Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy (87 page)

‘Malignant?’ the Friar from Oxford questioned.

‘“Count everything unknown for horrible,”’ Roger quoted with scorn.

‘Not I. But they are marvellous – marvellous. I think—’

The Friar drew back. Thomas edged in to see better, and half opened his mouth.

‘Speak,’ said Stephen, who had been watching him. ‘We are all in a sort doctors here.’

‘I would say then’ – Thomas rushed at it as one putting out his life’s belief at the stake – ‘that these lower shapes in the bordure may not be so much hellish and malignant as models and patterns upon which John has tricked out and embellished his proper devils among the swine above there!’

‘And that would signify?’ said Roger of Salerno sharply.

‘In my poor judgment, that he may have seen such shapes – without help of drugs.’

‘Now who –
who
,’said John of Burgos, after a round and unregarded oath, ‘has made thee so wise of a sudden, my Doubter?’

‘I wise? God forbid! Only John, remember – one winter sixyears ago – the snow-flakes melting on your sleeve at the cookhouse-door. You showed me them through a little crystal, that made small things larger.’

‘Yes. The Moors call such a glass the Eye of Allah,’ John confirmed.

‘You showed me them melting – six-sided. You called them, then, your patterns.’

‘True. Snow-flakes melt six-sided. I have used them for diaper-work often.’

‘Melting snow-flakes as seen through a glass? By art optical?’ the Friar asked.

‘Art optical?
I
have never heard!’ Roger of Salerno cried.

‘John,’ said the Abbot of St Illod’s commandingly, ‘was it – is it so?’

‘In some sort,’ John replied, ‘Thomas has the right of it. Those shapes in the bordure were my workshop-patterns for the devils above. In
my
craft, Salerno, we dare not drug. It kills hand and eye. My shapes are to be seen honestly, in nature.’

The Abbot drew a bowl of rose-water, towards him. ‘When I was prisoner with – with the Saracens after Mansura,’ he began, turning up the fold of his long sleeve, ‘there were certain magicians – physicians – who could show—’ he dipped his third finger delicately in the water – ‘all the firmament of Hell, as it were, in—’ he shook off one drop from his polished nail on to the polished table – ‘even such a supernaculum as this.’

‘But it must be foul water – not clean,’ said John.

‘Show us then – all – all,’ said Stephen.’ I would make sure – once more.’ The Abbot’s voice was official.

John drew from his bosom a stamped leather box, some six or eight inches long, wherein, bedded on faded velvet, lay what looked like silver-bound compasses of old box-wood, with a screw at the head which opened or closed the legs to minute fractions. The legs terminated, not in points, but spoon-shapedly, one spatula pierced with a metal-lined hole less than a quarter of an inch across, the other with a half-inch hole. Into this latter John, after carefully wiping with a silk rag, slipped a metal cylinder that carried glass or crystal, it seemed, at each end.

‘Ah! Art optic!’ said the Friar. ‘But what is that beneath it?’

It was a small swivelling sheet of polished silver no bigger than a florin, which caught the light and concentrated it on the lesser hole. John adjusted it without the Friar’s proffered help.

‘And now to find a drop of water,’ said he, picking up a small brush.

‘Come to my upper cloister. The sun is on the leads still,’ said the Abbot, rising.

They followed him there. Halfway along, a drip from a gutter had made a greenish puddle in a worn stone. Very carefully, John dropped a drop of it into the smaller hole of the compass-leg, and, steadying the apparatus on a coping, worked the screw in the compass-joint, screwed the cylinder, and swung the swivel of the mirror till he was satisfied.

‘Good!’ He peered through the thing. ‘My Shapes are all here. Now look, Father! If they do not meet your eye at first, turn this nicked edge here, left- or right-handed.’

‘I have not forgotten,’ said the Abbot, taking his place. ‘Yes! They are here – as they were in my time – my time past. There is no end to them, I was told … There
is
no end!’

