Fate Cannot Harm Me Read online

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” replied Monty emphatically. “I was, as it were, repeating to myself lines written by a certain poet on a certain occasion.”

  “Then pray don’t quote them; unless by happy chance they are culled from my own book of verse, in which case you may proceed. But here’s your drink. Put it by you, and tell me what really brings you to Wilton Crescent.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, the Editor of the New Scrutator asked me to drop in and find out whether your article for his next number was ready—the one on the French poets of the Second Empire.”

  Basil waved his hand airily; he had entirely recovered his usual gaiety of spirits, and with it more than his usual volubility. “I started on it a fortnight or so ago, and tucked it away somewhere; since then I’ve not thought about it any more—and I believe I’ve forgotten all the ideas which it was planned to contain. What does it matter? I can write the sort of article your wretched editor will print in a couple of hours and on any subject. In point of fact I did think about finishing it last night, but when I sat down to do it another infinitely superior idea chased it from my head, and that idea I have been elaborating ever since. A magnificent idea, which you will now have the extreme felicity of hearing. Indeed, if you are good and appreciative, you may be allowed to assist in developing it. In other words I will sharpen my brain by contact with yours—a most agreeable process.”

  Basil loved an audience—even when it was only an audience of one, and he settled himself luxuriously into his chair, ready to enjoy himself to the full.

  “What you are going to hear,” he began, “is my plan for settling all wars and all international disagreements in a most tidy and satisfactory manner. I needn’t bother to remind you that all previous plans have been complete wash-outs, chiefly because their authors haven’t adequately considered human needs and human nature. I think that I shall put forward my plan in the form of an imaginary lecture, broadcast about, say, 1990, and giving the whole history of war for the previous sixty years. It will begin by throwing a well-deserved bouquet to that eminent English writer and thinker, Mr. Basil Paraday-Royne, to whose happy inspiration the solution of all international quarrels was due. It will indicate, of course, the state of affairs in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when, as you well know, the very existence of civilization was menaced by the threat of world war. And it will show, historically, how that menace was averted.

  “What, throughout history, have been the great motive forces of human action? Religion perhaps, greed probably, but most certainly love and war. All great deeds, all great literature are concerned with them; all great human passions are stirred by them. From love and war come rewards and glory and fame. You can’t abolish war any more than you can abolish love. Each supplies a primal human need. But, like so many other things, Test matches and so on, war had got out of hand. It had become too horrible, gone too far, if you see what I mean. You want to satisfy the combative and acquisitive and aggressive instincts of mankind without threatening the very existence of civilization—and yet it was that that modern war was threatening to do.

  “The mistake was trying to get rid of it, instead of rationalizing it. You may, if you’re a Puritan, say that all sexual intercourse outside marriage is a sin, but you can’t suppress it because three-quarters of the world think it’s rather fun. And so with war, and all that Geneva business. Half the people there giving lip service to plans in which they didn’t really believe, and the other half not really wanting the plans to succeed. And equally the plan of an international army—what nonsense! Think of the intolerable boredom of belonging to an international army, with no one to fight against! The only excitement to drop a few bombs on the Poles or the Greeks or the Mexicans if they were naughty, and a lot of bearded pundits in Switzerland told you to. How could anyone take pride in a profession like that? And so the great idea. Not one international army, but several—half a dozen at least, all ready to fight one another if and when required.”

  “What nonsense you talk!”

  “Not at all. The horsest of horse sense. It worked out like this. Six armies to begin with—red, blue, yellow, green, brown and purple—all training and living in a long tract of land between France and Germany. Yes, each of them gave up a goodish tract of land, and were pretty well paid for doing it. And of course every civilized country paid a yearly quota to maintain these armies—a flea-bite compared to what they all spend on their national armaments. Armies filled by voluntary enlistment in all the countries of the world. Anyone who could pass the usual tests—height and chest and all that, and who had enough common sense to understand a word of command in any of three or four languages could join up—if he could get in. And of course he could join any army he fancied, provided there was room for him.”

  “But what about the fighting?”

  “The simplest thing in the world. Holland and Roumania have a quarrel. They appeal to the League of Nations, and are awarded a 200,000-a-side war. Holland, as the challenged party, has choice of armies, and employs the red. Roumania, hearing that there are some young officers of merit among the browns, chooses brown. Each pays the fees and the fun begins.”

  “Where do they fight?”

  “I’m coming to that. In the early days of international warfare all wars were staged somewhere in Alsace or Lorraine, in the southern part of the neutral lands, but all the soldiers got bored with that, because they knew it too well. So, about 1950, I think it was, an enterprising South American state saw its chance and offered to rent the soldiers a grand piece of fighting country, with every kind of natural hazard. That idea caught on like fire, and every semi-bankrupt country began to make money by letting out its fighting country. They had quite a few tiny wars in the Highlands—very sporting, but of course it spoilt the shooting. However, a lot of Scottish landowners made a packet out of it. Of course this change meant a big change in the rules too. The challenged side could either take its pick of the armies, or else its choice of wicket, so to speak. In 1956 when Great Britain fought Peru there was a cabinet meeting which lasted two days trying to decide if Great Britain should choose the blue army, which had a great reputation then, or whether it should choose a wicket. A very nice point.”

