The Mouse That Roared: eBook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 1)

by Leonard Wibberley

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said the Duchess, slowly. “All I was thinking of was to get the money, so we could go on as we have in the past. Maybe you are right. But we must hit on something. Isn’t there some honourable way of making ends meet?”

  “There’s emigration,” Tully replied. “We could encourage people to leave and find work in other countries.”

  Gloriana shook her head. “Everybody in Grand Fenwick has a right to stay here if they want,” she said. “It’s their country. They shouldn’t be forced to leave it to earn a living. And besides, emigration used to work, but it doesn’t any longer. I read somewhere that Italy tried to solve its population problem by emigration to the United States. But now there are more people in Italy than there were before the big migrations started and all as poor as ever. And the United States is getting so full that they’ve established quotas. The quota they would fix for Grand Fenwick would probably be only one or two every five years. That wouldn’t help. We’ll have to think of something else.”

  They were silent for a while. Gloriana glanced at Tully and, disturbed as she was by the country’s economic problems, found herself thinking that there was something about this man that set him off from and, indeed, above his fellows. He was of the common clay, but the common clay in a different mould. His face was turned halfway from her, the head held up, and with a start she caught, for just a second, a remarkable resemblance between Tully Bascomb and the portrait of her ancestor, Sir Roger Fenwick, in the castle of the duchy. He turned towards her and the likeness was gone.

  “There’s only one method of getting money from another nation that is recognized by tradition as honourable,” Tully said, solemnly.

  “What is that?” asked the Duchess, with a strange feeling that at this moment she was talking, not to a contemporary man, but to Sir Roger Fenwick himself.

  Tully walked over to the chimney and chose from several standing there a six-foot bow stave of yew.

  “War,” he said.

  “War!” echoed Gloriana, in astonishment.

  “War,” repeated Tully. “We could declare war on the United States.”

  CHAPTER III

  Duchess Gloriana selected a pomegranate from a dish of fruit before her and could not suppress, even on so solemn an occasion as a meeting of her Privy Council, a smile of anticipation. Pomegranates were her favourite fruit. They were a little hard to come by in Grand Fenwick, and her father, the Duke, had during his lifetime limited her to pomegranates at Christmas and on her birthday. But now, since she was the Duchess, she could have them whenever she wanted.

  “Bobo,” she said, picking up a silver fruit knife and turning to the Count of Mountjoy, “how long is it since we went to war?”

  “A little over five hundred years,” replied the Count. He thought it an idle question, posed by a curious and somewhat willful girl, who also happened to be his sovereign lady. Just what the Privy Council meeting had been summoned for he was not sure. But he prided himself on knowledge of the history of his country and took this opportunity of airing it. “The occasion,” he continued, “was a war with France, and the battle was fought in the Pass of Pinot. There were four hundred and thirty under the double-headed eagle of Fenwick—four hundred bowmen and thirty men-at-arms. An ancestor of yours, my lady, and one of mine, were among those on the field. The French numbered twelve hundred. They made three charges down the Pass, in bodies of four hundred knights to each charge, and were met with the arrows of Grand Fenwick, loosed with such discipline and courage that at the end of the day seven hundred of the French were dead, and our losses amounted to only five.”

  “No other war since then?” asked the Duchess, busy with the little ruby beads of the pomegranate.

  “None,” said the Count. His silver head, illumined by the sunlight, looked not unlike that of the eagle which was the national emblem. “None have been necessary. The battle of the Pass of Pinot settled for all time the sovereignty and right to respect and freedom of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.”

  “We must be badly out of practice—I mean at fighting wars,” murmured the Duchess.

  “Perhaps,” replied the Count. “But should the necessity arise again, I have no doubt that we would give a good account of ourselves. Indeed, the contest would be most interesting. Our national weapon, the longbow, has been out of date for so long that it has become, in many ways, a super weapon. It can kill at a range of five hundred yards. It is completely accurate in skilled hands. It is silent. It requires a low expenditure for ammunition, and lends itself excellently to mass fire.”

  “I’m very glad to hear all this,” replied the Duchess, delicately putting aside the remains of her pomegranate, “because we will have to go to war again quite soon.”

  “The longbow,” continued the Count, “is an example of a weapon which, like the mace—excuse me. What was that, Your Highness? Did I hear you say that we will have to go to war again quite soon?”

  “Just so,” said Gloriana.

  The Count allowed his monocle to fall into his lap. “Your Highness is not serious?” he suggested, hopefully.

  “We are,” replied the Duchess.

  “Why,” said the Count, “this is an utterly ridiculous proposal. It is monstrous. It is not to be thought upon for a moment. Are you sure, Your Grace, that you are feeling well?”

