The Mouse That Roared (21 page)

“Don’t let it distress you, Tony,” the Prime Minister said. “It’s happened before. Every now and then one of the small nations gets the lion by the tail and all we can do is co-operate. It’s surprising the things that will change the course of history. To-day it’s a bottle of wine. A couple of centuries back it was the ear of a sea captain called Jenkins. That one embroiled the whole of Europe and had its echoes in the French and Indian wars in the American colonies. Then we fought the Ashanti for a hundred years or so over a golden stool. I’m not sure whether cigars were involved in the Spanish-American War, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Tell me, this Gloriana, is she attractive?”

“Very much so.”

“Unmarried, I understand.”

“Yes.”

“Ah. Pity we haven’t got a prince to spare. That would solve the whole thing nicely.”

“I don’t think he’d stand a chance,” said the Foreign Secretary. “From what I could make out of it, Gloriana seemed to have her eye on someone already.”

“Good heavens! Not an American, I hope!” exclaimed the Prime Minister.

“No. One of her own people. Man called Tully Bascomb. He’s the one who led the invasion against the United States and captured the Q-bomb.”

“Good-looking young scoundrel, no doubt?”

“I wouldn’t call him good-looking. He is a big raw-boned fellow. Has a kind of distant resemblance to Abraham Lincoln.”

“Well,” said the Prime Minister, blowing a cloud of cigar smoke up to the ceiling. “He’s of English descent, and that’s a consolation. Wait until the next time I see the American President. His wartime predecessor used to get under my skin a bit at some of those conferences, comparing the American Garand with our Lee-Enfield. Once he went all the way back through history, with Stalin roaring his head off, and ended up comparing the Kentucky rifle with the English musket. Maybe I ought to send the President a couple of longbows with instructions for use. Or perhaps not. They’d probably improve on them. I suppose the Americans will support the proposal for a League of Little Nations, outlawing nuclear weapons and so on?”

“Yes,” said the Foreign Secretary. “I was given to understand that they’d already agreed in principle. There’s a rather significant editorial in this month’s
Atlantic
pointing to a parallel between the proposed League and the position of the forty-eight states in relation to the Federal Government. It’s becoming an American idea already. The Russians are likely to be the only ones to raise serious objection. But I think they’ll have to fall in line too.”

The Soviet Foreign Commissar didn’t get to see Gloriana. He saw Tully, who had been delegated to speak for her, for Gloriana pleaded indisposition. Actually, she didn’t think she was capable of facing up to the Foreign Commissar and thought Tully would do a better job.

Tully did. Speaking through an interpreter, Tully made it clear, when the preliminary niceties had been exchanged, that the Duchy of Grand Fenwick had been an independent nation centuries before the Soviet Union had been dreamed of. He emphasized that having obtained possession of the Q-bomb, it was not the duchy’s intention to hand it over to anyone. And he added that being destroyed by the Q-bomb would be infinitely preferable to everybody in Grand Fenwick to becoming the vassals or dependants of any other country in the world, though he did not mention any nations by name.

“You cannot take it upon yourself to play with the lives of your people,” countered the Foreign Commissar, who was unused to such blunt tactics, and decided they called for bluntness in return.

“Coming from you,” said Tully, “that is a very strange statement indeed.”

“We offer you friendship and the protection of the Red Army,” the Foreign Commissar thundered.

“We don’t need friendship and we can protect ourselves,” Tully replied.

“We will see that this matter gets to the proletariat of Grand Fenwick,” the Foreign Commissar stormed. “We will broadcast our offer by radio twenty-four hours a day so that everyone in the duchy knows that you and the other aristocrats here would condemn them to death rather than keep them free for all time by a pact of eternal friendship with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

“We haven’t any proletariat in Grand Fenwick,” Tully replied, quietly. “And we haven’t any radios either.”

This put a stop to the exchange for a while. Then Tully took the initiative. “I do not want to send you back empty-handed to Moscow,” he said. “I have a proposition to make which may well ensure peace for your country and for the world.” He outlined the plan for the outlawing of nuclear weapons and a system of international inspection.