  “However were wars settled? Did they fight till one side was exterminated?”

  “Good Heavens, no! I keep telling you that war became a most civilized and elaborately regulated affair. The League of Nations set a time limit as well as a limit of numbers, and of course there were umpires. Why, it was one of the best paid and most responsible jobs in the world to get on to the umpires’ panel. Every retired soldier tried for it. And a most complicated system of points—just like a boxing match. In the war between Holland and Roumania—that I started to tell you about only you interrupted me—the umpires awarded Holland 130 points and Roumania 70, so Roumania had to pay up 60 units according to the schedule annexed to the rules for international warfare, volume two.

  “Of course the army soon became the most popular profession in the world. Enough fighting to make life exciting and promotion fairly quick; plenty of chance of distinction, and real reward for merit. Not too much danger, because the umpires always docked marks for excessive casualties. In fact all the merits of the condottiere system and none of the drawbacks. And of course the fighting was under the best modern conditions—all poison gases and all dropping of bombs from the air were forbidden from the start, and all the auxiliary services were top-notch. The very best brains in the world made a study of feeding troops and keeping up their morale in time of war. And every right-minded girl in the world tried to get into the international Red Cross. And the reporting! I suppose there’s nothing in our literature to touch some of the accounts of international wars in the 1960’s and ’70’s. Beautiful stuff! It fairly knocked the sporting news and all that kind of thing right out of the papers. Why, every artisan and every peasant all over the world became a connoisseur of war, and canvassed
the merits of the rival armies. I can’t tell you what the betting was like when a war was on! Hundreds of thousands changed hands in every decent-sized city when the umpires published their weekly mark sheets. I remember the Duke of Monmouthshire in the Bulgarian-Afghanistan war making a bet that the purple army would have a winning margin of at least 5 marks for five consecutive weeks, and winning it, though he only got home one week by the casting vote of the umpire-in-chief.

  “The biggest war which the League of Nations could award was a 500,000-a-side affair, for six months, but they only allowed that sort of thing for wealthy countries when there was a really big quarrel. They did it in ’74 for France and Germany, a very exciting affair. No one quite knew which was the challenger, so the Italian representative, who happened to be President at Geneva just then, spun a coin, and France won the toss. She chose the blue army. That gave Germany choice of wicket. She took the purple army and picked a fine bit of fighting country which was very popular just then in Siberia. But France was awfully unlucky. She chose blue because a General Adams, an American, was at the height of his reputation just then. But he broke a leg and three ribs riding in a steeplechase two days before he was to leave for Siberia, and General Piccoli had to take over in his place. By gad, there was a rush in London to lay off the bets when the news came through! Germany won by quite a lot of marks, but the blues always said that, if Adams had been there, they’d have scored easily. Well, I mustn’t bore you with my old war stories. After all, you can read the official accounts and the judges’ reports on all international wars in any of the public libraries.

  “But it’s a fascinating subject. You’ve only to look at the International Warriors’ Handbook to see how difficult it is for a youngster to choose an army. Of course each army advertises in that book, and gives terms of service, and scales of pay, and lists of successes. As far as I remember the red army had a big run of success in the early days, but they clung too long to their old generals, and suddenly discovered that they all wanted to retire at the same time. They had a rotten time after that, and lost about eight consecutive wars. The browns, on the other hand, hardly had any striking successes, but were awfully safe. Even when they lost they never got beaten by a large margin, and their casualties were always small—besides, the feeding was better than in any other army, so in a way it was the most popular army of the lot. They were always turning away recruits. I shall always remember, in the early days, hearing half a dozen retired soldiers at my club discussing which armies to enter their sons for. One of them was all for the reds because they’d just won a couple of wars, and won them in fine style. A second wanted a comfortable life for his son in the browns. A third seemed to me much shrewder. ‘My lad goes green,’ he said. ‘The greens have just lost three wars, and they’ve lost a lot of officers too. They’ll be unpopular for a bit, for mercenary armies hate heavy losses, and no doubt they’ll have to lower their fees to get jobs. But there’ll be a grand chance of promotion there, and I believe my boy will get to the top much easier than yours in the reds or browns. It’s just like choosing a house for your son at a public school—you’ve got to guess what it’ll be like in ten years’ time. Now I give green just about ten years to get well on the up-grade. Besides, a green officer published a little book the other day on The 200,000-a-side War which made me think that they’d got one of the best military brains of to-day in that army. So my boy goes green.’ He proved to be just about right. Of course the organization of war, and particularly the choice of an army, was modified a good deal when that Director of an English football club joined the Rules Board for International Warfare, and persuaded his colleagues to introduce the transfer system. Under the present rule any soldier can transfer once in his career, soldier and army taking fifty-fifty of the fee. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether to take it or wait. There was my poor friend Carruthers, who did a brilliant bit of work as a young major for the yellows. The purples offered him a transfer fee of £15,000. That means, after the agents’ fees had been paid, £14,250 to divide between him and the yellows—the highest transfer ever offered for a major. But his wife was ambitious, and wanted him to hang on and hope for £25,000 as a general. Well, you know the sequel. He made a bloomer in the next war, and never got another decent transfer offer at all. The transfer system made it very hard to choose an army, though.”

