The Once and Future King (#1-4)

  There was a voice in his head also, during the pauses of the music, which seemed to be giving directions. ‘All two—day—olds to be moved to the West Aisle,’ it would say, or ‘Number 210397/WD to report to the syrup squad, in replacement of 333105/WD who has fallen off the nest.’ It was a charming fruity voice, but seemed to be somehow impersonal: as if the charm were an accomplishment that had been perfected like a circus trick. It was dead.

  The king, or perhaps we ought to say the ant, walked away from the fortress as soon as he was prepared to walk about. He began prospecting the desert of boulders uneasily, reluctant to visit the place from which the orders were coming, yet bored with the narrow view. He found small pathways among the boulders, wandering tracks both aimless and purposeful, which led toward the syrup store and also in various other directions which he could not understand. One of these latter paths ended at a clod with a natural hollow underneath it. In the hollow, again with the queer appearance of aimless purpose, he found two dead ants. They were laid there tidily but yet untidily, as if a very tidy person had taken them to the place but forgotten the reason when he got there. They were curled up, and they did not seem to be either glad or sorry to be dead. They were there, like a couple of chairs.

  While he was looking at the two corpses, a live ant came down the pathway carrying a third.

  It said: ‘Heil, Sanguinea!’

  The King said Hail, politely.

  In one respect, of which he knew nothing, he was fortunate. Merlyn had remembered to give him the proper smell for this particular nest; for, if he had smell of any other nest, they would have killed him at once. If Miss Edith Cavell had been an ant, they would have had to write on her pedestal: SMELL IS NOT ENOUGH.

  The new ant put down its cadaver vaguely and began dragging the other two in various directions. It did not seem to know where to put them; or rather, it knew that a certain arrangement had to be made, but it could not figure out how to make it. It was like a man with a tea—cup in one hand and a sandwich in the other, who wants to light a cigarette with a match. But, where the man would invent the idea of putting down the cup and sandwich, before picking up the cigarette and match, this ant would have put down the sandwich and picked up the match, then it would have been down with the match and up with the cigarette, then down with the cigarette and up with the sandwich, then down with the cup and up with the cigarette, until finally it had put down the sandwich and picked up the match. It was inclined to rely upon a series of accidents in order to achieve its objects. It was patient, and did not think. When it had pulled the three dead ants into several positions they would doubtless fall into line under the clod eventually, and that was its whole duty.

  The king watched the arrangements with a surprise which turned into vexation and then into dislike. He felt like asking why it did not think things out in advance – that annoyed feeling which one has on seeing a job being badly done. Later he began to wish that he could put several other questions, such as ‘Do you like being a sexton?’ or ‘Are you a slave?’ or even ‘Are you happy?’

  But the extraordinary thing was that he could not ask such questions. In order to ask them, he would have had to put them into the ant language through his antennae: and he now discovered, with a helpless feeling, that there were no words for half the things he wanted to say. There were no words for happiness, for freedom, or for liking, nor were there any words for their opposites. He felt like a dumb man trying to shout, ‘Fire!’ The nearest he could get to Right and Wrong, even, was Done or Not—Done.

  The ant finished fiddling with its corpses and turned back down the pathway, leaving them in the queer haphazard order. It found that Arthur was in its way, so it stopped, waving its wireless aerials at him as if it were a tank. With its mute, menacing helmet of a face, and its hairiness, and the things like spurs at each leg—joint, perhaps it was more like a knight—in—armour on an armoured horse: or like a combination of the two, a hairy centaur—in—armour.

  It said, ‘Heil, Sanguinea’ once again.

  ‘Hail.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The king answered truthfully but not wisely: ‘I am not doing anything.’

  It was baffled by this for several seconds, as you would be if Einstein were to tell you his latest ideas about space. Then it extended the twelve joints of its aerial and spoke past him into the blue.

  It said: ‘105978/UDC reporting from square five. There is an insane ant on square five. Over to you.’

  The word it used for insane was Not—Done. Later on, he was to discover that there were only two qualifications in the language – Done and Not—Done – which applied to all questions of value. If the syrup which Merlyn left for them was sweet, it was a Done syrup: if he had left them some corrosive sublimate, it would have been a Not—Done syrup, and that was that. Even the moons, mammies, doves, etc. in the broadcasts were completely described when they were stated to be Done ones.

  The broadcast stopped for a moment, and the fruity voice said: ‘GHQ replying to 105978/UDC. What is its number? Over.’

  The ant asked: ‘What is your number?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  When this news had been exchanged with headquarters, a message came back to ask whether he could give an account of himself. The ant asked him whether he could, using the same words as the broadcaster had used, and in the same flat voice. It made him feel uncomfortable and angry, two emotions which he disliked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said sarcastically, for it was obvious that the creature could not detect sarcasm, ‘I have fallen on my head and cannot remember anything about it.’

  ‘105978/UDC reporting. Not—Done ant is suffering from concussion through falling off the nest. Over.’

