Strange Conflict (9 page)

At the end of this lengthy wait there was a sound of feet upon the stairs. The door opened and the Admiral came in, carrying a satchel of papers. He flung the satchel on to a nearby chair and greeted his wife cheerfully, but he looked tired and harassed.

A tray with drinks and some sandwiches wrapped in a napkin had been left ready on a side-table for him, and for a little time, while he ate the sandwiches and drank a stiff whisky-and-soda, he walked about the room talking and unburdening himself of his anxieties. It was clear that he could not get his intense worry about Britain's shipping losses out of his mind, and his elderly wife listened with most sympathetic interest; but de Richleau noted that although he spoke of the gravity of the situation generally he did not disclose details or particulars of the most recent sinkings even to his wife, so evidently he was a man of real discretion.

In due course he undressed, got into bed, kissed his wife affectionately and put out the light. Ten minutes later he was in the process of drifting off to sleep.

The Duke, having adjusted his retin a again, watched the
larger of the two forms under the bedclothes most intently as he speculated upon what form the Admiral's astral would take.

With the uninitiated the astral body is simply a replica of the mortal body, and until a spirit has reached a certain degree of advancement it often lacks the power to provide its astral form with clothes, or forgets to do so; which results in those dreams where, to their embarrassment, people find themselves quite naked in a mixed assembly. But once it has learnt the trick the spirit can clothe itself at will and, as its powers increase, alter its age, sex and form as desired; all of which things de Richleau could do.

Any other astral who had been present at that moment would have seen the Duke as a handsome fellow of about thirty-five, clad in a comfortable white flowing garment with a gold key-pattern hem. He had always considered it an interesting fact that astrals who had achieved power to alter their appearance rarely gave themselves back their first youth as young men and girls of about twenty. Instead, they selected the period at which they doubtless considered they had reached true maturity, which with the men was usually the middle thirties and with the women somewhere around twenty-eight.

The Admiral's wife was moving a little restlessly, not yet asleep, but the Admiral had dropped off, and while nothing at all would have been apparent to anyone awake had they been watching the bed, the Duke could now see a shimmering phosphorescence a little above the outline of the Admiral's body. After a moment it seemed to solidify and the Admiral's astral slowly sat up.

By what might be termed a flick of the will, de Richleau changed his face to that of a boy in his early teens, for although waking mortals cannot see astrals, except in comparatively rare circumstances, astrals can see one another, and he did not want the Admiral to recognise him; but, as there is no privacy on the astral plane unless special steps are taken to ensure it, he remained where he was, knowing that the Admiral would not consider it any more surprising to find a strange astral in his bedroom than, when awake, to pass a strange person in the street.

The Admiral rose to his full height, gave a friendly nod to the Duke and passed out of the room. He was obviously
blissfully unaware that he was stark naked, but that fact immediatey informed de Richleau of one of the things he was anxious to know. The Admiral was a young soul and all but the minor mysteries of the Great Beyond still remained veiled to him.

This simplified matters considerably for the purpose of the investigation, as there are seven planes, or levels of consciousness, of which the Earth is the lowest and the normal sleep plane the next; but to ascend to each of those beyond requires ever greater degrees of power. De Richleau could achieve the fourth and had glimpsed the fifth on very rare occasions, but if the Admiral had been far advanced upon the great journey and had chosen to ascend into the realms of the greater Beatitudes, the Duke could not have followed him. The number of people living on this Earth who are capable of reaching the higher spheres is, however, extremely limited, and comparatively few ever get beyond the third plane in their nightly wanderings; while in the Admiral's case it was quite clear from his nudity that he was still held very near to Earth even when out of his body.

As the elderly lady was still turning restlessly, de Richleau compassionately made a sign above her which immediately sent her into peaceful sleep, but he did not wait to witness the materialisation of her astral and, leaving the room, floated gently after her husband.