  Basil paused for breath, as well he might, and lit a cigarette.

  “What do you think of my grand idea?” he said. “You may be as enthusiastic as you like. Shall we sit down and type it off red-hot this very morning?”

  But Monty had finished his drink, and was inexorable. Besides, he resented a conversation in which he was allowed to take hardly any part.

  “Very ingenious,” he replied without enthusiasm. “Now what about that article on the poets of the Second Empire? Have you really got it well started or not?”

  Basil spread his hands apart with a gesture of despair.

  “Monty, you drive me to desperation. I confer on you the inestimable honour of being the first human being to learn of one of the great discoveries of the age. You listen to this world-shaking idea, guzzling beer the while, and all you can think of at the end is a trumpery article on French poets. Where’s your imagination, man, where’s your imagination? Well, I must humour you, I suppose. Anyhow we’ve had a delightful conversation. I always like chatting with my friends.”

  “With!” exclaimed Monty, but the interruption was unheeded.

  “I’ll go and dig out that article and see just how far I have got with it. I think it’s somewhere in the library. Wait half a minute.”

  He raised himself from his chair and strolled out of the room. What a characteristic exhibition, thought Monty to himself. Yes, that was the right word—Basil was an exhibitionist. Amusing enough provided you let him have his head, and clever of course. But rather a butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, or was it a chamois leaping from rock to rock? Yes, the chamois was the better picture. You saw him just where he liked to be, showing up against the skyline, but he never stayed long enough in one place. What a curse these dilettanti were—especially to themselves. Basil would never carry out any real solid piece of work. Robin, now, was different; he was clever too, but then he was dogged as well, and never stopped half way. His Pertinacity might turn out to be a real achievement. Idly Monty began to compare the two men. Undoubtedly he liked Robin the better; he was angular and difficult at times of course, and sometimes—well—to put it bluntly he jarred on you, but still he’d got a sort of sincerity; you knew where you were with him, and, he wouldn’t be a bad chap to have on your side if things weren’t going too well. And Basil? Awfully good company, so long as you were in the vein yourself. His was the type of mind that you could play with, but he was an exhibitionist—always posing just a little, and always pushing for the middle of the stage. What would he be like in a tight corner? Not much good, probably, he was too much wedded to success.

  Then why in so many ways was the society of Basil more agreeable and very much easier than that of Robin? Gravely Monty considered the problem, for it pleased him to analyse character. Perhaps Basil was more of his set than the other; they had more friends in common, they talked the same language in the same way. Perhaps that was what the public school tradition really meant—a kind of common background, which made human intercourse easy. But wasn’t it more than that? Couldn’t he analyse it a little more deeply? Yes—that was it! Robin talked about serious things in a serious way, and about trivial things in a careless way, and Basil did just the opposite. He would discuss things of grave importance with a lightness bordering on flippancy, with a studied unconcern. On the other hand, he would invest small talk with the seriousness of a Socratic dialogue; he would converse about some triviality, some airy fancy of the mind, as though it was his only interest. Was that another manifestation of the public school spirit, or just a convention of Society? Certainly it was true. Basil and his friends would never let themselves go in matters a
bout which they felt deeply, or in matters of real import. Those they treated either with studied reticence, or elaborate unconcern, or even a sort of bantering flippancy. But the little things of life—what immense, what fantastic interest they brought to them! Why, only two nights ago he had heard Basil discoursing for half an hour in a manner which recalled the better speeches of a nineteenth-century statesman on the propriety of wearing a white waistcoat with a dinner jacket. And very informative and very amusing he had been—and very serious too. Well, anyhow, if that was a convention of polite Society, it had its uses. It did oil the wheels of personal intercourse. Nothing was easier than the society of Basil. Yet how the man did like to pose! That article on the French poets for instance. Monty felt absolutely certain that it was at least three parts written, and well written too, yet Basil must needs give him the impression that he’d hardly thought of it, in order to be able to give a dazzling, and quite unnecessary, display of brilliance in dashing it off, apparently, at the last moment. After all Robin was the better man of the two, and …

  Monty’s musings were interrupted by the return of his host, carrying a couple of sheets of typescript in his hand.

  “It’s as I thought, I’ve only jotted down a few stray, but no doubt precious, thoughts. N’importe. I’ll write it to-day or to-morrow. I sometimes think a tour de force of that kind, written straight off, reads better than anything else.”

  “Liar,” thought Monty. “Righto, I’ll tell my old man that he may expect Paraday-Royne on the French poets sometime this week.”

  He got up to go, but as he did so, the door opened, and Cynthia Hetherington stood, smiling, on the threshold. Yes, Cynthia Hetherington, and it was she who was the lady of the photographs.

  Monty paused in his story and filled my glass. “I forget if you knew Cynthia,” he asked. “Had she come out before you left England?”