all of my previously stated conditions. “There was a lot of grumbling about your conditions amongst the people that I represent. But
they all agreed to your terms.” It was obvious that a lot of arm-twisting had to be done by some of
Mister Barnard’s partners to get some of the other investors to agree to Harold’s terms. “Very good. I trust that we will all find this quite profitable in the long run. How much capital do
your clients want to invest with me? I am also interested in investing myself in certain industries that
your clients own or have interests in as well for
the purposes of producing some of the products that I
intend to bring to market in the shipbuilding, electronics and aviation fields.”
Richard smiled at Harold’s mention of investments. With the worldwide recession still severely
impacting many industries, the idea of Harold bringing in more of his own capital to other companies
was very appealing.
“I understand that Petter Limited is one of your clients, Mister Barnard?” Harold asked, already
knowing the answer. He then continued.
“I am interested in investing in one of their subsidiaries; Westland Aircraft Works. In fact, I want
to build a plant here in Australia to build Westland designs and other aircraft designs. This would
increase their manufacturing base as well as their market, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir. I do believe that it would, Mister Cavill.”
Harold then pulled out a piece of paper with a typed list of companies and the products to hand
to Richard. Harold had prepared the list shortly after Richard’s initial visit.
“Here is a list of certain of your clients, their companies and the products that they produce. As
part of any investment arrangement, I will want to also invest capital in them as well. There could also
be technology transfers involves if the companies that I am interested in would be willing to produce
certain items for me.
How long do you think that it would take for you to communicate my request? I know that this
additional condition had not been mentioned in our previous meeting. But I believe that your clients will
find it to be mutually beneficial.” Harold calmly said while sitting back in his chair, his demeanor exuding
confidence.
“I will send telegraphs immediately to my clients. I will contact you when I receive their
