Prince Cecil: VI

Chapter VI.

The Blast

The grey of early dawn had stolen into the room above the watch shop when a punctuated knocking was heard below. Cecil started from his sleep so violently that he lurched out of the narrow cot that Leiber had generously given him (it was the only bed to be had) and fell to the floor, hopelessly entangled in the sheet.
He looked up and scanned the dim room, wondering at the noise and shivering in the early morning chill. Karotski and Leiber still sat up in their chairs but they were fast asleep with their faces on the table. They started simultaneously as the knocking was repeated and lifted their heads dazedly. Cecil jumped to his feet and was half-way down the stairs before the men in the room had had time to collect their wits.
‘Wait, Tzaddi, wait!’ called Leiber.
Cecil stopped where he was and finished waking up—he had only been half-way there until that moment. Of course it was quite foolish for him to go down until he knew who was at the door. The knocking came again and now that Cecil was fully alert he found that though it was firm it sounded somehow subdued.
Leiber hurried past him and Karotski appeared at the top of the stairs, watching and listening. Cecil heard Leiber open the door and the hurried conversation of the two parties. Presently a man came up the stairs with Leiber following.
‘What is it?’ asked Karotski.
‘Have you seen this?’ asked the man, whom Cecil recognised as one of the partisans, waving a paper.
Karotski took it and read over it. It was a copy of the poster that Baden had put out.
‘I expected them to know he was here,’ said Karotski with unconcern. ‘It doesn’t matter. They won’t find him.’
‘That’s what I came for,’ said the man. ‘The army’s searching houses.’
‘The army is?’
‘That’s right. They searched mine at five this morning and I came over here as soon as I could without being spotted.’
‘Which way were they headed?’
‘This way. There are bands of them searching this area. They’re not sparing any pains, that’s for sure. I heard about a raid in the Hungarian section yesterday.’
‘How far off are the nearest soldiers?’
‘The next house but one. I can’t help it; I ran all the way.’
Karotski did not hesitate.
‘Come on,’ he said to Cecil as he hurried past him down the stairs.
Cecil obeyed without speaking and Leiber followed them both as they left the shop through the back door. Nobody spoke until they had left that block and were pursuing their way in the early morning air on the semi-deserted streets. Then Cecil could not contain his curiosity any longer.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Karotski, who was striding along at a firm and determined pace all the same. ‘We’ve got to keep you away from the soldiers somehow, but I don’t know of any place that they might not search.’
‘Should we take him to the British Consulate?’ asked Leiber.
‘They’re bound to be watching it. Besides, we don’t want to involve Fletcher. I’m sure they’re suspicious enough of him as it is.’
‘Where then?’ asked Leiber.
‘I don’t know,’ said Karotski. ‘Of course I should have expected something like this.’
It was not very pleasant to feel as if you were a nuisance to everybody, which was the way Cecil was feeling just then.
‘Perhaps we could try Sir Andrew’s house,’ he suggested. ‘They mightn’t be watching that.’
‘I was thinking so myself,’ admitted Karotski. ‘It’s a great risk to him, but it would only be for a few hours—just until after the assassination.’
Cecil looked up sharply.
‘What?’ he said. ‘I’m not coming on the job?’
‘No. Did you think you were? Of course we can’t risk you getting captured.’
‘But you let me come last night.’
‘It would have been more dangerous to leave you behind. This is different.’
‘But I had a splendid kind of fuse I was going to make and everything,’ said Cecil, quite crestfallen. ‘You don’t have a fuse for the dynamite yet, do you? It would have been a waterproof one and anyway, I want to see the explosion.’
‘I thought you didn’t like it,’ said Karotski.
‘We can’t bring you along because you might get hurt,’ said Leiber.
‘Besides which,’ said Karotski, who was more practical; ‘if you were to get killed, we’d have no one to put on the throne and all our labour would be useless. No, we can’t afford to lose you.’
‘I can’t send my men to do something without taking some of the danger myself,’ said Cecil firmly.
‘What do you mean, your men?’ asked Karotski.
‘Well, your men, then,’ said Cecil, feeling it weakened the argument somewhat. ‘I shall be their king.’
‘You’re not king yet and for now you have to do as I tell you.’
‘Will you let me go if I make you Prime Minister?’ asked Cecil.
‘No,’ said Karotski shortly.
‘Don’t try to bribe him,’ advised Leiber. ‘He’s utterly above corruption.’
Cecil felt terribly disappointed and he didn’t like feeling like a figurehead. But there was nothing he could do about it. Karotski was quite right—Cecil had to do as he said.

‘Well, you’re up early, Baden,’ said Wakjavotski as his minister entered the audience chamber later that morning.
Wakjavotski himself was an early riser but Baden was well-known for keeping late hours in less than creditable pursuits. Baden took this greeting as a sign that His Excellency was in a bad mood and tried to couch his information in a more acceptable form.
‘I wanted to be sure to see you before the meeting this afternoon. You’re usually so busy throughout the day that I thought this might be the most opportune moment and so got up before my usual time on purpose.’
‘How very self-sacrificing of you,’ said Wakjavotski drily. ‘And what tremendously time-sensitive information do you have to impart that it couldn’t wait a few more hours until the meeting? It can’t be that you’ve caught that person whose name I refuse to mention—that would be too much to hope for.’
‘No, we haven’t caught him,’ said Baden. ‘Apparently he has gotten in touch with the underground organisation, for a lorry of dynamite for blasting the new highway was stolen last night.’
‘Was it?’ asked Wakjavotski with sinister emphasis. ‘I suppose that means that they intend to blow up the palace over my head?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Baden in his calm, dry way. ‘You imagine yourself to be the object of every attack. After all, the revolutionaries would gain nothing by blowing up the palace. Their target is obviously either the arsenal or the fortress, therefore both of these have received an increased guard. Security at all key points has been tightened—even around the palace, so you may put your mind at rest on your own account.’
‘But they are still out there—ready to pounce wherever they choose—and the whole of my armed forces are unable to find them. Does that make sense? No!’
‘They are only a handful of untrained partisans who will be easy to mop up as soon as they are located and they will be soon, for they obviously mean to play their hand now that the prince is in their power. We can’t tell exactly where they will try to attack, but there are several bodies of troops dispersed throughout the capitol that can be instantly sent against them when they do appear. Wherever and whenever they strike, we will be ready for them.’
‘And what about the meantime? They could very well cause a revolt among the populace. They are probably distributing literature already.’
‘They could indeed start a revolt if they chose; the people are not very pleased just now. But it is your own fault for not listening to my advice about the reforms I suggested.’
‘What do you mean, reforms? I’m already implementing reforms left and right.’
‘Not the ones I told you to. You’re caught up in the military, but other areas are suffering as well. Transportation is insufficient, the public education system is a joke, food production is declining, the economy is failing, unemployment rates are higher than they’ve ever been; what have you done about it?’
‘I’ll have a committee look into the matter.’
‘You know your committees never solve any issues. You have to look into these matters yourself.’
‘I’ve more important things to do.’
‘You won’t have anything at all to do if you don’t. You won’t have a government anymore.’
‘Just let them try to oust me!’ said Wakjavotski. ‘I’ll crush them like a contemptible eggshell!’
He strode to the window and looked down on the government square that basked in the mid-morning sunshine and sported in its midst a statue of His Excellency, mounted on a horse (although he had never ridden one in his life and disliked the creatures) and giving the Javostski party salute.
‘Baden,’ he said reflectively; ‘you don’t really think they’re all that tired of me, do you?’
Baden remained studiously silent.
‘I mean after all I’ve done for them!’ Wakjavotski went on. ‘They should be very ungrateful if they did anything of the kind, and I won’t believe it of them, but you always talk so like a confounded automatic machine. I can never get to the bottom of you. I wonder if you’re really worried or if you only want me to be.’
‘I want you to attend to the things I’ve mentioned,’ said Baden.
‘I will think about it after the meeting,’ Wakjavotski conceded.

