This time when I prepared myself for bed I was in far better spirits. I had received an excellent impression of my new friends, particularly Major Sinclair. Here were people with whom I could most comfortably work: clear-eyed young Americans who were prepared to face the dangers of the modern world and at the same time take advantage of the great opportunities opening up to them. Thereafter I was again to find myself something of a social lion. During the coming days I would be introduced to other Memphians, young and old, who were deeply concerned for their city’s future—and for the future of the whole Christian world. Any impression I had received in the North that the Delta region was old-fashioned and slow was proven wholly false. Dixielanders might set great store by their historic traditions but they had no lack of faith in modern technology or new ideas. All they had lacked until now was finance, for since the Civil War Northern industrialists had systematically milked the South. The North, with its nerve centre in New York, had up until now totally controlled the American economy. Plantation owners, encouraged to grow enormous quantities of cotton, were then told in their best years that their price was too high. Thus New York and Chicago bought themselves artificially cheap raw materials. But I knew as well as anyone that what a defeated nation sometimes lacks in material wealth is frequently compensated for in a deeper spirituality and punctilious pride. These qualities might seem abstract to the scallawags and carpet-baggers so accurately drawn by Mr Griffith, but in the end they always prove far more valuable than any number of sweatshops and spinning jennies. They are qualities which provide men with the will to bide their time. This singular obstinacy allows them to choose their own terms, their own moment, their own form of action. I began to realise how true this was of modern Memphis. Without relinquishing the principles for which her people had fought a great war, she now prepared for a carefully engineered forward movement on all fronts. I could not help but be reminded by a similar determination I had witnessed in Italy, for so long impoverished by Papal tyranny, and now ready to move with relentless, measured step into the second quarter of the twentieth century.
Not for Memphis the hellish factory towns of the North, the urban poverty, the miserable conditions which, as in Russian cities, created a breeding ground of anarchy and unrest. Memphis was about to march from cotton and mules into engineering and services. Here small work forces could exist in ideal environments while producing something for which the whole world would willingly pay! I enjoyed the confidences of the city’s most influential leaders. My opinions were sought by ‘Boss’ Crump, whom everyone recognised as the strongest force in the city: the charismatic possessor of enormous political energy and brilliant insight, his only mistake would be to turn his back on those who most wished to help him. But for a single mistake of judgement he might have become the South’s own Mussolini. Crump’s sophisticated opinions on the Negro Question were illuminating. They expanded my horizons considerably. His plans for Southern self-sufficiency were years ahead of their time. Another far-sighted individual was then a leading businessman in Memphis, the inventor of modern supermarkets in his famous Piggly Wiggly grocery chain. He was building himself a magnificent house of pig-coloured marble near Overton Park and one afternoon treated me to an individual tour of his half built palace. Jewish interests ruined him before he could occupy his own mansion; his name, of course, was Clarence Saunders. I remember him being particularly interested in my ideas for an electrically operated automatic self-service market. I believe that towards the end of his life, still battling bravely against the combined might of Carthage, which by then had all but crushed the entire country, he attempted to make my dream a reality. He was dragged down in the end, however, by the Great Depression. People seemed to think this some sort of natural force, like a drought or an earthquake. Ask any Ukrainian if Stalin was an earthquake.
But these were golden days for me, and the burden of my heartache at being separated from Esmé was considerably lifted. It was wonderful to share a vision in common with so many others. I had never experienced this before. I had always felt isolated, a lone prophet with only a few good friends who, like Kolya, offered their loyalty without fully understanding my dream. We were striving to build an enlarged, more beautiful, more efficient Memphis, epicentre of the South’s cultural and financial renaissance. She would be a city where railroad and automobile were totally outmoded; a city of the electronic plane and the dirigible, with moving walkways, multilevelled shopping arcades, art galleries in which were displayed the world’s finest works. A city where crime and poverty were abolished, where the black race was no longer required. All manual work would be accomplished by machines. We were not prepared to abandon the negroes. They would have a township to themselves where they could grow at their own pace, with their own schools, churches and theatres. The Southerner feels his duty to the negro most strongly (that he is a heartless tyrant is another misconception encouraged by the North). On principle I always made it clear that while I willingly provided my services, I had no intention of settling permanently in the United States. It suited my idealism, at that time, to link my fortunes, however temporarily, with Tennessee’s leading city. The Fairfaxes were by now firm friends. They, too, were ‘outsiders’ who had been fully accepted by the hospitable South. Though I never actually flew their DH4 I was taken up by Pandora Fairfax twice and profited both intellectually and spiritually from the experience. From the air it is a unique sight, giving one a fresh understanding of the size and nature of the vast Delta flatlands and the broad shallow river twisting into what seems the infinite distance, arriving eventually at New Orleans. I was all the more impressed by the people who had first negotiated this river, who had fought their way across such enormous distances so their children might cultivate and civilise the land; by the rivermen who sailed flatboats back and forth with furs and cotton and gold to make St Louis and New Orleans two of the richest and most vital cities of their age. Sometimes I could wish that my father, in all his revolutionary nonsense, had been one of those who emigrated to America. Then, at least, I might have had a chance to grow without fear, without the perpetual threat of being drawn back into the nightmare. As a native American I could have done so much more for my country and in turn I would have received a fair reward. Mein Vater kam bis an die Grenze. Wohin gehen wir jetzt? Who knows? The same forces which destroyed Clarence Saunders might equally have destroyed me. At least I remain alive to remind others of a time when there was genuine hope and optimism in the world and men and women were still able to recognise the enemy. What does it matter today? The enemy is so strong he laughs at me. Even those who listen to me in the pub think I am joking.
