Prince Cecil: I

Chapter I.

The Saviour of His Country

Afterwards the boys at Mapleton remembered it as the night that Montellescue had a row with the Head.
His name was not really Montellescue, of course—that was only his surname. His first name was Cecil and though you may not think that much better, it was certainly better than some of his others (he had six altogether), such as Xavier or Fernando. Besides, Cecil is not such a bad name in its way: I rather like it.
Anyhow, to begin with, Cecil got in trouble with his house-master and was called into the Head’s office.
‘So you’ve been fighting again, have you, Montellescue?’ said the Head as Cecil sat before him in a chair in front of the Head’s desk. ‘You’re sent in here quite a lot, it seems. Last time it was for tampering with the electric bell system—and the time before that it was for correcting your professors. You really shouldn’t—everyone gets his facts muddled occasionally and you should overlook it.’
‘I know, sir,’ said Cecil.
‘You really do quite well in your studies and I’m pleased to see how well you’re progressing in German and French,’ the Head went on. ‘I only wish you would stay out of trouble. This fighting with the other pupils has got to stop. Who was it this time?’
‘Maxwell Primus, sir.’
‘Maxwell Primus, eh? Wasn’t that who it was the last time?’
‘He made a beastly remark about my father,’ said Cecil.
‘Did he? What did he say?’
‘I’d rather not repeat it, sir,’ said Cecil, flushing.
‘Well, whatever it was, it certainly can’t have been worth fighting over. You didn’t fight him for insulting your father last time, did you?’
‘No, sir; that time he was bullying Skimps.’
‘That’s not your affair. I will never understand why boys always resort to violence to solve their problems. It’s so low and primitive.’
Cecil made no reply to this and after meditating on the regrettable state of English boyhood for a moment or two, the Head took another look at the house-master’s note.
‘Oh, there’s something else too. Rivers says that you were caught receiving wave-lengths on a personal wireless set without authorisation, after lights-out, and in the attic, which is off-limits. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Cecil.
‘Well, what’s your excuse?’
‘I couldn’t get a signal anywhere else, sir.’
The Head laughed.
He was a good headmaster, so the school-board thought, and as Mapleton Boys’ College was a fine school and had an excellent and progessively-minded board, they were good authorities. There were some persons who disapproved of the Head—they said he had subversive ideas and pushed them on the pupils—but these were generally narrow-minded people like Tories and country squires who of course weren’t worth listening to.
‘I thought they might make an exception,’ went on Cecil, breaking into the Head’s laughter.
‘Who?’
‘The chaps in charge. I was in the attic, but I wasn’t hurting anything.’
‘Why were you trying to get signals with a wireless set anyway? And where did you get the wireless set, if it comes to that?’
‘It was a present from my godparents,’ said Cecil.
‘Was it?’ asked the Head with an amused smile.
It was well-known at the school that Cecil’s godparents were the King and Queen of England. Even the Head was sufficiently impressed by this fact, although he was a socialist.
‘It was a birth-day present,’ explained Cecil.
‘Oh, I see. You did have a birth-day recently, didn’t you? How old are you now?’
‘Twelve, sir.’
‘So it was a birth-day present?’
The Head took a closer examination of the mechanism on his desk. Cecil watched him anxiously.
‘I would have asked permission,’ he said, ‘but my house-master was out until late.’
‘Well, why couldn’t you wait until another night?’
‘Well, you see…there was a particular message I wanted to pick up.’
‘What message was that?’
Cecil had hoped that he wouldn’t ask that. It was a secret message and the Head of all people must not know about it. Besides, he would never have believed Cecil if he had told him the truth. When the other boys at the school asked too many questions Cecil had an answer that usually shut them up and he tried it on the Head on a venture.
‘It’s rather complicated,’ he said.
The Head leaned back in his chair with a bored expression.
‘I can’t understand your strange obsession with electrical appliances,’ he said. ‘It’s good of course to have a sense of progress and modernism, but you’re so old-fashioned otherwise. I mean, you tinker about with batteries and motors and electricity and heaven knows what else, and then you study things like heraldry and fencing. I can’t understand it. After all, what good will fencing ever do you? Do you mean to make a charge at Balaklava?’
‘His majesty wanted me to learn fencing,’ explained Cecil.
‘Did he really?’ asked the Head and to Cecil it looked as though he sneered as he said it.
‘Do you know,’ said the Head; ‘I’ve always wondered why your godparents didn’t send you to Eton or Harrow, being as you’re a prince and such a favourite with them.’
‘My mother wanted me to go to Mapleton.’
‘Why? It’s such a small school, and it’s frightfully backward.’
‘It’s a fine school,’ protested Cecil who had strong loyalties to Mapleton.
‘It’s old-fashioned,’ insisted the Head. ‘After all, why do they insist on teaching dead languages like Latin or ancient Greek? I never could understand it and I hated it when I was a boy.’
‘I like it,’ said Cecil.
‘But there’s no use in it. You will never have to speak those languages, so what’s the use in learning them?’
‘They’re capital languages,’ said Cecil.