“The Soviet Union,” the Foreign Commissar said, “has been from the start in the forefront of the movement to outlaw the atomic bomb and all such weapons. But we have insisted that, as a first step, all stocks of atomic bombs must be destroyed. To this the Americans have consistently refused to agree because their policy is one of world domination.”

“All stocks of bombs will be destroyed,” Tully said. “All except the Q-bomb. That will remain here as the trust of the League of Little Nations. It will represent the International Police Force which the United Nations agreed to set up, but never did.”

The Foreign Commissar laughed. “You expect us to render ourselves powerless so that you can dominate the world,” he said.

“We’re going to dominate the world all right whether you wish it or not,” said Tully, “but in the cause of peace. In fact, we dominate the world at present though you are a little slow in realizing it. If we exploded the Q-bomb now, thousands of people would be dying in Russia in six weeks. And there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. Those who didn’t die would wish they were dead, for they would be doomed anyway. In the past two weeks Dr. Kokintz has been performing some experiments with the gas which this bomb will liberate. Perhaps you would like to see one of the surviving results.”

From behind a curtain in the chamber in which they were sitting, he brought a cage. Inside it there was some sort of moving thing. It had no head, but there was a mouth at one end with furry lips which kept opening and closing. There were six legs and some bare patches in the fur which showed a bright blue skin below.

“What is it?” the Foreign Commissar asked.

“It used to be a mouse,” Tully replied quietly. “The amount of carbon fourteen to which it was exposed was in the proportion of one part to one hundred thousand. The amount released by the bomb would produce a much greater concentration in the atmosphere. Chances of survival would be very small. But those who did survive, animal or human, would become some sort of monster such as this.”

The Soviet Commissar could not take his eyes off the thing in the cage. He fancied he heard some kind of squawking from it. The muscles of the body moved convulsively, and now and then one of the six feet twitched. “Tell me again the details of the plan for control of these weapons,” he said.

Tully did so.

“Do the Americans and British agree to it?” the Foreign Commissar asked.

“Yes.”

“The inspection will be by neutral scientists of the smaller nations?”

“Yes.”

“How are we to know that they will not pass on to the United States and Britain what they discover in our Soviet laboratories?”

“You will have to take our word for it. It is either that or this.” And he pointed to the cage.

The Soviet Commissar rose stiffly. “I shall report to Moscow,” he said. He gave one more frightened look at the thing and left.

When he had gone Dr. Kokintz came in, peering from behind his thick glasses. “Did it work?” he asked. “I think so,” Tully replied.

“Good,” said Dr. Kokintz. “Then I had better let them out.” He reached into the cage and took the thing out, flipped it over on its back and undid a zipper. Three frightened white mice scampered out, two of them crawling up his arms to crouch upon his shoulders. The thing collapsed into a mere sack of fur. “We used to play this kind of a trick on newcomers when I was a student of biology,” he said. “It is surprising what people will believe when their minds have been prepared to accept it.”

It was after these conferences with the ministers of the Big Three that the Tiny Twenty convened in the castle of Grand Fenwick. The countries represented were Lebanon, Israel, Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Ecuador, Guatemala, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece, Lichtenstein, Finland, Portugal, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Panama, and Grand Fenwick.

Because there was no possibility whatever of accommodating the delegates and their staffs in Grand Fenwick, it was agreed that they would all stay at Basle, Switzerland, and the Swiss Government proposed, setting the note for an amicable conference, that they be lodged and fed at Swiss expense. “Switzerland,” the Swiss minister said, when he made this offer to the assembly, “will be honoured to be the host to representatives of so many of her sister nations of equal size and weight in world affairs.”

The conference lasted only two days. The first day was taken up with the presentation and checking of credentials. On the second day, the general meeting being called to order, Gloriana XII was elected chairman, with the delegate for Ecuador, vice-chairman. The Turkish representative proposed that a committee to establish an agenda be appointed, but the representative from Ireland moved an amendment that there be no committee on agenda or any other kind of a committee.

