The Steel Tsar (10 page)

I found the mixture of races fascinating and made the most of my imprisonment to learn as much as I could about the world in which I had found myself. Here was a future in which O’Bean had not existed, yet it contained many of the inventions familiar to me in that future where I had originally encountered General O. T. Shaw. It seemed that whether they were the work of an individual genius or a variety of hard-working scientists, the airships and the sub-aquatic boats, the electrical wonders, the wireless telegraph and so on, would nonetheless come into existence at some time. In this world Britain’s Empire was even larger than in my own. Certain mainland territories in South and Central America were hers, as were some parts of what I had known as the Southern United States. These had been regained, it appeared, during the American Civil War, when Britain had lent positive support to the Confederacy in return for control over coastal regions. With the victory of the Confederacy it had suited everyone, I learned, to retain this contact. The lands had been leased from the CSA for a period of a hundred years. This meant that in thirty years’ time, the Confederacy would reclaim them. I was curious as to whether slavery continued to flourish and learned to my surprise that not only did it not, but that economically it had suited everyone to see a strong black middle class emerging. In America there was greater racial equality than in my own day! North and South were virtually autonomous and these smaller units seemed to have produced greater coherence rather than less. Although America was not quite so rich in industry, not quite so powerful a military nation, she seemed in many other ways to have benefited from the truce which had followed the Civil War and allowed both sides to recover and begin to trade.

France, on the other hand, was no longer a Great Power. She had never recovered from the Franco-Prussian Wars. Germany now controlled much of the old French Empire and the French themselves seemed content enough in the main, without the responsibilities of their colonies. Germany had become a close ally of Britain, although not bound to join in the current conflict. She formed part of an alliance with the Scandinavian countries, a very powerful trading pact which suited everyone. Austria-Hungary mouldered on, a romantic, decaying Empire, constantly in debt, constantly being helped out by richer nations. The only new Great Power of any significance was the Ottoman Empire, which had expanded significantly into Africa and the Middle East to form a strong Islamic union. Greece, I learned, was all but non-existent. Most of her people were now Moslems and to all intents and purposes Turkish. The Japanese Empire controlled large areas of what had been China and her inroads along borders of the Russian Empire had been the chief reason for the present struggle. I learned why the Japanese attacked British targets with far greater ferocity than they attacked others. They believed that Britain had deliberately started the war, with a raid on Hiroshima. I was reminded of my own part—my own guilt—in a similar raid, when I had sailed aboard the flagship of General Shaw.

If I had known only one world I might have thought that History was repeating itself, but I knew that it was human nature which lay at the root of History and that no matter where I found myself I was bound to discover superficial similarities expressing and exemplifying that nature. It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce these terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called “History”. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination. This I had realized in all my strange journeyings across what Mrs. Persson calls “the multiverse”. The very thing which makes us human, which produces the best, is also the thing which will make us behave worse than the maddest wild beast could ever behave. We live through example and emulation which can turn into envy if circumstances create for us misfortunes. That is all I have come to believe, and I am not entirely sure I believe that. But I am reconciled to human nature, if not to human folly, and that is what my own particular misfortunes have achieved for me.

Olmeijer was soon in his element once again. He somehow managed to get himself put in charge of the camp shop and ran it with all the grandeur of a Chef de la Maison at the Ritz.

Nye joined a group of English and Australian merchant seamen who had been captured at the fall of Shanghai. They spent most of their time choosing sides for rugby football games and talking about home. I supposed that this was how they managed to avoid thinking too much about the truth of their situation, but I could only stand half-an-hour or so of their schoolboy stuff. I knew very well that not long before my first visit to Teku Benga I might well have joined in with some enthusiasm. I had changed beyond redemption. I would never be quite the same as the idealistic and naive young army officer who had first led his men into the mountains in search of the bandit, Sharan Kang. I felt, indeed, like a cross between Rip Van Winkle and the Flying Dutchman, with a touch of the Wandering Jew besides. I sometimes felt that I had lived for as long as the human race had existed.

