The Mouse That Roared (20 page)

When Bascomb had gone, Dr. Kokintz stood up slowly and looked at the log he had been sitting upon. A green shoot was growing out of one end of it, strong and straight, and full of vigour. He listened for a second to the tinkling of the waterfall and noticed that the big blue dragon-fly had settled on a lily pad and was sunning its wings luxuriously.

He looked at the path which led to the French border, and caught the chatter of a bird high in a tree. A nuthatch, he thought, and then he remembered that in Grand Fenwick it was called a sparrow. Ridiculous of them to differ so obstinately on established names. He watched the bird for a while, flitting like a jewel between the branches, and reached in his pocket as a matter of habit for some crumbs. There were none. He turned and walked back towards the castle of Grand Fenwick.

The attention of the whole world was now centred upon the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, which in all its history had never achieved such fame. There were maps showing every feature of the country in almost every newspaper. Some showed the exact location of the castle on top of the two-thousand foot mountain. Others gave a plan, or what purported to be a plan, of the castle, with a heavy cross in the centre to mark the exact place where the Q-bomb was kept.

FENWICK CASTLE CENTRE OF WORLD CONTROL, the
New York Daily News
said across the top of a five-column map of the fortress. There were three pages of pictures of Grand Fenwick, or, to be more accurate, two pages of pictures of the Duchess Gloriana and one page equally divided between the duchy and the statesmen who were on missions to the United States. The two pages of pictures of the Duchess compared her physical dimensions with the Venus de Milo, Rita Hayworth, Queen Elizabeth II, and what a professor of classics at a small Eastern college claimed were the probable proportions of Helen of Troy. Gloriana was shown in one drawing--for no photographs were available--with a glass of Pinot in her hand. The caption said that Pinot Grand Fenwick was esteemed by connoisseurs as the wine of beauty and the Duchess drank two glasses of it before breakfast daily. Stocks in New York were exhausted on the following day.

The
New York Times
ran a creditable article on the history of the duchy since its founding in which, on the suggestion of the chief of the
Times
Washington Bureau, a great amount of space was devoted to the virtues of Pinot Grand Fenwick. The
Sydney Morning Herald
in Australia compared the independent spirit of the people of Grand Fenwick with that of the Australians and said that the sympathy of the Australian people must be entirely on the side of the little nation. Another article on the same page stressed that if a Q-bomb were exploded in Europe it would not affect Australia due to the isolation of the Continent, and that while the negotiations between the duchy and the Big Three would be watched with closest interest, there was no need for panic.

The London
Times
also ran a history of the duchy, and a letter from a retired colonel living in Wales pointing out that the duchy could rightly be called a British colony. The letter was suppressed after the first edition.
Pravda
contented itself with a report of the Red Army divisions which stood ready to aid the heroic proletariat of the state of Grand Fenwick in their struggle against the bestial oppressors of the people.

Meanwhile the Foreign Secretaries of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain arrived in three separate cars--there being no airport in which they could land in Grand Fenwick--at the borders of the duchy. They arrived within three hours of each other--the Russian Foreign Commissar first, the British Foreign Secretary next, and the United States Secretary of State last. At the Pass of Pinot, the only part of a border through which an automobile road ran to connect the duchy with the outside world, they found their way barred by a company of bowmen under the command of Tully Bascomb.

The Soviet Commissar pleaded, argued, fumed, and raved, but all in Russian and all to no avail. Tully merely shook his head and waved him off. The British Foreign Secretary arrived next to find his way blocked not only by the bowmen, but more immediately by the car of the Russian Commissar ahead of him.

“Tell that fellow to get off the road,” he instructed his chauffeur. “I’m here on official business.”

The chauffeur looked at the Red Star on the licence plates of the car ahead, and said, “I believe it’s the Russians, sir.”

“The Russians, eh,” said the Foreign Secretary. “Probably broken down. Ask him if he wants a tow to the side.” The chauffeur departed only to return and report that he couldn’t make head or tail of what was said, except that the car ahead wasn’t going to move. “All they say is ‘night,’ “ he said.