“The big nations get together at these kind of conferences,” he said, in a rich brogue, “and it’s as plain as Paddy’s pig what they’re all going to talk about. But they have to slice the pig up into bacon, and divide it into hams, and pickle the feet and tan the hide before they can get down to the facts. And before they’re through with it everybody’s forgotten what they were going to talk about. Some that were on the ham committee think it’s the ham that is the most important part of the animal, and those on the bacon end of it swear that if it wasn’t for bacon it wouldn’t be any pig at all. And so they all go away without making any decisions.

“But we know what kind of a beast we have before us. We’re here to form a League of Little Nations to compel the Big Three or the Big Four or the Big Five or however many bigs they are to stop all their shenanigans and get rid of these bombs that will blow us all to bits at any minute. So I move that we don’t form any committee at all, or try slicing the pig up one way and another, but get down to business as we are.”

This thoroughly mixed illustration, delivered with some heat, led to a little confusion. But the delegate from Israel, who, as a matter of alphabetical accident, was seated next to the Irish minister, undertook to explain. And having explained, he seconded the motion and it was carried unanimously.

The delegate from Israel was a rabbi and the Irish minister turned to him in an aside and said, “It’s the first time that a Catholic nation has found itself indebted to the Jewish faith.”

To which the rabbi replied gently, “There was one other occasion. Christianity, you will recall, originated in Palestine.”

They both laughed.

The charter establishing the League of Little Nations was agreed on the same day. It had been prepared in draft in advance, and was, for such a historic document, an almost childishly simple statement, containing six main points.

There was no lengthy preamble. Instead it got immediately down to business.

It read:

The nations whose delegates have signed this document, subject to confirmation by their constitutional procedures, solemnly commit themselves to the following duties and courses of action:

1.  They bind themselves together to enforce a world ban on weapons of mass destruction.

2.  To achieve this they will set up, under the initial direction of Dr. Frederick Kokintz, a committee of scientists who will inspect atomic and other nuclear installations of all kinds in all countries to ensure that no nuclear weapons are being made.

3.  They will compel the nuclear nations and others to cooperate with this inspection under threat of detonating the Q-bomb now in the possession of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.

4.  This Q-bomb will be the trust of all the nations who ratify this agreement. They pledge themselves to guard it.

5.  They will use all their powers of persuasion, whether moral, diplomatic, economic, or military to bring about a more peaceful world.

6.  They will do all this in the solemn realization that unless it is done all are eventually doomed.

Nobody wanted to add anything to this document. Nobody wanted to subtract from it. They signed it with little more than a routine speech or two, and the next day its contents were publicized to the world.

Then the delegates of the Tiny Twenty -went home. No date was set for their next meeting. Indeed the hope was expressed that they would never have to meet again. But it was agreed that, as a symbol of their solidarity, every month an honour guard of soldiers from a different nation would take over the job of guarding the frontier of Grand Fenwick with the bowmen of the duchy.

The same week the United States House of Representatives received a bill which would permit inspection by the Tiny Twenty of the nation’s atomic installations. Two weeks later the United States, Britain, Canada, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had agreed to dismantle their atomic arsenals. A month later teams of scientists from the Tiny Twenty were inspecting the nuclear installations of the Big Four Powers. The world, if not on the road to peace, at least was no longer on the highway to self-destruction.

The Count of Mountjoy was feeling depressed and neglected. These were emotions quite foreign to him, for he was a man of distinguished position and bearing, if not of distinguished ability, and accustomed to being the centre of interest, of action, and of attention. His line, being of the noblest blood in Grand Fenwick next to the ruling family, had indeed supplied the diplomats and statesmen of the nation.

It was.an ancestor of his, Count Robert of Mountjoy, who had negotiated the treaty of mutual assistance with England in 1402--a fact which he had been at pains to point out to the British Minister during the latter’s visit. To this, the British envoy had made the peculiar reply that in contrast with much that had happened recently, the treaty was a case, perhaps the only one on record, of too much and too early.