‘The light will go. Oh, let me look! Suffer me to see, also!’ the Friar pleaded, almost shouldering Stephen from the eyepiece. The Abbot gave way. His eyes were on time past. But the Friar, instead of looking, turned the apparatus in his capable hands.

‘Nay, nay.’ John interrupted, for the man was already fiddling at the screws. ‘Let the Doctor see.’

Roger of Salerno looked, minute after minute. John saw his blue-veined cheek-bones turn white. He stepped back at last, as though stricken.

‘It is a new world – a new world and – Oh, God Unjust! – I am old!’

‘And now Thomas,’ Stephen ordered.

John manipulated the tube for the Infirmarian, whose hands shook, and he too looked long. ‘It is Life,’ he said presently in a breaking voice. ‘No Hell! Life created and rejoicing – the work of the Creator. They live, even as I have dreamed. Then it was no sin for me to dream. No sin – O God – no sin!’

He flung himself on his knees and began hysterically the
Benedicite omnia Opera.

‘And now I will see how it is actuated,’ said the Friar from Oxford, thrusting forward again.

‘Bring it within. The place is all eyes and ears,’ said Stephen.

They walked quietly back along the leads, three English counties laid out in evening sunshine around them; church upon church, monastery upon monastery, cell after cell, and the bulk of a vast cathedral moored on the edge of the banked shoals of sunset.

When they were at the after-table once more they sat down, all except the Friar who went to the window and huddled bat-like over the thing. ‘I see! I see!’ he was repeating to himself.

‘He’ll not hurt it,’ said John. But the Abbot, staring in front of him, like Roger of Salerno, did not hear. The Infirmarian’s head was on the table between his shaking arms.

John reached for a cup of wine.

‘It was shown to me,’ the Abbot was speaking to himself, ‘in Cairo, that man stands ever between two Infinities – of greatness and littleness. Therefore, there is no end – either to life – or—’

‘And
I
stand on the edge of the grave,’ snarled Roger of Salenio. ‘Who pities
me
?’

‘Hush!’ said Thomas the Infirmarian. ‘The little creatures shall be sanctified – sanctified to the service of His sick.’

‘What need?’ John of Burgos wiped his lips. ‘It shows no more than the shapes of things. It gives good pictures. I had it at Granada. It was brought from the East, they told me.’

Roger of Salerno laughed with an old man’s malice. ‘What of Mother Church? Most Holy Mother Church? If it comes to Her ears that we have spied into Her Hell without Her leave, where do we stand?’

‘At the stake,’ said the Abbot of St Illod’s, and, raising his voice a trifle, ‘You hear that? Roger Bacon, heard you that?’

The Friar turned from the window, clutching the compasses tighter.

‘No, no!’ he appealed. ‘Not with Falcodi – not with ourEnglish-hearted Foulkes made Pope. He’s wise – he’s learned. He reads what I have put forth. Foulkes would never suffer it.’

‘“Holy Pope is one thing, Holy Church another,”’ Roger quoted.

‘But I –
I
can bear witness it is no Art Magic,’ the Friar went on. ‘Nothing is it, except Art optical – wisdom after trial and experiment, mark you. I can prove it, and – my name weighs with men who dare think.’

‘Find them!’ croaked Roger of Salerno. ‘Five or six in all the world. That makes less than fifty pounds by weight of ashes at the stake. I have watched such men – reduced.’

‘I will not give this up!’ The Friar’s voice cracked in passion and despair. ‘It would be to sin against the Light.’

‘No, no! Let us – let us sanctify the little animals of Varro,’ said Thomas.

Stephen leaned forward, fished his ring out of the cup, and slipped it on his finger. ‘My sons,’ said he, ‘we have seen what we have seen.’

‘That it is no magic but simple Art,’ the Friar persisted.

‘’Avails nothing. In the eyes of Mother Church we have seen more than is permitted to man.’

‘But it was Life – created and rejoicing,’ said Thomas.

‘To look into Hell as we shall be judged – as we shall be proved – to have looked, is for priests only.’

‘Or green-sick virgins on the road to sainthood who, for cause any mid-wife could give you—’

The Abbot’s half-lifted hand checked Roger of Salerno’s outpouring.