Quite soon after arriving at the camp I myself fell in with a mixed bag of civilian airshipmen, the survivors of a variety of wrecks. Some had been accidentally shot down, others had been rescued by Japanese patrols. Some had simply been lost in the general chaos and wandered into Japanese hands. I learned that all merchant airships now moved in convoys these days, protected by military vessels.

It was about a week later that “Peewee” Wilson attached himself to me. He was a thin-faced, bulbous man, with an awkward, unspontaneous way of moving, a flat forehead and cheekbones and a reddish discoloration under the eyes of the sort I often identify with a certain mental imbalance. He approached me as I came out of Olmeijer’s hut. He regarded me, he said, as a fellow intellectual, someone who had “a bit more education than most of these riff-raff”. Since there were a number of clergymen and academics amongst the prisoners in our compound alone, as well as a couple of journalists, I did not find his remarks particularly flattering. He wore a khaki shirt and a striped tie, grey flannel trousers and, no matter what the temperature, would often have on a tweed sports-jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He was a bore. He was, in fact, the camp bore. Every army unit has one, every airship crew has one, every office and factory in the world doubtless has one. However, Wilson was, I’ll admit, a bit above the average bore.

He drew me across the compound to the wire fence corner. Leaning against one of the struts of the fence was a short, moody Slav in a dirty peasant shirt. I had seen him before. His name was Makhno and he was from the Ukraine. For bizarre idealistic reasons of his own he had elected to make his way to Tokyo in the cause of international brotherhood. He was an anarchist, I gathered, of the old Kropotkin school and, I thought then, like most anarchists would rather talk than anything else. He was a likable enough fellow who, having failed to convert the camp, kept his own counsel. Wilson introduced us. “This chap’s not too good with the English,” he said. “I talk a spot of Rooshian, but I’m having trouble getting through to him. We were talking about money.”

“You’re trying to buy something?” I asked.

“No, no.
Money.
International finance and that.”

“Aha.” I exchanged glances with the Ukrainian, who raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“Now I’m a socialist, right?” continued Wilson. “Have been all my life. You might ask what we mean by the word socialism, and you’d be correct in doing so, because socialism can mean many different things to many different people...” He went on in this vein, doubtless word for word repeating himself for the nth time. There are some people who never appear to realize to what degree they have this habit. I have come to believe that it has the effect on them of a soothing lullaby sung to themselves. It has a completely opposite effect, of course, on anyone attempting (or forced) to listen to them.

The anarchist, Makhno, was not bothering to listen. It was obvious that he could understand many of the words but that he had instinctively recognized Wilson’s type.

“Now
this
chap,” Wilson stabbed an unhealthy finger in Makhno’s direction, “would call himself a socialist. I suppose the term would be ‘anarcho-socialist’. That is to say, he believes in the brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working classes of the world and so on and so forth. He comes, after all, from a so-called socialist country, though what it’s doing with an emperor still there, for all he’s got no real power, I don’t know. And he’s against his own government.”

“The Russian government,” said Makhno. “I am against all governments. Including the so-called Ukrainian Rada, which is only a puppet of the Central Government in Petersburg.”

“Just so,” said Wilson, dismissing this. “So you’re a socialist and you’re against socialists. Am I right or wrong?”

“Kerensky’s Duma is socialist in name only,” said Makhno in gloomy, Slavic tones. “In name only.”

“Exactly my own point. Not proper socialists. Just Tories under another name, right?”

“Politicians,” said Makhno laconically.

“That’s where you’re wrong, old chap. Just because they’re not real socialists doesn’t mean that real socialists can’t make good politicians.”

I was already trying to extricate myself from this, but Wilson held onto my arm. “Hang on a minute, old man. I want you to umpire this one. Now, what do we mean by this word ‘politics’ of ours? See, I’m an engineer by profession, and I like to think a pretty good one. To me politics is just a matter of getting the engineering right. If you have a machine which functions properly without much attention, then it’s obviously a good machine. That’s what politics should be about. And if the machine has simple working parts which any layman can understand, then it’s, as it were, your democratic machine. Am I right or am I wrong?”