Cecil toiled along at Karotski’s heels, wishing they had not skipped breakfast and wondering how much longer it would be until dinner. He was also very sleepy and sore from all that had befallen him in the last few days and he wished Karotski would stop and let him rest. They had kept to back alleys at first but now that the sun was high and the streets filled with people, Karotski led him along main thoroughfares without worrying about detection. There were lots of boys in blue shorts and khaki sweaters for the police to pick up without having to single out Cecil.
‘What time, Leiber?’ called Karotski.
‘Ten till nine.’
‘He ought to be up by now,’ said Karotski and, to Cecil’s delight, he turned sharply and plunged into a restaurant.
The restaurant was crowded with late breakfasters and people who liked to sit a long time over their morning papers. There was not a spare table to be seen, but Karotski did not seem to be looking for one. He made his way straight to the back of the building where he found what he was looking for—a telephone.
Leiber and Cecil waited while Karotski picked up the receiver and gave Sir Andrew’s number. The pleasant smells of fried eggs and coffee combined with watching other people eating made them hungrier than ever.
Luckily, Karotski was able to get Sir Andrew on the telephone. Because all the telephone communications were bugged and they could never be sure whether someone else was listening to what they were saying, they had to converse in code, replacing evey important word with an unimportant substitute. Cecil couldn’t tell what exactly they were talking about from Karotski’s side of the conversation until Karotski exclaimed quite sharply,
‘What?….They are?…..Where, did you say?…..Then that means we can’t—……’
There was a long silence during which Cecil and Leiber looked at each other apprehensively.
‘Thank you. Goodbye,’ said Karotski, and hung up the telephone.
For a minute he stood, rubbing his wrist as if in deep thought. Finally he looked up at Leiber.
‘Trouble again,’ he said.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Leiber.
‘Come on, we can’t talk about it in here.’
Karotski glanced about and plunged out of the restaurant again with Cecil and Leiber following.
‘Well, what happened?’ asked Leiber when they were safely onto a deserted back street.
‘They’ve got a cordon of troops around the government square and the park,’ said Karotski. ‘Nobody’s allowed through at all.’
‘Then that means we can’t get to the consulate or Sir Andrew’s house.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the worst of it. We can’t get to the main palace drain.’
Leiber stared at Karotski uneasily.
‘Do you mean the culvert is—’
‘Yes, it’s inside the cordon.’
‘But can’t we get down through another one?’
‘Yes, but the nearest one we can get down is over a hundred yards from the palace. We’d have to haul the dynamite through the sewer all that way on our heads…in the dark…in waist-deep water.’
‘I see,’ said Leiber. ‘What shall we do, then?’
Karotski went on without answering and Cecil and Leiber had to nearly run to keep up with him for he walked very quickly with his head down.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Cecil.
‘I’m thinking,’ replied Karotski.
They walked on at that desperate pace for some time. At last Karotski raised his head, glanced about him, and dove down a by-street while Leiber and Cecil dashed after him. They turned down street after street like a game of follow the leader, Karotski always well in front for he never seemed to get tired or remember that it was nearing lunch-time and they still had not had breakfast. The streets grew narrower and dirtier and generally sloped downwards.
At last they turned into one that was sunken in the middle and lined by rows of old houses, pressed up close against each other with long red rust stains running down their walls beneath the rain-gutters. A strange feeling came over Cecil suddenly. He tried to think what it was about this street that reminded him queerly of the ferry at Dover, but nothing came to mind. By the time they had nearly reached the end of the street he had narrowed it down to the smell—a strange, stagnant, briny smell different from pond water. They came to the end of the street and turned the corner.
Cecil caught his breath and nearly stopped. The houses ran along a little way and then stopped suddenly while a cement ledge ran along their fronts and beneath it, gently rocking a fleet of fishing boats, a dark green expanse of water stretched away into a dim blue horizon.
It was the harbour. Far away in the distance several ships lay at anchor, like great buildings stuck out in the water. A breeze came in from the open ocean and ran through Cecil’s hair. He tipped his head back and breathed deeply, watching, as he did, the sea-gulls flying in circles overhead. Here, eleven years ago, Sir Andrew had come with him and his mother. Perhaps one of those fishing boats below was the one which had saved their lives that night. Perhaps one of the ships in the harbour was the destroyer that had tried to run them down.
But all that was long ago. He was here now and there was a job to be done. He followed Karotski and Leiber around another corner and up to where the stone ledge ended in a railing. From here they could look down at a place where the sea came up against the buildings and flowed through a grating in a wall underneath the houses.
There’s where one of the main sewers comes out,’ said Karotski, pointing to the grating.
‘Are we going in from there, then?’ asked Leiber. ‘What about the dynamite? How are we going to haul it all that way?’
‘In flat-bottomed boats. The sewer workers take them up through this opening quite often when they have to make repairs.’
‘Are we going to do it in broad daylight?’
Karotski glanced around.
‘There is no one here to see us,’ he said and it was quite true: the ledge and the boats were deserted.
‘But won’t the sewer be blocked between here and the palace?’ asked Leiber.
‘We’ll find out,’ said Karotski.
They descended a flight of stone steps down onto a jetty which ran along beside the boats. There were a number of little flat-bottomed rowboats tied up alongside it, and into one of these they stepped without seeming to bother very much about whether or not it was private property.
They paddled up to the grating, the water making very little noise in that quiet place save when a swell came along and sent the water slapping against the stone walls. Karotski looked up at the building directly above them.
‘Looks as if it’s deserted,’ he said.
There were cobwebs in the windows and several panes were broken. What could be seen of the inside looked like mostly dusty boards and boxes.
‘It will suit us perfectly,’ explained Karotski. ‘All we have to do is drive the omnibus into the court on the other side, bring the dynamite through this building and lower it into boats from the window.’
‘By gum!’ said Leiber admiringly. ‘That’s a splendid plan!’
Karotski glowed with satisfaction.
‘Come on and help me get this grating open,’ he said, leaning out of the boat and fumbling at the chain that held it closed.
They worked away at it for several minutes and at last got the rusty grating open and paddled through. Thus began the trip up the sewer.
It was a strange voyage, there in the quiet semi-darkness with only an occasional glimmer of light from gutters and drains opening onto the street above. As they went on they could hear, as from far away, the sound of automobiles and other street noises up above them. They paddled on, up the watery arteries of the city. Sometimes they came to a place where the water came pouring down from a higher tunnel and here they often had to get out and lift the boat up over the edge into the current. Once they had gotten off of the main sewer line the water was shallow enough to stand up in, but it was very wet and unpleasant work and they often had to retrace their steps. Even with a street map which Karotski had brought along it was difficult to find their way.
It was a long, slow, almost dreamy journey except for the dampness and the work of lifting the boat along. Cecil felt at times as if they were travelling in the bowels of some huge stone animal. At last they came to a place where the water was too shallow to take the boat further. They got out and waded on, bent nearly double, for the tunnel had grown lower and narrower. If Cecil had been claustrophobic he would have felt terribly uncomfortable in the closeness, but he didn’t mind it much. It only reminded him of the space beneath the swimming pool at Mapleton.
They crept along and now it was really dark for there were no openings onto the street. They were underneath a building.
‘Shall I use my torch?’ asked Leiber.
‘No,’ said Karotski. ‘We’re nearly to the palace and we can’t risk being seen by the workers.’
They rounded a turn in the tunnel.
‘There,’ said Karotski. ‘Just round that corner is the opening under the palace.’
‘What do we do about the workers?’ asked Leiber.
‘They stop work early in the afternoon,’ said Karotski. ‘They’ll be gone by the time we bring up the dynamite.’
‘It’s very quiet,’ Leiber remarked.
They crept silently up to the corner where the sewer wall turned sharply. Karotski, being foremost, edged one eye cautiously around it and drew quickly back again. For a moment he stood as if perplexed, then he peered out again and this time stepped around the corner, glancing about as if looking for something.
Leiber and Cecil looked around too. A bit of pale light came down through a small hole in the metal lid of the culvert above them, allowing them to see fairly well. And now they received the greatest disappointment of that disappointing day.
The sewer was blocked by a sturdy iron grating like a medeival portcullis across the gate of a castle. There was no possible way past.
‘The workers must have finished sooner than we expected,’ said Leiber.
‘Last night, it looks like,’ said Karotski. ‘They must have worked later than usual. The mortar is set.’
‘Can’t we blast it out?’ asked Cecil.
‘The soldiers would hear and come get us before we had time to plant the dynamite under the palace,’ said Karotski.
‘There’s almost space between the bars for someone to get through,’ said Leiber; ‘but I don’t think any of us could make it.’
‘I think I can,’ said Cecil.
Karotski and Leiber turned to look closely at him. Cecil was rather short for his age and very thin, as boys are who are growing faster than their meals can keep up—and the food served at Mapleton consisted in the main of margarine and other unwholesome things.
‘Try it, Tzaddi,’ said Leiber.
Cecil crouched down and put his head through one of the squares between where the iron bars crossed each other. It was a tight squeeze after all—particularly at the shoulders—but he managed it.
‘If he doesn’t eat too much before this afternoon, he’ll make it,’ said Karotski approvingly.
‘Yes, but I thought we weren’t going to let him come,’ said Leiber, suddenly remembering.
‘No help for it. There isn’t anywhere we can take him where the soldiers mightn’t search, and anyhow, there’s no other way to get the dynamite through here.’
‘But he’ll have to carry it all himself.’
‘It isn’t much farther to the floor under the conference room and he can take it several sticks at a time.’
‘But how will he know how to lay them properly?’
‘I’ll give him instructions.’
‘I hope it will be all right,’ said Leiber.
‘Of course it will be. Now we must get back and get the dynamite and the rest of the men. We haven’t much more time.’

The conference room was a small chamber in the newer wing of the palace. Wakjavotski didn’t like conferences and had made it small on purpose. There was very little furniture in the room—only an oval table with several chairs around it and a Javotski party flag by the door.
Three men sat around the table that afternoon. They were Wakjavotski’s top henchmen and closest friends: Baden, von der Grosse, and Limbrügher. They sat listlessly, except for Baden who never expressed any emotion at all, not even boredom. Von der Grosse sprawled in his chair looking hot and tired with his legs spread out in front of him and one booted foot tapping the floor impatiently.
‘I wonder what’s keeping him,’ he remarked to nobody in particular. ‘I wish he’d get this meeting over with. I don’t even know why he called it in the first place. I’ve loads of work to do.’
‘It’s about the war, I imagine,’ said Limbrügher, resting his chin on his fist and his elbow on the table. ‘Isn’t that what it’s about, Baden?’
‘His Excellency didn’t inform me,’ said Baden.
‘Didn’t he?’ asked von der Grosse, surprised. ‘I thought he told you everything.’
Baden didn’t reply.
‘Well, it’s probably the war,’ said Limbrügher. ‘Only I would have expected him to call the admiral to the meeting as well.’
‘Oh, we don’t need the admiral,’ said von der Grosse. ‘All we need him for is to give orders to his nutshells in case anything happens at sea. The navy’s obsolete now. But at any rate, I don’t see why the Superior waited until the last minute to call us all in here. Why all this secrecy?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want the German officials to hear about it,’ suggested Limbrügher. ‘They’ve been so nosy. They came down to one of our aerodromes yesterday and insisted on being shown our new planes that were made after the French model. I almost told them no.’
‘You should have. They think they can do what they like with us.’
‘Wakjavotski wants us to humour them.’
‘Upstarts!’
The conversation paused at this point as the double doors of the room swung open in unison and Wakjavotski was disclosed to the view of his ministers, dressed in his uniform and giving the party salute.
The men around the table rose and applauded in due form.
‘Cut,’ said Wakjavotski peremptorily to the two guards who had opened the doors for him.
They saluted and departed, closing the doors behind them. Wakjavotski strode forward and took a chair at the head of the table—that is, he pulled it out and positioned himself between it and the table, but remained standing while his ministers took their seats.
‘All right,’ he said; ‘first things first. This meeting is called to discuss the war.’
‘Just as I expected,’ said Limbrügher.
Wakjavotski looked at him severely and went on.
‘To proceed: there are many things to be discussed and no doubt they should have been discussed much sooner, but better late than never. In the first place, we’re in with Germany now for better or for worse and that means we’ve got to help them fight a war with France and Britain. Of course this will not be easy, but it will be entirely worth it.’
‘Provided Germany doesn’t decide to pitch into us next,’ remarked von der Grosse pessimistically. ‘And if the Germans don’t try anything, the Russians will—and don’t bother to give a speech here because it’s a waste of time; we’ve heard all that already.’
‘Very well, I won’t give a speech, then,’ said Wakjavotski with an air that was meant to imply that they would be deprived of an event of historical import. ‘You speak of Germany and Russia playing tricks with us. The truth is that we are playing tricks with them.’
‘We can’t do anything against either of them and they know it,’ said von der Grosse.
‘No. But we’ve pulled the wool over their eyes. The Germans think we’re Fascist, the Russians think we’re Communist, and the Italians think we’re Imperialist.’
‘What gave them that idea?’ asked Limbrügher, confused.
‘I did. It takes more than brains or brawn to stay on the good side of three diametrically opposing parties—it takes diplomacy as well. Now, although they’d hate to be told it, there are components of all those parties that agree. All I’ve done is subscribed quite strongly to those components and I’ve convinced each of the three States that our own Pyromania is completely in agreement with each of them. They haven’t any idea what goes on behind the scenes, of course. The Russians hate the Germans who hate them back and both of them despise Italy, but they all think Pyromania is a satellite of their own.’
‘But we’re not, are we?’ asked Limbrügher.
‘Of course we’re not.’
Baden spoke for the first time during the meeting.
‘In effect we are because they could make things highly unpleasant for us unless we do what they say. If Russia and Germany go to war, they’ll tear us apart between them.’
Wakjavotski began a chuckle that ended in an evil chortle.
‘They think so, don’t they?’ he asked.
‘So do I,’ said Baden.
‘That’s what I called this meeting for,’ said Wakjavotski. ‘I wanted all three of you together in this bug-proof room to tell you of something that must not be breathed of outside our circle as yet.’
The ministers leaned forward in interest.
‘A great secret,’ continued Wakjavotski; ‘a secret that would keep all our great allies in line; that could easily decide the war in our favour; a secret that could make Pyromania the greatest State in the world…’
He paused dramatically.
‘As yet no one must know of this secret, but I will tell you a little of what our scientists have discovered—’
‘Is that all?’ asked von der Grosse disappointedly. ‘Just another of those crack-brained inventions? I thought it was going to be something big.’
‘Shut up!’ said Wakjavotski reddening. ‘I haven’t finished. It’s a secret weapon!’
‘What’s it going to do?’ asked von der Grosse suspiciously. ‘No secret weapon ever won a war yet. It takes men and arms to win battles.’
‘We can’t compete with the other countries in armies,’ said Wakjavotski. ‘We’re too small. We must wage a different kind of war. But I tell you that this invention will tip the scale in our favour. No one will be able to resist us, and when I’ve finished, there will be no Fascism, no Communism, no Imperialism, no liberalism, no nominalism, no Zen-Bhuddism the whole world over; there will be only glorious Javotskism and nothing else!’
But even as he spoke his doom was approaching and MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN was written with invisible fingers on the wall (metaphorically, of course).
‘What is this secret weapon?’ asked Baden.
‘It’s a—’

