It was as I was talking to her one night that I had a sudden and a wonderful idea. I told Mother all about it. Tapit might help. I knew he was a boatbuilder, a carpenter, that he was practical, good at making things – Gran Baruta was always telling me this. She was very proud of him. She had taken me down to the harbour once and had shown me one of the fishing boats he had made – his pride and joy, and hers too, I could tell. I would do it, I told Mother. I would start tomorrow.
The next day I went down to the beach where we used to pick up most of the driftwood for the fire, and found a few small pieces of wood just about the right size and shape for what I had in mind. I came back and told Tapit everything I would need, and explained as best I could in my excited English what the game of cricket was, all the rules and how it was played. He looked at me rather blankly I remember. I said I would need several wooden bats, two sets of stumps also from wood, and two leather balls in case one got lost. I drew everything for him on a piece of paper, showed him how big, or how small, everything had to be.
A few weeks later, I had a lot more to tell Mother, and I knew how much she would love to hear it. She knew how much I loved cricket. I could tell her now that I was teaching the Lilliputian children the wonderful game of cricket, and they were loving it already, and how brilliant they were at playing it. I explained to her there was a flat field just outside the village that made a perfect pitch.
We had to share it with the sheep, but that didn’t matter. We had twenty-two players – as we should – and several bats made of wood by Tapit, and two leather balls made by his cousin who was the tanner in the village, all just the right size for Lilliputians. We had all we needed. It took a while for me to explain the rules, and to teach them how to play. Not everyone liked it, of course, but most did. And those that didn’t just thought it was funny.
‘It is funny,’ Zaya said. ‘And it takes a long time and it’s also boring and anyway I still don’t understand the rules. And when the ball hits you, it hurts.’
Natoban shushed her and I went on.
I told Mother how they shouted ‘Owzat!’ to start with at every ball they bowled. Sometimes the whole island was there to watch, cheering every ball, every catch, every run, every ‘Owzat!’ I told Mother it was just like being at home in Afghanistan, except that in Lilliput the pitch was grassy and flatter, and there were not nearly so many stones. Of course the players were rather small, which meant I couldn’t play. So I had to be the coach as well as the umpire.
I told Mother a lot about cricket because I knew it would make her smile, how the Lilliputians were natural cricketers, that they had sharp eyes, and quick reactions, and their timing was perfect. The Lilliputian children hit the ball hard, bowled it fast, and they could run like the wind between the wickets out in the field. Before long the children were teaching their mothers and fathers. Everyone on Lilliput seemed to want to try the new game.
‘Not me,’ said Zaya, pulling on my earlobe. ‘Not me. I like running, and riding horses, and swimming and climbing. And by the way, Owzat, I love telling stories too, remember?’ She had climbed down off my shoulder by now, and was standing on my open hand, hands on her hips looking up at me, a determined look on her face. ‘Owzat, I want to tell the next part of the story. Gran Baruta says I tell stories really well.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But first let me explain to J.J. about the apple tree.’
‘What about the apple tree?’ said J.J. ‘What’s that got to do with cricket anyway?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘It is the most famous tree on the island.’
It had been planted from old, old seeds – seeds passed on from tree to tree from an apple that had been found in Gulliver’s pocket three hundred years before. So this was called Gulliver’s Tree. It was my first spring on Lilliput and all over the island there was great excitement. Everyone was waiting for the first blossom to show on the apple tree, Zaya told me.
Then someone spotted it. I remember we were all out on the field playing a game of cricket when Gran Baruta appeared with Tapit at her side. At once the game was abandoned and we followed them to the famous tree and sat down all around it. Everyone seemed to know what was going to happen, except me. And no one would tell me.
I was sitting there with these two on my shoulders, and a dozen other children perched on me, all of us waiting in silence. Then Baruta pointed up to the blossom on the tree and said, ‘Now I can begin the story.’
This story explained so much I had not yet understood. I could see from the faces all around me that it meant so much to every single person on Lilliput. Everyone was there. No one ever missed Baruta’s talk of the coming of Gulliver.
As soon as she began, I felt she was telling it just to me, and that I was the only one there. I knew everyone else felt the same way. This was the story of Gulliver, and of Lilliput and Blufescu. It was to be my story now too.
I looked down at Zaya, still waiting there on my hand.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘your turn now.’
Zaya climbed up on to my shoulders. ‘I’ll start then, shall I?’ she said.
And she did.
Once a year on Lilliput, on Gulliver’s Day, which is the first day the apple tree blossoms, we all gather under the tree to listen to Gran Baruta telling us about the coming of Gulliver.
‘Listen and hear, dear ones, dear Lilliputians, and believe and never forget.’ That’s how Gran Baruta always began the story. ‘It is hard to believe, but there was a time when we on this island were a very different people.’
It was over three hundred years ago – Gran Baruta’s own grandfather was a boy at the time – and Lilliput was a very different place. We had an emperor then who lived in a grand palace, which has now become our meeting hall in the village. The emperor of Lilliput surrounded himself with nobles and friends and advisors who lived only to please him and serve him and to become richer. Outside the palace, in the countryside, the people worked the fields every day of the year, every day of their lives, whatever the weather. They also lived only to please him and serve him, but they remained poor. There was one life of leisure and plenty for the emperor and his court and his friends, another life of endless labour and poverty for everyone else.
The emperor was an arrogant man, greedy and foolish, and wanted only to remain rich and remain emperor. He did not care about his people. From them he expected only obedience and work. And work they did, every hour of every day to feed the emperor and his court, to provide them with all they needed. Anyone who disobeyed him he would banish to the island of Blufescu across the sea. The emperor’s opinion was the law, and if you disobeyed the law then off you went to Blufescu, you and your family for life. So, of course, the people for the most part did as they were told, although not all of them, as you shall see.
It was the custom on Lilliput in those days to always eat a boiled egg for breakfast. On a whim one morning, the emperor decided to make a law. Because he had always opened his boiled egg at the round end, he decreed that everyone should do the same. ‘Round end good. Sharp end bad.’ That was his edict. From that day on, if you opened your boiled egg at the sharp end, it would be a crime, the act of a traitor, an act of grave disloyalty and disobedience to the emperor. The punishment, banishment to the island of Blufescu.
In time, Blufescu became an island full of banished people who only opened their eggs at the sharp end. So the people of the two islands became enemies, deadly enemies. They opened their eggs differently at breakfast and that was enough for them both to start a war. And as always happens, one war leads to another war. Each island built a fleet of great warships, and were making plans to invade one another. Any stranger arriving on the shores of either island was immediately thought of as an enemy or a spy, and imprisoned, or put to death.
One morning, as they were collecting shells along the shores of Lilliput, some children discovered, quite by chance, a great giant lying on the beach. At first they thought he must be dead. But when they cam
e closer, they found that he was still breathing. They ran at once to the village to raise the alarm. Soon the emperor and his nobles, and his soldiers and all the people from all over the island were hurrying down to the shore. They were terrified at the sight of this great giant. ‘A treacherous spy sent over from Blufescu!’ cried the emperor. ‘If he wakes up, he would kill us all. Look at the size of him! We must tie him down, anchor him firmly to the ground. Then he will be at our mercy, and we can do with him what we please.’
Whilst many of the Lilliputians ran back to fetch all the stakes and all the ropes they could find, the emperor’s soldiers were ordered to approach the giant and fire hundreds of arrows into him as he slept, and these arrows had poisoned tips that would make the giant sleep long and deep.
‘He may be more use to us alive,’ the emperor said. ‘Shoot all your arrows, so he will not wake up until we are ready. We must make him helpless.’ So the emperor’s soldiers did as they were told and fired their poison arrows into the sleeping giant. He did not wake up for hours and hours.
When he did wake he found he could not move, that he was firmly tied down, by his hair, by his arms and legs. He struggled and he kicked but he could not move. Still only half awake, he told them that he meant no harm, that he was a sailor called Gulliver, that his ship had been wrecked in a terrible storm. He begged them to untie him, to set him free. He promised he would do no harm to them. Of course, Gulliver spoke in English, so none of the Lilliputians could understand a word he said. And anyway, the emperor had no intention of releasing him. He ordered his archers to shoot more arrows into him to make him go back into a deep sleep.
They made a long low cart on wheels. Then, using every horse on the island, they hauled Gulliver into the courtyard of the palace. They forged great chains, and whilst he was still asleep they chained him up, so that when he woke Gulliver found he could sit up, and stand up, but he could walk only a few steps. He was the emperor’s prisoner. Day and night, the soldiers stood around him guarding him, ready to shoot their poison arrows at this ‘mountain man’ as they called him, in case he tried to break from his chains.
Of course he was not at all pleased to be chained up, this mountain man, but otherwise he was quite happy. He was kept in the courtyard of the palace, and given all the food and drink he needed. He was the most famous person on the island, far more famous even than the emperor, which the emperor did not like. The Lilliputians crowded the courtyard every day to wonder at him. They brought gifts for him, fish, cheese, fruit, and they showered him with flowers. And Gulliver liked this. He liked these people. He did not like the emperor any more than the emperor liked him, but he saw there was great kindness in these people, and he was kind in return.
Meanwhile, the emperor and his nobles and advisors were deciding what they should do with this giant of a man. One said he should be killed at once, that it was too dangerous to keep him alive, that he was eating too much of the island’s food, and that anyway he deserved to die because he was a spy sent from Blufescu, and it would teach people over there a lesson. Another said he was too big to kill. How could it be done? What would they do with the body? It would lie and rot in the sun and make a terrible smell. The emperor said nothing. He was thinking.
‘No, no,’ he said at last. ‘I have a much better plan altogether. I have been watching this Gulliver. He likes it here. He likes our food, likes our people, and they like him. So we look after him, make him feel at home, and then when the time is right we will use him. He will help us defeat those traitorous sharp-end egg-eaters in Blufescu.’
‘But how will you do this, O High and Mighty Emperor?’ they cried.
‘You will see,’ said the cunning emperor, tapping his nose conspiratorially.
So the emperor went to see Gulliver, who was still chained up in the courtyard of the palace. ‘I have decided the time has come, Mountain Man,’ he said, ‘to set you free from your chains. We have all come to trust you as a friend. We know now you will not harm us. We have fed you and sheltered you all this time, and the people of Lilliput have come to love you. I too have come to love you as a brother. So I shall set you free. No more chains. But I wonder, Gulliver, if you could help us in return. I am your friend, and I want you to be my friend, my best friend. In return for your help, you will not only be free, but you will live like an emperor. I will build you a great palace, you will be as rich as I am.’
Gulliver of course did not believe any of this. He came from England, a country where there was a king who ruled over the people, a king who was rather like this emperor. He knew better than to put his trust in the rich and powerful, in emperors or kings.
But of course he did want to be free of his chains. ‘What exactly is it that you want me to do?’ Gulliver asked the emperor.
‘Those traitorous sharp-end egg-eaters across the sea in Blufescu,’ the emperor began, ‘we have heard they are preparing to attack us. They have a huge fleet of warships in the harbour, every one of them armed with many cannons. They are making ready to invade us. Somehow we have to stop them, Gulliver. You are the only one who can save us. I want you to sink their ships for us, all of them. Then Lilliput and its people, who have been so good and kind to you, we will be safe forever.’
As Gulliver listened to all of this, he was looking around him at all the faces of the Lilliputians who were waiting for his reply.
‘Very well, I will do my best to make you all safe,’ he said, choosing his words very carefully. ‘I shall see what I can do.’
The people cheered and cheered, and the emperor thanked him profusely. Then they released Gulliver from his chains, and set him free.
‘I will need all the rope you have,’ he told the emperor.
So all the rope on Lilliput was gathered and brought to him. He looped it around himself, and made ready. Gulliver kept his promise that day, but not quite in the way the emperor or anyone else was expecting. He did in a way that changed Lilliput and Blufescu forever.
With everyone on the island looking on, Gulliver waded out into the sea, past all the warships of the Lilliputian fleet lying at anchor in the harbour, and out into the waves of the open ocean beyond. At one point, halfway across, the sea in the channel was so deep that he had to swim. The current was not that strong, and it was not too far across, not for Gulliver, who could swim well. Soon enough he found he could walk again, easily enough, and was wading into the harbour on Blufescu.
There were warships all around him in the harbour, dozens of them, fifty cannons on every ship, all of them firing at him. But to Gulliver the cannon balls were no bigger than peas. They bounced off him – he could hardly feel them. From the shore all around they were firing their arrows at him, but hardly one of them ever reached him. By this time all the sailors, terrified at the sight of this approaching giant, jumped into the sea and were swimming for their lives for the shore.
Towering over the harbour now like a colossus, Gulliver reached down, and using the rope he had brought with him, he tied together all the anchor chains of the warships in the harbour. Then he turned, and wading out of the harbour, he began to haul them behind him, out towards the open ocean.
Once far enough out, he undid the ropes, and then, one by one, he gave each a mighty push and sent every one of those ships far out to sea. The emperor and all the people of Blufescu stood and watched in horrified silence as their great and proud fleet of warships drifted away, at the mercy now of wind and waves, to be wrecked on the rocks before their eyes. All this time the emperor and people of Lilliput were cheering from their rooftops, from the harbour wall, from all their warships in the harbour, as they witnessed this great triumph over their hated enemy.
But their cheering was soon to be silenced, when they saw what Gulliver was doing next. At first they thought he was simply wading and swimming back to Lilliput after his great victory, and the closer he came to the harbour, the more they cheered him. It took a while before they began to realise Gulliver was up to something else.
Tying his rope to the anchor chains of all the Lilliputian warships in the harbour, he was doing exactly as he had done to the warships in Blufescu. He was towing the great Lilliputian navy out to sea, in just the same way. All the sailors were diving off the ships and swimming for the shore. The emperor and the people of Lilliput looked on in despair, as all their ships drifted away on to the rocks and were wrecked, just like the warships of Blufescu. Neither side had a single warship left afloat.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Now comes the important part, the part Gran Baruta always liked telling best, the part all the children always liked best too. The ‘eggy part’, as Gran Baruta called it. ‘As you all know, dear Lilliputians,’ she would say, ‘without Gulliver we should not be as we are today, living together in peace and friendship, living for one another, free to speak our minds, a free people, a happy people, mostly.’
That day, over three hundred years ago now, when he had sunk all the warships of Lilliput and Blufescu, Gulliver realised that was not good enough, that there was more that had to be done. He knew that one side or the other – or both – could always build more warships, more weapons of war. He understood that to make peace, it wasn’t enough just to sink the warships of both sides. He knew that to be sure peace would last, all weapons of war had to be destroyed.
So he made both emperors agree to surrender every bow and arrow, every spear, every sword, every musket, cannon and cannon ball. Gran Baruta’s grandfather was there, as a little boy – she often reminded us of this as she was telling her story. He saw it all, heard it all, remembered it all – everything Gulliver did, every word he said, how Gulliver built a raft and loaded it again and again with every weapon of war from both islands, then towed it far out to sea, where he tipped the raft upside down, and all their weapons of war ended up at the bottom of the ocean. ‘That’s where they belong. No weapons, no war,’ Gulliver told them.
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