The Land Leviathan (A Nomad of the Time Streams Novel) (15 page)

In contrast, the Guard of Honour which greeted us and escorted us to General Hood’s headquarters was mounted on tall, white stallions, and the carriages into which we climbed were much more familiar to me than the rest of my colleagues—for they were horse-drawn, rather like the landaus of my own world. The nodding plumes of the Lion Guard horsemen flanking us, the discipline with which they sat their mounts, reminded me graphically of that world which I so longed to return to but which, now, I was reconciled never to seeing again.

T
he Imperial Palace of New Ashanti recalled, in its impressive beauty, what I had seen of the famous Benin culture. Like so many of the other buildings, it was cylindrical and topped by a conical roof which stretched beyond the walls, umbrella-fashion, and was supported by carved pillars, forming a kind of cloister or arcade faced with ivory, gold, bronze and silver, affording shade for the many guards who surrounded it. Every modern material and architectural skill had been used in the building of the palace, yet it was undeniably African, showing hardly any evidence of European influence. I was to learn later that it had been Cicero Hood’s firm policy to encourage what he called “the practical arts” in his Empire, and to insist that their expression be distinctly African in conception. As one who had seen many foreign cities of Asia ruined by ugly European-style architecture, who regretted the passing of ethnic and traditional designs in buildings, as well as many other things, I welcomed this aspect of Hood’s rule, if no other.

Having had some experience of the petty tyrants of India, I fully expected the Black Attila to behave as they behaved and to keep us waiting for hours in his anterooms before we were granted an audience, but we were escorted rapidly through the exquisitely decorated passages of the palace and into a wide, airy hall lit from above by large windows, its walls covered with friezes and bas-reliefs of traditional African design but showing the events of the recent past in terms of the heroic struggles and triumphs of the New Ashanti Empire. Hood himself was recognizable as featuring in several scenes, including the Conquest of Scandinavia, and there were representations of land fleets, aerial battles, underwater skirmishes and the like, giving the panels a very strange appearance—a mingling of ancient and almost barbaric emotions with examples of the most modern technical achievements of mankind.

At the opposite end of the hall from the great double doors through which we entered stood a dais carpeted in zebra skin, and upon the dais (I was reminded, for a moment, of the King of East Grinstead) was placed a throne of carved ebony, its scarlet, quilted back bearing the lion motif one saw everywhere in New Kumasi.

Dressed in a casual, white tropical suit, Cicero Hood stood near his throne, looking out of a tall window. He turned when we were announced, dismissing the guards with one hand while keeping the other in his trouser pocket, crossing with a light step to a table where there had been arranged a variety of drinks and non-alcoholic beverages (Hood had doubtless been informed that there were several in our party who did not drink). He served each of us personally and then moved about the hall arranging chairs so that we might all be seated close together. No European king could have behaved with greater courtesy to guests he was determined to honour (and yet equally determined to impress, for he had made sure we saw all the outward signs of his power!).

He had taken the trouble to find out the names of each individual in our party and to know something of their interests and special responsibilities in Bantustan and he chatted easily with them, showing a good knowledge of most subjects and ready to admit ignorance where he had it. Again, I was surprised. These were by no means the swaggering ill-manners of a parvenu monarch. There had been kings and emperors in my own world who might have learned much of the art of
noblesse oblige
from the Black Attila.

He did not address me individually until he had talked for a while with the others, then he grinned at me and shook me warmly by the hand and I had the unmistakable impression that the tyrant actually
liked
me—a feeling I could not reciprocate and could not equate with my knowledge of his much-publicized hatred of the white race. My own response was polite, self-controlled, but reserved.

“I am so glad, Mr. Bastable, that you could agree to come,” he said.

“I was not aware, sir, that I had a great deal of choice,” I answered. “President Gandhi seemed to be under the impression that you had insisted on my being part of the mission.”

“I expressed the hope that you might be able to join it, certainly. After all, I must show impartiality.” This was said with a smile which doubtless he hoped would disarm me. “The token European, you know.”

Deliberately or not, he had made me feel self-conscious by referring to the colour of my skin. Even a joke had the effect of emphasizing the difference we both felt, and it would not have mattered if the man who made it had been my best friend, I should still have had the same feelings, particularly since there were no other whites in the room.

Noting my discomfort, Cicero Hood patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bastable. A remark in bad taste. But hard for the son of a slave to resist, I’m sure you’d agree.”

“It would seem to me, sir, that your own success would be sufficient to help you forget any stigma...”

“Stigma, Mr. Bastable?” His voice hardened. “I assure you that I do not feel it is a stigma. The stigma, surely, belongs to those who enslaved my people in the first place.”

It was a good point. “Perhaps you are right, sir,” I mumbled. I was no match for Hood’s intellectual swiftness.

Hood’s manner instantly became condescending again. “But you are right. I have mellowed in the last year or two, thanks, in some measure, to the good fortune I have had. I have only one goal left and then I shall be content. However, that goal is the most difficult I have set myself, and I have a feeling I shall meet strong resistance from a certain Power which has, up to now, remained neutral.”

“You mean the Australasian-Japanese Federation, sir?” This was Field Marshal Akari, the man we had elected as chief spokesman for our mission. A distinguished officer and one of President Gandhi’s oldest friends and supporters, he was owed much by Bantustan and had frequently acted as the President’s deputy in the past. “Surely they would not risk everything they have built up over the last few years? They cannot feel threatened by Ashanti!”