‘Well, there’s no use discussing it with you. You’re too set in your own ways. And to get back to the point, I’m afraid you really were caught breaking college rules and I’ll have to confiscate your wireless set.’
‘Oh, sir!’ cried Cecil, growing pale. ‘Please don’t do that, sir. It’s terribly important—’
‘Why?’
‘Because I—’
‘Well?’
‘Oh, bother!’
‘I’m sure it can’t be as important as all that,’ said the Head, closing his fingers over Cecil’s dearest possession as it stood on his desk; ‘—even if it was a present from your godparents.’
The sneer was quite unmistakeable this time. Cecil fell back in his chair biting his lip. How he wished he could explain how important that wireless set was! But it was no good trying to explain anything to the Head.
The Head for his part, felt that he had come off rather well in the last argument and felt inclined to continue the previous thread of conversation.
‘Mapleton is a good example of the late-Victorian sort of schools,’ he went on. ‘The literature taught, especially from the last war, seems to me to have a sad lack of reality, and the pupils read far too much Kipling and Ballantyne, in my opinion. You’re reading Westward Ho! right now, aren’t you? Well, there you have it: just a lot of British imperialism.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked Cecil.
‘It’s not so much that it’s wrong as that it could be better. After all, wrong is only a comparative term. Boys should be taught tolerant and broad views of the world. They should not be taught that something as insignificant as a flag is worth fighting for.’
‘But it is.’
‘Well, when you grow up you’ll be just the sort of patriotic John Bull Englishmen this sort of school turns out—always voting at your party’s call; proud of the old school tie; roaring God Save the King and Boys of the Bulldog Breed; and never taking the trouble of thinking for yourself.’
‘Is there anything wrong with God Save the King?’ asked Cecil stiffly.
‘I should have known you’d ask that,’ said the Head. ‘All right, maybe your father was a king; maybe your godfather is the King of England. What difference does it make? After all, why should a man, simply because he is a king, be any better than any other man? Why, because he was born a king, is he any more qualified to rule a country than a common person?’
‘My father was,’ said Cecil.
‘Your father was the product of a deteriorating dynasty. His position was hopeless because he resisted all reforms.’
‘Good for him!’ said Cecil.
‘Well, he paid for it with his life. I can understand your point of view, because growing up the way you did has almost certainly influenced you, but your father’s not a king any more and you’re not a prince and you need to face the real world.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ said Cecil. ‘Not if it’s like you say it is.’
‘Don’t be childish.’
‘I shall,’ said Cecil sulkily.
Among other backward things, the Head disapproved of corporal punishment. But unfortunately Cecil was the sort of boy who weakened one’s principles on occasion. The Head looked long and witheringly at the refractory prince but kept his temper admirably.
‘You’re a good specimen of the monarchical system,’ he said. ‘You’re spoilt and hopelessly traditional.’
‘Take back what you said about my father.’
‘Why should I? I meant every word. It’s a very good thing that your father was deposed, although you may not see the benefit of it. The country is prospering, I hear, under the new government.’
‘It’s a rotten government,’ said Cecil.
‘Why?’
‘It is,’ insisted Cecil. ‘The dictator is the only one who gets any good out of it. The ordinary people hate it.’
‘Then why did “the ordinary people,” as you call them, depose your father?’
‘They didn’t. It was a lot of beastly insurgents.’
‘The rest of the country puts up with it now.’
‘They can’t help it.’
‘Are you so sure?’
‘Of course! They’re not like the Germans or Italians; they didn’t vote old Waki in.’
‘Old who? I suggest you be more respectful of your superiors. For the matter of that, you might speak of the Germans and Italians with less asperity. I don’t particularly agree with all their reforms, but they’re not as bad as the press makes them out.’
‘Not as bad!’ said Cecil, sitting up in astonishment.
‘Well, what have you got against them? I don’t like their silly nationalism—simply a propaganda manoeuvre to get the people united—but they’ve some good ideas between them.’
‘They’re going to declare war on us.’
‘You’ve been listening to the conservatives. They don’t mean to have a war. What possible good would it do them to have a war when they can get what they want without it?’
‘Well, we mean to have a war with them, then.’
‘Don’t be silly. We’ve progressed too far for that sort of barbarity, and Mr. Chamberlain has everything under control. There are some prophets of doom who like to cause a sensation, but Great Britain will never fight. I’m as certain of that as I am—well, as I am that you will never return to Pyromania.’
And here the Head leaned back in his chair with a smile.
‘Now go to your room and study your decimals. If you behave yourself for the next fortnight, I might let you have your precious wireless set back.’
The telephone rang just then and the Head motioned Cecil out as he picked it up. Cecil got up slowly and dragged his feet to the door. He paused just outside the office to tie his shoelace and as he bent over a yellowed scrap of newspaper fell out of his shirt pocket. It was an old article that Cecil’s godparents had given him. They’d cut it out of the paper when Cecil’s father was deposed from his country. It read across the top in large letters:

