He stopped speaking as a messenger hammered on the door. “Come in,” he called sharply.
“Sir, there’s terrible news,” the young Contemporary person said, through heavy breathing. He’d clearly run up the stairs to his commanders. “Admiral Darlan hanged himself in his cell. He committed suicide!”
“Thank you, young man,” Flynn said, before Wavell could explode. “Please give Colonel Tyburn my regards and inform him that I shall wish to discuss his security later.”
“Yes, sir,” the Contemporary man said, and vanished.
“Well, that means we’ll have no choice, but to treat France as a hostile nation,” Flynn observed. “I suppose, if we had to go for the landing in Southern France, it makes some things easier.”
The man was sunburned, with a walnut-brown tinge, but there was no mistaking the famous voice. A group of soldiers, Contemporary and 2015, were watching the play; it contained elements of slapstick humour that would later become famous beyond measure. Gavin Gateshead, talent spotter, knew that he’d finally found his key to fame and fortune. The performer finished with a trumpet solo that seemed to be extremely insolent, aiming the trumpet in the direction of Germany.
“Ah, way more fun that those strange colour jumping boxes,” the performer said, and ducked to avoid a hail of good-natured objects. “See you next time!”
The performer jumped off the stage, discarding the strange mixture of 2015 and Contemporary clothing, and danced over to a trailer. It was a 2015 invention; a mobile home that provided quick showers for the performers. Gateshead ran after him, calling for him to stop.
“Who are you?” The performer asked, taking in Gateshead’s strange suit, one tailored to be as cool as possible in the desert heat. “What do you want with me?”
Gateshead stuck out a hand. “Gavin Gateshead, Talent Spotter,” he said, announcing himself. “I am here to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
The man looked at him, eyes narrowing. “I’m good,” he said finally, “but I don’t think that performers get that much money, and I have pretty wild dreams.”
“Yes, I know,” Gateshead said. “Listen, would you mind coming to my office to discuss it?”
He smiled all the way to his office. Bribing the BBC staff to allow him to travel with them had been easy; a French tax-collector who’d lost his money, his penis and his life had been in no position to object to him taking his office. The Algerians seemed to be half in love with the British, half wary of them.
“Neat place,” the performer said finally, looking around. Apart from the required water cooler, there was a laptop and several cameras lying on the table. “I’m surprised it hasn’t been stolen.”
Gateshead shook his head. “It’s impossible to use that laptop without my permission,” he said. “You’ll see that it’s nailed to the floor; that thin wire needs a very strong laser to cut through it.” He grinned. “Now, Mr Milligan, I’m about to make you rich. Listen.”
He pushed a button on his laptop. The sound of two men arguing over a piece of paper with the time written one echoed through the room. Milligan stared at the laptop; the voice was instantly recognisable as his own.
“In 1960, you wrote the Goon Show,” Gateshead said. “At the moment, you could write more; you have a chance for your genius to be appreciated in its own time.”
Milligan frowned. He’d been nobody’s fool, Gateshead remembered. “If I would have written them,” he said, “does that mean they’re mine?”
“Of course,” Gateshead said. “Your estate and the BBC holds the copyright, but it would be yours if you came back, from the dead as it were.”
“How did I die?” Milligan asked. Gateshead lifted an eyebrow. “I want to know, damn it!”
Gateshead frowned. “You died in 2002,” he said. “It was a combination of bipolar disorder and mental breakdowns.”
“Not a short life,” Milligan said. His face changed alarmingly; Gateshead remembered that he’d always had a history of mental breakdowns. “Tell me, what’s in it for you?”
“I beg your pardon?” Gateshead asked.
“You’ve come a very long way to recruit me,” Milligan said. “Please don’t flatter me; I want to know why!”
Gateshead smiled. “I work on my own, more or less,” he lied smoothly. “The big boys of the industry always cut me out because they have more money to do the promotion, and with money you can elect a monkey as Prime Minister.” He chuckled. “And they have done so, on occasion. Money can get five girls with no talent a number one slot; money can lure potential performers away from me and I get nothing for all the legwork.
“But you; you’re a national treasure,” he continued. “Thousands would come to see you read boring history books, let alone your Goon Show. Once we get your fellows up, all the promotion has already been done – and the money can roll in!”
Milligan smiled. “I agree,” Spike Milligan said.
“Then Ying-Tong-Iddle-I-Po,” Gateshead said. Milligan looked blank. “You come up with that in 1970 or thereabouts.”
Milligan laughed and clapped him on the back. “Perhaps I could read them boring history,” he said, “or perhaps a skit where the teacher is trying to teach, and the class are so bored because he has a really boring voice…”
Chapter Twenty-One: Back in the USA
Ronald Reagan Airport
Nr Washington DC
15th August 2004
Ambassador King didn’t know if the airport, situated well away from where the original airport would have been built years later, would be allowed to keep the name from the future. Certainly, some limited investment by the ambassadorial staff – those that had chosen to come with him from Britain – had provided for an airport that would be far better planned than the American airport system had been in the original timeline. The fantastic amount of labour available in depression-era America made planning and preparing far cheaper than it would have been in 2015. The huge project didn’t seem to daunt the Contemporaries at all; they just started work.
“An impressive achievement,” President Roosevelt said, watching as the first pieces of the runway were laid in the ground. “Do the aircraft really need such a long runway?”
“I’m afraid so,” King said. “A 747 requires a long run to pick up the speed to take off, let alone land safely. The British CAA has agreed to send us the radar and radio sets we’ll need before pilots can be trusted to land here, but once its built we can trade secure from German interference.”
Roosevelt nodded softly. “Tell me; are the British telling the truth about some of our people demanding asylum?”
“I think so, yes,” King said. “It’s no reflection on their patriotism.”
“Hoover thinks it is,” the President said grimly. “He wants the price of any deal to be their return to face charges; desertion, treason and whatever else the FBI can drum up.”
“Hardly fair on anyone,” King observed. “Mr President, half of your staff thinks I’m an uppity nigger. Will they not think the same about other black men, or Asians? There have already been three anti-Japanese riots; Admiral Kimmel was demanding that the Japanese near Pearl Harbour be removed, despite the fact that history says very few of them worked for the Empire of Nippon.”
“Unforcunetly I do not have the free hand of an emperor,” Roosevelt observed. “Everything I do burns political capital; if I order the Army to accept black soldiers as equals, they’ll protest and Southern Democrats will join them. On the other hand, you know how much… hope has been invested in the forces overseas; their return could make or break some companies.”