KABOOM!!!

Dust percolated through the smoke that drifted lazily up from the rubble of the wrecked room. The windowless walls gaped out onto the palace gardens through several large and ragged holes. From beneath a fragment of the once-beautiful mahogany oval table a battered and blackened figure crawled. It was Wakjavotski.
‘Air raid!’ he gasped in a smoke-choked voice.
At the sound of it, several other pieces of the table began to move and the three other ministers materialised out of the ashes. Personal damages were significant. Von der Grosse had lost a leg of his trousers, Baden’s coat was in shreds, and Limbrügher’s eyebrows had been singed off.
‘Help!’ choked Limbrügher.
‘Air raid! It’s an air raid! To the anti-aircraft guns, you idiots!’ cried Wakjavotski feverishly.
‘I don’t think the explosion was from a bomb,’ said von der Grosse, getting shakily to his feet and examining a crater that took up most of what was formerly the conference room floor. ‘It looks as if it came from below.’
‘Dynamite planted under the foundation,’ said Baden.
‘Dynamite!’ exclaimed Wakjavotski. ‘So you thought I wasn’t the target, eh? Fortunately for me I’m impregnable, otherwise I’d have been blown to particles. And now I suppose those revolutionaries will try to start a coup.’
A group of guards rushed into the room at that moment.
‘Hoch Wakjavotski!’ they said. ‘Nobody move or we shoot!’
‘You idiots! It’s only us in here,’ said Wakjavotski.
‘But the explosion—’
‘Get out and surround the building!’ commanded von der Grosse. ‘Don’t let anyone get away.’
The soldiers rushed out obediently and the four unsightly characters followed, entering an undamaged smoking room adjoining.
‘The city’s crawling with soldiers,’ said von der Grosse. ‘I’ve had a whole battalion posted around the palace on Baden’s insistence. They won’t get away.’
‘It’s useless,’ said Baden. ‘They’re in the sewers obviously.’
‘They must be caught at all costs,’ said Wakjavotski. ‘I won’t put up with your blundering any more. You’re all incompetent!’
‘I’ll send my men down there right away,’ said von der Grosse.
‘And I suppose they’ll blunder around down there in the sewer scum while the insurrectionists escape?’ said Wakjavotski. ‘The sewers are so extensive your soldiers will never be able to find them. They couldn’t find a needle in a pincushion.’
‘Cunning devils!’ said Limbrügher. ‘They laid their plans well.’
‘Well, Baden?’ asked Wakjavotski accusingly. ‘You were so sure they wouldn’t attack the palace.’
‘I tried to warn you,’ said Baden. ‘What else could you expect with the way you were running things?’
‘And now you’re going to throw up the sponge? Don’t you have any suggestions for catching them?’
‘I’m not a military mind. I made precautions, but I admit I didn’t consider the sewers.’
‘Fine! Just fine!’ said Wakjavotski, sinking into an armchair.
The telephone rang and Limbrügher absently answered it.
‘It’s Zköllmann,’ he said, handing the telephone to Wakjavotski. ‘He wants to know what’s happened.’
‘He does, does he?’ said Wakjavotski, taking the receiver. ‘Hello! So you want to know what’s happened? You should know all about it already: that’s what you secret police are paid for.’
The voice on the other end of the line was calm.
‘Oh, so you suspected it, did you?’ said Wakjavotski drily. ‘And you have a plan all worked out, do you? How do plan to catch them in the sewers, eh?….What?…You do?….But—but that’s—ingenious!’
‘What does he say?’ asked von der Grosse as Wakjavotski hung up the telephone.
‘He’s a master-mind!’ exclaimed Wakjavotski, his temper entirely restored. ‘Baden, remind me to give that fellow a medal. So…they thought they’d blow up me, did they?’
He rubbed his hands together and laughed outright.‘Ha! Ha! We’ll drown them like a lot of sewer rats!’

Prince Cecil: V

Chapter V.