COUP D’ETAT IN PYROMANIA!

And then underneath in smaller letters:

WAKJAVOTSKI TAKES POWER IN CAPITOL CITY. KING ASSASINATED. QUEEN AND CROWN PRINCE FLEE COUNTRY.

Then there was an article about it and a picture of Cecil’s father. It was the only picture of him Cecil had besides one that had been the frontispiece of a Pyromanian history book (published prior to the new regime and found in an old book stall in London by Cecil’s mother) and which Cecil had cut out and hung in a frame above his bed.
Cecil smoothed out the paper and forgot about his shoelace. It was true that Cecil was not actually a prince anymore, but he never forgot that he had been born one and that by rights he ought to be one. He was of the old school of thought that if once one is a prince he is always a prince.
Now you may be wondering how Cecil got to be the godson of the King and Queen of Great Britain. It was really not so strange as you might think, for Queen Victoria was Cecil’s great-great grandmother and since she was King George’s great grandmother that made them relations. Besides, King George and Queen Elisabeth had not been King and Queen when they became Cecil’s godparents. King George’s father was King then and his elder brother was the Prince of Wales, so of course Cecil’s parents, when they asked them to be his godparents, could not have possibly known that King George (who was Prince Albert then) would ever become King himself. How he did is a long story and I shan’t write it here.
At any rate, being the godson of the King and Queen was, as you probably expected, rather useful. They practically adopted him after his mother died and looked after him and paid for him to go to a good school. And then, it is always nice to be invited to Balmoral Castle for the holidays. There were drawbacks to it, of course, and that was when the other boys called him Royal Pet and other nasty things, but that was because the King and Queen tended to spoil him a bit, not having any little boys of their own: only girls.
The wireless set they had given him had not been entirely an extravagance. It was a very necessary means of communication between Cecil and the British Secret Intelligence Service, whom the King had instructed to keep Cecil informed on all particulars relating to his old country. That evening before Cecil’s house-master had caught him at it, they had forwarded him a message they had intercepted passing between Germany and Pyromania.
‘For the Ambassador: Tell Ribbentrop that His Excellency will be pleased to meet with him in Munich to discuss the alliance. –Krassok’
Cecil understood this confusing message because he happened to know that Ribbentrop was the German minister of foreign affairs and that Krassok was the personal secretary to Royston Wakjavotsky, dictator of Pyromania. It was Wakjavotsky who had deposed and assassinated Cecil’s father eleven years before and who had since subjugated all the people in the country of Pyromania. And it was he who now was going to sign an alliance with Germany.
Cecil was brought back from his daydream by the sound of an excited voice coming from the room behind him. It was the Head’s voice, talking to someone over the telephone.
‘I don’t believe it!…Are you quite sure?…Yes, right away!…Goodbye!’
*click*
The door opened suddenly and the Head dashed out looking flurried, which was something that Cecil had never seen him look before in the four years he had been Headmaster at Mapleton.
‘Oh, I say! Something up?’ asked Cecil.
The Head made no reply, only dashed down the hall calling for Rübenstein, who was the German professor at the college.
‘I wonder what’s bitten him?’ said Cecil, staring after him.
‘What ho! Heard the news yet?’ asked Sanford, coming in just then. He had been to town on his bicycle and had just gotten back.
‘What’s up?’