  “Quite well,” replied Gloriana. “And if you will see if Mr. Benter is outside so we can complete the membership of the Privy Council, I will tell you all about it.” There was no mistaking that this last was an order, coming from a ruler to a subject, and despite his astonishment, which gave him a sense of having been mentally paralysed for the moment, the Count rose to bring in the leader of the Dilutionist party. He was gone some little while—longer than the courtesies of the court would permit in normal circumstances—and when he returned with Mr. Benter, both were agitated and worried.

  “Gentlemen,” said Gloriana, eyeing the pomegranates but deciding against them in view of the serious nature of the business ahead, “I have called this meeting for two purposes. The first is to report to you as the leaders of the two principal parties of Grand Fenwick on the result of the suggestion that we form a Communist party in the duchy to obtain money from the Americans. The second is to ask your further advice—indeed, I would put the matter more strongly and say to request your assent, to an alternative course of action.”

  In her official occasions, the Duchess Gloriana XII showed a marked ability to shift from young woman to distant sovereign. This, her newly-elected party leaders were just beginning to discover, and they found the. tactic overwhelming. A few moments before, the Duchess had been a rather ingenuous girl, picking on a pomegranate. Now she was the ruler of a nation, intent on wielding her authority.

  “As to the proposal for the formation of a Communist party,” she continued, “you will recall that I undertook myself to put the matter to Tully Bascomb, who it was agreed would be the best and safest person to lead such an organization. However, he was able to persuade me that this was the wrong course of action.”

  Count Mount joy exchanged a surprised look with Benter.

  “He pointed out that even if the plan were successful and the money obtained from the United States, Grand Fenwick would be guilty of perpetrating an international fraud which would besmirch the honourable record we have maintained over so many centuries.”

  “But, Your Highness,” interposed Mountjoy, “we cannot feed our people on honour. If it is a choice between honour and want, between spiritual or physical survival, then the material things must come first. Man did not discover he had a soul until he was well fed, with prospects of that condition continuing for some time. Hungry people cannot afford honour and hungry nations cannot indulge in too nice manners.”

  “You’re wrong there,” said Benter. “I’m beginning to like that man Tully, though in the past I found him too contrary for comfort. To my way of thinking, neither men nor nations can survive without keeping the
ir self-respect.“

  “Precisely what Bascomb himself had to say,’’ said Gloriana. “In any case, he refused to form a Communist party because he said he didn’t agree with Communism, and from what I could gather he didn’t agree with democracy either. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure what he did agree with.”

  “We had better get back to watering the wine,” interposed Benter. “It is the only way out of our difficulties. And there is nothing dishonourable about it. There is no statement on the Grand Fenwick label as to what is the water content in the bottle.”

  “You will ruin the major source of revenue of the country if you do,” rejoined Mountjoy, with some heat.

  “I don’t believe either of you are right,” said Gloriana.

  “Perhaps Mr. Bascomb had a solution to propose?” asked Mountjoy, with more than a trace of sarcasm.

  “That is precisely why I called this meeting,” replied Gloriana. “Mr. Bascomb has got a solution which will provide us with the money we need from the United States and leave our national honour unbesmirched.” She paused to give emphasis to what was to follow.

  “Mr. Bascomb,” she said, separating each word distinctly from the next, “has convinced me that we should declare war on the United States.”

  For the second time that morning Count Mountjoy dropped his monocle. Mr. Benter gave a little start, as if he had been dozing and someone had poked him hard in the back with a finger.

  “Go to war with the United States?” he said, in such disbelief that he seemed scarcely able to credit having heard the appalling words.

  “Go to war with the United States?” echoed the Count, so profoundly shocked that he had not yet replaced his monocle, without which, he was wont to maintain, no man could claim to be fully dressed.

  “Go to war with the United States,” repeated Gloriana, grimly, evenly and, indeed, with a savour of approval.

  The Count shuddered. He picked up his monocle and put it in place, as if this gesture, by some special magic of its own, might help restore the world to sanity. He smoothed his silver hair with long fingers that trembled slightly. He so far forgot himself as to wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

  “The man’s mad,” he said, at last. “Completely bereft of his senses. He’s dangerous. Talk like that could result in the most serious trouble. Reported in certain sections of the United States Press, it might arouse such popular feelings against us as to cost us the greater part of our American market for Pinot. If that should happen, we might as well go to war with the United States indeed, or with the whole world, for that matter. For all would be lost anyway. Bascomb, Your Highness, should be locked up for a raving lunatic. He has been at large too long.”

  Benter was inclined to agree. The unparalleled proposal, so calmly presented by the ruler of the duchy, had robbed him for a while of his ability to as much as frame a thought, let alone say a word. But the denunciations of the opposition, represented by the Count, had loosed his tongue, and he was now intensely curious to know the reason why such a remarkable plan had been advanced.

  “Your Grace,” he said, when the Count had calmed down, “what advantage did Bascomb believe we could reap from a declaration of war against the Americans?”

  “He said that traditionally war was the only way in which one nation, in need of money and without the credit to borrow any, could obtain it from another.”

  “That may be so,” said Benter, still quite at a loss. “But there are a lot more things to be thought of. First there’s the outcome of the war. The population of the United States is around one hundred and sixty million, I believe. Ours is but six thousand. Then the United States has great fleets of ships and airplanes, masses of tanks and heavy guns, small arms by the millions and of all kinds, and, to cap everything, an unknown quantity of atomic and hydrogen bombs. We have only longbows, spears and maces. And the biggest army we could raise would be only a thousand men and boys. It is hardly necessary to say that we would lose this war just as soon as we started it.”

  “Hardly necessary to say it at all,” agreed the Duchess, serenely. “I am quite aware that we would lose the war.”

  “Then what would be the reason for fighting it?” persisted Benter.

  The Duchess leaned back in her chair, feeling nicely superior at the thought that she had the leaders of the two political parties of Grand Fenwick completely mystified. She picked up the silver fruit knife and felt the blade with a pretty finger.

  “The Americans,” she said, almost as if musing aloud to herself, “are a strange people. They do not behave like other nations in any way. In fact, in many ways, they behave exactly the opposite of other nations. Where other countries rarely forgive anything, the Americans will forgive anything. Where others rarely forget a wrong, the Americans rarely remember one. Indeed, they are so quick to forgive and forget that there it almost a race in their minds which to do first.”

  “That is perhaps quite true, Your Grace,” said Benter, “but I do not see that it has anything to do with our declaring war on the United States and being defeated by them.”

  “That,” replied the Duchess, with a smile of mild rebuke, “is because you have not paid much attention to history; and you, Count Mountjoy, have become an expert on the history of Grand Fenwick to the exclusion of that of other nations. The fact is, that there are few more profitable undertakings for a country in need of money than to declare war on the United States and be defeated. Hardly an acre of land is forfeited in such wars.

  “It is usually agreed, to be sure, that heavy industries and other installations and activities which could be used in future wars are to be dismantled, destroyed, and their re-establishment banned. And it usually evolves that this is not done, because it is decided that to follow such a plan would either wreck the economy of the defeated nation, or make it incapable of defending itself against other foes. In either or both cases, the Americans would feel called upon, such is their peculiar nature, to help out at their own expense.

  “Again, it is usually decided that the nation and people which lose to the United States shall be made to suffer national and individual hardship for the aggression. And the ink is no sooner dry on such agreements than the United States is rushing food, machinery, clothing, money, building materials, and technical aid for the relief of its former foes.

  “Once more, it is always laid down that the defeated armies must be disbanded and never again be allowed to reform. But, a little later, it is discovered that these armies are in an oblique but none the less definite manner essential to the security of the United States itself. Either the defeated enemy must have an army and navy and air force of its own, or the Americans must remain there in an indefinite occupation.

  “Americans, particularly American soldiers, do not like to remain long outside their own country. And in a matter of months, or at the most years, the United States is first requesting and then begging its former enemies to raise an army to defend their own territory. It is not unheard of that these defeated foes are able to state the terms under which they will raise an army for their own policing and defense. Those terms have involved the payments of large sums of money by the United States, or the extension of generous credits, revision of trade agreements in favour of the defeated nation, return of shipping, rehabilitation of factories destroyed in the war, and even the gift of the equipment needed for the army.

  “All in all, as I said before, there is no more profitable and sound step for a nation without money or credit to take, than declare war on the United States and suffer a total defeat.” She smiled indulgently at the two of them.

  Count Mountjoy, who had commenced listening to the discourse as if he were hearing a sentence of doom pronounced, was, when it ended, filled with lively interest.

  “Why,” he exclaimed, “the plan has possibilities that border on brilliant. We declare war on Monday, are vanquished Tuesday, and rehabilitated beyond our wildest dreams by Friday night. I must confess that I misjudged Bascomb completely.
The man is gifted with flashes of purest genius.”

  “This is not completely Bascomb’s plan,” Gloriana cautioned slyly. “The being defeated part is mine. His proposal is that we attack the United States—and win.”

  “A madman,” said the Count, sadly. “A madman.”

  “But,” continued the Duchess, “there is no reason why we should not let him continue in his madness since we know in advance what the outcome will be.”

  “None at all,” commented Mountjoy, happily.

  “I think we are going too fast,” interrupted Benter. “There are still some things that I do not understand. If Bascomb is, and rightly in my opinion, so anxious about preserving the international honour and standing of the duchy, what grounds, other than lack of money, does he offer for going to war? To declare war on a peace-loving state, even a big one, without good reason, is nothing more than barbarism.”

  “Oh, he has a good reason—or rather, we have,” the Duchess replied. “Indeed, we have a reason which must, if it becomes known, swing world sympathy to our side.”

  “What is that?”

  “United States aggression against the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.” She rang a heavy bell on the table before her and the court chamberlain entered discreetly.