At Croydon he was received with obeisance; a special official had been detailed to attend to him. “Good day, Mr. Boot… This way, Mr. Boot… The men will see to your baggage, Mr. Boot.” On the concrete court in front of the station stood his aeroplane, her three engines tuning up, one screw swinging slow, one spinning faster, one totally invisible, roaring all-out. “Good afternoon, Mr. Boot,” said a man in overalls.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Boot,” said a man in a peaked cap.
Pappenhacker and the commercial travelers were being herded into the service plane. William watched his crates being embarked. Men like gym instructors moved at the double behind rubber-tired trolleys. “All in, Mr. Boot,” they said, touching their caps. William distributed silver.
“Excuse me, Mr. Boot,” a little man in a seedy soft hat stood at William’s elbow, “I haven’t yet had the pleasure of stamping your passport.”
Four
Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mr. Salter. “D’you know, I believe it would be as well to keep Lord Copper in ignorance of this incident. The Twopence will be a day ahead of us—perhaps more. Lord Copper would not like that. It might cause trouble for the Foreign Contacts Adviser or—or someone.”
William’s luggage was piled in the Byzantine Hall; even there, under the lofty, gilded vaults, it seemed enormous. He and Mr. Salter regarded it sadly. “I’ll have all this sent on to your hotel. It must not be seen by the Personal Staff. Here is your application form for an emergency passport. The Art Department will take your photograph and we have an Archdeacon in the Religious Department who will witness it. Then I think you had better keep away from the office until you start. I’m afraid that you’ve missed the Messageries ship, but there’s a P. & O. next day to Aden. You can get across from there. And, officially, remember, you left this afternoon.”
It was a warm evening, heavy with the reek of petrol. William returned sadly to his hotel and re-engaged his room. The last edition of the evening papers was on the streets. “Society Beauty in Public Convenience” they said. “Mrs. Stitch Again.”
William walked to Hyde Park. A black man, on a little rostrum, was explaining to a small audience why the Ishmaelite patriots were right and the traitors were wrong. William turned away. He noticed with surprise a tiny black car bowling across the grass; it sped on, dexterously swerving between the lovers; he raised his hat but the driver was intent on her business. Mrs. Stitch had just learned that a baboon, escaped from the Zoo, was up a tree in Kensington Gardens and she was out to catch it.
“Who built the Pyramids?” cried the Ishmaelite orator. “A Negro. Who invented the circulation of the blood? A Negro. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you as impartial members of the great British public, who discovered America?”
And William went sadly on his way to a solitary dinner and an early bed.
*
At the passport office next morning they told William that he would want a visa for Ishmaelia. “In fact you may want two. Someone’s just opened a rival legation. We haven’t recognized it officially of course but you may find it convenient to visit them. Which part are you going to?”
“The patriotic part.”
“Ah, then you’d better get two visas,” said the official.
William drove to the address they gave him. It was in Maida Vale. He rang the bell and presently a tousled woman opened the door.
“Is this the Ishmaelite Legation?” he asked.
“No, it’s Doctor Cohen’s and he’s out.”
“Oh… I wanted an Ishmaelite visa.”
“Well you’d better call again. I daresay Doctor Cohen will have one only he doesn’t come here often except sometimes to sleep.”
The lower half of another woman appeared on the landing overhead. William could see her bedroom slippers and a length of flannel dressing-gown.
“What is it, Effie?”
“Man at the door.”
“Tell him whatever it is we don’t want it.”
“He says will the Doctor give him something or other.”
“Not without an appointment.”
The legs disappeared and a door slammed.
“That’s Mrs. Cohen,” said Effie. “You see how it is, they’re Yids.”
“Oh dear,” said William, “I was told to come here by the passport office.”
“Sure it isn’t the nigger downstairs you want?”
“Perhaps it is.”
“Well why didn’t you say so? He’s downstairs.”
William then noticed, for the first time, that a little flag was flying from the area railings. It bore a red hammer and sickle on a black ground. He descended to the basement where, over a door between two dustbins, a notice proclaimed:
REPUBLIC OF ISHMAELIA LEGATION AND CONSULATE-GENERAL
If away leave letters with tobacconist at No. 162b
William knocked and the door was opened by the Negro whom he had seen the evening before in Hyde Park. The features, to William’s undiscriminating eye, were not much different from those of any other Negro, but the clothes were unforgettable.
“Can I see the Ishmaelite consul-general, please?”
“Are you from the Press?”
“Yes, I suppose in a way I am.”
“Come in. I’m him. As you see we are a little understaffed at the moment.”