‘I say! We’ve declared war on Germany. The Prime Minister’s just announced it over the air. Isn’t it capital?’
‘War? Really!’ said Cecil in astonishment.
‘Splendid!’ cried another boy, putting his head out from the study hall. ‘I say, won’t it be bully, though!’
Prickett, the English master came down the hall with a grave air and broke up the group of boys that had begun to cluster around Sanford.
‘Ring bell for assembly, Rawley,’ he said. ‘All of you off.—Not you, Montellescue. The Head says for you to go to your dormitory.’
‘Why?’ asked Cecil.
‘Don’t ask why, do as you’re told. Off you go, then.’
Off Cecil went. He heard a good deal of noise and commotion below as he went up the stairs to his dormitory which soon dissipated as the boys hurried out to go to assembly. He didn’t bother to turn on the light in his room but sat on his bed in the half-darkness, looking at the picture of his father on the wall. He had a great deal to think about now, but one thing was uppermost in his mind. Pyromania was going to be allied to Germany. That meant that his people must fight against Great Britain and France in a dreadful war that had just been declared between the greatest military powers in the world.
He thought of his homeland that he had never seen since he had left it so many years ago. His father had died for Pyromania and what it stood for. Of all the royal family, he alone, Prince Cecil, remained alive to carry on the flame of loyalty that had burned so brightly in his father. He must get back to his country and prevent the alliance with Germany. He must. Nothing else mattered just then.
With an air of finality he got to his feet and took his sword (a present from his godparents) and his automatic pistol (a present from the British SIS) from his box at the foot of his bed. His knapsack was soon packed with the few things he would need and he climbed out the window and slid down the drainpipe onto the school grounds.
Daylight was nearly gone and a very heavy twilight lay over everything. From the assembly hall a low murmur could be heard as the Head announced the declaration of war to the student body. Cecil looked at its glowing windows for a moment, then turned his back on his old school. He crossed the cricket field which was haunted by a few late fireflies, squeezed through a hole in the hedge that bounded it, and was on the grassy bank that sloped down to the high road.
Far down the road a pair of pale headlights approached. Cecil scrambled down onto the pavement and put out his thumb. The automobile pulled up and stopped and the driver rolled down the window.
‘Hi! Look sharp! Shouldn’t be out on the road after dark, you’re liable to get run down. Which way are you going?’
‘Dover,’ said Cecil.
‘Going over to the continent, eh? Unhealthy place just now. Just as you please, though. I’m going to London, but I’ll set you on your way as far as Chatham.’
His wife leaned over and looked closely at Cecil.
‘You’re from the school over there, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes ma’am,’ said Cecil.
‘Well, have you permission to be out on your own? It isn’t safe, you know.’
‘I’m all right,’ said Cecil, getting into the car to preclude further conversation. ‘I’m on important business—about the war.’
‘Just as you please,’ said the man. ‘It’s all right, Mabel, I’m sure,’ he said to his wife who was whispering to him.
They drove for several miles and got into the busier suburbs of London before setting Cecil down again to find another ride. He found a bus headed for Dover and got on, content to pay a rather exorbitant price as long as he got where he wanted without having to answer questions. The night shut down in good earnest and the lights of the city twinkled like a titanic galaxy. Soon they were to be extinguished by the impending war, but to-night every house was ablaze with light and everyone seemed to be discussing the momentous news.