A Band of Brothers

‘I must explain, your highness,’ said Sir Andrew; ‘that I can’t go inside with you. I’m not really allowed to see or hear or speak to the men you are about to meet. It’s safer for everybody that way.’
Sir Andrew’s shiny black automobile was parked in an alleyway across the street from a small restaurant whose windows glowed palely in the heavy darkness of the city night. The consul and Cecil were the only occupants of the vehicle for Sir Andrew did not have a chauffeur either.
Sir Andrew looked at his watch by aid of a match.
‘It’s about time,’ he said. ‘Be sure there are no policemen about when you cross the street. When you get inside the restaurant, give the proprietor the codeword: Stambulisky.’
‘Right,’ said Cecil, slipping quietly out of the side door and creeping to the end of the alley.
The avenue was silent and empty. A faint sound of a concertina could be heard from inside the restaurant and off down the street a cat ran across the pavement. Cecil dashed out, bent nearly double, crossed the wide strip of roadway and arrived breathless in the hollow of the restaurant door. He glanced first up and down the street to see that he had not been observed and lastly in the direction of the alley in which he could faintly see a corner of Sir Andrew’s front fender. Reassured, he put his hand on the door and pushed it inwards.
The inside of the restaurant was a striking example of the divided lives of the Pyromanian people, its quiet interior consisting of neatly laid round tables, dark carpet, and a fire on a small open hearth, contrasting sharply with garish government posters placarded on the wall urging citizens to ‘Ban the Brit’ and ‘Buy Bonds for Better Bombs’.
Cecil stepped up to the counter and asked the concertina player for the proprietor.
‘I’m himself,’ was the idiomatic answer.
‘Stambulisky,’ said Cecil conversationally.
The proprietor nodded towards a door in the back of the room without pausing in his playing.
‘Up the staircase,’ he said without further explanation.
Cecil went out and found a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. At the end of it was a hallway and as there was only one door in it, he knocked at it and went in.
There was nobody inside. The room was a small one that was furnished for a sitting room and was obviously the restaurant owner’s living quarters. There was a sofa and several chairs, a victrola on a bookshelf, a lamp, and several prints of mountain scenery hanging on the walls. Cecil looked at his watch and saw that he had a few minutes still before the appointed hour. He went to the window and found that it looked out on a back alley full of garbage cans.
As he stood there the light behind him suddenly went out. Cecil swung round but the sudden darkness prevented him from seeing anything at all for several seconds. In the interval he heard a voice speak.
‘You should not stand in front of a window with a light behind you.’
It was a man’s voice, but definitely not the proprietor of the restaurant’s. It was a strange voice that gave Cecil a queer feeling and there was a peculiar quality in it, as if nothing it said really mattered—as if nothing at all really mattered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Cecil. ‘I’m not standing in front of the window anymore; do you mind turning the light back on?’
‘It were better if I left it off,’ said the voice in the same empty tone. ‘I don’t mind talking in the dark. You must know the password or you can’t have gotten past our man downstairs. I don’t care to hear how you knew it, I just want to know what you’re doing here.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Cecil.
‘Who are you? Why are you here? What are you looking for?’
They were perhaps the three most generic questions there are and you have probably asked and been asked them at least a hundred times a year, but spoken by that queer empty voice in the dark they sounded to Cecil like the three great enigmas of existence. The last question was the only one he really felt he could answer.
‘I’m looking for a man,’ he said, feeling along the wall.
‘What man?’
‘I think,’ said Cecil on a venture; ‘that he might be you.’
‘Name him.’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’
‘He goes by the name Aleph,’ said Cecil, and by now his hand had found what it had been looking for and he flipped on a light switch.
The room flashed into view for a split second and flashed out again like rooms do during a summer storm. The person on the other side of it had his hand on the other light switch and had flipped it off again instantly. But Cecil had caught a glimpse of him first.
‘Are you Aleph?’ asked Cecil, flipping on the light again.
‘No,’ said the person, flipping it off just as quickly.
‘You’re just saying that,’ said Cecil. ‘And if you keep flipping the light off, you’ll blow the bulb.’
‘I don’t want the light on.’
‘Why not? And when are the others getting here?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I mean the others of your group. I won’t say any more in case we can be overheard, but I have a feeling that they’re behind this door.’
‘What door?’
‘The door that is beside this light switch.’
‘There is no door by that light switch.’
‘There is always a door by a light switch,’ said Cecil. ‘Otherwise, what’s the use of having a light switch there? Anyhow, I’ve found the knob. It’s meant to look like a coat hook, but it’s too low down.’
‘You’d better not go in there,’ said the voice.
‘Look here,’ said Cecil; ‘what’s the point in keeping me out when I already know too much? I’ll lay down my weapons if you like, but I’m going in there all the same.’
‘You will die if you do,’ said the voice.
Cecil said nothing. In the silence he heard footsteps crossing the floor and then sensed the electric feeling of someone in the darkness quite close to him. There was a curious rhythmic tapping on the wall struck out, he knew, by the mysterious person beside him. Then he felt the atmosphere about him move as the door opened on equal blackness and a breath of close air came out, tinged with tobacco smoke.
‘I thought I warned you about smoking, Vau,’ said the voice, and Cecil heard by its sound that the person was going into the room.
He followed.
‘I put it out,’ said a voice from within.
‘Who is it?’ asked another voice.
‘Is Daleth still on guard?’ said another.
Cecil felt the door shut behind him and began to perspire in the close space.
‘I say, is there a window handy?’ he asked. ‘I’m stifled.’
He was blinded for a moment by the light being suddenly turned on and when his eyes had adjusted, he saw that he was in a small square bedroom, a bed and a bureau being the sole articles of furniture in it, and in the wall one window that was so muffled up with flannel that not a speck of light could get out nor a breath of air get in. There were about ten men in the room, all in dark clothes, and all looking curiously at him.
‘Hullo,’ he said.
‘Who sent you here?’ asked one of the men who held a drawn pistol in his hand.
He was a youngish-looking man with black hair and dark eyes and a small black moustache. Cecil knew at once from his voice that he had been the person in the other room.
‘The British government did,’ said Cecil.
‘What for?’ asked one of the others.
They were obviously sceptical and suspicious as well.
‘What do they know of us? We haven’t been able to contact them for over a year. And if they want to help us, why don’t they send us the weapons and machines we need?’
‘They only sent me,’ said Cecil. ‘Or, at any rate, the British Consul did. He thought you might be useful to my cause.’
This reversal of roles completely dumbfounded the members of the underground for a moment.
‘Your cause? And what cause is that?’ asked the man with the pistol.
‘Saving Pyromania,’ replied Cecil. ‘I’m Cecil Montellescue.’
There was a shocked silence.
‘What do you mean?’ asked one of the men confusedly. ‘You’re the prince? How can you prove it?’
‘Here’s my sword,’ said Cecil, drawing it and laying it on the bed. ‘It has the Montellescue motto.’
They all stared at the sword and saw the words engraved in the steel: Semper Idem. It did not occur to them to doubt Cecil after that. Besides, he looked too much like his father to be doubted.
‘You’re the leader, aren’t you?’ asked Cecil, addressing the dark-haired man.
‘Yes,’ said that person, who seemed to be trying to recover his wits. He could not have looked more confused if the world had suddenly turned upside down.
‘Then I’ll call you Aleph, although you don’t seem to like it much,’ said Cecil briskly. ‘Right. How about the rest of you gentlemen?’
‘The British consul sent you, did he?’ asked Aleph, speaking rapidly and seeming to be trying to straighten his mind out. ‘How did you get into the country? Who knows about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cecil. ‘I don’t think it’s gotten into the papers yet. I got here by the SIS’s help.’
‘What are your plans? What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
The leader still stared at him dazedly. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he murmured.
‘Can’t believe what?’ asked Cecil uncomfortably. He felt that he had been rather brash and now that it was revealed that he had no definite plans for saving Pyromania, he was beginning to feel a little silly.
‘That you came back. You came here to lead a coup on your own? A mere boy?’
‘Well, someone had to do it,’ said Cecil.
Aleph sat down (on the bed because there was nowhere else to sit).
‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’
Nobody spoke but the men’s faces had begun to look excited and they couldn’t stop staring at Cecil. It was the sort of impression that he had hoped to make and yet it was a bit unexpected all the same.
‘All right, I think I have it!’ said Aleph. ‘Gimel!’
Gimel—who looked a decent sort of fellow—stepped towards him.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘That meeting to-morrow,’ asked Aleph; ‘—we could still pull it off, couldn’t we?’
‘Possibly, if we hurried. The lorry with the dynamite leaves in an hour.’
‘Listen, this is the plan,’ Aleph went on, addressing the group in general. ‘The lorry gets stopped according to what we worked out before. To-morrow afternoon Wakjavotski has a meeting with his generals—Baden, Grosse, and Limbrügher will all be there and we’ll have the chance to knock them all off at once. We lay the explosives under the floor of the conference room…’
‘But just a minute,’ said Gimel. ‘I thought you said that it wasn’t any use and the plan was off.’
‘I did, but everything’s changed now. We have him.’
And he turned his eyes shining with fanatical zeal on Cecil.
‘Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘The whole point of it was to kill off every possible Javotski who could take effective leadership of the government, but unless we could take the lead ourselves that step would only plunge the country into anarchy. We had to have someone whom the armed forces, the heads of the different departments, the press—everyone—will listen to and follow. And now we have!’
‘I say!’ said Cecil.
‘Then you mean we’re actually going to go through with it?’ asked one of the others.
‘We are,’ said Aleph. ‘Whoever is afraid, this is your chance to back out, for from here on there won’t be another.’
Cecil stared at him. The strange emptiness in his voice was entirely gone and now his eyes glowed and his tone was full of enthusiasm and determination.
‘Now listen closely, everybody,’ he said. ‘These are the plans. We start out at rendezvous D. Cheth, Jod, and Tau get the cosh job. I’ll bring the clothes for you, Cheth. The rest of you we’ll need for lifting and carrying.’
Cecil watched him curiously as he gave out the orders to the different agents. The leader of the underground seemed to be able to change from one mood to another quite rapidly and without any intermediate stages. His fanatical enthusiasm had cooled almost at once and he was now suddenly completely calm and as business-like as an Englishman on Change. It was not hard to see how he had become the leader of the only underground operation continuing to exist in totalitarian Pyromania.
‘Does everyone understand?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me,’ said Cecil. ‘Did all of you take your names from the Hebrew alphabet?’
‘Yes,’ said Aleph shortly.
‘What made you choose the Hebrew alphabet? Are you all Jewish?’
‘What does it matter? We chose it because it was as good as any other and no, we’re not Jewish.’
‘My grandmother was Jewish,’ said Gimel.
‘If you don’t mind then,’ said Cecil; ‘I’d like to be called Tzaddi.’
‘You don’t need an alias,’ said Aleph. ‘We already know who you are.’
‘I should like to be called Tzaddi anyway,’ said Cecil.
‘Very well, if you insist on it,’ said Aleph.
There was a curious tapping on the door and in the same instant everyone noticed that the low continuous sound of the concertina had stopped.
‘Light,’ said Aleph briefly and the light was instantly extinguished.
Cecil heard the door open and a low question given and answered.
‘What is it, Daleth?’
‘Police.’
‘What branch?’
‘Civil.’
‘Oh, only civil. They’ll be easy to handle. Stall them up if you can.’
The door closed and the light came on again.
‘Disperse everyone,’ said Aleph calmly. ‘We’ll meet up at rendezvous D in half in hour. Vau, turn on the electric fan and get some of the smoke out of here.’
The men silently filed out through a narrow door on the other side of the room. Aleph and Gimel motioned to Cecil.
‘You’ll come with us,’ said Aleph. ‘Keep the noise down.’
They went through the narrow door behind the last of the other agents and Cecil found that it led into a small bathroom. There was a window above the bathtub and through it the men climbed one at a time, sliding down a rope that was attached to the sill. Cecil found when his turn came that the distance to the ground was not very great, especially as he came down on the top of a dumpster. Gimel came last, disconnecting the rope as he came.
The men quickly disappeared into the night and Cecil hurried between Aleph and Gimel as they traversed the back alleys of the city. Not a word was spoken between them. They walked quickly but without making any noise and Cecil was hard put to keep his sword from rattling.
