“It’s very kind of you… some other time perhaps.”
“No, no, at once. It is all arranged. I have a motor-car. I cannot alas go with you myself but I will send a charming young man—very cultured, a university graduate—who will be able to explain everything as well as I can. You will find my country people very hospitable. I have arranged for you to spend tonight just outside the city at the villa of the postmaster-general. Then you will be able to start early in the morning for the mountains. You will see much more than any of your colleagues, who, I hear, are not being fortunate in their trip to Laku. Perhaps you will be able to do a little lion shooting.”
“Thank you very much indeed, Doctor Benito, but I don’t want to leave Jacksonburg at the moment.”
“There will be room for any companion you care to take.”
“No, thank you.”
“And you will, of course, be the guest of the Government.”
“It’s not that.”
“You will see most interesting native dances, curious customs,” he smiled more horribly than before, “some of the tribes are most primitive and interesting.”
“I’m very sorry, I can’t go.”
“But it is all arranged.”
“I’m very sorry. You should have consulted me before you took so much trouble.”
“My Government would not like you to lose financially by their hospitality. I quite see that you would not be able to do your work fully during your absence but any reasonable recompense…”
“Look here, Doctor Benito,” said William. “You’re being a bore. I’m not going.”
Doctor Benito suddenly stopped smiling. “Everyone will be very disappointed,” he said.
*
William told Bannister what had been said.
“Yes, they want to get you out of the way. They don’t want any journalists here when the fun starts. They even took the trouble to shift Olafsen. They told him there was cholera down the line.”
“Plague.”
“Some lie anyway. I’m in communication with our agent there by telephone. Everyone’s as fit as a flea.”
“Perhaps if he knew I’d got the sack he wouldn’t bother so much.”
“He wouldn’t believe it. He must have seen your cable, all the foreign cables go to his office before they’re delivered. He thinks it’s a trick. That’s the disadvantage of being clever in Benito’s way.”
“You seem to know most things that go on in this town.”
“It’s a hobby. Must do something. If I stuck to my job I should spend the day answering commercial questionnaires. Did you get anything interesting out of the Minister?”
“No.”
“He sticks to his job.”
*
As William drove back from the Legation he pondered over the question of when and in what terms he should break the news of his recall to Kätchen.
He need not have worried.
In the first place he found a cable awaiting him, CONGRATULATIONS STORY CONTRACT UNTERMINATED UPFOLLOW FULLEST SPEEDILIEST.
In the second place Kätchen was no longer at the Pension Dressler; a posse of soldiers had come for her that afternoon and taken her away in a closed motor-car.
“I suppose it is because of her papers,” said Frau Dressler. “She telephoned to the German Consulate but they would not help her. She should not have been upset. When they put white people in prison here they are well looked after. She will be as comfortable,” she added with unprofessional candor, “as she was here. There is one of the secret police waiting to see you. I would not let him into your room. He is in the dining-room.”
William found a natty young Negro smoking from a long cigarette holder. “Good evening,” he said. “I have come from Doctor Benito to take you for a little tour in the mountains.”
“I told Doctor Benito I could not go.”
“He hoped you would change your mind.”
“Why have you arrested Miss Kätchen?”
“It is a temporary measure, Mr. Boot. She is being very well looked after. She is at the villa of the postmaster-general, just outside the town. She asked me to collect some luggage for her—a parcel of geological specimens that were left in your room.”
“They are my property.”
“So I understand. You paid a hundred American dollars for them I think. Here is the money.”
William was by nature a man of mild temper; on the rare occasions when he gave way to rage the symptoms were abundantly evident. The Negro stood up, removed the cigarette end from its holder and added, “Perhaps I should tell you that when I was at the Adventist University of Alabama I was welter-weight champion of my year… May I repeat my offer? Doctor Benito wishes very much to examine these specimens; they are the property of the Government for they were collected by a foreigner who came here without the formality of obtaining a prospecting license from the Ministry of Mines—a foreigner who unfortunately is at the moment protected by the capitulations—at the moment only. Arrangements are being made about him. Since you bought these specimens under a misapprehension the Government decided very generously to make an offer of reimbursement—”
“Get out,” said William.
“Very well. You will hear of this matter again.”
He rose with dignity and swaggered into the yard.
The milch-goat looked up from her supper of waste paper; her perennial optimism quickened within her, and swelled to a great and mature confidence; all day she had shared the exhilaration of the season, her pelt had glowed under the newborn sun; deep in her heart she too had made holiday, had cast off the doubts of winter and exulted among the crimson flowers; all day she had dreamed gloriously; now in the limpid evening she gathered her strength, stood for a moment rigid, quivering from horn to tail; then charged, splendidly, irresistibly, triumphantly; the rope snapped and the welter-weight champion of the Adventist University of Alabama sprawled on his face amid the kitchen garbage.
*
The events of that day were not yet ended.
As soon as Doctor Benito’s agent had gone, limping and disheveled, and the goat, sated and peaceably disposed to retrospection, recaptured and secured, William drove back to the British Consulate with his bag of minerals.