“Nyet,
old boy,” said the Foreign Secretary. “Means ‘no.’ Well, I suppose I’ll have to walk.” He got out as languidly as if he were calling on his tailor and sauntered past the Russian car, raising his hat as he went by, but not glancing inside. When he arrived at the border, he called out to Tully, “You in charge here?” Tully said he was.

“Her Britannic Majesty’s Foreign Secretary presents his compliments to Her Grace the Duchess Gloriana XII and has the honour to request an audience with Her Grace on Her Britannic Majesty’s business,” the Foreign Secretary intoned.

“My orders are to let no one by,” Tully said grimly, his hand on the hilt of his broadsword.

“Glad to hear it,” replied the Foreign Secretary. “Mind passing on my message to Her Grace and seeing whether an audience can be arranged? It’s rather important.”

Tully hesitated. “Who’s in the car ahead of you?” he asked.

“Haven’t the foggiest idea,” replied the Foreign Secretary innocently. “To tell you the truth, didn’t even look inside.”

“Are they the Russians?” Tully insisted.

“Probably.”

“Why are they here?”

“This isn’t my line of business,” the Foreign Secretary said, “but probably to protect you.” He drew a finger-nail delicately and deliberately across his throat.

“Why are you here?” Tully demanded.

“Rather not say right now, old man. Think I really ought to take it up with the Duchess.”

“Protection, too?”

The Foreign Secretary stiffened. “I’ll wait here for an hour or so for a reply,” he said. “Otherwise Her Grace can get a message to me at the Ledermuhl Inn in Friedrichshafen.”

On his way back to his car, he stopped for a moment at the Russian vehicle, leaned through the back window and reached out his hand to the Russian Commissar. “Haven’t seen you since Potsdam,” he said, in Russian. “I was a little worried. Not much about you in the papers recently.”

The Foreign Commissar laughed. His laugh was a lusty bellow, starting as dramatically and ending as suddenly as a clap of thunder. When it was done, he said briskly, “It seems we must wait. I have a little vodka. Would you care to join me?”

“Brought some sandwiches myself,” replied the secretary. “Always a good thing to bring sandwiches on this kind of business. Why not let’s sit in my car, it’s a little more roomy.”

“However,” said the Commissar, “mine is a little more comfortable.”

They compromised by remaining each in his own car, sending the provender to each other by their chauffeurs. The Foreign Secretary secretly poured the vodka on to the road. The Soviet Commissar sniffed the sandwiches and gave them to his man who ate them with some suspicion. Midway through their lunch, the United States Secretary of State arrived. He eyed the two cars ahead anxiously, bounded out of his before it had come to a complete stop, and hurried to where Tully was standing.

“I have come on a mission from the United States of America to the Duchess Gloriana,” he said. “I am the United States Secretary of State.” He opened a portfolio and took from it a document giving his credentials. Tully read this through slowly.

“Do you come under a flag of truce?” he asked.

“Flag of truce?” questioned the Secretary, surprised.

“Our nations are at war,” Tully reminded him. “If you’ve come to parley, my instructions are to admit you under a flag of truce. Otherwise you are to be refused admission, and if you attempt to cross the border, you are to be taken prisoner.”

“Okay,” said the Secretary. “I come under a flag of truce.” He fished his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, flicked it open and waved it in the air. The bowmen stood aside to let him pass, and under a guard of two, with Tully leading the way, the Secretary marched up the road towards the castle, his handkerchief held over his head in his right hand.

Three hours later he returned. He drove immediately to Munich where he put through a telephone call to the White House, from the U.S. Army headquarters there.

“Mr. President,” he said, when he had obtained his connection and identified himself. “Peace can be arranged, but not on the terms for which we had hoped. Grand Fenwick will not return the Q-bomb. Nor will they surrender Kokintz. They have a plan for getting the smaller nations together to form a league, which, using the Q-bomb as a threat, would compel the big nations--ourselves, Russia, Great Britain, Canada, and the rest--to agree to the abolition of such weapons, with a system of international inspection to ensure that the agreement is honoured in all countries.”

“That’s the same plan that we advanced ten years ago,” the President replied.

“Not quite,” said the Secretary of State. “The inspection would be carried out by the smaller nations with Kokintz directing the inspection teams. They argue that the bigger nations can trust the small states to be impartial, where they cannot trust each other.”