There was scarcely any light in the back lanes that they stayed in and, although this was a good thing for them in that it kept them concealed, Cecil soon had no idea where in the city he was. The two men seemed to know their way about perfectly and did not stop or even slow down for a moment until at last they reached their destination. It seemed a shop of some sort because a sign hung above the door but in the darkness Cecil could not read it. He heard ond of the men turn a key in a lock and open a door. Then he followed on their heels into a dark room of some sort.
At first Cecil had no idea what gave him the strange feeling of continuous sound, until the door had closed and in the stillness he could make it out clearly. It was a clicking sound, as of hundreds of tiny machines, all beating away in a regular rhythm but completely independent of each other. It almost frightened him. What sort of machines were they, and in what sort of a place was he?
But the next minute Gimel turned on a light and Cecil almost laughed. They were machines—he was in a watch shop.
‘Here we are,’ said Gimel. ‘What do you think?’
‘Is this place yours?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes, it’s mine. We have meetings here sometimes, in the cellar.’
‘That’s not what we’re here for now,’ said Aleph. ‘I have to get a few items from upstairs. Keep a watch, Gimel.’
He went up a staircase that opened up in the back of the shop and Gimel took up a position by the window to keep an eye on the street. He took his eye off the street once or twice though to look at Cecil and grin.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked.
‘Not much,’ said Cecil.
The man grinned again as if pleased about something.
‘I always thought you would come back,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Cecil. ‘Did somebody think I wasn’t going to?’
‘Most people did. After all, you were safe in Great Britain with a nice safe school to go to and, as we all thought, learning to be a good socialist. Why should you come back?’
‘Because I’m a Pyromanian and this is my country.’
‘I know. That’s why I thought you would come back.’
‘Did Aleph expect me?’
‘No, he didn’t. I don’t think any one of us was as surprised to see you as he was.’
‘I rather think he looks on me as a mere kid.’
‘I think he does, too.’
‘Well, I hope he’ll let me do something interesting. He seems one of those tiresome sort of grown-ups.’
‘He can’t help it,’ said Gimel.
He was stopped from saying anything further by the leader’s reappearance with a bundle.
‘All right, let’s go,’ said Aleph peremptorily.
They left the shop and struck off down more back alleys, flattening themselves against walls and crouching behind garbage cans whenever a policeman or soldier was seen. Cecil was rather surprised to find how many soldiers seemed to be out on the streets and supposed it was the result of the recent mobilisation.
The three of them arrived eventually at the back of a dilapidated warehouse clustered with several others round the base of an old water tower that, with its rusty metal sides and cone-shaped corrugated roof, reminded Cecil of the Martian machines from Mr. H. G. Wells’s book. All was silent in the alley, but Cecil soon saw a group of silent figures waiting together at one end. They were the rest of the little band and a movement of excitement ran through them as they saw their leader approaching.
He handed his bundle to one of the agents and took a quick survey.
‘Is everyone clear on his orders?’ he asked.
There was a murmur of assent.
‘Good. All armed?’
‘With what we’ve got,’ said one.
‘Mem hasn’t shown up yet,’ said another.
‘We’ll have to go ahead without him. I hope he wasn’t picked up by the police,’ said the leader.
‘Here comes someone; that must be him, or Jod would have given the signal.’
‘All right,’ said Aleph, as soon as they had made certain that it was Mem. ‘To work then. We have exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds.’
Cecil was startled to see a Pyromanian soldier emerge from the group, but as he passed close beside him he recognised the man as Cheth in the uniform Aleph had brought him.
‘What are they going to do?’ he asked Gimel as they watched two other insurgents join the man and all three slip away up the alley.
‘They’re going to steal a lorry full of dynamite,’ explained Gimel.
‘All by themselves?’ exclaimed Cecil.
‘Oh yes. They’re quite good thieves. They pinched an omnibus yesterday.’
‘An omnibus! What for?’
‘For carrying the dynamite to the palace. It’s the one vehicle least likely to attract attention.’
Cecil realised on reflection that this was so.
‘How are they going to steal the lorry?’ he asked.
‘Cheth will stop it on the road while the other two jump in and tie up the driver and guard. They should be back in fifteen minutes.’
They were back in even a little less time than that. The lorry rumbled into the dark alley with its headlights off and drew up beside the door of the warehouse. The other members of the group quickly got to work carrying the heavy crates of explosives from the lorry into the warehouse where it was deposited inside a green omnibus concealed within.
‘Make it quick; we haven’t got much time,’ said Aleph, lending his energy to the proceedings.
They found among the crates in the lorry the bodies of the driver and guard, bound and gagged and knocked senseless by the zeal of the two assaulters. These unfortunates they deposited in the cab of the lorry after Aleph had added the thorough but unnecessary precaution of blindfolding them. The instant the last crate was removed Gimel drove the lorry (now empty except for the driver and guard) off down the streets to leave it in a less conspicuous place. The rest of the men covered the omnibus with tarpaulins and locked up the warehouse.
‘You know the plans,’ said Aleph to them. ‘Be here by five to-morrow afternoon. Goodnight, brothers all, and may our flag fly over a free country before another night arrives!’
The insurgent band departed their various ways without looking as if they thought this possibility very likely and Aleph and Cecil returned to the watch shop to wait for Gimel. They did not wait very long; he arrived soon enough looking very cheerful and reporting good success. He had left the lorry in a junk yard.
There was a room above the shop that was Gimel’s living room and bedroom. It was furnished quite cosily for the little space available and was kept neat and tidy. Aleph and Cecil sat down around a table while Gimel proceeded to make tea on a gas burner.
‘Well, that’s the first step done,’ said Aleph. ‘The next is more complicated, and I think we had better have the map out. Where did you hide it, Leiber?’
‘It’s inside the grandfather clock,’ said Gimel.
He went to a monstrous old clock that stood in a corner and must have been made by some old Dutch clockmaker in the days when people needed places to hide large amounts of valuables, for it was quite capacious. Gimel opened up the face of it and took out a paper which his leader spread out on the table and began to study.
‘It passed off without a hitch, didn’t it?’ said Gimel, going back to the kettle. ‘I was rather afraid something would go wrong.’
‘It went exactly according to plan,’ said Aleph with satisfaction. ‘There was no interference from the SO, which was chiefly what I was afraid of.’
‘So was I,’ said Gimel, setting the teacups on the table reflectively. ‘Do you feel in the mood for biscuits, Karotski?’
‘By all means; have ‘em out. What time is it?’
‘Ten o’clock by the grandfather clock and that’s set to the atomic clock, so it’s right.’
‘Do you set your watches downstairs to it too, Leiber?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes,’ said Gimel.
Aleph looked sharply at Cecil.
‘What did you call him?’ he asked.
‘Leiber,’ said Cecil.
‘Leiber?’ asked Aleph, standing up. ‘Where did you hear that name?
‘I’m sorry. You were calling each other by your real names, and I forgot I wasn’t supposed to.’
‘Were we?’
The two men looked at each other for a moment anxiously. Aleph set his lips and looked down at Cecil.
‘We kept our names from you for your sake, not for ours. If you happen to be captured, you will regret that you ever heard them spoken.’
‘Why?’ asked Cecil.
‘Because the SO will torture you to make you divulge them.’
‘He means the Secret Police,’ said Leiber.
‘I know,’ said Cecil; ‘but I wouldn’t tell them, you know.’
‘You would still be sorry you had anything to tell,’ said Karotski. ‘Still, it was my fault; I shouldn’t have been so careless.’
With that he sat down once more and poured out a cup of tea.
‘Is the SO onto you?’ asked Cecil, hoping to change the subject. ‘Do they know about your activities?’
‘No, because up until a few days ago we didn’t have any activities to know about,’ said Karotski. ‘We haven’t had a fighting chance of pulling off a rebellion and not the men or materials to do it if we did. Wakjavotski’s been getting stronger every year since he came to power and there’s been absolutely no opportunity. The British have helped us some, but there’s not much they can do and we haven’t been able to get in contact with them because its’ too dangerous. We’ve had several close calls with the SO already.’
‘One of our men was picked up by a policeman last week,’ said Leiber. ‘We were all getting ready to run for our lives until we found out it was only for being out after curfew. The civil police don’t much care for the SO and don’t usually give up prisoners to them, but the SO can make them if it wants to because it has enormous executive power. It’s Wakjavotski’s personal information system and bodyguard.’
‘They are absolutely without scruple,’ said Karotski. ‘They torture anyone they think knows anything and kill off anyone they think dangerous without any kind of trial.’
‘The man at the head of it is called Zköllmann,’ said Leiber. ‘He’s the worst of all Wakjavotski’s henchmen.’
‘Those are the sort of methods this regime employs,’ said Karotski.
‘Why does everyone put up with it?’ asked Cecil.
He had still a fear that what his headmaster had said was true and that the people really did prefer this sort of government to the monarchy.
‘What else can they do?’ asked Karotski. ‘They’ve tried to protest, but what does it get them? Shot, usually. It’s up to us to save the country.’
Now that the two men had gone so far with Cecil they seemed intent on telling him all they knew of the problem and of their own attempts to solve it.
‘We stole the omnibus,’ explained Karotski; ‘on an impulse when the alliance went through and England declared war, because we knew we’d never have another chance and that that one pitiful plan was all we had. As it was, I had second thoughts and decided against going through with it and I was just going to tell the others when you appeared and we suddenly had what we needed to pull it off. So there it is. Your arrival was providential and if we don’t succeed to-morrow it will be our own fault.’
‘What’s your plan?’ asked Cecil.
‘Look here, I’ll show you,’ said Karotski, smoothing out the paper in front of him which on inspection proved to be a floor plan of the palace. ‘We get in here—through the sewer that’s being repaired. That will get us underneath the conference room. We plant the dynamite here,’ and he made a small x on the map. ‘The fuse will be easy to lay. We’ll set it off from beneath the home defence building across the street.’
‘Are we going to do it at night?’ asked Cecil.
‘No, the meeting is to-morrow afternoon so we have to do it then.’
‘But won’t they see us in broad daylight? And what about the sewers? Who will want to go down there?’
‘They won’t see us because we will be underground the whole time,’ explained Karotski. ‘The sewer system is most extensive and runs so far and its walls are so thick that we will be able to set off the explosion from inside it. And don’t worry about dirt. It rained steadily all of last week and it’s mostly rainwater down there.’
‘What will we do if it doesn’t work?’
‘We will fight! We will run and hide and come back to fight some more! We will never give up. Supposing the plan fails? It’s a risk we have to take because it’s the best plan we have. But I don’t think it will fail. I know, and Leiber knows even better, that this plan must not fail.’
Karotski had gotten again the gleam of the zealot in his eye and ring in his voice that he only got in moments of great excitement and for only short periods. It made him look very different from the way he usually looked and behaved.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cecil, who had been studying the paper.
‘What don’t you understand?’ asked Karotski, who seemed to have almost forgotten again that he was there.
‘Are we going to blow them all up? Wakjavotski and—and everybody?’
‘Yes. What don’t you understand about that?’
‘It’s just that…’ Cecil paused, for he didn’t know how to explain himself.
‘You don’t like the idea?’ asked Leiber.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Cecil. ‘It seems a rotten show to blow them up like that—when they aren’t expecting it.’
‘Do you think it would be kinder to them to blow them up when they are expecting it?’ asked Karotski. ‘Maybe we should shower them with leaflets first.’
‘No,’ said Cecil; ‘I don’t mean that. I just mean—well, it seems—well, I don’t like it.’
He kicked the legs of his chair despondently.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Karotski. ‘There are enough people to feel sorry for without having to feel sorry for our enemies.’
‘It isn’t just feeling sorry for them,’ said Cecil. ‘It’s that it’s so jolly mean and low to hit a fellow from behind like that. It’s—it’s just like Wakjavotski.’
‘What do you suggest?’ asked Karotski. ‘—That we don’t kill him at all?’
‘It would be different if we shot him and had done with it—I mean right out in the open, you know. But sneaking around doesn’t seem right.’
‘That’s the only way of fighting we have. We can’t be gentlemen: this isn’t a gentleman’s war.’
‘Bother it,’ said Cecil.
‘You will soon get over it,’ said Karotski.
‘Yes,’ said Leiber. ‘You probably will. But I know what you mean—or, at any rate, I think I do. I had to shoot a fellow once who I knew didn’t have any chance to get away—that’s what was so awful about it. I’m not sorry I shot him—I had to and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it differently—but it seemed he ought to have had a chance.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Karotski.
But Cecil understood what he meant. It was an awful feeling that they had to become murderers to free Pyromania. He couldn’t be quite sure that it was right, but after all it was their only choice and that was the way the world was. He wished it wasn’t.

