“You are Mr. Bastable, then?”
I stuttered a reply to the effect that his information was correct. I was not even sure how one addressed a despotic conqueror who had on his hands the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents.
“You have my gratitude, Mr. Bastable.”
I was conscious of a decided lull in the conversation around me and I think I might have been blushing a little. I noticed that Mrs. Persson was smiling broadly at me, as was President Gandhi, and I felt very foolish, for no particular reason.
“I have, sir?” was, I think, what I answered. It sounded insane to my ears and I tried to recover my equilibrium by reminding myself that this man, in spite of appearances, was the sworn enemy of my race. It was, however, difficult to maintain an attitude of disdain while at the same time behaving in a way which suited the social situation. I had accepted the invitation to dine at the palace and therefore had a duty to President Gandhi not to offend his guests.
General Hood laughed a deep, full-throated laugh. “You saved the life of someone I hold very dear.” He patted Una Persson’s hand. “Surely you remember, Mr. Bastable?”
I said that it had been nothing, that anyone would have done the same, and so on.
“You showed great courage, Mrs. Persson tells me.”
I made no answer to this. Then General Hood added: “Indeed, if it had not been for you, Mr. Bastable, it is unlikely that I should have been able to continue with certain military ambitions I have been entertaining. White though your skin is, I think you have the heart of a black man.”
A calculated irony, surely! He had managed to implicate me in his crimes and I think relished my embarrassment. Next he added:
“If, at any time, you wish to leave the employment of Bantustan, the Ashanti Empire could make use of your services. After all, you have already proved your loyalty to our cause.”
I saw the eyes of all the whites in the hall staring at me. It was too much. Seized by anger, I blurted back: “I regret, sir, that my loyalty is to the cause of peace and the rebuilding of a sane world. The cold-blooded murder of the women and children of my own race is not something to which I could easily lend myself!”
Now the silence in the hall was total, but General Hood soon broke the atmosphere by leaning back in his chair, smiling and shaking his head. “Mr. Bastable, I have no dislike of the white man. In his place, he performs a large number of useful functions. I employ white men in a good many capacities. Indeed, there are individuals who show all the qualities I would value in an African. Such individuals are given every opportunity to shine in the Ashanti Empire. You have a poor impression of me, I fear—whereas I have nothing but respect for you.” He raised his glass to toast me. “Your health, Mr. Bastable. I am sincere in my offer. President Gandhi and I have been discussing exchanging emissaries. I shall put in a strong plea to him that you be among those invited to New Kumasi. There you shall see for yourself if I am the tyrant you have heard about.”
I was far too angry by now to make any sort of reply. President Gandhi tactfully drew General Hood into conversation and a little later Korzeniowski came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, leading me from the hall.
My emotions were, to put it mildly, mixed. I was torn between boiling anger, social embarrassment, loyalty to President Gandhi and his dream of peace, as well as my own responses to Hood himself. It was no surprise, now, that he had risen so swiftly to eminence in the world. Tyrant and murderer he might be, but it was undeniable that he had a magnetic personality, that he had the power to charm even those who hated him most. I had expected a swaggering barbarian and had encountered, instead, a sophisticated politician, an American (I learned later) who had been educated at Oxford and Heidelberg and whose academic career had been an outstanding one before he put down his books and picked up the sword. I was shaking and close to tears as Korzeniowski took me back to my quarters and devoted himself to calming me down. But it was hours before I finished my mindless ranting. I drank a good deal, too, and I think that it was a combination of alcohol and emotional exhaustion which finally shut me up. One moment I was raging at the insults of the Black Attila and the next moment I had fallen face-forward to the floor.
Korzeniowski must have put me to bed. In the morning I woke up with the worst headache of my life, still in a filthy temper, but no longer capable of expressing it. It was a knocking at the door which had awakened me. My batman answered it and a short while later brought me my breakfast tray. On the tray was an envelope bearing the seal of the President himself. I pushed the tray aside and inspected the envelope, hardly daring to open it. Doubtless it contained some kind of reproof for my behaviour of the previous evening, but I was unrepentant.
I lay in bed, the envelope still in my hand, considering the answers I should have given Hood if I had had my wits about me.
I was determined not to be charmed by him, to judge him only by his actions, to remember how whole European cities had been destroyed by him and their populations enslaved. I regretted that I had mentioned none of this during our encounter. I have never believed in violent solutions to political problems, but I felt if there was one man who deserved to be assassinated it was Cicero Hood. The fact that he had received an excellent education only made him more of a villain in my eyes, for he had perverted that education in order to pursue his racial jehad. He might blandly deny his policies of genocide, but what he had done in the past few years spoke for itself. At that moment, I felt I could, like Caponi, cheerfully kill him with my bare hands.
It was Korzeniowski turning up that forced me to control myself. He stood at the end of my bed, looking down at me with a kind of sympathetic irony, asking me how I felt.
“Not too good,” I told him. I showed him the letter. “I think I’m due for the sack. I’ll be leaving Bantustan soon enough, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“But you haven’t opened the letter, old man.”