‘Nor may even priests see more in Hell than Church knows to be there. John, there is respect due to Church as well as to Devils.’

‘My trade’s the outside of things,’ said John quietly. ‘I have my patterns.’

‘But you may need to look again for more,’ the Friar said.

‘In my craft, a thing done is done with. We go on to new shapes after that.’

‘And if we trespass beyond bounds, even in thought, we lie open to the judgment of the Church,’ the Abbot continued.

‘But thou knowest –
knowest!
’Roger of Salerno had returned to the attack. ‘Here’s all the world in darkness concerning the causes of things – from the fever across the lane to thy Lady’s – thine own Lady’s – eating malady. Think!’

‘I have thought upon it, Salerno! I have thought indeed.’

Thomas the Infirmarian lifted his head again; and this time he did not stammer at all. ‘As in the water, so in the blood must they rage and war with each other! I have dreamed these ten years – Ithought it was a sin – but my dreams and Varro’s are true! Think on it again! Here’s the Light under our very hand!’

‘Quench it! You’d no more stand to roasting than – any other. I’ll give you the case as Church – as I myself – would frame it. Our John here returns from the Moors, and shows us a hell of devils contending in the compass of one drop of water. Magic past clearance! You can hear the faggots crackle.’

‘But thou knowest! Thou hast seen it all before! For man’s poor sake! For old friendship’s sake – Stephen!’ The Friar was trying to stuff the compasses into his bosom as he appealed.

‘What Stephen de Sautré knows, you his friends know also. I would have you, now, obey the Abbot of St Illod’s. Give to me!’ He held out his ringed hand.

‘May I – may John here – not even make a drawing of one – one screw?’ said the broken Friar, in spite or himself.

‘Nowise!’ Stephen took it over. ‘Your dagger, John. Sheathed will serve.’

He unscrewed the metal cylinder, laid it on the table, and with the dagger’s hilt smashed some crystal to sparkling dust which he swept into a scooped hand and cast behind the hearth.

‘It would seem,’ said he, ‘the choice lies between two sins. To deny the world a Light which is under our hand, or to enlighten the world before her time. What you have seen, I saw long since among the physicians at Cairo. And I know what doctrine they drew from it. Hast
thou
dreamed, Thomas? I also – with fuller knowledge. But this birth, my sons, is untimely. It will be but the mother of more death, more torture, more division, and greater darkness in this dark age.Therefore I, who know both my world and the Church, take this Choice on my conscience. Go! It is finished.’

He thrust the wooden part of the compasses deep among the beech logs till all was burned.

³
Hymn No. 226 A. and M., ‘The world is very evil.’

ON THE GATE: A TALE OF ’16

If the Order Above be but the reflection of the Order Below (as that Ancient affirms, who had some knowledge of the Order), it is not outside the Order of Things that there should have been confusion also in the Department of Death. The world’s steadily falling death-rate, the rising proportion of scientifically prolonged fatal illnesses, which allowed months of warning to all concerned, had weakened initiative throughout the Necrological Departments. When the War came, these were as unprepared as civilised mankind; and, like mankind, they improvised and recriminated in the face of Heaven.

As Death himself observed to St Peter who had just come off The Gate for a rest: ‘One does the best one can with the means at one’s disposal but—’

‘
I
know,’ said the good Saint sympathetically. ‘Even with what help I can muster, I’m on The Gate twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four.’

‘Do you find your volunteer staff any real use?’ Death went on. ‘Isn’t it easier to do the work oneself than—’

‘One must guard against that point of view,’ St Peter returned, ‘but I know what you mean. Office officialises the best of us … What is it
now
?’He turned to a prim-lipped Seraph who had followed him with an expulsion-form for signature. St Peter glanced it over. ‘Private R. M. Buckland,’he read, ‘on the charge of saying that there is no God. ’That all?’