  ‘GHQ replying to 105978/UDC. Not—Done ant is number 42436/WD, who fell off the nest this morning while working with syrup squad. If it is competent to continue its duties –’ Competent—to—continue—its—duties was easier in the ant speech, for it was simply Done, like everything else that was not Not—Done: but enough of this language question. ‘If it is competent to continue its duties, instruct 42436/WD to rejoin syrup squad, relieving 210021/WD, who was sent to replace it. Over.’

  ‘Do you understand?’ asked the ant.

  It seemed that he could not have made a better explanation of himself than this about falling on his head, even if he had meant to; for the ants did occasionally tumble off their footstools, and Merlyn, if he happened to notice them, would lift them back with the end of his pencil.

  ‘Yes.’

  The sexton paid no further attention to him, but crawled off down the path for another body or for anything else that needed to be scavenged.

  Arthur took himself away in the opposite direction, to join the syrup squad, memorizing his own number and the number of the unit who had to be relieved.

  Chapter VIII

  The syrup squad were standing motionless round the watch—glass, like a circle of worshippers. He joined the circle, announcing that 210021/WD was to return to the nest. Then he began filling himself with the sweet nectar like the others. At first it was delicious to him, so that he ate greedily, but in a few seconds it began to be unsatisfactory: he could not understand why. He ate hard, copying the rest of the squad, but it was like eating a banquet of nothing, or like a dinner—party on the stage. In a way it was like a nightmare, under which you might continue to consume huge masses of putty without being able to stop.

  There was a coming and going round the watch—glass. Those ants who had filled their crops to the brim were walking back to the fortress, to be replaced by a procession of empty ants who were coming from the same direction. There were never any new ants in the procession, but only this same dozen going backwards and forwards, as they would do during all their lives.

  He realized suddenly that what he was eating was not going into his stomach. Only a tiny proportion of it had penetrated to his private self at the beginning, and now the main mass was being stored in a k
ind of upper stomach or crop, from which it could be removed. It dawned on him at the same time that when he joined the westward stream he would have to disgorge this store, into a larder or something of that sort.

  The sugar squad conversed with each other while they worked. He thought this was a good sign at first, and listened, to pick up what he could.

  ‘Oh hark!’ one of them would say. ‘Here comes that Mammy – mammy – mammy – mammy song again. I do think that Mammy – mammy – mammy – mammy song is loverly (Done). It is so high—class (Done).’

  Another would remark: ‘I do think our beloved Leader is wonderful, do not you? They say she was stung three hundred times in the last war, and was awarded the Ant Cross for Valour.’

  ‘How lucky we are to be born of the Sanguinea blood, don’t you think, and would it not be awful to be one of those filthy Formicae fuscae!’

  ‘Was it not awful about 310099/WD, who refused to disgorge his syrup when he was asked. Of course he was executed at once, by special order of our beloved Leader.’

  ‘Oh hark! Here comes that Mammy – mammy – mammy – mammy song again. I do think…’

  He walked off to the nest with a full gorge, leaving them to do the round again. For they had no news, no scandal, nothing to talk about. Novelties did not happen to them. Even the remarks about the executions were in a formula, and only varied as to the registration number of the criminal. When they had finished with the Mammy – mammy – mammy – mammy, they had to go on to the beloved Leader and then to the filthy fuscae and to the latest execution. It went round in a circle. Even the beloveds, wonderfuls, luckies and so on were all Dones, and the awfuls were Not—Dones.

  He found himself in the vast hall of the fortress, where hundreds and hundreds of ants were licking or feeding in the nurseries, carrying grubs to various aisles in order to get an even temperature, and opening or closing the ventilation passages. In the middle, the giant Leader sat complacently, laying eggs, attending to the broadcasts, issuing directions or commanding executions, surrounded by a sea of adulation. (He learned later from Merlyn that the method of succession among these Leaders was variable according to the different species of ant. In Bothri—omyrmex, for instance, the ambitious founder of a New Order would invade a nest of Tapinoma and jump upon the back of the older tyrant: there, dissimulated by the smell of her host, she would slowly saw off her head, until she herself had achieved the right of leadership.)

  There was no larder for his store of syrup after all. He found that he must walk about like a living dumb—waiter at the convenience of the indoor workers. When they wanted a meal, they stopped him, he opened his mouth, and they fed from it. They did not treat him as a person, and, indeed, they were impersonal themselves. He was a dumb—waiter from which dumb—diners fed. Even his stomach was not his own.

  But do not let us go on about these ants in too much detail: they are not a pleasant topic. He lived among them patiently, conforming to their habits, watching them in order to understand as much as possible, but unable to ask them questions. It was not only that their language was destitute of the words in which he was interested, so that it was impossible to ask them whether they believed in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, but also that it was dangerous to ask them questions at all. A question was a sign of insanity to them, because their life was not questionable: it was dictated. He crawled from nest to syrup and back again, exclaimed that the Mammy song was loverly, opened his jaws to regurgitate, and tried to understand as well as he could.

  He had reached the screaming stage when the enormous hand came down from the clouds, carrying a straw. It placed the straw between the two nests, which had been separate before, so that now there was a bridge between them. Then it went away.

