by Nevil Shute
“And he is remarkable?”
I hesitated. “Probably not, to you. In England, people would say that he was mad. I say that he’s a fine engineer, who makes men reliable by bringing religion to their daily work. You can take it any way you like.”
He nodded and sat in thought for a minute, stooping to scratch a brown and rather dirty leg with a lean, skinny hand. His legs and feet were covered in old scars. “I had heard of that,” he said. “U Myin has given me some information, but several people have been talking to me about him.”
“Have they?”
“Indeed they have. He made a great impression on the monks in Bangkok. An Arab merchant from Aden came here to Rangoon a month or two ago and told one of my religious friends about the teaching that was going on in Bahrein. A Parsee from Karachi told us the same story. And then came U Myin who had actually been taught by this man, and who was teaching others at the airport out at Mingadon, as one of his disciples. And now you come, who know more than anyone, perhaps.”
“Well,” I said. “What can I tell you, father? I’m not a very religious man myself, but I’ll tell you anything I can.”
He said, “Do you know where he was born?”
It was a question that I was not prepared for. “No, I don’t,” I said. “I think it was in Penang, but I can’t say for certain. His father was Chinese and a British subject, I think. Shak Lin himself is certainly British. His mother was a Russian.”
He looked up quickly. “A Russian? From what part of Russia?”
A vague memory of the idle chatter of boys in Cobham’s air circus stirred my mind. “I seem to remember that she came from Irkutsk.”
He got up from the stool and went to the table with the books on it. He had a tattered school atlas there, a little cheap thing such as children use in a council school. He stood there fingering it with fingers that trembled a little, a bowed old man with bare legs and feet, in this coarse, blanket-like yellow robe thrown over one shoulder, leaving the other skinny shoulder bare. He stood staring at the map of Asia for a time, and then closed the book and put it down.
He came back to me, and sat down on the stool again. “Do you know the date of his birth, and the hour?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not, father. I don’t even know how old he is. I’ve always supposed he was about the same age as myself. I think he is, within a year or so.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I’m thirty-three.”
“So you were born in the year 1915?”
“That’s right,” I said.
He sat in silence for a long time after that. I shot a glance or two at him after a time. His head was shaking in the way that very old people do; it seemed to me that he was getting very tired. I had been with him for something like an hour and a half. I glanced at U Myin, and in his return look it seemed that he agreed with me; it was time we went away.
I broke the silence presently, after at least ten minutes. “Father,” I said, “I think it’s time we went home now, and left you to rest. I’ll come again one day, if I may. And I’ll send the Nautical Almanac as soon as I can get one out from England.”
“Stay for a minute,” he said. “I have things to tell you.”
He sat in silence again, and I waited.
At last he said, “I know that you are not a religious man. I will put what I have to tell you in words as simple as I can make them. Men are weak, and sinful, and foolish creatures. When they are given something that is beautiful and good they can recognise it and they venerate it, but gradually they spoil it. Infinite wisdom, infinite purity, and infinite holiness cannot be passed from hand to hand by mortal men down through the ages without being spoiled. Errors and absurdities creep in and mar the perfect vision. All the religions of the world have become debased. According to the present code of this religion I may not take life, yet I may eat meat if somebody else kills it and puts the cooked meat in my bowl. You Christians have similar absurdities; you have a curious ceremony in which you eat your God. The Moslems fast, which is a stupid thing to do, and they give far too much thought to the outward forms of prayer and pilgrimage.”
He paused. “Every religion in the world requires to be refreshed from time to time by a new Teacher. Gautama, Mahomet, Jesus — these are some of the great Teachers of the past, who have refreshed men’s minds and by their lives and their example brought men back to Truth. We are very far from the truth now, far enough here, even farther in the West. Belsen and Buchenwald exceeded any horrors of the war here in the East. But we are all in this together, wandering, far, far from the Truth.”
He raised his head. “This thing is beyond the power of ordinary men to put right,” he said. “We must look for the new Teacher. One day the Power that rules the Universe will send us a new Teacher, who will lead us back to Truth and help us to regain the Way. There have been four Buddhas in the history of this world, of whom Gautama was the last. One day a fifth will come to aid us, if we will attend to Him. Here in Burma we earnestly await His coming, for He is the Hope of the World.”
I sat silent while he rambled on. He was putting into words things that I had resolutely kept in the background of my mind, in little cups that I hoped might pass from me.
“We know a little of the Teacher from our sacred learning, based upon the movements of the Celestial Universe,” he said. “We know that He is very near to us in time. We think He is already born. We think that His birthplace is somewhere in that corner of the continent of Asia where Tibet and Russia and China meet. We think that He will be of a mixed eastern and western stock. We think that this man is the Saviour of the World.”
I moistened my lips. “Do you know where He is going to teach, father?”
“That has not been revealed,” he said. “The only certain fact we know is that His ministry will last for four years and twenty-three days.”
