The Man who Missed the War (49 page)

Philip, too, gradually became bored. When some of the officers
spoke, who either had naturally soft voices or had never been taught to speak up, it was a great strain trying to catch what they said. He also found that the undulations of the screen had the effect of slightly distorting the whole picture, as though it were seen through a layer of very gently moving water. It was this, he suddenly realised, which accounted for the crudity of Rakil’s maps. If the screen always had this slight wobble, it was obviously impossible for an observer to copy the detail of an intricate coastline with any accuracy; and, of course, for the same reason it was impossible to read any of the documents which lay on the table, or any type of a size much less than a newspaper headline. The movement, too, was very tiring to the eyes, so the visitors were both glad when the conference broke up, and Rakil terminated the screening.

Afterwards, he explained to them that normally he would have carried his observers direct to the room in which he knew that these important conferences were held almost daily, but he had thought that his visitors might like to see something of the great Pentagon Building, which had been specially erected at Washington in an incredibly short time to house the War Staffs of the United States Armies. He then took them into the room where the maps were hung and pointed out the position of the tiny coral atoll off the northern coast of New Guinea that General MacArthur was shortly proposing to take, and placed a hieroglyph, representing the date on which it was to be attacked, against it.

While Rakil was still talking one of his women assistants had come up behind him, and when he had finished spoke to him in their own tongue. After listening to her for a moment, he said: ‘Marlig asks if you would care to take your evening meal with her and her companions. You have my permission to do so if you wish.’

Gloria and Philip accepted with alacrity. Marlig and the other assistants were mostly middle-aged people, but there seemed at least a chance that they might prove more human than Zadok, Rakil and the other ghoulish old men.

Marlig, like all the other Atzlanteans, had black hair, a reddish skin and an acquiline nose. She was not a particularly attractive-looking woman, and they soon discovered that her English was
extremely limited. As she explained to them in halting phrases, many of which had a distinctly American twist, it was one thing to learn enough of a language to listen to conversations and catch the gist of what was being said, but quite another to make one’s own rebellious tongue master the strange noises that composed the languages of the outer world. She went on to say that the Seven Lords were exceptional in this respect; but that it was part of their training for their high office that, during the ten years of preparation which they underwent, they should completely master at least two of the world’s most important languages.

While they were talking she led them down a ramp to a still lower floor and along a broad corridor which ended in a pair of wide and heavy curtains. On passing through them the eyes of the newcomers were at first quite dazzled by the contents of the extraordinary apartment into which they had been taken.

It was far bigger and loftier than any of the rooms they had so far seen, although not so large as the Temple, and it was laid out as an indoor garden. But the amazing and rather awful thing about it was that all the flowers were made of gold.

Marlig seemed very proud of it and struggled to find words to convey that she had seen nothing to compare with it in any television picture of the outer world. Philip was reminded of Prescott’s account of the garden of solid gold flowers which the Spanish Conquistadores had discovered, and promptly looted, at the back of the Incas’ Temple of the Sun in Peru. He did not doubt that the idea of creating both that and this ornate colourless and perfumeless pleasance had had a common origin in the long since sunken island of Atlantis.

His speculations were cut short on their being surrounded by several of Rakil’s assistants whom they had met that afternoon, and a number of other Atzlanteans. All of them had questions to ask in poor to moderate English, and for the next hour the two strangers were kept hard at work giving the same account of themselves as they had given the day before to the Council, and an additional mass of miscellaneous information on life in Europe and America.

From the garden of gold flowers they were led to other recreational apartments. There was a fine swimming-pool with a
variety of steam and other medicinal baths beyond it, a number of large and lofty squash courts in which some of the Atzlanteans with basket-like racquets bound on to their right hands were playing a game which was no doubt the ancestor of Basque Pelota, a fine concert hall where the strange, unfamiliar music was being played, and other rooms in which several couples were playing games that looked like chess and draughts, or just sitting in small groups talking. All of the rooms were well equipped, yet not one of them had even a suggestion of homely comfort about it; they all had the bleak impersonal atmosphere of a well-endowed but rigidly ruled institution.

There was no general dining-room for the considerable concourse of people, and it transpired that they fed in messes. Marlig’s mess consisted of some twenty people, all working under Rakil and all speaking a limited amount of English with an American intonation acquired from listening to practically nothing but American voices during their work.

However, when the time came to dine a heated discussion broke out among the Atzlanteans, and it appeared that Zadok’s English-speaking observers, headed by a thick-lipped man named Quetzl, insisted that Philip, being Irish, should feed with them. After much argument he won his point, so Philip and Gloria had to put as pleasant a face as possible on their separation, and they did not see each other again until they were escorted back to their own room some hours later.

As soon as they were alone they sank down among their cushions almost exhausted from the ceaseless questioning to which they had been subjected, but they had picked up a good deal themselves and were not too tired to exchange information while they undressed and settled down for the night.

Philip had discovered that the valley of the pigmies was not the only one in which a scientifically controlled climate made it possible for human beings to live in the open all through the year. There were two or more valleys nearby in this larger range, and it was from these that the Atzlanteans obtained all their food. This also explained why there were no young people to be seen in the underworld; they farmed the valleys. It seemed that the Seven and their hundred odd assistants were the privileged minority of the race, and that only by years of hard
application to study and an unshakable devotion to the way of Shaitan was it possible to secure a place among this hierarchy. On the other hand, all those unfortunate Atzlanteans who failed to be appointed to one of these comparatively rare vacancies were, at the age of forty, given over to the priests and sacrificed to the Remorseless One.