‘He says he is prepared to prove it, sir, and – according to the Rules—’

‘If you will make yourself acquainted with the Rules, you’llfind they lay down that “the fool says in his heart, there is no God.” That decides it; probably shell-shock. Have you tested his reflexes?’

‘No, sir. He kept
on
saying that there—’

‘Pass him in at once! Tell off some one to argue with him and give him the best of the argument till St Luke’s free. Anything else?’

‘A hospital-nurse’s record, sir. She has been nursing for two years.’

‘A long while,’ St Peter spoke severely. ‘She may very well have grown careless.’

‘It’s her civilian record, sir. I judged best to refer it to you.’ The Seraph handed him a vivid scarlet docket.

‘The next time,’ said St Peter, folding it down and – writing on one corner, ‘that you get one of these – er – tinted forms, mark it QMA and pass bearer at once. Don’t worry over trifles.’ The Seraph flashed off and returned to the clamorous Gate.

‘Which Department is QMA?’ said Death. St Peter chuckled.

‘It’s not a department. It’s a Ruling. “
Quia multum amavit.
”A most useful Ruling. I’ve stretched it to … Now, I wonder what that child actually did die of.’

‘I’ll ask,’ said Death, and moved to a public telephone near by. ‘Give me War Check and Audit: English side: non-combatant,’ he began. ‘Latest returns … Surely you’ve got them posted up to date by now! … Yes! Hospital Nurse in France … No!
Not
“nature and aliases.” I said – what – was nature – of – illness? … Thanks.’ He turned to St Peter. ‘Quite normal,’ he said. ‘Heart-failure after neglected pleurisy following overwork.’

‘Good!’ St Peter rubbed his hands. ‘That brings her under the higher allowance – GLH scale – “Greater love hath no man—” But
my
people ought to have known that from the first.’

‘Who is that clerk of yours?’ asked Death. ‘He seems rather a stickler for the proprieties.’

‘The usual type nowadays,’ St Peter returned. ‘A youngPower in charge of some half-baked Universe. Never having dealt with life yet, he’s somewhat nebulous.’

Death sighed. ‘It’s the same with my old Departmental Heads. Nothing on earth will make my fossils on the Normal Civil Side realise that we are dying in a new age. Come and look at them. They might interest you.’

‘Thanks, I will, but— Excuse me a minute! Here’s my zealous young assistant on the wing once more.’

The Seraph had returned to report the arrival of overwhelmingly heavy convoys at The Gate, and to ask what the Saint advised.

‘I’m just off on an inter-departmental inspection which will take me some time,’ said St Peter. ‘You
must
learn to act on your own initiative. So I shall leave you to yourself for the next hour or two, merely suggesting (I don’t wish in any way to sway your judgment) that you invite St Paul, St Ignatius (Loyola, I mean) and – er – St Christopher to assist as Supervising Assessors on the Board of Admission. Ignatius is one of the subtlest intellects we have, and an officer and a gentleman to boot. I assure you’ – the Saint turned towards Death – ‘he revels in dialectics. If he’s allowed to prove his case, he’s quite capable of letting off the offender. St Christopher, of course, will pass anything that looks wet and muddy.’

‘They are nearly all that now, sir,’ said the Seraph.

‘So much the better; and – as I was going to say – St Paul is an embarrass— a distinctly strong colleague. Still – we all have our weaknesses. Perhaps a well-timed reference to his seamanship in the Mediterranean – by the way, look up the name of his ship, will you? Alexandria register, I think – might be useful in some of those sudden maritime cases that crop up. I needn’t tell
you
to be firm, of course. That’s your besetting – er – I mean – reprimand ’em severely and publicly, but—’ the Saint’s voice broke – ‘oh, my child,
you
don’t know what it is to need forgiveness. Be gentle with’em – be very gentle with ’em!’

Swiftly as a falling shaft of light the Seraph kissed the sandalled feet and was away.

‘Aha!’ said St Peter. ‘He can’t go far wrong with that Board of Admission as I’ve – er – arranged it.’

They walked towards the great central office of Normal Civil Death, which, buried to the knees in a flood of temporary structures, resembled a closed cribbage-board among spilt dominoes.