Mr. Haldar was returning to the Ministry of Defence headquarters, his mind full of the many things to be done now that war had been declared. He got out of his car almost before it had stopped and hurried to his private office on the second floor of the building. He had sat down at the desk before he noticed the man who waited in a chair in the corner.
‘Oh, hello, Waterford,’ said Haldar.
He took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and began to run over them, making markings with a pen.
‘Hello,’ said Waterford.
‘Let’s see; have you stopped all forwards on suspect letters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you had everyone on the marked person’s list arrested?’
‘Yes, that’s done too.’
‘Good.’
The telephone rang.
‘You’ll excuse me,’ said Haldar, picking it up. ‘Yes?…No; on no account whatsoever. Tell him so….Goodbye.’
He went back to shuffling papers.
‘What about that agent in Denmark?’
‘I’ve seen to him.’
‘You seem to be quite on top of things. Wish I could say the same for myself. I’ve a mountain of work here. By the way, I suppose you came to tell me something?’
‘Yes, I couldn’t tell you over the telephone, besides not being sure I’d be able to reach you that way. He’s off.’
‘Who is?’
‘Dolphin. He’s started for Pyromania.’
The minister ceased his survey of the papers and began to search through his desk.
‘Dolphin? Dolphin? I can’t remember what that is just now. I thought I had a codeword manual here somewhere.’
‘The prince,’ said the other man succinctly.
‘What prince?’
‘The prince of Pyromania. What other prince would I be speaking of?’
‘I thought you meant one of our princes at first. One never knows. So he’s left, you say? Did you tell him to?’
‘Not exactly. I’ve been keeping him posted on Pyromanian affairs like you told me to, and to-night he took off on his own. He’ll be across the channel in another hour.’
‘Where’d you get this from?’
‘Our agent in the Sudbury area.’
‘Did he go by himself?—Dolphin, I mean.’
‘Yes, and I can’t communicate with him because that Turk of a headmaster pinched his wireless.’ ‘So what do we do?’
‘Nothing. It’s just as well. We’ve got to stop that alliance somehow and this is probably the only way.’
‘Do you really think he’ll make any difference on his own?’
‘He won’t be entirely on his own. There’s an active underground in Pyromania and he’s better than any number of agents for the morale he’ll provide to the resistance.’
‘But he’s only a boy—can he even make it into the country?’
‘He has a forged passport.’
‘He has?’
‘From one of our departments. It will get him in…after that, he’s on his own.’
‘And you think he stands a chance?’
‘Depends on how you define chance. He’s not your average product of a public school. He was trained for the throne. Taught history, government, the arts, language, deportment—’
‘Excuse me,’ said Haldar as the telephone rang again. ‘Yes?… Yes… Tell him to hurry… All right. –As you were saying, Waterford?’ he asked as he hung up the receiver.
‘He’s been taught all that besides having been trained in Morse code and signals, deft hand at shooting and fencing; he even knows a few rudimentary sabotage techniques. Our department saw to that.’
‘You seem to have thought of everything.’
‘Anything his majesty overlooked, that’s all. He wanted the boy trained to command armies some day as well as lead a government. We simply supplied the training necessary to bring him to that position. We’ve invested quite a lot into the kid. He’s young, but he’s essential for all that.’
‘It seems rather hard to send him all the same. A mere boy...’
‘He’ll be looked after. We’ve a few agents in Pyromania. Of course it would make things difficult if we were to lose him but now’s the time to strike and there’s no help for it. It’s the only way to stop the alliance.’
‘Yes, you’re right, of course, but I thought we were going to try other approaches first.’
‘We had intended to, but he’s left and it’s too late now. It’s just as well, as I say. C’est le moment. If we wait, we will no longer have the chance. We have to do it now.’
‘That’s all very well for us, but what about him?’
Waterford shrugged his shoulders.
‘He was born for this hour,’ he said.

Cecil stood at the rail of the ferry, watching the channel slide past and wishing he were allowed to go inside the wheel house. He hoped they had not discovered his defection at the school yet. As a matter of fact, they had, but they had not got so far as to learn whether he had gone south towards London or if he had gone north towards Cambridge. Lost person notices were put up the next day until someone sent an order to take them down. No explanations were offered: to all practical purposes Montellescue had dropped off the map.

Afterwards, when the students talked about the night war was declared, they remembered that it was also the night that Montellescue had had a row with the Head and had afterwards run off to save his country.