Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Andrew, from now on it’s nothing compared to that river.”

  “We’ll make it. We’ll deliver the goods. But what then? I’ll tell you. It’ll be purely personal, between me and Tom Grayne. No one else in the whole cockeyed world will owe me as much as thank you.”

  “Andrew, what do you mean?”

  “I’d take thanks as an insult. Tom Grayne’s on the level and I’ve helped him personally, man to man. He’ll turn his information in to a man in Washington who’s also on the level, although less so than Tom. By ‘on the level’ I mean he doesn’t try to steer other people or other nations into trouble for his own profit. But from him on downward until it reaches the daily papers, every word that Tom turns in will be used and fouled and perverted by every double-crossing political sharp who believes he sees a chance to enrich himself. That’s the hell of it. That’s why I’m bellyaching.”

  “Andrew, aren’t there any honest politicians?”

  “No. Every last one of them, in every country in the world, is a professional liar, thief, hypocrite, charlatan, crook, double-crosser — in plain words, a phony. An honest man couldn’t last a week in any important political job. If he were even half honest, he wouldn’t accept the job in the first place.”

  “How about your national hero Abraham Lincoln?”

  “He was shot for trying to be honest. Lincoln came mighty close to being an exception. He was honest with himself, which is more than half the fight. I learned my stuff straight from him. It was Lincoln’s own statement that you can’t be honest and remain a politician, that first set me off thinking about it.”

  “But, Andrew, you’re not in politics.”

  “You bet I’m not. I’d give my life, right now, this minute, to be done in by any torture anyone can think of, if I could make my blessed idiotic country wake up to what politics are — if I could make ’em look — think — understand that politics has landed all the swine on top and all the decent men and women underneath.”

  “Andrew, how terrible you make it sound.”

  “It isn’t terrible. It’s sickening. It gives me a bellyache. I get no pleasure out of knowing that every lick of work I do on this expedition will be turned to some rotten purpose by a conceited liar in Washington, or Whitehall, or Paris — Berlin — Rome — the Hague.”

  “Aren’t you glad to be blocking the Japanese?”

  “They’re no worse than we are. I f that’s a compliment, they’re welcome to it. We — I mean the rest of the world — taught ’em all they know about lip-service to ideals along with practical treachery, cruelty, robbery, lechery and every crime there is. I expect you don’t get my point. The trouble with me is, that I’m fed up. I have absolutely no respect for anyone, from king or president, pope or labor leader, down to the ten-year-old Wop doing the goosestep like a monkey in one of Mussolini’s uniforms — who tries to gain his own ends by lying propaganda and force or threat of force. I’ve no more use for the rotters who toady to dictators and praise them, than I have for the dictators and political bosses themselves.”

  He paused for a moment or two, as if reviewing what he had said. Then suddenly:

  “My country ’tis of thee! O God! If I could make my beloved country wake up and look at itself! If I could make it only try to be the land it brags of being! But how? God damn it, who can make it wake up — with all those scoundrels drugging it to sleep? If I were a Shakespeare or a Milton, they’d use my words to prove the opposite of what I mean!”

  He couldn’t stand it any longer. He crawled out of the tent and made a round of inspection with his flashlight. Bompo Tsering begged him not to shoot the snow leopards, saying they were undoubtedly the souls of greedy lamas who had charged high fees for blessings:

  “Their must living this way too long, then by-um-by, come ‘nother life, their being then maybe beginning way up once more.”

  “Okay. They shall have a life on you. You get the point? If they kill a pony or a sheep, you pay for it!”

  “No, no! No, no! That not being—”

  “Then watch carefully! Keep your snow-white lama-leopards out of camp.”

  The cold, still night air was making Andrew feel better, or perhaps he had worked something out of his system. He passed by Bulah Singh’s tent, making sure that Bulah Singh’s mule was properly blanketed and tied so that the leopards couldn’t scare him loose. Bulah Singh was awake, seated in the tent opening on a packing case, in Andrew’s spare overcoat, smoking a pipe he had borrowed from Bompo Tsering. Andrew passed him the time of night:

  “Have you enough tobacco-matches?”