In Memphis I was taught to drive the new Buick Mr Gilpin put at my disposal: a simple enough matter, for all I was frequently hampered by the stupidity of other drivers possessing neither the natural instinct for automobile manipulation nor sufficient imagination to consider the wishes (or indeed the very existence) of their fellow road users. In the Buick (and later, when that was being repaired, a Ford) I motored through tree-lined suburbs of Memphis or took the great road over the bridge into Arkansas. I had very soon grown more than fond of the city and was not at all impatient when Mr Roffy explained how the government and local authorities were moving rather more slowly than he had hoped in finalising the grants necessary to begin work. Everywhere along Main Street sites were being prepared for finer and bigger buildings. New trolley cars were soon to be introduced. That complicated cat’s cradle of wiring crossing and recrossing the city’s streets indicated, in its own simple vocabulary, our continuing progress. On a day in February warmer and damper than most, when the city suddenly smelled of fresh tar and the coal smoke from the trains or riverboats for once was not dissipated in the colder atmosphere, I received a welcome visitor. It was Major Sinclair. He had come to Memphis by air this time. He was full of excitement for his new vessel. The small non-rigid airship was tethered in one corner of the Fairfax airfield. On its side it prominently advertised the name
of a new journal, which was his other abiding obsession. He was ebullient. ‘The paper will sweep the country. It’s the foremost banner of the greatest crusade America has ever known! There’s a fresh wind blowing through the United States, Max, and it has its origin in Atlanta!’ The ship (like the newspaper it advertised) was called The Knight Hawk.
Sinclair and I walked out to the mooring mast the evening after he had arrived. We were both smoking cigars, in that calm, rather comfortable silence old comrades share when they are merely enjoying each other’s company. The little airship’s gondola almost touched the ground. It was made from light metal, rather dented and scratched, and had been sprayed white. A large red Maltese Cross was painted on either side. Although several cables secured it, the whole ship swayed in the mild south-westerly breeze. Occasionally it creaked a little, as if struts were somewhere under strain. The gondola was not enclosed. It had three open cockpits, rather like aeroplane cockpits, in one of which the steering gear was located. The ship was the last made, said Sinclair, in the British SSZ class, most of which had been sold to America. The British had nicknamed them ‘blimps’ after the legendary Colonel Blimp, one of their great patriots. Behind the cockpits was mounted a single Rolls-Royce 75hp Hawk engine. Major Sinclair was evidently proud of his machine. ‘It’s only the first,’ he said. ‘I already have plans to build an improved type. I was hoping for some advice. But that’s not the main reason for coming to Memphis. I’ve been entrusted with a mission. There are one or two places I must visit before I go back to Atlanta. I’m here to promote the paper. To drum up subscriptions if I can.’ He had other business here, too, but was not as yet prepared to speak of it. He planned to spend at least a week here. ‘Anyway, look her over. I’d like your opinion.’ He helped me climb the short ladder into the main cockpit and inspect the controls. I studied the steering mechanism for achieving height and direction, the engine switches, the various gauges. Major Sinclair was not to know this was my first close view of an ordinary airship and I was fascinated with the workings of the rudder and ailerons. I told him I thought it an excellent machine of its type.
‘Of course it’s a bit primitive.’ He was almost apologetic. ‘But we have to make a start.’
I agreed with him. I was still unsure what he meant.
‘There was some idea of providing canopies for the cockpits,’ he said. ‘But I gather they were next to useless most of the time. She’s no worse than the average plane and the gasbag helps keep some rain from your head.’
Standing up in the swaying cockpit I steadied myself with one of the six hawsers which attached the gondola to the main bulk. The bag was faintly yielding silvered fabric of the usual kind. Though she was a far cry from my own planned ship, she was nonetheless a genuine and thoroughly tested aerial vehicle. I was as delighted as a schoolboy at a cockfight. Major Sinclair enjoyed my pleasure. Soon he had climbed into one of the two rear cockpits. Leaning over me while I sat at the controls he explained the special techniques involved in flying this particular craft. I worked the foot pedals (which controlled both height and angle of flight) and rapidly mastered the whole thing. It was much simpler than flying a heavier-than-air machine. I imagined myself a thousand feet above the ground, flying wherever I chose, and drew a deep breath of satisfaction. It would not be much longer before my dream was fully realised. Then I would pilot a far larger ship. I would be admiral of my own aerial armada!
Light was fading as I descended the little metal ladder to the ground. Major Sinclair followed me; then he made an odd sort of gesture which I could not interpret. He lowered his head, rubbed a gloved hand across his aristocratic mouth and frowned to himself. I was now expectant.
At length the flyer looked up. He seemed very serious, either reluctant to speak or unable to find appropriate words. Silently he took my arm. We walked back through the twilight towards the wooden shacks which presently functioned as the Fairfaxes’ administrative buildings. There was a stillness about the evening. The wind had dropped and the air felt warmer, even as the sun vanished. Major Sinclair began to speak in a low, sober voice, addressing me formally where before he had used my first name, as if what he had to say needed increased objectivity.
‘Colonel Peterson, sir, I know you’re of French and English blood. I gather, welcome as you are, you one day intend to return to Europe.’
‘That’s so, major.’
‘I understand you’re of the Protestant religion. We can take that for granted. I hope you’ll forgive me for seeming ill-mannered. I wonder if you could bear with me and tell me again your views as to the current plight of this country’s native born Anglo-Saxon citizens.’
I gave him my unhesitating answer: ‘I am not afraid to speak my mind on the question, major. I believe them to be in mortal danger. I have reason to know they are threatened by an increasingly unified army of Bolshevik Hebrews and Papists, plotting tirelessly to rouse the black and yellow races against them. I have witnessed at close hand the violence and lawlessness unleashed by these forces in Russia. I live in horror of the same nightmare spreading further across the world.’
He nodded slowly in profound agreement. ‘You have confirmed what I already understood. What would you say if someone offered you the opportunity to play an active part in the struggle?’
‘I am not a man of violence, major.’
‘You have made that perfectly clear also.’ He sucked in his cheeks. He stopped suddenly in the semi-darkness, just before we reached the buildings. ‘I am about to ask you a great favour. You should feel no obligation to me if you decide to refuse.’ He buttoned up his flying coat. ‘Would you be prepared to address a group of sympathetic friends on your own direct experience of Red Revolution? You’d be doing them and America a mighty important service.’
‘You wish me to make some kind of speech?’
‘An informal talk, Max, to concerned individuals, all these people of substance in the community and sharing the same views.’
I had never spoken publicly in English before and was of course nervous. Secondly I had no great desire to call unnecessary attention to myself. Yet the offer had a number of attractions. Moreover, I felt as strongly as I do now that what happened in Russia should serve as a dreadful warning to the rest of the world. It was, of course, my duty to accept. I asked what was entailed.
Major Sinclair continued to speak in low, deliberate tones. ‘In a few days time, a certain steamboat will leave the landing stage at Memphis and steam downriver towards Vicksburg. At a given hour she will turn back to Memphis where, before morning, her passengers will disembark. All aboard are sworn to the deepest secrecy. Decisions will be taken that night which will affect the fate of the entire nation.’
I was both intrigued and impressed. ‘I am honoured, major, by your confidence.’
‘Can you spare a few hours to be aboard that boat next Wednesday evening, Max?’
I assured him, come what may, I would make the time.
He reached out and firmly shook my hand, staring into my face with an intensity I had never seen before. ‘Thank you.’
No sooner had we returned to the road and the Buick than he was ordinarily cordial again. It was as if he had never made his request. I told him I should one day like to see how The Knight Hawk handled in the air. He promised to take me aloft whenever I desired. By now, of course, it had dawned on me that Major Sinclair was rather more than he had claimed. Plainly he represented powerful political interests. I must congratulate myself on being fortunate enough to gain his friendship. Even then I had not understood the full significance of his questions and his request. It would not be the first time someone of his type would know instinctively I was trustworthy. I have never clearly understood what is in me which encourages this. Probably it has something to do with my lifelong hatred of hypocrisy and intolerance, the directness with which I am prepared to approach important issues of the day. I have always loathed compromise.
That same evening I sat at my desk and by the light o
f a gas reading lamp wrote Esmé another long letter describing all my successes. America was accepting me far more readily than I could reasonably have hoped. I would make every effort to have her join me as soon as possible. In a short note to Mrs Cornelius I recommended America as being full of tremendous opportunities. If she chose, she could rise as high as she wanted. For my part, there was every chance I would soon be a household name like Marconi or Wellington. Soon she would hear of the Peterson plane, the Peterson domestic washing machine and the Peterson radio-powered automobile. Actually, it did not matter to me if my real name were used or not. My ego had no need for popular acclaim. To accomplish the work was enough, even if Pyatnitski were forgotten forever.
The Laughter of Carthage: The Second Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet (Colonel Pyat Quartet Series Book 2) Page 52