I handed it up to him. “You open it. Tell me the worst.”
Korzeniowski went to my desk and took a paper-knife to slit the top of the envelope. He removed the contents—a single sheet of paper—and read it out in his precise, guttural English:
“Dear Mr. Bastable. If you have the time today, I should be grateful if you would visit me in my office. About five would be convenient for me, if that would suit you.
Yours sincerely, Gandhi.”
Korzeniowski handed me the letter. “Typical of him,” he said admiringly. “If you have time, Mr. Bastable. He is giving you the option. I shouldn’t have thought that meant a carpeting, old chap, would you?”
I read the letter for myself, frowning. “Then what on earth does it mean?” I said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Decision in Cold Blood
Needless to say, although I hemmed and hawed a lot, I eventually arrived, scrubbed and neat, at the presidential palace at five o’clock sharp and was immediately escorted into President Gandhi’s office. The office was as plain and functional as all the rooms he used. He sat behind his desk looking, for him, decidedly stern, and I guessed that, after all, I was in for a wigging, that my resignation would be demanded. So I stood smartly to attention and prepared myself to take whatever the President was about to give me.
He got up, rubbing his balding head with the palm of his hand, his spectacles gleaming in the sun which flooded through the open window. “Please sit down, captain.” It was rare for him to use a military title. I did as I was ordered.
“I have had a long talk with General Hood today,” Gandhi began. “We have, as you know, been discussing ways of cementing good relations between Bantustan and the New Ashanti Empire. On most matters we have reached an amicable understanding, but there is one detail which concerns you. You know that I believe in free will, that it is not part of my beliefs to force a man to do something he does not wish to do. So I will put the situation to you and you must make up your own mind about it. General Hood was not joking last night when he offered you employmen
t...”
“Not joking? I hoped so, sir. I do not wish to be employed as a mass-murderer...”
President Gandhi raised his hand. “Of course not. But General Hood, it seems, has taken a liking to you. He admired the way in which you answered him back last night.”
“I thought it a poor performance. I meant to apologize, sir.”
“No, no. I understand your position completely. You showed great self-control. Perhaps that was what Hood was doing—testing you. He is genuinely grateful for the part you played, apparently, in saving Mrs. Persson’s life in England—and, I could be completely wrong, but I have the feeling he wants to vindicate himself in your eyes. Perhaps he sees you as representative of—in his terms—the better sort of white man. Perhaps he is tired of killing and actually does want to begin building a safer and saner world—though his present military plans seem to contradict that. Whatever the reason, Bastable, he has insisted that you be part of the diplomatic mission sent to his capital at New Kumasi—indeed, he has made it a condition. You will be the only, um, white member of the mission. Unless you go, he refuses to continue with our negotiations.”
“Well, sir, if those are not the actions of a madman, a despot, I do not know what they are!” I replied.
“Certainly, they are not based on the kind of logic I recognize. General Hood is used to having his way—particularly when it comes to the fate of white men. I do not deny that. However, you know how important these talks are to me. I hope to influence the general—at least to temper his future policies towards those he conquers. Everything I have dreamed of is endangered—unless you consider that you can accept his terms. You must look to your own conscience, Mr. Bastable. I do not want to influence you, I have already gone against my principles—I am aware that I am putting moral pressure on you. You must forget what I want and do only what you think is right.”
It was then that I reached what was perhaps the most coldblooded decision of my life. If I accepted, then I should be in an excellent position to get close to Hood and, if necessary, put an end to his ambitions for good and all. I had contemplated assassination—now I was being given the opportunity to perform it. I decided that I would go to New Kumasi. I would observe the Black Attila’s actions for myself. I would be Hood’s jury and his judge. And if I decided that he was guilty—then I would take it upon myself to be his executioner!
Naturally, I said nothing of this to President Gandhi. Instead, I frowned, pretending to consider what he had said to me.
I think I was a little mad, then. It seems so to me now. The strain of finding myself in yet another version of history, of being in no way in control of my own destiny, was probably what influenced me to seek to alter events in this world. Still, I will not try to justify myself. The fact remains that I had decided to become, if necessary, a murderer! I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide on what sort of morality it is that justifies such a decision.
At last I looked up at President Gandhi and said:
“When would I have to leave, sir?”
Gandhi seemed relieved. “Within two weeks. I must select the other members of the mission.”
“Have you any idea, sir, what part Mrs. Persson has played in this?”
“No,” he admitted. “No clear idea. It could be quite a large one, for all I know. She seems to have considerable influence with General Hood. She is an extremely enigmatic woman.”
I was bound to agree with him.
It was with great regret that I said goodbye to Captain Korzeniowski and the other friends I had made in Cape Town. All felt that I had been forced into this position and I wished that I might confide in them my secret decision, but of course it was impossible. To share a secret is to share a burden and I had no intention of placing any part of such a burden on the shoulders of anyone else.