“I am afraid that they do, field marshal,” said Hood in a tone of the utmost regret. “It would seem that they regard the Pacific as their territory and they have had some news of my plans—I have made no secret of them—and feel that if my ships begin to sail ‘their’ ocean it will only be a matter of time before I cast greedy eyes upon their islands.”

Mrs. Nzinga, but lately Minister of Communications in Gandhi’s government, said quietly: “Then you intend to attack the United States? Is that what you mean, sir?”

Hood shrugged. “Attack is not the word I would choose, Mrs. Nzinga. My intention is to liberate the black peoples of the United States, to help them build a new and lasting civilization there. I know that I am thought of as a senseless tyrant by many—embarked upon a crazy course of genocide—a war of attrition against the whites—but I think there is a method to my ‘madness’. For too long the so-called ‘coloured’ peoples of the world have been made to feel inferior by the Europeans. In many parts of Africa an awful, soul-destroying apathy existed until I began to show those I led that the whites had no special skills, no special intelligence, no special rights to rule. My speeches against the whites were calculated, just as my nationalism was calculated. I knew that there was little time, after the war, to make the gains I had to make. I had to use crude methods to build up my resources, my territory, the confidence of those I led. I happen to believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is time the black man had a chance to run the world. I think if he can rid himself of the sickness of European logic, he can make a lasting Utopia. I admire President Gandhi, Mrs. Nzinga—though you might find that strange in a ‘bloody-handed tyrant’. I have not threatened Bantustan because I fear your military strength. I want Bantustan to continue to exist because it is a symbol to the rest of the world of an ideal state. But it is Bantustan’s
good fortune,
not any special virtue, which has made it what it is. The rest of the world is not so fortunate and if President Gandhi tried to set up his state, say, in India he would find that it would not last for long! First the world must be united—and the way to unite it is to form large empires—and the way to form large empires, I regret, madam, is by war and bloodshed—by ferocious conquest.”

“But violence will be met by violence,” said Professor Hira, whose university programme had been such a success in Bantustan. A small, tubby man, his shiny face positively glowed with emotion. “Those you conquer will, sooner or later, try to rise up against you. It is in the nature of things.”

“Risings of the sort you describe, professor,” said General Hood grimly, “are only successful where the government is weak. Tyrannies can last for centuries—have lasted for centuries—if the administration remains firmly in control. If it cultivates in itself the Stoic virtues. If it is, in its own terms, just.

“My Empire has been compared with that of Rome. The Roman Empire did not fall—it withered away when it was no longer of any use. It left behind it a heritage of philosophy alone which has continued to influence us all.”

“But you see Western thinking as having brought us to the brink of world annihilation,” I put in.

“In some ways only. That is not the point, however. I described an example. I believe that African thinking will produce a saner, more lasting civilization than that of the West.”

“You have no proof of this,” I said.

“No. But a theory must be tested to be
disproved,
Mr. Bastable. I intend to test the theory and to ensure that the test is thorough. The experiment will continue long after my death.”

There was nothing much I could reply to this without getting involved in abstractions. I subsided.

“You may see my ambitions in America as being motivated merely by revenge,” Cicero Hood continued, “but I wish to build something in the country of my birth as strong as that which I am building here. The whites of the United States are decadent— perhaps they have always been decadent. A new enthusiasm, however, can be generated amongst the blacks. I intend to put power into their hands. I intend to liberate America. Have you not heard what is happening there now? Having no real enemy to fight any longer, the whites turn, as always, upon the minorities. They wiped out the Red Indians—now they plan to wipe out the Negroes. It is the spirit of Salem—the corrupting influence of Puritanism which in itself is a perversion of the Stoic ideal— infecting what remains of a nation which could have set an example to the world, just as Bantustan now sets an example. That spirit must be exorcized for good and all. When the whites are conquered they will not be enslaved, as we were enslaved. They will be given a place in the New Ashanti Empire; they will be given a chance to
earn
their way to full equality. I shall take their power from them—but I shall not take their dignity. The two have been confused for too long. But only a black man realizes that—for he has had the
experience
during centuries of exploitation by the whites!”

It was a noble speech (even if I was skeptical of its logic), but I could not resist, at last, making a remark which General Hood was bound to find telling.

“It is possible, General Hood,” I said, “that you can convince us that your motives are idealistic, but you have told us yourself that the Australasian-Japanese Federation is not so convinced. There is every chance that they will be able to thwart your scheme. What then? You will have risked everything and achieved nothing. Why not concentrate on building Africa into a single great nation? Forget your hatred of the United States. Let it find its own solutions. The A.J.F. is probably as powerful as the Ashanti Empire...”

“Oh, probably more powerful now!” It was the clear, sweet voice of Una Persson that interrupted me. She had entered through a door behind Hood’s throne. “I have just received confirmation, General Hood, of what I suspected. O’Bean is in Tokyo. He has been there, it seems, since the outbreak of the war. He has been convinced that Ashanti represents a further threat to the world. He has been working on plans for a new fleet for nearly two years. Already a score of his ships have been built in the yards of Sydney and Melbourne and are ready to sail. Unless we mobilize immediately, there is every chance that we shall be defeated.”

General Hood’s response was unexpected. He looked first at me, then at Una Persson, then he threw back his head and he laughed long and heartily.

“Then we mobilize,” he said. “Oh, by all means—we mobilize. I am going home, Mrs. Persson. I am going home!”