Ossian's Ride (10 page)

As I tramped along I would sometimes think over what I had learned of I.C.E. Of the technological achievements of this, organization I had now built quite a catalogue. It ran like this:

ITEM. Masters of metallurgy. To wit the horizontal metal girders of the Dublin Rail Station.

ITEM. Builders of tremendous earth-moving equipment used to construct enormous roads among other things. Example, the “moving mountains” I had seen in Dublin. Probably powered by nuclear engines.

ITEM. Producing a very large electrical output. In addition to own uses, was now supplying power to even the most remote country cottages. Power must come from nuclear origin since no appreciable imports into Ireland of coal and oil. Possibly derived from water by thermonuclear process.

ITEM. Vast output of fertilizer. Much of the farmland around me had been reclaimed from bog.

All this added up not just to a great industrial organization, but to a new world, a new civilization. It may sound a little odd but I was even more impressed by the things that I.C.E. was not doing. They were not making cars—or tractors for that matter. All these were imported from abroad. Why? I believed I knew the answer. Because these were products that could adequately be manufactured elsewhere. I.C.E. was so incredibly confident in itself that it was only doing what others could not do. It scorned to engage in any well-understood industrial process.

But of
how
all this was being done I hadn’t learned enough to spread on a farthing. I knew of course that many clever scientists had joined I.C.E. I knew the names of a fair number of them. But clever as they were, there were men just as clever outside Ireland, at my own university for instance. So this could scarcely be the whole answer. I thought over every possibility that even the most rigorous racking of brains could produce, but nothing that came to mind seemed remotely plausible.

I passed Tipperary on its western side with the intention of skirting the Galty Mountains. My idea was to keep to the south until I reached a point a little beyond Fermoy, and then at last to swing sharply to the west. By taking this route (which was not the nearest) I would avoid getting close to I.C.E. territory at too early a moment. It was likely that the border would be protected in depth. This being so I wanted to tackle it as a rugby player makes straight for a touchdown. I had no wish to be flanked out to the wings.

As I say, I was to the west of Tipperary, I suppose near on ten miles. It was now coming up to six in the evening, so I set about finding a resting place for the night. I discovered a farm under the slopes of Slievenamuck. It was rather larger than I would have wished, but there seemed to be no reasonable alternative. My request for a bed was met with a refusal. “It is unlucky for you that we have visitors already,” explained the woman of the house.

“There is no problem in that,” remarked a rich voice behind me. I turned to find a clergyman smiling at us.

“There is no reason why he shouldn’t share the loft with Tiny.”

“That would be very fine if your Reverence has no objection.”

“I am only too glad to be of help to a passing traveler. Mrs. O’Reilly will get her young lad to show you the way. After you have washed, perhaps you would care to eat supper with me.”

I thanked him warmly and departed for the loft, following behind Mrs. O’Reilly’s lad. There were two beds, and Tiny was sitting on one of them. He was a gigantic fellow, the sort who plays center position in American football, fully 250 pounds. He responded to my look of astonishment with a lazy smile, a cigarette between his lips.

There was a pot bowl and an urn with water, so I stripped to the waist and began washing. During this operation, while I was soaping my face and my eyes were shut, a vise seemed to close on the biceps of each of my arms. I struggled violently to free myself but without the slightest success. Suddenly I was released. I opened my eyes, but soap got in them, smarting furiously. Somehow I got hold of my towel.

“You bloody great ape,” I yelled. For it was Tiny. He had sneaked up absolutely silently behind me and had gripped me with his huge hands. Now he burst into bellows of laughter.

I did the best I could to seem unconcerned. I finished washing, put on a clean shirt and wished heartily that I had never come near the place—I had no taste for spending the night with a gorilla, one that apparently possessed the sense of humor of an eight-year-old child. I considered whether or not I should pack up and leave there and then, but decided that to do so would be abominably discourteous to my clerical friend. I had better stick it out.

At supper the cleric seemed to detect some reserve in my manner. “Has Tiny been upsetting you?” he asked.