  “Yes, thanks. It’s a fine night, isn’t it?”

  Bulah Singh could make a very ordinary statement sound like treason. Andrew stood sniffing the frosty air, eyeing the moon, feeling the weather.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Fine now. There’ll be a storm tomorrow. We’ll start early. Turn in and get some sleep.”

  He passed along, not even trying to hear what Bulah Singh muttered. But before he crawled back into the tent, where he thought Elsa was asleep, she lay so still, he watched the Sikh for half a minute, still seated facing the moon. He had an idea it would be a good thing to know what the Sikh was thinking about. He hesitated — almost returned to talk to him. It was Elsa who changed his mind:

  “Don’t, Andrew! Don’t! I can read your thought! If the men should see you talking to Bulah Singh they’d think you’ve forgiven him! It might be fatal! It might give him a chance to win them over to some—”

  Andrew’s bulk blotted out the moonlight as he crawled into the tent.

  “I’m hoping,” he said, “rather against hope, that Bulah Singh will escape. I’ve even thought of putting a supply of food where he can steal it. I know he has money.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The tent flap closed behind him. “So you can read my thought?” He sounded difficult again — on guard — irritated. Elsa wished with all her heart she hadn’t spoken. Now she must answer. She was tempted to lie — decided not to — spoke calmly:

  “I could. At that moment, I couldn’t help it. You see, Andrew, you’ve been trying to help me to understand you. Then you thought about me in connection with Bulah Singh. And he thought about both of us. It produced a condition.”

  “Condition, eh? What was he thinking about? Could you tell that?”

  Andrew was kneeling, facing the candle-lantern. He tried to see her face. He couldn’t. Elsa waited until he had rolled in under the blankets before she answered:

  “Bulah Singh hasn’t let up on me once, for one single waking moment, since we left the magician’s village.”

  “How d’you mean — let up on you?”

  “He projects the image of himself, continually, so that he’s always in front of my mind, between me and what I wish to think about.”

  “Oh well, all right, that settles it. I daren’t give that buzzard a weapon. He’d use it to kill me. So he shall go without. At daybreak he gets rations for himself and his mule — and marching orders.”

  “Andrew, must you? It might be a mistake. And it wouldn’t affect the mental tricks he could play. A few miles makes no difference.”

  “No. I suppose not. But—”

  “Nor a few hundred miles.”

  “Can you shake it off? Can’t you refuse to see it?”

  “I don’t have to. If I let it stay, and just think higher, it makes him defeat his own purpose.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “May I try to explain?”

  “Shoot. I’m listening.”

  “Bulah Singh’s purpose is to compel me to do all my thinking with him in mind. Something like the way a nun in a convent should do all her thinking with her special saint in mind — only that the nun should act voluntarily, whereas I’d be forced. That way he would gradually get control of my thought — altogether qualify it — so that in the end — and it wouldn’t be long — I’d be hypnotized, like Du Maurier’s Trilby.”

  Andrew growled disg
ustedly: “That’s how all the propagandist — priest — politicians do their dirty work! You don’t feel it’s getting you?”

  It could get her — it could wear her down, unless Andrew would help. But she was afraid to confess weakness, so she spoke more confidently than she felt: “I was shown at Gombaria’s how not to let it. But Bulah Singh believes his will is conquering mine, so that he’ll be able to dictate my thought and make me obey his will when the convenient moment comes.”

  “God damn him and his moments!” Andrew sat up again, elbow on knees. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go ahead. Talk.”

  A flurry of night wind blew the tent flap. Andrew reached for the flap, secured it and lay down again. Elsa waited at least another minute before she asked: “Can’t you yourself see him now?”