Gloria sighed. ‘My bunch were throwing a special party, but you’d never guess why. ‘Twas because a fat-faced dame called Agnil was giving her eyes to Shaitan tomorrow. They’re going to blind her with redhot needles, Boy, and they haven’t yet got to anæsthetics down here. And, would you believe it, she was just itching to play. To be a tip-top screen operator is the highest a woman can get among these nuthouse hoodlums. But what gets me down is that they never laugh. They’re so terribly earnest all the time, and they seem to think of nothing but ways in which they can serve what they call Atzl—by which I suppose they mean the State.’

‘That’s it,’ agreed Philip. ‘And what a State! Their dreary earnestness about it reminds me of the accounts one used to read of the young Russian Communists in the old days; but the ideals of these people are nearer to those of the Hitler Youth. They want
lebensraum
, and for generations they’ve been told that Shaitan can give it to them if they’ll pay up enough in blood and death.’

‘ ’Tis strange, though, that they seem to give no thought at all to souls.’

‘Yes, I noticed that too. Apparently they’re interested only in destroying bodies. It looks to me as if the Powers of Good have made them slip up somewhere during their long history and caused them to go off their original track. Races that are shut away from all outside contacts for many centuries do tend to lose sight of the origins of their religion and get set in a rigid pattern. Look at the Egyptians. Not only their religion, but their art, clothes and way of living from the cradle to the grave all became static and formalised through their being boxed up for the best part of three thousand years in the Valley of the Nile. Still, whether these people are following the original Satanic cult or not, it would be difficult to conceive a more hideous doctrine. This remorseless fanaticism of theirs and its consequences now
they’ve got a naturally brutal people like the Germans to work for them just don’t bear thinking about.’

In spite of the terrible things they had learned that day, they both slept soundly. The magno-electric science developed by the Atzlanteans had enabled them to provide their underground domain with perfectly balanced air-conditioning as well as heat and a pale, diffused though rather dull light. Another factor that no doubt contributed to their all being in excellent health was the food. As Philip and Gloria had learned from their visit to the messes, everyone had exactly the same food, and, as they had already noticed, while the quality was excellent there was always just barely enough of it, so that no one ever actually left hungry, but there was no chance of anyone suffering from over-eating.

Soon after they had breakfasted Zadok came to them. Sitting down on some cushions he proceeded to rub his hands together. The skin looked like old parchment and rustled slightly, as he said:

‘I have spoken with the Lord Toxil, and he agrees to my plan. Yesterday with Rakil you saw how we obtain our information. The present is a very busy time, particularly in London where all the planning is now going on for D-Day.’

‘What’s D-Day?’ asked Philip.

‘The date for the Anglo-American invasion of the Continent. My idea is that you should help us by becoming one of those who gaze and listen for me.’

Philip thought it well to make it appear that he was by no means eager to accept, so he said doutbfully: ‘I don’t know that I should be very much good. I hardly understood anything I heard at Rakil’s screening yesterday.’

‘It’s only a matter of practice,’ Zadok assured him quickly. These Planning Staffs have a language of their own. That is why it is difficult to understand them unless, to use a phrase they use themselves, one is “in the picture”. Their work is so secret that secrecy has become second nature to them. Even when they talk to one another they use code-words to express many of these things they are discussing.’

‘I know,’ Philip nodded. ‘I noticed that yesterday. It doesn’t convey very much to hear a General say, as one of the Americans
did, “If we do
BULLET
, why would we want to do
BABY-KILLER
?” ’

‘That is true. But we get to know the meaning of all these codewords in time, through the context in which they are used. I should provide you with explanations for the most important ones that are being used in London at the moment, and you would soon become familiar with them. No, it is not the codewords alone that are the difficulty; it is the extraordinary inability of the British to talk plain English or to give anything its proper name.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

Zadok scowled. ‘They are constantly using the words “Radar, Bolero, Bottleneck, Window”, to mention only a few. These do not appear to be ordinary code-words, and they are used in such a great variety of connections that it is difficult to decide their real meaning. The one word “Whale” may mean the great fishlike mammal which frequents our southern waters, a concrete construction of which the British are making large numbers just now, or the Chief of their Naval Staff. They refer to Sir Henry Wilson, their Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean, as “Jumbo”, and to the Prime Minister’s Principal Staff Officer, General Sir Hastings Ismay, as Sir “Pug”! But they are not even consistent in their nicknames. These important people are not always called after animals or fish. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke, is just known as “Brookie”, and the Chief of the Air Staff is called “Peter” Portal, although his name is really Charles.’

‘Of course, that does make things a bit awkward,’ Philip commented sympathetically.

‘Then there is this puzzle about the fruits,’ Zadok went on angrily. ‘These high-level people are always talking about Raspberries, Strawberries and Mulberries. We know what a Mulberry is. I will explain that to you this afternoon. But the other two remain a mystery. Seniors speak of giving Raspberries and Strawberries to their juniors. Strawberries are popular, but raspberries are not. Yet it cannot be the real fruit of which they speak, because we never see a General or an Admiral present his planning staff with a basket of either kind. However, we sometimes hear a junior officer say that he has had one of these
“baskets” that we have never yet seen. Sometimes, too, they speak of having been given a “bottle” which, curiously enough, they appear to dislike. But perhaps it has some connection with the mysterious and ubiquitous “bottleneck” which also causes them so much annoyance.’

‘I expect there are a lot of initials, too, used in referring to different people and departments in the Service Ministries, aren’t there?’ Philip remarked, with memories of his father discussing Admiralty matters when brother officers were present.

‘Yes. But we solved those straightforward minor riddles quite early in the war. It is these infuriating colloquialisms which trouble us much more. One would think that to “have a crack at a thing” would mean the same as an attempt to “shoot a thing down”. Yet it means the exact opposite. I cannot always be giving my thoughts to such problems, and my assistants have little aptitude for these things. It is in this way that you could be of invaluable service to us.’