“No, no, nothing of any importance.”

“He is apt to be a bit playful. But I’ll have a word with him. You will have no further worry I can assure you. He’s really a very good fellow, you know, extremely faithful.”

“Do you spend much time in these parts, sir?” I said, thinking it best to change the subject.

“Often, when I am free from my charge in the city of Cork. But from your speech I would say that you yourself are from England, from the west?”

“Yes. I’m a Devon man by origin. I’m enjoying a few weeks’ rambling here after finishing my finals at Cambridge.”

“Aha, from Cambridge, a great place I’ve heard. You are a fortunate young fellow. By a sad dispensation we have far too few visitors from abroad nowadays.”

“Can you explain why that should be, sir?” said I, steering the conversation away from myself and my affairs.

“There is no mystery about it, I fear. The mammon of unrighteousness is upon us.”

This sort of remark I can make no sense of, so I left the man to extricate himself, which he did without difficulty.

“Aye, it is a great sin that hangs on us, better it were a millstone.”

“I cannot say that I’ve seen very much to support your point of view, sir.”

“Believe me, Mr. Sherwood, the young look only to outward symbols. They do not see the maggot busily at work rotting the core of our national life.”

“I take it, sir, that you are referring to I.C.E.”

“I am indeed,” he boomed. “The monstrous iniquity that is fast robbing us of our ancient way of life.”

“The ending of poverty is all I have seen on my travels.”

“Man does not live by bread alone. That is as true today as it ever was. With increasing prosperity the old virtues, the old sense of values, are all fast being lost, irretrievably lost.”

“Do you think prosperity and virtues are mutual enemies then?”

“Remember the words of Our Lord, Mr. Sherwood. ‘It were easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle ...’ Better to be poor, and sound in moral wind and limb, than to live in the finest earthly mansion.”

“I simply can’t agree that poverty is a desirable end in itself, sir. Poverty may often seem virtuous just because it’s given no opportunity to be anything else. I’d rather say that only in wealth and prosperity can true morality be judged.”

He laughed with a rich chuckle. “How delightfully argumentative you modern people can be!”

“I take it that there is a very general agreement in the Church on this subject of I.C.E.?”

“One good thing, and one good thing only, has come from the growth of the hosts of the ungodly: my Church and the Church of Rome now stand nearer together than I would have thought possible.”

This explained something that had puzzled me. His dress had seemed different from that of the priests I had seen in Dublin. It was of course the dress of the Church of Ireland. Both my powers of reason and observation were being dulled by so much country air.

I will not attempt to describe the rest of what (to be frank) I found a somewhat tedious conversation. I was a little surprised to find myself rallying staunchly to the defense of I.C.E. but I had yet to see anything of this organization that offended my sense of morality—such as it is.

The time came when I could decently suggest retiring for the night. I had no particular wish to renew the unpromising acquaintance of the gorilla, but this had to be done sooner or later. It was a relief that my clerical friend had not forgotten his promise to speak a word of caution to “Tiny.” He came across to the loft with me, took the gorilla aside for a few moments while I made up my bed and then remarked, “I think that all will now be well, Mr. Sherwood. What time would you care to breakfast in the morning?”

“Would seven-thirty be too early?”

“By no means. What is the time now, I wonder?” He pulled out a watch attached to a chain. It was of the kind that one must snap open before the dial can be seen.

“Ah, nine-thirty. Early to bed, eh, Mr. Sherwood?”

I was hard put to it to make any suitable reply, for on the inner cover of the watch I caught a glimpse of a most disturbing design. Stamped in the metal was the imprint of a crown.

I knew now the meaning, or at any rate a part of the meaning, of the words of the dying Michael—the cannon with the crown. I had had the word “cannon” all wrong. It should of course have been “The canon with the crown.”

My strong impulse, once the canon had gone, was to pack my things and to be away with all haste. Whether I had betrayed my surprise at the sight of the watch I cannot say—I may well have done so. At all events I couldn’t avoid the suspicion that the gorilla had been detailed to watch me closely. He stood by the door, a cigarette on his lips, smiling his lazy smile. Regretfully I decided it would be wiser to stay than to try to go.