There was a minute or two of silence.

“I think you can say that we’ll go along with that,” the President said. “We’ll agree with anything that will put an end to this nuclear armament race. What about the Russians? They’re always the stumbling block.”

“I think the Russians will have to agree also,” the Secretary of State replied. “There’s a kind of local Bernard Baruch here called Pierce Bascomb. His son Tully was the one who invaded New York and captured Kokintz and the Q-bomb. This Pierce Bascomb says that if the Russians or anyone else doesn’t agree, Grand Fenwick will explode the bomb anyway and wipe out the whole of Europe.”

“That wouldn’t bother Russia,” the President said. “They’d wipe out the whole of Europe themselves, if they got a chance.”

“The bomb itself might not hurt them,” replied the Secretary of State, “but that carbon fourteen gas would. The westerly winds set across Europe towards Russia. Their people would die by the thousands. Their crops would be wiped out and their land made sterile. They daren’t risk it.”

“Do you believe they’d really explode the bomb?” the President asked.

“Mr. President,” the Secretary countered, “would you have believed that they would invade the United States with twenty longbowmen, landing in Manhattan off a chartered sailing vessel?”

“I see what you mean,” the President replied. “Well, subject to Senate confirmation, we’ll go along with the inspection gladly. They’ve got us up a tree, anyway. What other terms did they want?’’

“Withdrawal of that San Rafael Pinot from the market, acknowledgment that there is no duty on their part to rehabilitate the United States, free access of their own wine to America, and five million dollars indemnity.”

“Did you say million or billion?” asked the President.

“M for Mother million,” the Secretary replied.

“Only five million,” the President exclaimed. “Why, that’s less than we’ve spent on the Germans in one city.”

“The difference, I suppose, is that the Germans lost, but Grand Fenwick won,” replied the Secretary, dryly. “But there’s a rider. A fellow called Benter, who is one of their cabinet members, wants to use the money to put up a factory which will manufacture chewing gum with a Pinot Grand Fenwick flavour. They want exclusive marketing rights in the United States, no tariffs, and they believe they can make enough money out of the exports of the gum to take care of all their needs for a long time to come.”

The President chuckled. “Go ahead and have the peace treaty drafted,” he said. “You can agree in principle subject to the usual ratification. What about troops for protection?”

“They say they don’t need any and I didn’t press the point.”

“Oh. I suppose they’ll release General Snippett and the policemen?”

“Yes. Snippett is anxious to get back. He has a plan for a new weapon for Civil Defence workers.”

“What is it?”

“The longbow.”

In the Ledermuhl Inn at Friedrichshafen, to which they retired, the British Foreign Secretary and the Soviet Foreign Commissar met in the American bar for cocktails.

“I wonder,” said the Soviet Commissar, when they had drunk one or two toasts, “what our American friend is doing in Grand Fenwick?”

“Haven’t the foggiest idea,” replied the Foreign Secretary. “Probably selling them chewing gum. Cheerio.”

The delegates of the Tiny Twenty, as they became known in the world’s Press, met the following week in the Great Hall of Fenwick Castle. In the interim the British Foreign Secretary had been received by Gloriana and for the first time in a distinguished diplomatic career had come away empty-handed and completely out of countenance.

He had been sanguine that Britain’s offer to implement the terms of the pact of 1402, by sending eight divisions for the protection of Grand Fenwick, would be warmly welcomed by the duchy. Instead, he had been told sweetly but firmly by Gloriana that no assistance was needed; that the duchy felt itself quite capable of handling its own affairs. This setback was followed by a preliminary discussion of the proposal to form a League of Little Nations to enforce outlawing of the Q-bomb, and an informal exchange of views on whether Britain would be prepared to co-operate with such a League.

“I felt,” he told the Prime Minister afterwards, “rather like Gulliver when he awoke in Lilliput and found himself pinned to the ground by a thousand ropes as fine as a spider’s web. All I could say was that Her Majesty’s Government would support any proposal which would put an end to the disastrous nuclear-armaments race, which not only has the world on tenterhooks, but has crippled our efforts to recover our position in world trade. It was rather a humiliating experience altogether. We should have thought of the plan ourselves.”