“Crazy,” said Makhno, and scratched his nose.

“What?”

“You’re not right or wrong. You’re crazy.”

I was amused by this and Makhno could tell, but Wilson was baffled.

“Sane, I’d say,” he said. “Very sane indeed. Like a good machine. That’s sane, isn’t it? What’s more sane than a properly functioning steam turbine, for instance?”

“Rationalist nonsense,” pronounced Makhno, and rolled the “r” in that ironic way only Slavs have.

“And what about your own romantic twaddle?” Wilson wanted to know. “Blow everything up and start again, eh?”

“No worse a solution than yours. But this is not what I argued.”

“It’s what it comes down to, old chap. That’s your anarchism for you. Boom!” And he laughed as one who had never known humour.

Although I felt sorry for Makhno (while having little sympathy with his politics) I had had quite enough of this. With a murmur of vague apology I began to move away, to where some of my acquaintances were standing, smoking their pipes and talking airship talk, which at that moment was preferable to anything Wilson had to offer.

Wilson stopped me. “Hang on just a sec, old man. What I want you to tell me is this: without government, who makes the decisions?”

“The individual,” said Makhno.

I shrugged. “Given the hypothesis as it’s put,” I said, “our Ukrainian friend is absolutely right. Who else could make a decision?”

“Just for himself?”

“By consensus,” said Makhno.

“Ha!” Wilson was triumphant. “Ha! And what’s that but democratic socialism. Which is exactly what I believe in.”

“I thought you believed in machines.” I couldn’t resist this jab.

Wilson missed my small irony as he had missed all Makhno’s. “A democratic—socialist—machine,” he said, as if to a child.

“That is not anarchism,” said Makhno stubbornly. But he was not trying to convince Wilson. If anything, he was trying to drive him away.

“I can see some of my pals want a word,” I said to Wilson. I winked at Makhno and made off. But Wilson pursued me. “You’re an airshipman by all accounts, as are these fellows. Don’t you believe in using the best machinery, the engines least likely to let you down, the control systems which will work as simply as possible...?”

“Airships aren’t countries,” I said. Unfortunately an unsuspecting second officer from the destroyed
Duchess of Salford
heard me without noticing Wilson.

“They can be,” he said. “Like small countries. I mean, everyone has to learn to get on together...”

I left him to Wilson. When he realized what he had let himself in for a look of patent dismay crossed his young face. I waved at him behind Wilson’s back and sauntered off.

It was to be one of my easier escapes from the Bore of Rishiri. The fact that I was a prisoner and beginning, like many others, to fret a great deal was bad enough. It was Purgatory. But “Peewee” was making it Hell. I am still surprised that nobody murdered him. He became impossible to avoid.

At first we tried joshing him to get rid of him and then laughing at him, then downright rudeness, but it was useless to try to insult him or alter him in his course. We would sometimes offend him, but he would either laugh it off or, if hurt, return in a few minutes. And I had everyone’s sympathy because he continued, no matter what I said or did, to claim me as his closest friend.

I think that must be why, when Nye approached me with his half-baked escape plan, I agreed to join in against all common sense. He and his fellow rugger enthusiasts meant to go under the wire at night and try to capture one of the two Japanese motor-torpedo-boats which had recently anchored in Rishiri’s tiny harbour. From there Nye and Co. intended to try for the Russian mainland which had not fallen to the Japs.

There had been a number of attempted escapes, of course, but all of them had been unsuccessful. Our guards were vigilant; there were two small scouting airships keeping the tiny island under surveillance. There were searchlights, dogs, the whole paraphernalia of a prison. Moreover, the island was used as a fueling station for raids against Russia (which is why we were there—to stop the base from being bombed) so it usually had several large airships at mast near the harbour.