I lay in bed thinking distasteful thoughts and keeping a wary eye on the gorilla. My after-dinner conversation with the canon just didn’t ring true. All those phrases, “mammon of unrighteousness,” “earthly mansions,” are the sort of thing a cleric will say from the pulpit, but not any more in ordinary social talk. The man was an impostor, grossly so.

The night was at best unpleasant and at worst terrifying. Eventually the gorilla decided to turn in—his bed came between mine and the door, I noticed. The light went out. I lay listening to his breathing, to make sure that he didn’t get out of bed. Nothing happened for maybe an hour. Then very stealthily he did get out. I heard him prowling almost silently about the room, and I had the horrible certainty that he was going to seize me again. It needs not the slightest imagination to realize the impelling desire I had to reach the door or the lights at least, but I knew as if by divine revelation that the one thing I must never do in front of this creature was to show fear. He came quite close, and then of a sudden let out in the dark his ear-splitting bellow of laughter. Drawing on every particle of my will power I roared back, “Get back to your bed. If I have any more trouble I’ll go straight and fetch your master.”

He went back. I decided that since he hadn’t attacked me the safest thing would be to seem unconcerned, really to try to sleep. I think that I managed to do so in a nightmarish fashion.

When morning came at last I was up betimes. I noticed that no sooner did I jump out of bed than the gorilla did too. I shaved, washed and packed my rucksack, all quite deliberately. Then I went down into the farmyard. Although it was still only seven o’clock, I eventually decided to go into the house and to wait there for breakfast. By so doing I hoped to escape from the ever-watchful eye of the gorilla.

In my story thus far there have been occasions when luck has rather decisively taken my side. Indeed I realized once or twice that I had rather been overdrawing my account in this respect. Now, in an instant, I was called on to repay my borrowings, at a usurer’s rate of interest. The canon was already abroad. He was seated at the dining table. When I came in he looked up with a placid smile. By his side was Shaun Houseman. Then I saw the enormity of what I had done. I had walked unawares into the headquarters of P.S.D.

I remember once playing in a game of cricket in which my side was called on to face up to a couple of quite ferociously skillful bowlers. Before we started our innings one member of the team marched around the pavilion advising us all that the one hope was “to take up a hostile attitude.” We duly took up a hostile attitude and were dismissed for a total of less than thirty.

In a rather similar way I now felt that my one hope was to seize the initiative. “Well, well, Mr. Houseman! And did you manage to recover all those papers from the bog?”

Houseman scowled at this mock-cheerful greeting, but the canon looked carefully at his manicured nails and said, “As a matter of fact one or two pages are missing, Mr. Sherwood. I am hoping for your own sake that you will be able to tell me what was in those pages.”

“What particular piece of nonsense have you in mind?”

The canon was still looking at his hands. “I would advise you to explain very clearly what you mean by that remark, Mr. Sherwood, or you may find that I am a less patient man than I seem.”

“There isn’t the least uncertainty about my remark,” I said with a bold show of confidence. “The manuscript was an obvious tissue of rubbish from beginning to end.”

I suppose he stood to lose several millions on the matter, so it was scarcely surprising that this last statement brought the examination of his fingernails to an abrupt end. “Houseman, get me the case.”

Houseman fetched a brief case to the table and took out a file, which he handed to the canon.

“Now show me exactly what you mean.”

I opened up the file. These were the papers all right, considerably stained from their wind-swept flight across the bog. I started reading quite slowly from the beginning.

“I am not prepared to sit waiting for very long, Mr. Sherwood. If I lose my patience with you I shall call for Tiny,” announced the canon. This was the psychological crisis. I had but a single card in my hand, my technical competence. I must seek to get this one card rated at its highest possible value.

“Look, sir, I’ve already given you a quick assessment of this document. Now I’m going to give you a detailed assessment. But you’ll have to wait my time for it, not your own.”