Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy (105 page)

‘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.'

‘Did you? Well, take the late Mr Wilbraham Lattimer's and Miss Maria Lattimer's papers to the War-side General Reference Office. When they have been passed upon, tell the Attendance Clerk that you are to serve as probationer in – let's see – in the Domestic Induced Casualty Side – 7 GS.'

The clerk collected himself a little and spoke through dry lips.

‘But – but I'm – Islipped in from the Lower Establishment, Sir,' he breathed.

There was no need to explain. He shook from head to foot as with the palsy; and under all Heaven none tremble save those who come from that class which ‘also believe and tremble.'

‘Do you tell Me this officially, or as one created being to another?' Death asked after a pause.

‘Oh, non-officially, Sir. Strictly non-officially, so long as you know all about it.'

His awe-stricken fellow-workers could not restrain a smile at Death having to be told about anything. Even Death bit his lips.

‘I don't think you will find the War-side will raise any objection,' said he. ‘By the way, they don't wear that uniform over there.'

Almost before Death ceased speaking, it was ripped off and flung on the floor, and that which had been a sober clerk of Normal Civil Death stood up an unmistakable, curly-haired, bat-winged, faun-eared Imp of the Pit. But where his wings joined his shoulders there was a patch of delicatedove-coloured feathering that gave promise to spread all up the pinion. St Peter saw it and smiled, for it was a known sign of grace.

‘Thank Goodness!' the ex-clerk gasped as he snatched up the Lattimer records and sheered sideways through the skylight.

‘Amen!' said Death and St Peter together, and walked through the door.

‘Weren't you hinting something to me a little while ago about
my
lax methods?' St Peter demanded, innocently.

‘Well, if one doesn't help one's Staff, one's Staff will never help itself,' Death retorted. ‘Now, I shall have to pitch in a stiff demi-official asking how that young fiend came to be taken on in the NCD without examination. And I must do it before the NCD complain that I've been interfering with their departmental transfers.
Aren't
they human? If you want to go back to The Gate I think our shortest way will be through here and across the War-Sheds.'

They came out of a side-door into Heaven's full light. A phalanx of Shining Ones swung across a great square singing:

‘To Him Who made the Heavens abide, yet cease not from theirmotion,

To Him Who drives the cleansing tide twice a day round ocean –

Let His Name be magnified in all poor folk's devotion!'

Death halted their leader, and asked a question.

‘We're Volunteer Aid Serving Powers,' the Seraph explained, ‘reporting for duty in the Domestic Induced Casualty Department – told off to help relatives, where we can.'

The shift trooped on – such an array of Powers, Honours, Glories, Toils, Patiences, Services, Faiths and Loves as no man may conceive even by favour of dreams. Death and St Peter followed them into a DICD Shed on the English side where, for the moment, work had slackened. Suddenly a name flashed on the telephone-indicator. ‘Mrs Arthur Bedott, 317, Portsmouth Avenue, Brondesbury. Husband badly wounded. One child.' Her special weakness was appended.

A Seraph on the raised dais that overlooked the Volunteer Aids waiting at the entrance, nodded and crooked a finger. One of the new shift – a temporary Acting Glory – hurled himself from his place and vanished earthward.

‘You may take it,' Death whispered to St Peter, ‘there will be a sustaining epic built up round Private Bedott's wound for his wife and Baby Bedott to cling to. And here—' they heard wings that flapped wearily – ‘here, I suspect, comes one of our failures.'

A Seraph entered and dropped, panting, on a form. His plumage was ragged, his sword splintered to the hilt; and his face still worked with the passions of the world he had left, as his soiled vesture reeked of alcohol.

‘Defeat,' he reported hoarsely, when he had given in a woman's name. ‘Utter defeat! Look!' He held up the stump of his sword. ‘I broke this on her gin-bottle.'

‘So? We try again,' said the impassive Chief Seraph. Again he beckoned, and there stepped forward that very Imp whom Death had transferred from the NCD.

‘Go
you
!'said the Seraph. ‘We must deal with a fool according to her folly. Have you pride enough?'

There was no need to ask. The messenger's face glowed and his nostrils quivered with it. Scarcely pausing to salute, he poised and dived, and the papers on the desks spun beneath the draught of his furious vans.

St Peter nodded high approval. ‘
I
see!' he said. ‘He'll work on her pride to steady her. By all means – “if by all means,” as my good Paul used to say. Only it ought to read “by any manner of possible means.” Excellent!'

‘It's difficult, though,' a soft-eyed Patience whispered. ‘I fail again and again. I'm only fit for an old-maid's tea-party.'

Once more the record flashed – a multiple-urgent appeal on behalf of a few thousand men, worn-out body and soul. The Patience was detailed.

‘Oh, me!' she sighed, with a comic little shrug of despair, and took the void softly as a summer breeze at dawning.

‘But how does this come under the head of DomesticCasualties? Those men were in the trenches. I heard the mud squelch,' said St Peter.

‘Something wrong with the installation – as usual. Waves are always jamming here,' the Seraph replied.

‘So it seems,' said St Peter as a wireless cut in with the muffled note of some one singing (sorely out of tune), to an accompaniment of desultory poppings:

‘Unless you can love as the Angels love With the breadth of Heaven be—'

‘
Twickt!
'It broke off. The record showed a name. The waiting Seraphs stiffened to attention with a click of tense quills.

‘As you were!' said the Chief Seraph. ‘He's met her.'

‘Who is she?' said St Peter.

‘His mother. You never get over your weakness for romance,' Death answered, and a covert smile spread through the Office.

‘Thank Heaven, I don't. But I really ought to be going—'

‘Wait one minute. Here's trouble coming through, I think,' Death interposed.

A recorder had sparked furiously in a broken run of SOS's that allowed no time for inquiry.

‘Name! Name!' an impatient young Faith panted at last. ‘It
can't
be blotted out.' No name came up. Only the reiterated appeal.

‘False alarm!' said a hard-featured Toil, well used to mankind. ‘Some fool has found out that he owns a soul. ‘Wants work.
I'd
cure him! …'

‘Hush!' said a Love in Armour, stamping his mailed foot. The office listened.

‘'Bad case?' Death demanded at last.

‘Rank bad, Sir. They are holding back the name,' said the Chief Seraph. The SOS signals grew more desperate, and then ceased with an emphatic thump. The Love in Armour winced.

‘Firing-party,' he whispered to St Peter. “Can't mistake that noise!'

‘What is it?' St Peter cried nervously.

‘Deserter; spy; murderer,' was the Chief Seraph's weighedanswer. ‘It's out of my department – now. No – hold the line ! The name's up at last.'

It showed for an instant, broken and faint as sparks on charred wadding, but in that instant a dozen pens had it written. St Peter with never a word gathered his robes about him and bundled through the door, headlong for The Gate.

‘No hurry,' said Death at his elbow. ‘With the present rush your man won't come up for ever so long.'