Prince Cecil: IV

Chapter IV.

At the Consul’s House

The British consulate building stood in the government section of the capitol city, just beside the iron bridge and overlooking the park. Cecil found it after much search early in the morning while the doors were still locked. Seeing a clerk seated at a desk inside, he knocked on the glass door until he caught the man’s attention.
The clerk rose, came to the door and opening it slightly, put his head out.
‘You can’t come in for half an hour yet,’ he said.
‘I want to see the British consul,’ said Cecil.
‘He won’t be in until nine. There are benches in the park if you want to wait.’
‘I’d rather not wait,’ said Cecil. ‘Can you direct me to his house?’
‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed at this hour.’
‘I have to; it’s urgent.’
The clerk raised his eyebrows.
‘Urgent, eh? You look desperate enough. Lost your parents, is that what’s happened?’
‘No,’ said Cecil. ‘I was in an automobile accident last night.’
‘Well, perhaps it is urgent,’ said the secretary thoughtfully.
He hesitated for a moment and then left the door to go over to his desk, returning in a moment with a card on which an address was written.
‘There you are. That’s where he lives—just on the other side of the park; it’s not far.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cecil.
‘Good luck,’ said the clerk, shutting the door.
The consul’s house was an old one and small, squeezed between a lot of other houses, but it was not ill-kept and looked comfortable enough. Cecil mounted the steps to the door and rang the bell. After about a minute or so a respectable-looking old gentleman in a dressing gown opened the door inquiringly.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Does Sir Andrew Fletcher live here?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes he does,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘But what do you want at this time of the morning? Do you have something to deliver?’
‘No. I should like to see him.’
‘See him, eh? Are you lost?’
‘I’m here on important business,’ said Cecil in clear English.
The old gentleman started and gave Cecil a sharp look.
‘Come in here,’ he said. ‘Come in quickly.’
Cecil did come in quickly because the old gentleman caught hold of his sweater and pulled him in with a jerk.
‘Now,’ said the old gentleman, shutting the door; ‘let’s have a look at you.’
He had a very long and careful look and at the end of it his eyes relaxed and a sort of brightness came into them.
‘I’m delighted,’ he said; ‘to meet the son of my dear friend his majesty, the king of Pyromania. How do you do, sir?’
And he shook Cecil’s hand warmly.
‘How did you know it was me?’ asked Cecil.
‘You look a good deal like your father, that’s why; and anyway, I got a message from Britain last night saying you were in the country.’
‘I suppose you’re the British consul?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes, I am. I don’t keep a servant to answer the door anymore. I get too many secret callers—generally people escaping from Javotski tyranny. The state this country is in, you really wouldn’t believe without seeing it for yourself. I suppose you must have seen enough already, and I’m sorry to have it so, your highness, but I suppose you’ve come to straighten things out. Goodness knows it’s time, with this alliance going forward. Our ambassador left today.’
‘They haven’t signed anything yet?’ asked Cecil.
‘Oh yes, they’ve signed it and it’s all done. But it won’t make any difference if you overthrow the government and institute a new one, you know.’
‘That’s what I mean to do,’ said Cecil. ‘Have you got anything to eat? Anything at all? I’m not particular.’
‘Come in, come in. I’m just having breakfast. I’m very glad you came to share it with me. I’m a bachelor, you know and live alone.’
He had led the way, as he said all this, down the hall and into a little study, simply furnished, with bookshelves lining the walls and a desk in one corner and a piano in the other. In the centre of the room stood a low table with armchairs on either side and a carpet underneath.
‘You see, I was just about to begin when you rang,’ he said. ‘If you’ll just take that chair, your highness, I’ll take this one.’
The table was set with a hearty breakfast—hot tea, sausages, buttered crumpets, plum jam, half of a cold ham (baked, with honey—not boiled), scrambled eggs, real strudel, and hot baked potatoes. Unless you have missed your supper, had a very exciting night, and had nothing to eat since noon the day before except for a chocolate bar and some water from a public fountain that tasted like an old tank full of rainwater, you cannot know how wonderful that breakfast looked to Cecil.
‘Now,’ said Sir Andrew, helping Cecil to a plate; ‘I’m very interested to hear all about your journey but, as I can see you’re half starved, I’ll let you eat first while I tell of affairs here. There is a great deal to apprise you of, I think.’
‘Fire away,’ said Cecil amiably.
‘Well, first of all, there’s that alliance—a wretched occurrence. I wish it hadn’t been done, for now the British government won’t be able to anything here and we might have been useful. Furthermore, there are numbers of roguish Germans, Hungarians, Russians—all manner of objectionable characters—over-running the capitol just now. The government has begun to ostracize the British and French through their base propaganda and several shops were looted last night by soldiers after the news of the alliance was broadcasted. Regrettable—very regrettable. But I’m glad you’re here. It cheers me to see you, you look so much like your father used to—only a trifle less spruce, perhaps. Do you know, when I saw you standing out there a moment ago, it reminded me of the last time I saw him—the night the Javotskis took over.’
‘Tell me about that night,’ said Cecil, pausing in his eating.
‘I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.’
‘I have, but I want to hear you tell it. You were actually there.’
‘Very well then. I remember that night as if it happened only a short while ago, although it must be—let me see…yes, it was eleven years ago. Your father had called me to the palace. When I arrived I found that he was gone to one of the government buildings but your mother was there and we talked together. She was worried about the rumours of political unrest and I myself was certain that the king had not called me to make a social visit.
‘As we were talking your father returned. I saw him as he came through the door and I remembered that he looked pale and grave, but not at all uneasy. He shook my hand as I rose to my feet and informed me that he had been advised by his ministers to send the Queen and Crown Prince away from the country. He had inquired of our ambassador and been assured by him that the British monarch and people would welcome the royal family and provide them sanctuary. He asked me to see them safely to England.
‘I deeply felt the great trust reposed in me by your father and I understood as well that this step meant that the Pyromanian government and its head were gravely threatened. I of course promised to carry out his instructions. Everything was in readiness. We left at once for the waterfront.
‘I remember how quiet everything was that night. The whole city seemed to be muffled up in silence and secrecy: passers-by spoke with lowered voices and many did not speak at all. Even the automobiles and lorries drove more slowly, as if trying to be stealthy. Everyone was watching and waiting. We came on foot to the docks and I began to search for the man who had been hired to row us out to the waiting ship. It was an English ship—a battle cruiser that had put in to coal and which the king had detained in harbour for fourteen hours. He had made arrangements by telephone just minutes before for her majesty and yourself to sail aboard the ship—it’s name was the Cormorant—because he feared that if you sailed aboard a Pyromanian ship she might be ordered back to port by a new government, in the event that a rebellion was successful, before you reached Great Britain and safety.
‘I could not find the man who had pledged his good faith and on whom so much depended and I stood on the pier beside the Queen, hesitating what to do and cursing the precious time I was wasting. I soon saw an armoured car approaching along the road above the pier. It stopped by a flight of steps that led down to us and a band of men got out. I could see even in the darkness that they were armed and I thought I recognised one of them as the man who had been ordered to row us to the waiting ship.
‘“Come quickly,” I said to her majesty, for I was by now certain of foul play. We dashed along the pier, hearing behind us the men’s boots on the stairs and the clanking of their rifles.
‘I chose a boat at random, shouting, “This one, get in quickly!” I pushed the boat off, leaped into it and set myself to the oars. Not many boats had motors then. We had only the oars and the sail and we could see the villains getting into another boat to pursue us. Your mother, brave woman, with you on her lap guided the boat and managed the sail as well while I—I was younger then, of course—rowed for all I was worth.
‘The water shone in the moonlight like a sheet of silver and everything seemed so calm and bright and safe while all the time we knew that our situation was desperate. The whole future of Pyromania lay in that boat, a year old infant—for you were scarcely a year old at the time; no wonder you don’t remember it. I shall never forget it, and I’m sure your mother never did until she died. We had not gotten very far when we came into the moonlight and became visible to every ship in the harbour.
‘The rebellion was laid deep and though it had only been set in motion a short while before, it was already working away in its insidious course like a steady machine. One of the destroyers in harbour was captained by a rebel and he had his orders from Wakjavotski. No sooner had he caught sight of our little boat toiling out to reach the Cormorant, when he put his ship into motion, intent on stopping us. My back was toward our destination, of course, because I was rowing and I had my eyes on the men in the boat pursuing us. Your mother saw the approaching ship first. She screamed out—I shall never forget the words—“They mean to run us under!”
‘I didn’t know what she meant until I turned to look over my shoulder and saw the huge hull towering out of the water and bearing down upon us at a dreadful rate, growing closer every minute. If a person’s mouth can jump into his throat, mine did then and it’s never been the same since, either. There was nothing we could do, no matter how fast I rowed, so I simply let the oars fall slack and looked helplessly at the approaching ship.
‘Just then there was a huge report and something flashed across the bows of the destroyer. I turned to look at the Cormorant and saw smoke hanging like a piece of cotton wool about the gun that had fired. A little string of signal flags went up the mast, which told the Pyromanian ship that if she did not alter course, they would broadside her.
‘The destroyer had not many hundreds of yards of water to cross before it would reach us and I heard afterwards that the captain told them to ignore the warning and steam ahead, but the sailors thought differently. They could not know completely what was going on, but they certainly had suspicions and some of the loyal ones refused to obey orders—chiefly the engineers and the helmsman. The engines slowed and the ship changed course, turning its side towards us where we could see the faces of curious seamen like white spots along the rail of the deck.
‘We turned to look again at the Cormorant and saw them putting out a launch to come to our aid. We were immensely cheered for we knew we were far from safety and my arms ached from the strenuous rowing. I remember your mother holding you close and crying with relief.
‘The captain was not the only rebel on the destroyer, though; there were others and they knew exactly what was at stake. One of them got hold of the machine gun on the bow and turned it on us, the bullets spluttering and kicking up the water all around us. We were a perfect target in the moonlight and in a moment the shots were thudding into the sides of the boat and ripping through the sail.
‘Then I saw a man in the Cormorant’s launch stand up and level a rifle—it must have been a Mauser or some such to be so accurate at that range—at the ship and fire. He was a good shot. The man at the gun tumbled over and yet again our lives were saved by a hair’s breadth. In a few minutes more the launch reached us and the British sailors helped your mother and you into it. I saw the man who had fired the shot—he was only a young lad and looked like a decent sort of fellow. The sailors called to me to come aboard but I knew that you and your mother would be looked after and I was determined to go back and render what service I could to my old friend.
‘I rowed back and reached the pier unmolested. The band of armed men had turned back when they saw pursuit was useless and all the streets I passed through were deserted. As I came closer to the palace I heard firing and soon found that a fierce street battle was being waged in the sector around the palace and government buildings. I was able to reach the embassy building and found our ambassador, Sir Hartley Crimms, standing at a window and watching the fighting below. I joined him.
‘“Be careful, Andy; stand back!” he said, catching sight of me and drawing me anxiously away. “They’re only holding out for the sake of it. There isn’t any hope for them, poor souls.” I saw the look of agony on his face and knew which side he was speaking of.
‘“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
‘“They stormed the palace just after you left with the Queen and the Prince,” he replied. “They sent a body of men after you, led by that blackguard who was to have rowed you out to the ship. He was a traitor.”
‘I said that I had thought as much and asked where the king was.
‘“In the palace, fighting with the Guards. They’re the only loyal troops left: all the others have been won over and any protestors have been silenced.”
‘“What of the ministers?” I asked.
‘“Fled—or killed. The Guards have held out far longer than I expected, but there’s nothing they can do against the odds stacked against them.”
‘As we stood talking we suddenly heard the firing peter out and knew that the end had come. We looked at each other, struggling with our emotions.
‘“What will you do?” I asked.
‘“Stay here as long as my country needs me,” he replied with set lips.
‘“And so shall I,” I replied.
‘I received word three days later that you and your mother had reached England in safety, but I could not get word to your father, who was in prison. The new government kept him confined for a fortnight and no one was allowed to see him, although I tried my utmost to do so. On the morning of his execution I stood outside the prison yard and shouted Rule Britannia with all my might, hoping that he would hear me and understand that his wife and son were safe.’
‘Did he die bravely?’ asked Cecil.
‘The official reports only told the barest facts and even those I do not quite trust, but I am certain that your father died as bravely and as well as he lived.’
‘And what about the Guards and the sailors and the man on the Cormorant?’
Sir Andrew shook his head.
‘All fell under the censure of the new government. The King’s Own Royal Guards were disbanded, the battalion was struck from the army lists and all the survivors were arrested and sent to labour camps. The sailors aboard the destroyer who refused to obey their commands were tried for mutiny and every last one was shot or sent to prison. I don’t know what happened to the fellow who shot the gunner. I heard afterwards that he was a Pyromanian so if he ever tried to return to his country, he likely had poor enough treatment at the hands of his countrymen.’
Cecil had finished eating and leaned back in his chair thoughtfully.
‘And they were the only loyal ones,’ he said.
‘I’m sure they were not the only ones, but anyone else who would have liked to support the old government hadn’t any sort of chance. It was too massive of a coup. And now, your highness, if you don’t mind, I should like to hear your story. How did you get here, and what made you come?’
‘I don’t know exactly what made me come,’ said Cecil. ‘I think it was the alliance partly.’
‘His majesty thought so,’ said Sir Andrew.
‘Does he know about it, then?’
‘Oh, yes. He sent me a telegram to let me know you were on your way. He said to tell you he wishes you luck.’
‘Tell him thanks,’ said Cecil. ‘Anyway, how I got here…’
And he proceeded to tell Sir Andrew of his escapades of the previous evening. Sir Andrew nodded as he finished.
‘Yes, the SO have wireless sets installed in their vehicles. That’s how they let the second car know which way you were coming so it could intercept you. It’s a trick they’ve played before.’
‘It was funny that the streets were so deserted,’ said Cecil.
‘It’s the law. Nobody is allowed out on the streets after nine o’clock unless on government business; which is any kind of business, really. The government has its finger in everything. Nobody can sell anything without a license; nobody is allowed in or out of the capitol without a special pass and soon it will be the same at the border—I hear they are working on that. The family has been broken up and the women are forced to work outside the home while the children are required to attend state-run schools. If you try to say a word against the government or their reforms—even in your own home—you can’t be sure but that someone will report it and you will be arrested. The secret police is very active.’
‘But doesn’t anyone try to do anything about it?’
‘Yes, there was a strike in a munitions factory when the news of the alliance came out, but it was quickly put down and the leaders were all shot. There are no freedoms left to the people anymore—certainly there is no freedom to say what you think. The government has been tightening up control gradually and now they have a hold on almost everything.’
‘There must be some way of fighting them.’
‘Impossible, the way everything is watched,’ said Sir Andrew, getting up and opening the door of the room a crack while he peered out. ‘The only possibility lies in secrecy.’
He came back to the table and took his seat.
‘Now,’ he said, folding his hands. ‘There does happen to be an underground organisation. Most people think it has died out because it hasn’t been very active lately, but it’s still alive and it is made up of some of the most determined men in the country. I’m going to take you to-night to meet the leader of it.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Cecil.
‘I can’t tell you that. It would be far too dangerous for him. You can call him by his alias, which is Aleph.’
‘What do I do when I’ve met him?’
‘You’ll have to discuss that with him. He knows every weakness of the present government and I am sure has plans for battling it.’
‘Then why hasn’t he carried any out yet?’
‘He tried to once, two years ago. The plan failed and he and his partisans were very nearly caught. Since then they have been lying low and waiting for an opportunity.’
‘Well, I hope they don’t mean to lie low much longer,’ said Cecil.
‘Now that you have arrived they can’t afford to,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘I have to get dressed to go to the consulate building now, but you can make yourself at home here while I’m gone. Have you slept since arriving?’
‘Yes, I slept in a doorway last night. I’m quite fresh,’ said Cecil.
‘Well, if you need to rest, my bedroom is just down the hall. You won’t have much time for sleeping after to-day.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cecil.‘I’ll see you this evening, then,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘You don’t mind clearing up the breakfast things, do you? Sometimes it is rather a bother not having a servant.'