The Admiral paused for a little above Orme Square to regard the blitzkrieg which was still in progress. Having muttered some profane things about the Nazis he shrugged his shoulders and turned east, moving at great speed. De Richleau followed with equal swiftness but keeping at some distance, and as they journeyed eastward through the night they passed many other astrals floating in the stratosphere. As their speed further increased these became only little blurs then faint streaks of light, until finally they made no impression at all on the surrounding darkness.

In less time than it takes to walk down the Haymarket they had left Earth behind, the darkness faded and the Duke saw that they were travelling in a country which he knew to be the astral equivalent of China. With the coming of full light the Admiral entered a rice field outside a town and began to walk along a path towards the nearest houses.
De Richleau followed, changing his costume and appearance as he did so to that of a middle-aged Chinaman.

There was nothing at all in the whole landscape to indicate that they were not actually in China. The ground was hard to the feet, a gentle wind was blowing and the leaves of a grove of bamboos were rustling in it. Only one thing indicated that they were, in fact, upon the astral plane, and this was that the Admiral, although stepping out with commendable vigour for one of his years, was still stark naked.

A hundred yards further on, a group of coolies were working among the bushes of a tea plantation. As the Admiral drew near they suddenly noticed him, stopped work, pointed and began to titter. Glancing down at himself he suddenly realised his plight and, evidently recalling the first trick which is learnt by a young spirit in its nightly wandering, exercised his will to good effect by clothing himself in the white tropical uniform of a British midshipman.

Soon afterwards he entered the Chinese city and the Duke followed him through numerous twisting byways until they reached a charming little house set apart in a garden. Secure from recognition in his disguise as a Chinaman, de Richleau had almost caught up with his quarry and could now see that although the Admiral's will had not proved strong enough to give him back his lost youth a good twenty years had fallen from him. He was more upright, less paunchy and appeared to be in the early forties, which, admittedly, was an advanced age for a midshipman but not too bad in view of his obvious intentions, for, having knocked upon the door of the little house, it had been opened to him by a smiling and most attractive young woman whose almond eyes and golden skin betrayed her oriental origin.

De Richleau sat down for a little while beneath a peach tree that was in blossom near the garden gate. It was reasonable to suppose that for one reason or another the Admiral now desired privacy and would therefore be putting up resistance to any other astral appearing to interrupt his
tête-à-tête
; yet it was necessary that the Duke should make quite certain that his quarry was not giving away information. He therefore left the astral plane, rising to the
next highest level of consciousness, which is as far removed from the astral as the astral is from Earth. Invisible and soundless to the Admiral now, he drifted in through an open window. At once he observed with entirely detached interest certain not altogether unexpected, and by no means original, exercises which the Midshipman-Admiral, now once more unclothed, was performing with the willing assistance of the delightful almond-eyed lady. He then discreetly withdrew, having concluded that it was now about six to four against his discovering that willingly, or unwillingly, the Admiral spent any portion of his nights in communicating Britain's secrets to her enemies.

However, the Duke was a man who believed in always making dead certain of his facts, and it was still quite on the cards that after the Admiral had rendered the girl her due he might turn his attention to more serious matters. Clearly he must be kept under supervision until he returned to his body, so de Richleau elected to while away the time of waiting by summoning a friend. Back in the street he returned to his normal form, clothing himself as a European gentleman travelling in the Tropics, then he pronounced certain words very softly, several times, and waited for a few moments.

Shortly afterwards a plump, genial-faced Roman Catholic priest came walking down the street and he and de Richleau greeted each other with evident affection. The priest was not in a state of incarnation at this time so had no mortal body, but de Richleau had known him for many centuries and had often met him in various incarnations on Earth; at one time the two of them had been twin sisters and they were devoted to each other.

There was a tea-house near by, from the verandah of which the Duke could keep an eye upon the little house where the Admiral was disporting himself, so at his suggestion they went over and, sitting down at a table, ordered tea.