They entered an area of avenues and cross-avenues, flanked by long, low buildings, each packed with seraphs working wing to folded wing.

‘Our temporary buildings,’ Death explained. ‘ ’Always being added to. This is the War-side. You’ll find nothing changed on the Normal Civil Side. They are more human than mankind.’

‘It doesn’t lie in
my
mouth to blame them,’ said St Peter.

‘No, I’ve yet to meet the soul you wouldn’t find excuse for,’ said Death tenderly; ‘but then –
I
don’t – er – arrange my Boards of Admission.’

‘If one doesn’t help one’s Staff, one’s Staff will never help itself,’ St Peter laughed, as the shadow of the main porch of the Normal Civil Death Offices darkened above them.

‘This façade rather recalls the Vatican, doesn’t it?’ said the Saint.

‘They’re quite as conservative. ’Notice how they still keep the old Holbein uniforms? ’Morning, Sergeant Fell. How goes it?’ said Death as he swung the dusty doors and nodded at a Commissionaire, clad in the grim livery of Death, even as Hans Holbein has designed it.

‘Sadly. Very sadly indeed, sir,’ the Commissionaire replied. ‘So many pore ladies and gentlemen, sir, ’oo might well ’ave lived another few years, goin’ off, as you might say, in every direction with no time for the proper obsequities.’

‘Too bad,’ said Death sympathetically. ‘Well, we’re none of us as young as we were, Sergeant.’

They climbed a carved staircase, behung with the whole millinery of undertaking at large. Death halted on a dark Aberdeen granite landing and beckoned a messenger.

‘We’re rather busy to-day, sir,’ the messenger whispered, ‘but I think His Majesty will see
you
.’

‘Who
is
the Head of this Department if it isn’t you?’ St Peter whispered in turn.

‘You may well ask,’ his companion replied. ‘I’m only—’ he checked himself and went on. ‘The fact is, bur Normal Civil Death side is controlled by a Being who considers himself all that I am and more. He’s Death as men have made him – in their own image.’ He pointed to a brazen plate, by the side of a black-curtained door, which read: ‘Normal Civil Death, KG, KT, KP, PC, etc.’‘He’s as human as mankind.’

‘I guessed as much from those letters. What do they mean?’

‘Titles conferred on him from time to time. King of Ghosts; King of Terrors; King of Phantoms; Pallid Conqueror, and so forth. There’s no denying he’s earned every one of them. A first-class mind, but just a leetle bit of a sn—’

‘His Majesty is at liberty,’ said the messenger.

Civil Death did not belie his name. No monarch on earth could have welcomed them more graciously; or, in St Peter’s case, with more of that particularity of remembrance which is the gift of good kings. But when Death asked him how his office was working, he became at once the Departmental Head with a grievance.

‘Thanks to this abominable war,’ he began testily, ‘my NCD has to spend all its time fighting for mere existence. Your new War-side seems to think that nothing matters
except
the war. I’ve been asked to give up two-thirds of my Archives Basement (E. 7–E. 64) to the Polish Civilian Casualty Check and Audit. Preposterous! Where am I to move my Archives? And they’ve just been cross-indexed, too!’

‘As I understood it,’ said Death, ‘our War-side merely applied for desk-room in your basement. They were prepared to leave your Archives
in situ
.’

‘Impossible! We may need to refer to them at any moment. There’s a case now which is interesting Us all – a Mrs Ollerby. Worcestershire by extraction – dying of an internal hereditary complaint. At any moment, We may wish to refer to her dossier, and how
can
We if Our basement is given up to people over whom We exercise no departmental control? This war has been made excuse for slackness in every direction.’

‘Indeed!’ said Death. ‘You surprise me. I thought nothing made any difference to the NCD.’

‘A few years ago I should have concurred,’ Civil Death replied. ‘But since this – this recent outbreak of unregulated mortality there has been a distinct lack of respect toward certain aspects of Our administration. The attitude is bound to reflect itself in the office. The official is, in a large measure, what the public makes him. Of course, it is only temporary reaction, but the merest outsider would notice what I mean. Perhaps
you
would like to see for yourself?’ Civil Death bowed towards St Peter, who feared that he might be taking up his time.