Prince Cecil: III

Chapter III.

The Totalitarian

In the royal palace Royston Wakjavotski, the figurehead and head of everything else in Pyromania, sat at his desk in his audience chamber, going over the morning’s mail. The audience chamber was rarely used now except for receiving Wakjavotski’s own personal friends who consisted of three individuals: Baden, Minister of Information and Propaganda; von der Grosse, Chief of the Armed Forces; and Limbrügher, Chief of the Air Force.
This morning Wakjavotski was giving audience to Marshal von der Grosse who sat in a large arm chair across from the desk, one booted leg thrown over the other and a heavy hand drawn across his mouth.
‘So you want to know what to do with the army chaplains, eh, Grosse?’ asked Wakjavotski, tossing a letter into his dustbin. ‘Put them in uniform and let them fight like the rest of the army. It’s about time they pulled their share.’
‘But most of these men are over forty-five,’ protested von der Grosse.
‘Well, what of that? I’m over forty-five myself and no one’s ever caught me shirking, has he?’
‘No, certainly not,’ said von der Grosse, looking at his leader with admiration. ‘Nobody can say you don’t do enough. The reforms you’ve instituted in just the past few months disprove that.’
‘And I mean to make more reforms. For a while we had to let up to keep the people appeased, but with the war we’ll have excellent opportunity of keeping the people in check and doing what we want to—I mean—need to do for the benefit of the State. We can always say it’s for the war effort.’
‘What do we mean to do next?’ asked von der Grosse with interest.
‘Shut down the churches.’
‘But we’ve already shut down the churches.’
‘Not officially. We’ve just turned most of them into restaurants or ruritan clubs. There are one or two still surviving and I mean to close them up for good. What’s the use of a tax-exempt organisation, I ask?’
‘Why don’t we tax them, then?’
‘Because we want to root out religion altogether. That’s why we’re getting rid of the army chaplains.’
‘But if we taxed them, the churches would soon close down by themselves.’
‘You’re a soldier, Grosse, not a politician. Think about it. What a person pays for becomes important to him. If we make these ignorant people pay for their religion, they will cling to it all the tighter and use it as a rallying point against the government. It will be us on one side and their church on the other.’
‘Why, you’re right!’ exclaimed von der Grosse. ‘You’ve got it all thought out, haven’t you? But supposing they don’t like us shutting down their churches?’
‘Oh, they won’t give us any trouble. We’ve gradually worked up to this point, of course.’
Wakjavotski got up and strode over to his bookshelves.
‘Have you seen our new national dictionary, Grosse? No? Have a look at it. It’s the first edition, compiled by professors from our universities. The words “religion,” “sin,” “God,” “righteousness,” “divinity” and “heaven” have all been eliminated.’
‘How masterful!’ said von der Grosse, turning over the pages.
‘They’ve got “hell” in here, anyway,’ he said, coming across it while looking for heaven. ‘”—A euphemism for the sewers.” Amazing! I had no idea we’d put out anything of such magnitude!’
‘We’re working on a set of encyclopaedias at present. When complete, they will not contain any reference to the Bible—not even Johannes Gütenburg.’
‘How superbly stunning!’
‘I thought you’d like it. Yes, we’ve come a long way from those superstitious times. The sun of enlightenment climbs towards its zenith. That sounds rather well, actually. I think I’ll put it in my next speech.’
And the dictator sat down at his desk again to type out the inspirational line on his typewriter.
‘But I still don’t quite understand why religion is so objectionable,’ said von der Grosse.
‘It is at the root of the whole matter for all its innocent exterior,’ said Wakjavotski. ‘I shall try to explain it to you, although it’s rather complicated. Baden understands it perfectly, which is why he labours so hard to suppress it in the newspapers. Let me see, you know that the most essential thing to our regime is that the individual be swallowed up by the State?’
‘Yes.’
‘The individual, then, must forget that he is an individual and see himself only as a fragment of a larger organism, incomplete in himself.’
‘But he is, isn’t he?’
‘Of course. But that’s not what religion teaches. By religion, I mean of course Christianity—it’s the most subversive of all of them. It teaches the ignorant classes that each person is a separate entity with an individual will and power of choice. If taken too far, it can be construed to mean that the State exists for the good of the individual instead of the other way round.’
‘But—but that’s ghastly!’
‘Not only ghastly—it’s deadly. Every single thing we wish to accomplish would be brought into question—such as the break-up of the family.’
‘But why is that so important?’
‘Quite simple. The family is a rival of the State because it claims a person’s loyalties much more strongly. A person will fight for his wife and children—even against the State.’
‘Oh, I see. I hadn’t thought of that. Of course that would be rather shocking.’
‘Of course. Then there is the religious idea that each person is responsible to Go—ahem, pardon me, it’s an old habit—to Fate or some such thing for his own actions. Such ideas must be abolished at all costs. Nobody is to ever think that he is responsible to anyone: the State alone is responsible for the individual’s actions.’
‘But why?’
‘Because if the individual thinks he will be held responsible, he will think before doing what we tell him to. The last thing we want is for any of them to think. They are only to think what we tell them to and obey without question.’
‘Is thinking so very dangerous?’
‘Take this example,’ said Wakjavotski patiently. ‘Supposing a soldier is told to fire into a crowd of demonstrators. He fires as he is told and the demonstration is stopped, peace is restored, and the State can carry on unmolested. But suppose he stops for an instant to think. His reasoning will run thus: “I am told to shoot these people. They are unarmed. There are women and children among them. According to the laws of decency, I ought not to do this thing.” He may do it anyway out of military discipline. But let him once think, “If I do this, I will be held responsible for my action. I may have to appear before an international tribunal or after I die go to some underworld where I will be eternally punished.” Do you think he will shoot?’
‘I wouldn’t under the circumstances,’ said von der Grosse, who looked uncomfortable.
‘That is just what I mean. That is one of the basic tenets of the Christian religion—that each person is responsible for himself—and the one that is the most serious threat.’
‘I understand perfectly now,’ said von der Grosse. ‘How long did it take you to discover all this?’
‘I’ve been considering it ever since coming to power, and I am learning what caused some of my early mistakes.’
The intercommunication system buzzed as he finished speaking. Wakjavotski switched on the speaker.
‘The professor is ready for the demonstration, your Excellency,’ came a voice from the machine.
‘Excellent! How very fortuitous!’ exclaimed Wakjavotski, who seemed to be highly delighted. ‘I shall be down directly.’
He switched off the system and turned to von der Grosse.
‘I have ordered a demonstration of a new type of explosive,’ he said. ‘I am just about to proceed to my laboratory to examine it. Would you like to come? It has great military potential.’
‘Certainly,’ said von der Grosse. ‘I have heard nothing about it.’
He was rather hurt that he had not been told anything before of a break-through of such military importance.
‘That’s because it is top-secret and no one is to hear anything about it until it has been perfected.’
‘Oh,’ said von der Grosse, mollified.
They left the audience chamber and went down a flight of stairs and a hallway to a heavy steel door with a small square window in it. Wakjavotski unlocked this door and went in, switching on the light as he did so.
It was a relatively small room, but large enough for the demonstrations Wakjavotski insisted on having of every new invention his scientists came up with. On a table in one corner lay a gas torch for testing the heat tolerance of an invention, a sledge hammer for testing its strength, and a pistol for testing its bullet-proofness. The last test was Wakjavotski’s own personal favourite.
He pushed a button on the wall and soon a sound of footsteps was heard down the hallway and the rolling wheels of a cart. A guard and a man in a laboratory jacket entered the room, followed by a rolling platform pushed by a second guard. They closed the door behind them after entering, and stood in a row with their arms raised in salute, crying in unison, ‘Hoch Wakjavotski!’
Wakjavotski strode up to the wheeled platform and examined a heavy block that stood upright on it.
‘This is very fascinating,’ he said, stepping to the side to look at it from an angle. ‘What do you think, Grosse?’
‘Be careful, my Superior!’ warned the man in the laboratory jacket. ‘It is exceedingly unstable.’
‘Smokeless, isn’t it?’ asked Wakjavotski.
‘Yes, my Superior; entirely smokeless. From a distance its presence is completely indiscernable.’
‘Are you going to give us a demonstration?’
‘I will burn a small amount for you,’ said the professor, taking a small vial from the pocket of his jacket.
‘Do you actually carry it on you?’ asked von der Grosse apprehensively.
‘Only a few grains. It will not cause a very large explosion. Pardon me, your Excellency; could you spare a match?’
‘My lighter, if you prefer,’ said Wakjavotski.
‘No, no: a match is safer. Thank you. I have a special asbestos pan to fire it in. Now: stand back, everyone!’
There was a muffled bang and the room dimmed in a cloud of smoke.
‘I thought you said it was smokeless!’ shouted Wakjavotski between fits of coughing.
‘It’s not the powder, your Excellency; my laboratory jacket—so stupid of me—I remember now spilling oil on it—it’s on fire!’
He said this jerkily as the two guards beat him resoundingly to put out the flames.
‘Fumigating flagellant!’ cried Wakjavotski, incensed. ‘My beautiful laboratory—cough, cough—crack-brained crematorium!’
The professor stood abashed in the middle of a puddle of water that the guards had thrown on him from a pail that been wisely placed in one corner of the room.
‘You could have burnt the palace down!’ said Wakjavotski. ‘Go home and take your stink-bombs with you, and don’t ever ask me for a match again!’
‘But, your Excellency, I assure you it really does work. If you’d only permit me to give a proper demonstration—’
‘Some other time,’ said Wakjavotski, cutting him short. ‘Outdoors, preferably. I’ll arrange for a demonstration in the palace gardens later to-day. Just now I have more important business to take care of.’
He went to his intercommunication system and buzzed his secretary while the crestfallen professor wheeled his invention out.
‘Your excellency?’ came Krassok’s voice.
‘Has Professor Smut arrived yet?’
‘He is waiting, your Excellency.’
‘Send him down.’
‘He is going to show me a new type of super-strong steel he has forged,’ explained Wakjavotski to von der Grosse as he switched off the machine. ‘Perhaps you would be interested?’
‘No, thank you,’ said von der Grosse. ‘I must get back to my office and to work. Besides, one explosion is enough for one day.’
He left the dictator rubbing his hands in anticipation and returned to the audience chamber at the same moment that another man entered it through a door on the opposite side. This man was about the same age as von der Grosse and Wakjavotski, but he was much thinner than the marshal and rather taller than the dictator.
‘Oh, hello, Baden,’ said von der Grosse. ‘You’ll pardon my appearance—I was just witnessing another of his Excellency’s demonstrations.’
‘He’s in his laboratory, then?’ asked Baden.
He was answered by the sound of heavy blows, followed by gunshots coming up from below.
‘I see. How does this thing work?’ asked Baden, tapping the intercommunication system.
‘He won’t hear it if you try to call him on it.’
‘Then I’ll call him on the telephone. He has a telephone in the laboratory, doesn’t he?’
Without waiting for an answer, Baden picked up the telephone from Wakjavotski’s desk and spoke to the palace operator.
‘Get me the laboratory,’ he said.
‘—Hello, your Excellency. This is Baden. I must speak to you at once on matters of supreme importance to the State.’
There was a pause.
‘I’m afraid it can’t wait. It’s serious.’
At this even von der Grosse could hear the dictator’s voice over the line as it rose to an angry pitch. Baden held the telephone away from his ear and spoke evenly into the receiver.
‘I’m very glad to hear that you’ll be coming up at once. I’ll be waiting in the audience chamber.’
‘You’ve the cheek, Baden,’ said von der Grosse as Baden hung up.
‘It worked,’ replied Baden.
‘Well, I shan’t stay here to face him,’ said von der Grosse. ‘Goodbye!’
And he hurried from the room. Wakjavotski soon appeared through the other doorway, looking displeased but otherwise in control of himself.
‘Hoch Wakjavotski,’ said Baden.
‘Have a seat, Baden,’ replied the dictator. ‘Well, what’s the earth-shattering news?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not all pleasant,’ said the minister of information and propaganda, without sitting down.
‘When has it ever been? I hope some of it is.’
‘Not any of it, actually.’
‘Well, get on with it. What’s happened?’
‘Just a minute. I want to show you something, if you don’t mind.’
Baden strode over and opened the door of the room. Two soldiers entered carrying a large board between them. It appeared to be a piece of a fence and it had writing across it in chalk.
‘Do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than look at samples of graffiti?’ asked Wakjavotski drily.
‘You had better read it,’ said Baden, sitting down in the armchair.
The writing said, ‘Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?’ and was written in a schoolboy hand with embellishments, such as a heavily underlined ‘master’.
‘Obviously put up by that subversive sect,’ said Wakjavotski composedly. ‘What of it? Do you imagine I want to hear their threats? You should have had them stamped out long ago.’
‘It was not,’ said Baden. ‘The prince has returned.’
‘What?’ cried Wakjavotski, turning suddenly pale and tripping over an open drawer as he started back.
‘What’s that you say?’ he gasped as he fell into his chair.
‘I said the prince has returned. He’s in the capitol right now.’
Wakjavotski stared at Baden as he rubbed his injured ankle.
‘Are you completely sure of this?’ he asked.
‘He was arrested by a patrol last night near the border, but escaped. There’s proof in front of you; that’s his doing. There were other examples, but this was the least offensive. Another read, “Sic semper tyrannis” and was accompanied by a caricature of a man in a noose.’
‘So,’ murmured Wakjavotski, gazing emptily at the desk; ‘he came back.’
He jerked into an upright posture and said with a recovery of his usual animation,
‘Of all the idiocies ever conceived by the mind of sub-intelligence! They had him? And they let him get away?! He must be apprehended and destroyed. Why has this not been done yet?’
‘Because as yet we have not been able to find him.’
‘Oh brilliant! Sparkling! Illustrious! I congratulate you on you astute powers, Baden. What about your agents? Where’s the army? What’s the secret police up to, I’d like to know? My life is at risk and nobody lifts a finger!’
‘I told you we haven’t been able to find him. It logically follows that we must be looking for him. He has the whole capitol to hide in—it may take us some time.’
‘We don’t have time. If the populace catches wind of his return, they’ll be up in arms against us. You were supposed to make sure he didn’t get into the country.’
‘There are thirteen hundred miles of border to patrol.’
‘Excuses, excuses! You’ve men, haven’t you?’
‘One of my agents discovered him as he was going through customs at the border and would have stopped him, but he escaped by leaping off the train.’
‘And your intrepid agent was too frightened to follow, eh? Frightened of a train, maybe? More frightened than a little twelve-year-old boy, hmm?’
‘Luck was on the prince’s side.’
‘Will you stop calling him that? He isn’t the prince! There’s no such thing as the prince! He didn’t get in and what’s more, he’s not going to get back out! He’s going to be caught, do you hear? I won’t hear any more of these excuses. I want results.’
‘Just as you say.’
‘I don’t want any of this getting into the papers. All such information must be suppressed. Tighten up the censor.’
‘I have already.’
‘Good. I’m glad you’ve thought of something on your own.’
‘I had several hundred of these printed out as well. Let me know if there’s anything lacking.’
‘What is it?’ asked Wakjavotski, taking the proffered poster.
‘A notice for his apprehension,’ replied Baden.
The notice was executed with the usual thoroughness of the Department of Information and Propaganda. It read:
Wanted for subversive activities:
Boy; 12 years old; brown eyes, dark brown hair; English accent.
Described as wearing navy blue shorts, khaki sweater, and red tie. Carries boy scout knapsack. Reported armed.
Any information tender to Secret Intelligence Agency. Reward.

‘Good enough,’ said Wakjavotski, somewhat appeased. ‘I think I’ll make a speech as well. Call in the recording crew.’
‘If you say so,’ said Baden, getting to his feet. ‘I’d handle the situation delicately, if I were you. The people are restless.’
‘Then they must be tamed. Leave me. I’ve some writing to do.’
Baden went out without another word and Wakjavotski set himself to compose his nerves and his speech at the desk.
‘By the bones of Tsar Nicholas, this is a scrape,’ he muttered to himself. ‘He’s right that they’re ready for revolt and that’s just what we don’t want just now with war impending. Still, I’ve only got to placate them a little longer—just until I get that next shipment of tanks.’
Thus soliloquising, he put a new sheet of paper into his typewriter and began to rattle away on the keys. Wakjavotski rarely left the palace and always had his speeches recorded instead of broadcasting them live so he added his own canned applause, inserting in italics where he wanted it to go as he wrote his speeches. When the speech was finished it went something like this:
‘Brothers, Comrades, Countrymen:’ (applause and shouts of Hoch Wakjavotski!) ‘Our Country is now the greatest in the world.’ (Applause) ‘But to remain the greatest we must get more rifles, more tanks, more machine guns, more bombers, more dreadnoughts!’ (Applause) ‘To get these things we must pay higher taxes.’ (some sort of enthusiasm necessary) ‘You say that times are hard; they are going to get harder. You say the country is unhealthy; it is going to get unhealthier. Everyone must deny himself for the common good. Don’t believe subversive traitors who claim to be the prince and talk of bringing back the old government. We don’t want the old government! We don’t want kings and capitalists! Javotskism forever! Hoch Wakjavotski! Hoch Pyromania!’ (Cheers and the national anthem played in the background)

There was more along these lines, but I shan’t bore you. It was broadcasted over the wireless that evening to the discomfiture of the Pyromanian populace. Cecil, incidentally, did not hear it. And I think it is time I tell you what had become of him in the interval.