  He surprised her by answering without noticeable change in his voice. “I guess I’m beginning to see what you see.”

  “Is he the way he was when you last saw him, a few minutes ago?”

  “No. He has moved. It’s like a glimpse through binoculars — close up.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just memory?”

  “Memory, hell! It’s one of those damned vision things, like a waking dream, only more vivid. He’s moving.” Then sharply: “It isn’t you doing it?”

  “Indeed it isn’t.”

  “It’s damned strange,” said Andrew. “D’you know—” he laughed apologetically. She had never heard him do that before. He sounded guilty of something: “It’s like when you’re in love and the beloved’s face keeps coming between you and what you’re trying to read or write or think about.”

  For a moment that almost stunned her, not like being hit, like having cold darkness descend suddenly. She had to fight it off. She had to remember Andrew wasn’t her lover. She had no right to demand he shouldn’t be some other woman’s. But for a numbed heartbeat it leadened the whole universe, until suddenly he spoke again and she knew he wasn’t thinking of any woman. “God damn his impudence! Is that murdering swine trying to make me like him?”

  That gave her a chance to recover and to resume the conversation where it left off: “Andrew, I’m simply praying for the right words. So will you help me by trying hard to understand?”

  “Sure. You tell it. I’ll try to get you.”

  “Bulah Singh knows he can’t possibly make you like him. The only way he can control you is to make you angry. Ordinary methods fail. So he’s sending you homosexual suggestions.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned! Are you serious? You mean he thinks he’ll get to first base with that stuff?”

  “You see, he knows what will irritate you. You do notice a change in your attitude toward him?”

  “I’d like to shoot him.”

  “You won’t — will you?”

  “I don’t know why not.”

  “You do feel an urge to act violently?”

  Silence.

  “Hate him?”

  Again silence. Andrew was playing fair, listening with inner ears, checking up as he went along, rejecting nothing, doing his best to understand. “I’ve noticed this,” he conceded after a few moments, “I have been getting curious to know what he’s thinking about.”

  “Andrew, if he can get you curious enough, and make you hate him at the same time, he’ll be able to make you make the mistake he’s counting on, at the moment that he’s waiting for.”

  “Do you think you know what he’s counting on?”

  “No. I can’t read him that deeply — partly because I’m afraid to look. He has a mind like an octopus. But it’s something soon — that’s coming. I don’t quite know myself what I mean by that, but there’s a suggestion of movement toward you and me — something coming.”

  “God Almighty! I wish this vague stuff didn’t go to my fists! It makes me want to get out there and—”

  “Andrew, that’s just what Bulah Singh wants. He knows you won’t kill him. I think he wants you to give him provisions and drive him out of camp.”

  “But why on earth—”

  “I’ve told you. I don’t know why — except that of course he knows he can’t escape unless you let him. He wants to get away — in order to turn on you — probably to kill you.”

  “It beats me how he expects to go about it.”

  “Andrew, I think he has learned something secret from you and me since we left the magician’s village.”

  “He can’t have. I haven’t shared a thought with him! I haven’t spoken to him more than bare civilities.”

  “Neither have I. But it’s something he learned from us. He doesn’t know anything about superconsciousness — or I think he doesn’t.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Oh yes you do, Andrew. But he doesn’t. Subconsciousness is his field. He is rather expert.”

  “He’s a charlatan.”

  “But rather expert.”

  “Have it your own way.”

  “Andrew, the subconsciousness is like a dark ocean, in which all the knowledge and experience of the entire human race is stored. It can be read by anyone who knows how. It can be made stormy, too, by people who know how. But normally it’s like a pool of ink. Then, sometimes, it reflects superconsciousness. That’s how secrets get out.”

  Andrew set his teeth. He retorted irritably: “But for God’s sake, if you and I don’t know a secret in the first place, how in hell can Bulah Singh learn it from us?”

  “Andrew, I want to tell you what I know, so that you can add to it what you know and so keep out of danger.”