‘Not in the least. If I am not the servant of the public, what am I?’ Civil Death said, and preceded them to the landing. ‘Now, this’ – he ushered them into an immense but badly lighted office – ‘is our International Mortuary Department – the IMD as we call it. It works with the Check and Audit. I should be sorry to say offhand how many billion sterling it represents, invested in the funeral ceremonies of all the races of mankind.’ He stopped behind a very bald-headed clerk at a desk. ‘And yet We take cognizance of the minutest detail, do not We?’ he went on. ‘What have We here, for example?’

‘Funeral expenses of the late Mr John Shenks Tanner,’ the clerk stepped aside from the red-ruled book. ‘Cut down by the executors on account of the War from £173 : 19 : 1 to £47 : 18 : 4. A sad falling off, if I may say so, Your Majesty.’

‘And what was the attitude of the survivors?’ Civil Death asked.

‘Very casual. It was a motor-hearse funeral.’

‘A pernicious example, spreading, I fear, even in the lowest classes,’ his superior muttered. ‘Haste, lack of respect for the Dread Summons, carelessness in the Subsequent Disposition of the Corpse and—’

‘But as regards people’s real feelings?’ St Peter demanded of the clerk.

‘That isn’t within the terms of our reference, Sir,’ was the answer. ‘But we
do
know that as often as not, they don’t even buy black-edged announcement-cards nowadays.’

‘Good Heavens!’ said Civil Death swellingly. ‘No cards! I must look into this myself. Forgive me, St Peter, but we Servants of Humanity, as you know, are not our own masters. No cards, indeed!’ He waved them off with an official hand, and immersed himself in the ledger.

‘Oh, come along,’ Death whispered to St Peter. ‘This is a blessed relief!’

They two walked on till they reached the far end of the vast dim office. The clerks at the desks here scarcely pretended to work. A messenger entered and slapped down a small auto-phonic reel.

‘Here you are!’ he cried. ‘Mister Wilbraham Lattimer’s last dying speech and record. He made a shockin’ end of it.’

‘Good for Lattimer!’ a young voice called from a desk. ‘Chuck it over!’

‘Yes,’ the messenger went on. ‘Lattimer said to his brother: “Bert, I haven’t time to worry about a little thing like dying these days, and what’s more important,
you
haven’t either. You go back to your Somme doin’s, and I’ll put it through with Aunt Maria. It’ll amuse her and it won’t hinder you.” That’s nice stuff for your boss!’ The messenger whistled and departed. A clerk groaned as he snatched up the reel.

‘How the deuce am I to knock this into official shape?’ he began. ‘Pass us the edifying Gantry Tubnell. I’ll have to crib from him again, I suppose.’

‘Be careful!’ a companion whispered, and shuffled a typewritten form along the desk. ‘I’ve used Tubby twice this morning already.’

The late Mr Gantry Tubnell must have demised on approved departmental lines, for his record was much thumbed. Death and St Peter watched the editing with interest.

‘I can’t bring in Aunt Maria
any
way,’ the clerk broke out at last. ‘Listen here, every one! She has heart-disease. She dies just as she’s lifted the dropsical Lattimer to change his sheets. She says: “Sorry, Willy! I’d make a dam’ pore ’ospital nurse!” Then she sits down and croaks. Now
I
call that good! I’ve a great mind to take it round to the War-side as an indirect casualty and get a breath of fresh air.’

‘Then you’ll be hauled over the coals,’ a neighbour suggested.

‘I’m used to that, too,’ the clerk sniggered.

‘Are you?’ said Death, stepping forward suddenly from behind a high map-stand. ‘Who are you?’ The clerk cowered in his skeleton jacket.

‘I’m not on the Regular Establishment, Sir,’ he stammered. ‘I’m a – Volunteer. I – I wanted to see how people behaved when they were in trouble.’