“The party’s over,” said Bannister. “We all want a rest.”
“I’ve brought some luggage for you to keep an eye on.”
He explained the circumstances.
“If you knew the amount of work you were causing,” said Bannister, “you wouldn’t do this. From tomorrow onwards for the next six years I shall get a daily pile of bumf from the Ministry of Mines and in the end the Mixed Court will decide against you—God damn all capitulations. What’s in the bag anyway?”
He opened it and examined the stones. “Yes,” he said, “just what I expected—gold ore. The mountains in the West are stiff with it. We knew it was bound to cause international trouble sooner or later. There have been two companies after a mineral concession—German and Russian. So far as the Jacksons have any political principles it has been to make the country unprofitable for foreign investment. The President kept his end up pretty well—played one company off against the other for months. Then the Smiles trouble started. We are pretty certain that the Germans were behind it. The Russians have been harder to follow—we only learned a day or two ago that they had bought Benito and the Young Ishmaelite party. It’s between Smiles and Benito now and it looks to me as if Benito has won hands down. I’m sorry—the Jacksons were a pack of rogues but they suited the country and they suited H.M.G. We stand to lose quite a lot if they start a Soviet state here… Now you’ve stopped being a journalist I can tell you these things.”
“As a matter of fact I’ve just become a journalist again. D’you mind if I cable this to the Beast?”
“Well, don’t let on that you got it from me… as a matter of fact a newspaper campaign at the moment might just do the trick.”
“There’s another thing. Can you help me
get a girl friend out of jug?”
“Certainly not,” said Bannister. “I’m a keen supporter of the local prison system; it’s the one thing that keeps the British Protected Persons off my doorstep. Its only weakness is you can buy yourself out when you want to for a fiver.”
*
When it was dinner-time in Jacksonburg, it was tea-time in London.
“Nothing more from Boot,” said Mr. Salter.
“Well, make up the Irish edition with his morning cable—rewrite it and splash it. If the follow-up comes in before six in the morning, run a special.”
*
William returned home with a mission; he was going to do down Benito. Dimly at first, then in vivid detail, he foresaw a spectacular, cinematographic consummation, when his country should rise chivalrously to arms; Bengal Lancers and kilted highlanders invested the heights of Jacksonburg; he at their head burst open the prison doors; with his own hands he grappled with Benito, shook him like a kitten and threw him choking out of his path; Kätchen fluttered towards him like a wounded bird and he bore her in triumph to Boot Magna… Love, patriotism, zeal for justice and personal spite flamed within him as he sat at his typewriter and began his message. One finger was not enough; he used both hands. The keys rose together like bristles on a porcupine, jammed and were extricated; curious anagrams appeared on the paper before him; vulgar fractions and marks of punctuation mingled with the letters. Still he typed.
The wireless station closed at nine; at five minutes to William pushed his sheaf of papers over the counter.
“Sending tomorrow,” said the clerk.
“Must send tonight; urgent,” said William.
“No tonight. Summer holiday tonight.”
William added a handful of banknotes to the typewritten sheets. “Sending tonight,” he said.
“All right.”
Then William went round to dinner alone at Popotakis’s.
*
“Two thousand words from Boot,” said Mr. Salter.
“Any good?” asked the general editor.
“Look at it.”
The general editor looked. He saw “Russian plot… coup d’état… overthrow constitutional government… red dictatorship… goat butts head of police… imprisoned blonde… vital British interest jeopardized,” it was enough; it was news. “It’s news,” he said. “Stop the machines at Manchester and Glasgow. Clear the line to Belfast and Paris. Scrap the whole front page. Kill the Ex-Beauty Queen’s pauper funeral. Get in a photograph of Boot.”
“I don’t suppose we’ve got a photograph of Boot in the office.”
“Ring up his family. Find his best girl. There must be a photograph of him somewhere in the world.”
“They took one for his passport,” said Mr. Salter doubtfully, “but I remember thinking at the time it was an extremely poor likeness.”
“I don’t care if it looks like a baboon—”
“That’s just how it does look.”
“Give it two columns depth. This is the first front page foreign news we’ve had for a month.”
When the final edition had left the machines, carrying William’s sensational message into two million apathetic homes, Mr. Salter left the office.
His wife was still up when he got home.
“I’ve made your Ovaltine,” she said. “Has it been a bad day?”
“Terrible.”
“You didn’t have to dine with Lord Copper.”
“No, not as bad as that. But we had to remake the whole paper after it had gone to bed. That fellow Boot.”
“The one who upset you so all last week. I thought you were sacking him.”
“We did. Then we took him back. He’s all right. Lord Copper knew best.”
Mr. Salter took off his boots and Mrs. Salter poured out the Ovaltine. When he had drunk it, he felt calmer.
“You know,” he said meditatively, “it’s a great experience to work for a man like Lord Copper. Again and again I’ve thought he was losing grip. But always it turns out he knew best. What made him spot Boot? It’s a sixth sense… real genius.”
*
Popotakis’s was empty and William was tired. He ate his dinner and strolled home. When he reached his room he found it filled with tobacco smoke; a cheroot, one of his cheroots, glowed in the darkness. A voice, with a strong German accent said, “Close the shutters, please, before you turn on the light.”
William did as he was asked. A man rose from the armchair, clicked his heels and made a guttural sound. He was a large blond man of military but somewhat dilapidated appearance. He wore khaki shorts and an open shirt, boots ragged and splashed with mud. His head, once shaven, was covered with stubble, uniform with his chin, like a clipped yew in a neglected garden.
“I beg your pardon?” said William.
The man clicked his heels again and made the same throaty sound, adding, “That is my name.”
“Oh,” said William. Then he came to attention and said “Boot.”
They shook hands.
“I must apologize for using your room. Once it was mine. I did not know until I found your luggage here, that there had been a change. I left some specimens of ore. Do you by any chance know what has become of them?”
“I have them safe.”
“Well it is of no importance now… I left a wife, too. Have you seen her?”
“She is in prison.”
“Yes,” said the German, without surprise. “I suppose she is. They will put me in prison too. I have just come from my Consulate. They say they will not protect me. I cannot complain. They warned me before we started that if I failed they could not protect me… and I have failed… if you will excuse me, I will sit down. I am very tired.”
“Have you had any dinner?”
“Not for two days. I have just returned from the interior. We could not stop to sleep or to look for food. All the way back they were trying to kill me. They had paid the bandits. I am very tired and very hungry.”
William took a case from the pile of stores; it was corded and wired and lined and battened to resist all emergencies. He struggled for some time while the German sat in a kind of melancholy stupor; then he said, “There’s some food in here if you can get it open.”
“Food.” At the word the German came to his senses. With surprising dexterity he got the blade of his clasp knife under the lid of the box; it fell open revealing William’s Christmas dinner.
They spread it on the table—turkey, plum pudding, crystallized plums, almonds, raisins, champagne and crackers. The German cried a little, nostalgically, teutonically. Then he began to gorge, at first in silence, later, with the dessert, loquaciously.
“… three times they shot at me on the road—but the bandits have very old rifles. Not like the rifles we gave to Smiles. We gave him everything, machine guns, tanks, consulates; we bought him two Paris newspapers, a column a day week after week—you know what that costs. There were five thousand volunteers ready to sail. He could have been in Jacksonburg in a month. No one wants the Jacksons here. They are foolish people. For a year we have been trying to make business with them. They said first one thing, then another. We gave them money; we gave them all money; heavens how many Jacksons there are! Still they would not make business…”
“I ought to warn you that I am a journalist.”
“That is well. When you come to write of this affair say that it was not my fault that we failed. It was Smiles. We gave him money and he ran away to the Soudan. He wanted me to go with him.”
“Wouldn’t that have been better?”
“I had left my wife in Jacksonburg… besides, it is not good for me to go to the Soudan. I was once in trouble in Khartoum. There are many countries where it is not good for me to go. I have often been very foolish.” At the thought of his wife and of his former indiscretions he seemed once more to be overcome with melancholy. He sat in silence. William began to fear he would fall asleep.
“Where are you going now?” he asked. “You can
’t stay here, you know, or they will come and arrest you.”
“No,” said the German. “I can’t stay here.” And immediately he fell asleep, mouth open, head back, a crumpled cracker in his right hand, breathing uproariously.
*
And still that day was not ended.
Hardly had the German’s preliminary, convulsive snorts and gurgles given place to the gentler, automatic, continuous snoring of regular sleep, than William was again disturbed.
The night watchman stood clucking in the doorway, pointing towards the gates, smiling and nodding unintelligibly. The German never stirred; his snores followed William across the yard.
At the gates a motor-car was waiting. Its lights had been turned off. The yard and the lane outside it were in darkness. A voice from inside the car said, “William, is it you?” Kätchen scrambled out and ran to him—as he had imagined it, like a wounded bird. “Darling, darling,” he said.
They clung together. In the darkness he could discern over Kätchen’s shoulder the figure of the night watchman, stork like, on one leg, his spear behind his shoulders.
“Darling,” said Kätchen. “Have you got any money with you?”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Yes.”
“I promised the driver a hundred American dollars. Was it too much?”
“Who is he?”
“The postmaster-general’s chauffeur. They have arrested the postmaster-general. He was a Jackson. All the Jacksons are being arrested. He got the key of the room when the soldiers were having supper. I said I would give him a hundred dollars if he brought me back.”
“Tell him to wait. I’ll get the money from my room.”
The driver wrapped himself in his blanket and settled down over the wheel. Kätchen and William stood together in the yard.
“I must go away,” said Kätchen. “We must go away. I have thought about it in the motor-car. You must marry me. Then I shall be British and they will not be able to hurt me. And we will leave Ishmaelia at once. No more journalism. We will go to Europe together. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” said William without hesitation.