  He checked a retort, remembering his own experience in Gombaria’s monastery, when vision after vision appeared before his eyes. Now, again, he could see Bulah Singh, seated in the opening of his tent, facing the moon, smoking, looking pleased with some dark thought.

  “Yes, please, let’s hear it,” he said after a moment. After a longer pause Elsa found she couldn’t say it lying down. She sat up beside him:

  “Subconsciousness mostly subsists of itself — of and for itself. It’s what Jesus called a liar and the father of it. But sometimes it reflects the superconsciousness, the way the surface of an asphalt lake might reflect the moon or lightning. So the dark magicians receive warning that something new is stirring in the higher consciousness of someone else. Andrew, that’s how real spying is done. It sounds so utterly absurd to conservative-minded people, that they never even suspect what really happens.”

  Andrew laughed resignedly: “I don’t say I believe. ‘Help thou mine unbelief.’ Try again.”

  “Don’t try to accept it too literally — I mean about the reflection in the pool and—”

  “Okay. Each makes his own picture, I guess — and there are no words.”

  “But do you feel you’re beginning to understand?”

  “I’m listening, anyhow. But make it snappy. We’ve got to get a move on before daybreak, so’s to cover as many miles as possible before the weather stops us.”

  “Andrew, how d’you know there’ll be a storm?”

  He thought that over a moment. Then he laughed. “Bull’s-eye! I read it in the New York Times. — I get you. You mean: I read it in the subconscious?”

  “Yes. A spark of superconsciousness — a flash of intuition from your own soul — warned you to look. Is there any sign of a storm?”

  “No, there isn’t. Not even the aneroid — yet. All the same, there’ll be one, and the pack animals know it.”

  “Of course they know. Animals are always watching the subconscious, where all their instinctive knowledge comes from. They read the subconscious quicker than almost any humans can. But the black magicians read it with more skill.”

  “Easy! You’ll be snarled in a minute. Are you trying to kid me that Bulah Singh, and the black magicians, and all the political hypnotists and public liars in the world are at the same stage of evolution with ponies and yaks?”

  “Of course not. As long as we’re alive, we all exist in the ocean of subconsciousness. But it’s
consciousness that marks our stage of evolution. Is your consciousness the same as Hitler’s or Bulah Singh’s or a Chicago gangster’s? The consciousness is measurable by its relative receptivity to superconsciousness. The more soul, the higher the evolution. The less soul, the lower. That is the measure of real intelligence. Any person who denies the soul’s existence, simply denies his own being, that’s all. It has nothing whatever to do with brains or mere cleverness. A person could know everything, and command armies, or be a superscientist and discover wonderful things without having a spark of real intelligence. If real intelligence were a function of the physical brain, or if true genius were related to the subconscious, you’d have to call Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate more intelligent than Jesus: Hitler more intelligent than Thomas Mann or Einstein: Mussolini more intelligent than Toscanini. People like Hitler and Bulah Singh and old Lung-gom-pa are stone blind to the direct light of superconsciousness. But they can see it indirectly on the subconscious mirror. And they’re alert. They’re clever. Not intelligent-clever, like the war lords who convert dye into poison gas.”

  Andrew snorted: “Like the holy Joes who convert religion, and the shysters who convert the law into a shame and a byword! Like the lick-spit flunky scientists who ‘yes’ Stalin and Hitler!” He was hardly aware he had spoken. Elsa waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

  “Whenever someone receives a gleam of superconsciousness, it is reflected, something like moonlight, on the surface of the universal subconscious pool. There the haters perceive it, indirectly. The receivers of the superconscious light, who don’t understand, because it’s new, become like the Three Magi in the Bible story. They have faith, and they follow the light. But the lovers of subconsciousness become like Herod, in the same story. They hate the light. They start massacres — war — to prevent the coming of superconsciousness that they know instinctively, will utterly destroy their kingdoms. — Have I made that clear?”