  Chapter IX

  Later in the day a black ant came wandering over the new bridge: one of the wretched fuscae, a humble race who would only fight in self—defence. It was met by one of the scavengers and murdered.

  The broadcasts changed after this news had been reported, as soon as it had been established by spies that the fusca nest had also its glass of syrup.

  Mammy – mammy – mammy gave place to Antland, Antland Over All, while the stream of orders were discontinued in favour of lectures about war, patriotism and the economic situation. The fruity voice announced that their beloved country was being encircled by a horde of filthy fuscae – at which the wireless chorus sang

  When fusca blood spurts from the knife,

  Then everything is fine–

  and it also explained that Ant the Father had ordained in his inscrutable wisdom that black pismires should always be the slaves of red ones. Their beloved country had no slaves at present, a disgraceful state of affairs which would have to be remedied if the master race were not to perish. A third statement was that the national property of Sanguinea was being threatened: their syrup was to be stolen, their domestic animals, the beetles, were to be kidnapped, and their communal stomach would he starved. The king listened to two of these talks carefully, so that he was able to remember them afterwards.

  The first one was arranged as follows:

  a. We are so numerous that we are starving.

  b. Therefore we must not cut down our numbers but encourage large families in order to become still more numerous and starving.

  c. When we are so numerous and starving as all that, obviously we have a right to take other people’s syrup. Besides, we shall by then have a numerous and starving army.

  It was only after this logical train of thought had been put into practice, and the output of the nurseries trebled – Merlyn meanwhile giving them ample syrup daily for all their needs: for it has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so poor that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else – that the second type of lecture was commenced.

  This is how the second kind went:

  a. We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their syrup.

  b. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our syrup.

  c. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one.

  d. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one.

  e. We must attack in self—defence.

  f. They are attacking us by defending themselves.

  g. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow.

  h. In any case we are not attacking them at all: we are offering them incalculable benefits.

  After the second type of address, the religious services began. These dated, he discovered, from a fabulous past so ancient that he could scarcely find a date for it, in which the emmets had not yet settled down to socialism. They came from a time when ants were still like men, and terribly impressive some of them were.

  A psalm at one of these services, beginning, if we allow for the difference of language, with the well—known words, ‘the earth is the Sword’s and all that therein is, the compass of the bomber and they that bomb therefrom,’ ended with the terrific conclusion: ‘Blow up your heads, O ye Gates, and be ye blown up, ye Everlasting Doors, that the King of Tories may come in. Who is the King of Tories? Even the Lord of Ghosts, He is the King of Tories.’

  A strange feature was that the common ants were neither exalted by the songs nor interested by the lectures. They accepted them as matters of course. They were rituals to them, like the Mammy songs or the conversations about their beloved Leader. They did not regard these things as good or bad, exciting, rational or terrible: they did not regard them at all, but accepted them as Done.

  Well, the time came for the slave war. All the preparations were in order, all the soldiers were drilled to the last ounce, all the walls of the nest carried patriotic slogans such as Stings or Syrup? or I Vow to Thee, my Smell, and the king was past hoping. He thought he had never been among such horrible creatures, unless it were at the time when he had lived among
men, and he was beginning to sicken with disgust. The repetitive voices in his head, which he could not shut off: the absence of all privacy, under which others ate from his stomach while others again sang in his brain: the dreary blank which replaced feeling: the dearth of all but two values: the monotony more even than the callous wickedness: these had killed the joy of life which had been Merlyn’s gift at the beginning of the evening. He was as miserable again as he had been when the magician found him weeping at his papers, and now, when the Red Army marched to war at last, he suddenly faced about in the middle of the straw like an insane creature, ready to oppose their passage with his life.

  Chapter X

  ‘Dear God,’ said Merlyn, who was patting the beads of sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief, ‘you certainly have a flair for getting into trouble. That was a difficult minute.’

  The animals looked at him anxiously, to see if any bones were broken.

  ‘Are you safe?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  They discovered that he was furiously angry. His hands were trembling with rage.

  ‘The brutes!’ he exclaimed. ‘The brutes!’

  ‘They are not attractive.’

  ‘I would not have minded,’ he burst out, ‘if they had been wicked – if they had wanted to be wicked. I would not have minded if they had chosen to be wicked for some reason, or for fun. But they did not know, they had not chosen. They – they – they did not exist!’

  ‘Sit down,’ said the badger, ‘and have some rest.’

  ‘The horrible creatures! It was like talking to minerals which could move, like talking to statues or to machines. If you said something which was suitable to the mechanism, then it worked: if not, it did not work, it stood still, it was blank, it had no expression. Oh, Merlyn, how hideous! They were the walking dead. When did they die? Did they ever have any feelings? They have none now. They were like that door in the fairy story, which opened when you said Sesame. I believe that they only knew about a dozen words, or collections of words. A man with those in his mind could have made them do all the things they could do, and then…Then you would have had to start again! Again and again and again! It was like being in Hell. Except that none of them knew they were there. None of them knew anything. Is there anything more terrible than perpetual motion, than doing and doing and doing, without a reason, without a consciousness, without a change, without an end?’