The consul-general led him into what had once been the servants’ hall. Photographs of Negroes in uniform and ceremonial European dress hung on the walls. Samples of tropical produce were disposed on the table and along the bookshelves. There was a map of Ishmaelia, an eight piece office suite and a radio. William sat down. The consul-general turned off the music and began to talk.
“The patriotic cause in Ishmaelia,” he said, “is the cause of the colored man and of the proletariat throughout the world. The Ishmaelite worker is threatened by corrupt and foreign coalition of capitalist exploiters, priests and imperialists. As that great Negro Karl Marx has so nobly written…” He talked for about twenty minutes. The black-backed, pink-palmed, fin-like hands beneath the violet cuffs flapped and slapped. “Who built the Pyramids?” he asked. “Who invented the circulation of the blood?… Africa for the African worker, Europe for the African worker, Asia, Oceania, America, Arctic and Antarctic for the African worker.”
At length he paused and wiped the line of froth from his lips.
“I came about a visa,” said William diffidently.
“Oh,” said the consul-general, turning on the radio once more. “There’s fifty pounds deposit and a form to fill in.”
William declared that he had not been imprisoned, that he was not suffering from any contagious or outrageous disease, that he was not seeking employment in Ishmaelia or the overthrow of its political institutions; paid his deposit and was rewarded with a rubber stamp on the first page of his new passport.
“I hope you have a pleasant trip,” said the consul-general. “I’m told it’s a very interesting country.”
“But aren’t you an Ishmaelite?”
“Me? Certainly not. I’m a graduate of the Baptist College of Antigua. But the cause of the Ishmaelite worker is the cause of the Negro workers of the world.”
“Yes,” said William. “Yes. I suppose it is. Thank you very much.”
“Who discovered America?” demanded the consul-general to his retreating back, in tones that rang high above the sound of the wireless concert. “Who won the Great War?”
*
The rival legation had more spacious quarters in an hotel in South Kensington. A gold swastika on a white ground hung proudly from the window. The door of the suite was opened by a Negro clad in a white silk shirt, buckskin breeches and hunting boots who clicked his spurs and gave William a Roman salute.
“I’ve come for a visa.”
The pseudo-consul led him to the office. “I shall have to delay you for a few minutes. You see the Legation is only just open and we have not yet got our full equipment. We are expecting the rubber stamp any minute now. In the meantim
e let me explain the Ishmaelite situation to you. There are many misconceptions. For instance, the Jews of Geneva, subsidized by Russian gold, have spread the story that we are a black race. Such is the ignorance, credulity and prejudice of the tainted European states that the absurd story has been repeated in the Press. I must ask you to deny it. As you will see for yourself we are pure Aryans. In fact we were the first white colonizers of Central Africa. What Stanley and Livingstone did in the last century, our Ishmaelite ancestors did in the stone age. In the course of the years the tropical sun has given to some of us a healthy, in some cases almost a swarthy tan. But all responsible anthropologists…”
William fingered his passport and became anxious about luncheon. It was already past one.
“… The present so-called government bent on the destruction of our great heritage…” There was an interruption. The pseudo-consul went to the door. “From the stationer’s,” said a cockney voice. “Four and eight to pay.”
“Thank you, that is all.”
“Four and eight to pay or else I takes it away again.”
There was a pause. The pseudo-consul returned.
@There is a fee of five shillings for the visa,” he said.
William paid. The pseudo-consul returned with the rubber stamp, jingling four pennies in his breeches pocket.
“You will see the monuments of our glorious past in Ishmaelia,” he said, taking the passport. “I envy you very much.”
“But are you not an Ishmaelite?”
“Of course; by descent. My parents migrated some generations ago. I was brought up in Sierra Leone.”
Then he opened the passport.
*
The bells of St Bride’s were striking four when, after a heavy luncheon, William returned to the Megalopolitan Building.
“Boot. Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mr. Salter, “You ought to be at the aerodrome. What on earth has happened?”
“He burned my passport.”
“Who did?”
“The patriot consul.”
“Why?”
“It had a traitor visa on it.”
“I see. How very unfortunate. Lord Copper would be most upset if he came to hear of it. I think we had better go and ask the Foreign Contacts Adviser what to do.”
On the following afternoon, provided with two passports, William left Croydon aerodrome in his special plane.
*
He did not leave alone.
The propellers were thundering; the pilot threw away his cigarette and adjusted his helmet; the steward wrapped a rug round William’s feet and tenderly laid in his lap a wad of cotton wool, a flask of smelling salts and an empty paper bag; the steps were being wheeled from the door. At that moment three figures hurried from the shelter of the offices. One was heavily enveloped in a sand-colored ulster; a check cap was pulled low on his eyes and his collar was fastened high against the blast of the engines. He was a small man in a hurry, yet bustling and buttoned up as he was, a man of unmistakable importance, radiating something of the dignity of a prize Pekingese. This impression was accentuated by the extreme deference with which he was treated by his companions, one a soldierly giant carrying an attaché case, the other wearing the uniform of high rank in the company.