Although he was pleased to see the Duke the priest at once expressed considerable concern at being called from his duties. For years past the slaughter by violence in China had been positively appalling and he was one of the many who were helping over the unenlightened spirits that were
being divorced from their bodies in hundreds, day and night. De Richleau explained his own mission and asked for the counsel of his wise friend, who replied:

‘I don't think there's any better line than the one you're taking at the moment. That your theory is correct I haven't the least doubt, as the Nazis are the strongest force for Evil which the Master of Evil has succeeded in introducing into the world for a very considerable time. Obviously many of their leaders must be well aware of that fact and must be utilising such powers as they possess to marshal the forces of Darkness to their aid. But I beg of you to be careful, my dear friend, since once you succeed in uncovering the mystic who is acting as their agent you'll almost certainly bring yourself into grave peril.'

‘I know it,' nodded the Duke; ‘but to fear anything is to open the road by which one may succumb to it.'

‘True,' nodded the other. ‘Fearlessness is our only armour; yet when the time comes the test may prove a terrible one.'

After that, while they sipped their tea, they talked casually of various acquaintances, just as though they had been on Earth. At length the door of the little house across the street opened and the middle-aged Midshipman stepped out of it to be waved away by his little Chinese girlfriend. De Richleau bade a hurried farewell to his companion and followed the Admiral at a distance.

When they had traversed a few hundred yards the Duke noticed that the scene about him was beginning to blur and grow indistinct, and having by certain means associated himself for the time being with the spirit of the Admiral, he realised that that worthy was about to leave the astral equivalent of China. They took the air almost at the same moment and again journeyed very fast through space until they reached a totally different scene. It was the quiet English countryside in summer, and soon the Duke was following the Admiral through the back gate of a garden, from the depths of which, laughing voices came to him.

They came, as he saw a few minutes later, from a tennis court about which a number of young people were assembled, and he paused to watch the scene while the Admiral went forward, now clothed in flannels and swinging
a tennis-racket, to be greeted with shouts of delight from the little crowd that were evidently his friends.

There followed rather a boring time for the Duke as the Admiral, although not a particularly good performer, played six sets of tennis with considerable vigour. De Richleau meantime had again exercised those powers that were his as an old soul far advanced upon the great upward journey and removed himself to the third level of consciousness from which he could continue to observe while remaining unobserved himself.

He was considerably relieved when the scene began to fade once more and after further travel the Admiral entered a naval dockyard where, in the uniform of a lieutenant-commander, he went on board a destroyer. It was clear that he was revelling again in the joy of his first command, since the ship was of an almost obsolete pattern, having only the most primitive wireless and no anti-aircraft guns.

The Duke became even more bored with the destroyer than he had been with the tennis-party; moreover, he was now beginning to feel the strain of remaining on the third level. Just as one can only sleep for a certain time, so the period that one can remain on any of the higher levels is limited. His power to stay at such a spiritual altitude was waning, so his only course was to return to the astral and adopt a disguise. The most suitable seemed to be that of an inconspicuous member of the crew, so he became a young A.B. whose duties kept him in the neighbourhood of the bridge. Astrals are not affected by Earth conditions but are fully conscious of the climate in any astral scene in which they may happen to be, and the weather was both cold and wet, so de Richleau could cheerfully have murdered the Admiral when he decided to take the destroyer to sea. They put out of harbour with half a gale blowing and, to the Duke's fury, he was compelled to hang about the bridge of the heaving vessel for the equivalent of many hours in Earthly time while the Admiral, apparently filled with tireless energy and boundless delight, put her through endless evolutions.

It was, therefore, with a great sigh of thankfulness that the Duke observed the Admiral suddenly stagger, rock upon his feet and grab at the bridge-rail, as the scene once more dissolved. With incredible swiftness they returned to
the bedroom in Orme Square and de Richleau saw, as he had guessed, that the Amdiral's wife had him by the shoulder and was gently shaking him, as she said: