The Man who Missed the War (32 page)

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Then you must be very dense,’ said the Prince acidly. ‘From the time Naval warfare started with bows and arrows and stone shot, all other things being equal, victory has always gone to the Fleet that could fire the biggest broadside.’

‘Well, an aircraft carrier can fire a bigger broadside than a battleship.’

‘Now you’re talking through your hat. Aircraft carriers mount only six-inch guns or something like that. Anyhow, the weight of their broadside wouldn’t amount to that of a single sixteen-inch shell.’

‘I’m not talking about weight,’ Philip countered, ‘but explosive power. You know as well as I do that, to stand the pressure of being fired out of a gun barrel, nine-tenths of the weight of every shell has to be solid steel, and that there is only room for a comparatively small explosive charge inside. Bombs, on the other hand, are very different. They need only a thin metal casing to hold together the solid mass of explosive which forms their bulk. In consequence, the aircraft of one carrier can drop in a single sortie a far greater tonnage of high explosive than could be fired off by the big guns of a whole fleet of battleships. That’s why it is now so hopelessly uneconomical to send a battle fleet to bombard a port. A few squadrons of heavy bombers can create more havoc in ten minutes than a battle fleet could by bombarding the place for a couple of days. It’s such a waste of good steel too. Anyhow, you can take it from me that the sixteen-inch gun is now as outmoded as a Roman catapult.’

The Russian’s voice held the trace of a sneer, as he said: ‘You think yourself a monstrous clever fellow, don’t you? But the fact remains that all Service opinion is against you. If you had ever been in the Navy, as I have, you would know that the men who reach Admiral’s rank are not fools. What is more, it may interest you to learn that the American Navy Chiefs think the same way. When I left the States they were still building big ships as fast as they could go.’

Philip shrugged. ‘Because the Americans and the British do
the same thing it does not prove that they are right. Naturally, all these chaps can’t bear the thought of the main reason for their existence becoming the responsibility of another Service which is now better equipped to tackle it than themselves. They’ll continue to maintain until they are blue in the face that a battle fleet is still necessary, and anyone like yourself, who is predisposed in their favour, will continue to be fool enough to believe them.’

‘Do you suggest that I’m a fool?’ asked the Prince angrily.

‘No. But I do suggest that you’re taking for granted all sorts of things that you have heard other people say, and repeating them like a parrot, instead of facing the problem squarely on its merits and thinking it out logically for yourself.’

‘How dare you call me a parrot!’

‘You shouldn’t behave like one!’

‘You insolent young fool! I’ll teach you——!’

‘Just a moment, just a moment,’ Gloria intervened as Fedor rose to his feet with the evident intention of advancing on Philip. ‘I think you boys have both been mighty rude to each other; but there’s no sense in coming to blows about a thing that can’t affect any of us here one little bit. I’m awful tired, and I’d like to get to sleep. Won’t both of you say you’re sorry so that we can settle down for the night?’

Philip obligingly muttered that he had not meant anything personal, and the Prince mumbled something to the effect that he had taken no offence.

Even so, Philip was greatly surprised when the Russian said to him next morning: ‘You know, I was thinking over what you were saying last night, and I believe you are right. Logically, all future fleets should consist of aircraft carriers with destroyer escorts. Two such fleets would not have to wait to engage until they were in sight of each other; they could fight to the death without ever being less than a hundred miles apart. And since no battleship which was with either fleet could use its big guns in such an action it really does seem that battleships are quite redundant.’

‘That’s very handsome of you,’ Philip smiled and this
rapprochement
made a happy start to what proved to be a long and tiring day.

Having reached the mountain barrier, they now had to climb
over two thousand feet up a steep and slippery track, then make their way through a three-mile pass. On each of the two previous days Gloria had said that she was sure her ankle was now quite strong enough for her to walk, at least a part of the way; but Solgorukin would not let her. He wanted her ankle to be given the maximum rest until they reached the mountain. Now, when she tried it out, she found she could walk quite well, but the Prince took one of her arms to help her while Philip was left to bring up the rear with the luggage.

They reached the entrance of the pass without accident and halted there for their midday meal. After it, before they set out on the next stage of their journey, during which Gloria was once more to be carried, Solgorukin addressed the other two with unusual solemnity.

‘Within a few hours’ time you will see things which I have little doubt will astonish you. I have offered you food and warmth, and they shall be yours, but you will then understand why, had you two been a party of men, I should have left you to fend for yourselves. I intend that this place to which we are going beyond the mountains shall be my home for the rest of my life. Therefore, I would not jeopardise it or my position there by sheltering a party of roughnecks who might turn upon me. You two are different.’

He smiled and went on: ‘Even if you wished, I somehow don’t think that you two could prove very dangerous enemies. All the same, I should like to give you a warning. As my guests, I don’t think you will have any reason to complain of your treatment. But I wish you both to realise that, while you are in my kingdom, as well as being my guests you will also be my subjects. Anything that you may see there—such, for example, as my treatment of my other subjects—is no concern of yours. You will neither inquire into it nor comment on it; and you will remember that my word is law.’

Rising, he added more lightly: ‘Come, let us go.’ When Gloria had settled herself in the hammock he led the way into a narrow defile between two sheer walls of rock which formed the pass. It was a long walk, steadily uphill all the time and often through an inch or more of water, which in places turned the gorge into a shallow river.

Philip could not understand this at all, as at such an altitude he would have expected the whole pass to be completely blocked with great depths of snow. Yet it was far warmer here than it had been much lower down on the mountain-side or even on the plain; and he noticed that, although the peaks of the mountains that they passed remained snow-covered, the rock was now bare to within a thousand feet of their tops, and the rock faces seemed to be glistening with moisture.

At last they came out on a plateau from which they could see a long double line of mountain tops separated by a great chasm at least ten miles wide; while, far to the south, beyond the double line of peaks, there rose another chain of mountains far vaster than the one into the centre of which they had climbed.

Setting Gloria down, they advanced across the plateau. Their view down into the great chasm between the mountains steadily increased, and the first hint of what was coming was given by a touch of green breaking the brown colouring of the rock at the far end of the valley. After covering another few hundred yards, Philip and Gloria could see that there were trees and fields down there in the valley and—yes, little, round houses with smoke curling up from their chimney pots.

Forgetting her ankle, Gloria ran the rest of the way to the edge of the plateau, and Philip ran with her. For a moment, they stood there side by side, gazing down enraptured by the distant scene, then he exclaimed:

‘It can’t be! It isn’t true! And yet it must be—this is Shangri La!’

The Prince had joined them, and he shook his head. ‘No, this is not Shangri La. There are no temples here, no wise men seeking to preserve all the accumulated beauties of our civilisation from destruction, and you will find the people here very poor and primitive. Yet, in some ways this is much more remarkable. That was a man-made Paradise where Nature had been coaxed to give of her best in a sheltered valley. This is not. It is against all nature that anything but the very lowest forms of vegetation should live so near the Pole; and the cultivation here is only of the most primitive kind. For two-thirds of the year this valley should be deep in show; yet no snow has ever fallen during all the months I have been here, and while perpetual clouds should
hang about these mountain tops, shutting out the sun, there is hardly a day on which it does not shine.’

‘How absolutely extraordinary!’ murmured Philip. ‘Yet there must be some explanation.’

‘There is,’ the Prince replied, ‘and it lies in that great chain of mountains to the south. Something goes on there that I do not understand. Strange things can be done with human blood, and I know just enough to have reached the decision that it is wiser not to pursue my investigations any further. I mention this now in order that we need not refer to it again. The subject is taboo.’

They stood silently looking out over the valley. It was infinitely still and peaceful in the evening light, yet the Russian’s strange words had now imbued the place with a slightly frightening and sinister atmosphere.

‘Come,’ he said at last. ‘You have not yet seen any of my people, and they will prove another surprise for you. Let us go down. I bid you welcome to my kingdom.’

The prince led the way along the cliff top until they reached a break in it from which a narrow track led downward. Gloria was tired now and limping a little, but she was so excited that she hardly noticed the pain which began to throb through her ankle again during their two-mile descent into the valley. As they advanced the terrain on either side of the track gradually altered in appearance. The bare, wet rock became sparsely covered in lichens and mosses, and as the way grew less steep they passed narrow terraces which had been banked up to hold shallow patches of soil. These broadened by degrees until they became sloping fields.

Neither Philip nor Gloria knew anything about agriculture, but it was apparent to them that the cultivation was haphazard and the crops of poor quality. The countryside had all the untidiness of a huge allotment garden at the wrong end of the year, and it was clear that no common policy or organised direction for getting the best out of the soil existed here. Night was fast approaching, so none of the inhabitants were now in the fields, but Philip noticed that no ploughs, harrows or other agricultural implements had been left out; nor were any wagons or horses to be seen.

The only signs of life were a few of the cottages that they had seen from the plateau, which, on a nearer view, seemed very old, crooked and tumbledown, and some animals grazing in the fields that looked like a cross between a sheep and a dwarf camel.

Gloria asked what they were, and the Prince replied; They are llamas, and, as far as I know, much the same species as the animal which is quite common in the Andean States of South
America. What my poor subjects would do without them, heaven knows! They give us our only meat, milk, butter and cheese, and, in addition, their fat, made into dips and thick candles with special markings on them, provides our only light at night and our only way of telling the time during the long winters when we cannot see the sun. And, of course, their wool, which as you can see, is long and fleecy, and their hides supply the population with ninety per cent of its clothes. In Peru, so I have heard, the people also use them as beasts of burden, and soon after I arrived here I tried that too, but there was no end of a rumpus. Probably owing to their dependence on them, the people regard their llamas as practically sacred. Anyhow, I had to quell a mutiny, so the experiment was not worth the bother of repeating—particularly as the people themselves provide me with all the beasts of burden I am ever likely to require.’

For some quarter of an hour past dim little lights had been appearing in the narrow windows of the scattered cottages, and now they were approaching the first group of buildings they had seen. It was not large enough to be called a village or even a hamlet, but was just half a dozen houses, the sloping roofs of which formed all sorts of crazy angles, set in a small clearing which was surrounded by a high spiked stockade.

‘This collection of rabbit hutches,’ said the Prince, ‘is the Palace. I fear it must prove a little disappointing to you at first sight, but it is more comfortable inside than you might suppose. The reasons for its “bittiness” and the eccentricity of its architecture are to be found in the limitations of my people as builders. They understand only how to make one type of house. They have probably been making the same thing for thousands of years longer than the African negroes have their beehive huts, and the type of house they make is perfectly adequate for their simple needs; but they are utterly incapable of making anything larger or different.’

While the Prince was talking they reached a narrow gate in the stockade, and pushing it open he went on: ‘This is the tradesmen’s entrance, but coming down from the mountain it is quicker to go in this way. As I was saying, my people have many shortcomings, but they have one virtue, which makes up for much. It is a most unusual feature to find in such an otherwise
unprogressive race. They are extraordinarily clean both in their houses and their persons. You could really eat your breakfast off the floors of their cottages and see your faces in the bottoms of their cooking pots. It was that, I’m pretty certain, which saved them from becoming the victims of some frightful epidemic when I first arrived among them.’

‘Yes,’ remarked Philip; ‘more than one native race has been entirely wiped out through a trader or explorer giving them some childish disease like measles. It’s probably thousands of years since the people here have mixed with any other race, so I doubt whether they have any immunity at all from our usual ailments. Even our common cold might prove to them as deadly a scourge as the plague.’