This official now approached William, and, above the engine, asked his permission to include a passenger and his servant. The name was lost in the roar of the propellers. “Mr…. I needn’t tell you who he is… only plane available… request from a very high quarter… infinitely obliged if… as far as Le Bourget.”
William gave his assent and the two men bowed silently and took their places. The official withdrew. The little man delicately plugged his ears and sank deeper into his collar. The door was shut; the ground staff fell back. The machine moved forward, gathered speed, hurtled and bumped across the rough turf, ceased to bump, floated clear of the earth, mounted and wheeled above the smoke and traffic and very soon hung, it seemed motionless, above the Channel, where the track of a steamer, far below them, lay in the bright water like a line of smoke on a still morning. William’s heart rose with it and gloried, lark-like, in the high places.
*
All too soon they returned to earth. The little man and his servant slipped unobtrusively through the throng and William was bayed on all sides by foreigners. The parcels and packing cases seemed to fill the shed, and the customs officers, properly curious, settled down to a thorough examination.
“Tous sont des effets personnels—tous usés,” William said gallantly, but one by one, with hammers and levers, the crates were opened and their preposterous contents spread over the counter.
It was one of those rare occasions when the humdrum life of the douanier is exalted from the tedious traffic in vegetable silks and subversive literature, to realms of adventure; such an occasion as might have inspired the jungle scenes of Rousseau. Not since an Egyptian lady had been caught cosseting an artificial baby stuffed with hashish, had the customs officials of Le Bourget had such a beano.
“Commons dit-on humidor?” William cried his distress, “C’est une chose pour guarder les cigares dans la Mer Rouge—et dedans ceci sont les affaires de l’hospitale pour couper les bras et les jambes, vous comprenez—et ça c’est pour tuer les serpents et ceci est un bateau qui collapse et ces branches de mistletoe sont pour Noël, pour baiser dessous, vous savez…”
“Monsieur, il ne faut pas se moquer des douanes.”
The cleft sticks alone passed without question, with sympathy.
“Ils sont pour porter les depêches.”
“C’est un Sport?”
“Oui, oui, certainement—le Sport.”
There and at the Gare de Lyon he spent vast sums; all the porters of Paris seemed to have served him, all the officials to need his signature on their sheaves of documents. At last he achieved his train, and, as they left Paris, made his way uncertainly towards the restaurant car.
*
Opposite him at the table to which he was directed, sat a middle-aged man, at the moment engaged in a homily to the waiter in fluent and apparently telling argot. His head was totally bald on the top and of unusual conical shape; at the sides and back the hair was closely cut and dyed a strong, purplish shade of auburn. He was neatly, rather stiffly dressed for the time of year, and heavily jeweled; a cabochon emerald, massive and dull, adorned his tie; rubies flashed on his fingers and cuff-links as his hands rose and spread configuring the swell and climax of his argument; pearls and platinum stretched from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat. William wondered what his nationality could be and thought perhaps Turkish. Then he spoke, in a voice that was not exactly American nor Levantine nor Eurasian nor Latin nor Teuton, but a blend of them all.
“The moment they recognize an Englishman they think they can make a monkey of him,” he said in this voice. “That one was Swiss; they’re the worst; tried to make me buy mineral water. The water in the carafes is excellent. I have drunk quantities of it in my time without ever being seriously affected—and I have a particularly delicate stomach. May I give you some?”
William said he preferred wine.
“You are interested in clarets? I have a little vineyard in Bordeaux—on the opposite slope of the hill to Château Mouton-Rothschild where in my opinion the soil is rather less delicate than mine. I like to have something to give my friends. They are kind enough to find it drinkable. It has never been in the market, of course. It is a little hobby of mine.”
He took two pills, one round and white, the other elliptical and black, from a rococo snuff-box and laid them on the tablecloth beside his plate. He drew a coroneted crêpe-de-chine handkerchief from his pocket, carefully wiped his glass, half-filled it with murky liquid from the water bottle, swallowed his medicine and then said:
“You are surprised at my addressing you?”
“Not at all,” said William politely.
“But it is surprising. I make a point of never addressing my fellow travelers. Indeed I usually prefer to dine i
n the coupé. But this is not our first meeting. You were kind enough to give me a place in your aeroplane this afternoon. It was a service I greatly appreciate.”