He was silent again, and when I looked at him he was sitting with his eyes closed, perhaps in some kind of a trance, perhaps asleep. I glanced at U Myin and got his agreement; we got up to go. The old man never stirred. I waited for a minute, but there seemed to be no point in staying any longer or disturbing him, and after a time we climbed down the ladder and went back to the car.
5
OH, THREATS OF Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing alone is certain, that Life flies: One thing is certain, and the rest is lies: The flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Edward Fitzgerald: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
I got back to Bahrein about four days after that, after taking my load up to Yenanyaung. I landed back at our base with eighteen passengers from the Burma oil field late one evening. I went into the office before going to the chummery and found, as I had suspected, that we had had to turn away or to postpone a number of important transport jobs for the various oil companies, due to the fact that the Carrier had been absent from the district for nine days. Clearly, I couldn’t go on doing business in that way.
I had a talk about it to Connie and Gujar Singh in my office next day. Ours was a personal business, and all the decisions and responsibilities were mine, but I had got into the way of talking things over informally with my chief pilot and my chief engineer whenever difficult decisions had to be made. I had them in now, and told them how we were placed.
“We can’t go on like this,” I said. “We’ve brought this business into being by offering air transport to the oil companies, and now they’re offering more business than we can cope with. I’m going to try and get another big aeroplane, and I think it’ll have to be a Plymouth Tramp. We’d never get the dollars for another Carrier, even if we’d got the sterling, which we haven’t.”
We talked about the Tramp for a time. They both liked the idea; indeed, Gujar Singh said roundly that he’d rather have a Tramp for our business than another Carrier. Connie was in favour of a Tramp, but concerned at the diversity of spares that we would have to carry for another aircraft of another type. There was a great deal in
what he said; already we were operating five aircraft of four different types, and if we got a Tramp we should have six aircraft of five types.
“I’ll see if I can sell that Fox and get another Proctor,” I said. “That makes it a bit better.”
A Tramp it would have to be, and I told them then about my money difficulty. “There’s nothing wrong with the business,” I said. “But all the profits are taken for the time being by the instalments that I’m paying on the Carrier. All of our profit’s going into that, till May next year. The most that I can raise in cash at present is about five thousand pounds, and that’s less than ten per cent of the cost of a Tramp. I don’t believe the Plymouth people would let us have a Tramp for that.”
Gujar never forgot his banking experience, and he was quite useful at times like this. “You have sufficient assets for a considerable loan,” he said. “I do not think the Bank here would advance much because aviation enterprises are not quite their business. But they would certify whatever was required to an industrial bank in London. You have a very good name in Bahrein.”
We talked about that for a time. It meant a trip to England, but that was necessary in any case for the negotiations about the Plymouth Tramp; I did not then know what amount of capital I needed. What Gujar said was probably quite right, but the idea of going trailing round from office to office in the City of London trying to find somebody to lend me fifty thousand pounds or so at some crippling interest rate was not one that I relished. From the point of view of the business it was wrong, utterly wrong from start to finish. Inevitably it meant a big mortgage or debenture held by some stranger, Gentile or Jew, whose interests would be purely financial and possibly divergent from my own, who would have to be consulted whenever I took a chance, who would have to be argued with when things went wrong. Not a happy outlook, and it worried me a lot. I didn’t see what else I could do, however.
I pointed out these disadvantages to them. “If I boob on this one it’ll mean the finish of the business,” I said. “I’m not taking any bouquets for what we’ve done up to date. We’ve done it all together. But there’s one basic factor that’s been at the bottom of our success, and that is that the man who controls the money has been working out here on the job — that’s me. If the money control had been by an accountant in a London office, we’d have been bust long before this. And that’s just what may happen to us, if we don’t look out.”
They saw that point, and we broke up the meeting with nothing decided on the financial point. I hung about at Bahrein for a week although I should have been in London looking for money. I could not bring myself to start on what I knew to be a wrong road, and I stuck around at Bahrein flying the Carrier on local day flights, trying to think of some better finance, moody and bad-tempered. I had got myself into a jam, and I couldn’t see how to get out of it.
I came in from Ras Mushaab one evening in the Carrier with a three-ton truck on board with a broken differential for repair. As I passed the hangar on the circuit before landing I saw a big maroon car outside my office that looked like the Hudson that Sheikh Abd el Kadir kept in Bahrein, and I wondered if the old man had taken to coming up to the hangar again to say his prayers. I landed and taxied in and stopped the motors, and Connie came forward from the hangar and met me as I got out of the cabin door.
“Wazir Hussein’s waiting in the office to see you,” he said.
“Hussein? What does he want?”
He hesitated. “I went over to Baraka on Friday,” he said. “I go there sometimes to pray with Sheikh Abd el Kadir, and to talk to his Imam. I told them you were thinking of getting another big aircraft.”
I stared at him. “Did you tell them that I hadn’t got any money to pay for it?”
He nodded. “I think that Hussein may have come with a proposal.”
“For Christ’s sake!” I said.
He smiled. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that. It’s local money and that’s better than London money.” That was true enough; if it came to a choice between having an Arab sheikh in the business or a London accountant who had never been out of England, I’d choose the sheikh. “There’s just one thing,” Connie said. “Watch what you say about interest, if they should offer a loan. They never take interest, you know. They’re very strong against usury. It would be very easy to offend them by asking what rate of interest they want.”
I left him to organise the unloading of the truck from the Carrier, and walked across to where Hussein was standing by his car outside my office, a grave, bearded figure in the Arab dress — white headcloth bound with two black cords, and a long white under-robe with a wide skirt, and a long coat of a light black linen, gold-embroidered, open down the front. He wore a plain leather belt with a gold-hilted curved dagger stuck into it, with a richly chased sheath. He bowed as I came up, and I said, “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Wazir. Shak Lin says that you are waiting to see me.”
He smiled, and said, “I know how hard you work.” He spoke very good English. Somebody once told me that as a young man he had been at Cambridge.
We went into the office and sat down together, and I sent the boy to get coffee from the airport bar. Till it came we talked of general things, the weather, the state of the date crop, the irrigation schemes that the Sheikh had in hand around Baraka, the yield from the pearl fishing, and how the Packard was behaving. Then the coffee came and we sipped it together; when the boy had left the room, the Wazir said,
“My master, the Sheikh of Khulal, was told by Shak Lin, El Amin, that you are thinking of buying another large aeroplane.”
I nodded. “That is true,” and I went on to tell him why I had decided that I had to have it, that there was more work than we could handle and that if we didn’t do it somebody else would. Two companies both operating in the same area might split the work so badly that both would be ruined, whereas if we kept it in our hands the business should go steadily ahead. “All the profit that we make goes back into the business,” I said. “I take nothing for myself beyond my living expenses.”
He nodded gravely. “My master has been told that you are having to resort to usurers to find the money for this aeroplane,” he said. “I have explained to him that this is common in England and that no sin is involved on either side, but he has been very much distressed.”
I said, “It’s very nice of him to think of us like that. You know the processes of business in the West, Mr. Hussein. I’ve got no feeling about paying interest, provided that it’s reasonable. What worries me is that if I’m not careful this business may become controlled by those who lend me money, and I think that would be a disaster.”
He smiled a little, and said, “All contact with sin is a disaster.” There was a little silence then, and presently he said, “I do not want to be impertinent, Mr. Cutter. My master has sent me to enquire if you need money for this aeroplane, as a loan. It seems very undesirable to him that you should fall into the hands of usurers.”
There was another silence while I thought about this magnificent proposal. “First of all,” I said, “will you tell the Sheikh of Khulal how very deeply touched I am by his consideration. It’s true that I’m in a difficulty, but I’ve been in difficulties before and got over them.” I paused. “I’m not sure if you realise the scale of the money that is involved. The price of this aeroplane is fifty-five thousand pounds.” His face did not change, but then, he was an Arab. “Spare parts and equipment will be needed for it which will cost about another five thousand — say sixty-five thousand pounds in all. That’s about eight lakhs of rupees. All I have in the bank at present is about five thousand. With such an aeroplane I can earn sufficient profit to pay off its cost in three or four years, so that in four years from now I should hope to be free from debt. But if some bad luck should come to the business that we cannot foresee, I could never hope to pay back such a loan from what I can earn upon a salary. No man could do that. If your master should lend money to me in this way and bad luck comes, another war o
r something terrible, that we cannot foresee, I may never be able to pay him back.”
He inclined his head. “I understand that point. I will explain that to my master.”
I said, “This is a personal business, Wazir. I am not a company, and no person but myself has any share in it. The aeroplanes are all my personal property.” I thought for a minute. “I will get the accountant to make up an account of my assets to the end of last month, and I will show that to you. I think the book figure will be able to show that the aeroplanes and goods that I own are worth about fifteen thousand pounds, to which should be added the bank credit and the balance of the money that I am owed in trade, and the money that I owe. I think the total figure of my assets will be twenty-one or twenty-two thousand pounds, which would be available towards repayment of this loan if things should go very wrong. It means that if disaster came there would be a balance of thirty-five thousand pounds or so which your master would almost certainly lose. But, as I say, I will have the accountant make a statement of my assets and give you a copy.”
He inclined his head. “It is my duty to guard the interests of my master, and I shall be glad to see it. I have never known him to be harsh with a debtor who was unable to pay his debt through no fault of his own.”
I sat in thought for a time. “There’s one point I’d better mention,” I said. “It may be that in the next year or two I shall have to form the business into a number of small companies, one in India, one in Pakistan, one in Siam, one in Burma, and so on. That may be necessary in the future, because each country reasonably demands that profits which are earned in that country shall be retained in that country and spent in the country. I do not think that this affects the matter because I shall be the only shareholder, but complications of that nature may arise as the business grows.”
He nodded. “It is an interesting point, but so long as all the property is owned by you I do not think my master would complain if some of it was in Siam and could not be transferred. Repayment of the loan should be made here in Bahrein, if possible.”