President Gandhi was sending some of his best people to New Kumasi—ten men, three women and myself. The others were either of Asian or African origin or of mixed blood. As the only white I did not feel out of place in their company, for I had long since become used to the easy terms on which the races mingled in Bantustan. In his choice, President Gandhi had shown that he was a shrewd as well as an idealistic politician, for two of the members of the mission were military experts briefed to observe all they could of General Hood’s war-making capacity and discover as much intelligence as possible in respect of his long-term military ambitions. All, with the possible exception of myself, believed heart and soul in Gandhi’s ideals.
The day came when we were ferried up to the waiting aerial frigate. Its hull was a gleaming white and it hung in the deep, blue sky like some perfectly symmetrical cloud, with the plain, pale-green flag of Bantustan flying from its rigging.
Within moments of our going aboard, the ship dropped its anchor-cables and began to head north-west towards the shining waters of St. Helena Bay.
I looked back at the slender spires of Cape Town and wondered if I should ever see that city of my friends again. Then I put such thoughts from my head and gave myself up to polite conversation with my colleagues, all of whom were speculating on what they would find in New Kumasi and how we might expect to be treated if relations between New Ashanti and Bantustan became strained. None of us was used to dealing with despots who had absolute powers of life and death over their subjects.
Twenty-four hours passed as we crossed the greater part of western Africa and hung, at last, in the air over General Cicero Hood’s capital.
It was very different from Cape Town. Those new buildings which had been erected were of a distinctly African character and not, I must admit, unpleasant to look upon. A preponderance of cylindrical shapes topped by conical roofs reminded one somewhat of the kind of huts found in a typical kraal in the old days—but these “huts” were many storeys high and built of steel, glass, concrete and modern alloys. The city was unusual, too, in that it seemed to be walled in the medieval manner, and on the walls was evidence that New Kumasi had been designed as a fortress—large guns could be seen, as well as ‘pillbox’ emplacements. The grandiose, barbaric lion flag of the Ashanti Empire flew everywhere, and military airships cruised around the perimeters like guardian birds of prey. Here there were no monorails or moving pavements or any of the other public-transport amenities of Bantustan’s cities, but it was a well-run metropolis, as far as one could see—very much under the control of the army. Indeed, half the people I saw, after we had landed, were in uniform—both men and women. There was no sign of poverty, but no sign, either, of the bountiful wealth of Cape Town. The majority of the population were Negro and the only whites I saw seemed to be doing fairly menial tasks (one or two of the porters at the aerodrome were European) but were not evidently ill-treated. There were very few private vehicles in the streets, but a good many public omnibuses of, for this world, a slightly old-fashioned sort, running off wire-borne electrical current. Other than these, there were chiefly military vehicles moving about. Huge land ironclads rolled up and down the thoroughfares, evidently taking precedence over other vehicles. These were of the globular pattern, mounted on a wheeled frame but able, at a pinch, to release themselves from the frame and roll under their own volition, their speed and course being checked by telescopic legs which could be extended from most points on the hull. I had heard of these machines, but had never seen one at close quarters. If released upon a town, or an enemy position, they were capable of flattening it in moments without firing a shot from their steam-powered gatlings and electrical cannon. I could imagine the terror one might feel when such a monster came rolling towards one!
In contrast, the Guard of Honour which greeted us and escorted us to General Hood’s headquarters was mounted on tall, white stallions, and the carriages into which we climbed were much more familiar to me than the rest of my colleagues—for they were horse-drawn, rather like the landaus of my own world. The nodding plumes of the Lion Guard horsemen flanking us, the discipline with which they sat their mounts, reminded me graphically of that wor
ld which I so longed to return to but which, now, I was reconciled never to seeing again.
The Imperial Palace of New Ashanti recalled, in its impressive beauty, what I had seen of the famous Benin culture. Like so many of the other buildings, it was cylindrical and topped by a conical roof which stretched beyond the walls, umbrella-fashion, and was supported by carved pillars, forming a kind of cloister or arcade faced with ivory, gold, bronze and silver, affording shade for the many guards who surrounded it. Every modern material and architectural skill had been used in the building of the palace, yet it was undeniably African, showing hardly any evidence of European influence. I was to learn later that it had been Cicero Hood’s firm policy to encourage what he called “the practical arts” in his Empire, and to insist that their expression be distinctly African in conception. As one who had seen many foreign cities of Asia ruined by ugly European-style architecture, who regretted the passing of ethnic and traditional designs in buildings, as well as many other things, I welcomed this aspect of Hood’s rule, if no other.
Having had some experience of the petty tyrants of India, I fully expected the Black Attila to behave as they behaved and to keep us waiting for hours in his anterooms before we were granted an audience, but we were escorted rapidly through the exquisitely decorated passages of the palace and into a wide, airy hall lit from above by large windows, its walls covered with friezes and bas-reliefs of traditional African design but showing the events of the recent past in terms of the heroic struggles and triumphs of the New Ashanti Empire. Hood himself was recognizable as featuring in several scenes, including the Conquest of Scandinavia, and there were representations of land fleets, aerial battles, underwater skirmishes and the like, giving the panels a very strange appearance—a mingling of ancient and almost barbaric emotions with examples of the most modern technical achievements of mankind.
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