The Warlord of the Air (8 page)

The doctor came up alongside as my bed bumped across the grass. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks. Where are we?”

“Don’t you recognize it? It’s Katmandu. Our headquarters are here.”

Katmandu! The last time I had seen the city it had been very distinctly an Eastern capital with architecture in the age-old style of these parts. But now in the distance, beyond the great mooring towers, I could see tall white buildings rising up and up, storey upon storey, so that it seemed they almost touched the clouds. Certainly there were Nepaulese buildings, too, but these were completely dwarfed by the soaring white piles. I noticed something else before I was lifted into the motor-van—a long ribbon of steel, raised on a series of grey pillars, which stretched away from the city and disappeared over the horizon.

“And what is that?” I asked the doctor.

He looked puzzled. “What? The monorail? Why, just a monorail, of course.”

“You mean a train runs along that single track?”

“Exactly.” He paused as he got into the van with me and the doors closed with a soft hiss of air. “You know, Bastable, your surprise is damned convincing. I wish I knew what was really wrong with you.”

I decided to propose my lie. “Could it be amnesia, doctor?” There was a soft bump as the van began to move. But I did not hear the familiar clatter of an internal-combustion engine. “What’s powering this thing?”

“What did you expect? It’s steam, of course. This is an ordinary Stanley flash-fired steamer van.”

“Not a petrol engine?”

“I should hope not! Primitive things. The steam motor is infinitely more efficient. You must know all this, Bastable. I’m not saying you’re deliberately trying to deceive me, but...”

“I think you’d better assume that I’ve forgotten everything but my name, doctor. All the rest is probably a delusion I went through. Something brought on by exposure and despair at ever being rescued. You’ll probably find I’m the survivor of a mountain climbing expedition which disappeared some time ago.”

“Yes.” He spoke in some relief. “I thought it might be mountain climbing. You can’t remember going up? What the names of the others were—things like that?”

“Afraid not.”

“Well,” he said, satisfied, “we’re beginning to make a start, at any rate.”

Eventually the van stopped and I was wheeled out again. this time onto a raised loading platform plainly designed for the purpose, through a pair of doors (which opened apparently without human agency) and into a clean, bright corridor until I reached a room which was equally clean and bright—and featureless.

“Here we are,” said the doctor.

“And here is?”

“The Churchill Hospital—named after the late Viceroy, Lord Winston. Did a lot for India, did Churchill.”

“Is that the Churchill who wrote the books? The war reports? The chap who charged with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman in ’98?”

“I think so. That was early on in his career. You certainly know your history!”

“Well, he must have settled down a lot,” I smiled, “to have become the Viceroy of India!”

The doctor offered me another strange look. “Aye, well, Captain Bastable. You’ll only be in Katmandu a day or two—until the hospital train leaves for Calcutta. I think you need a specialist in—amnesia. The nearest is at Calcutta.”

I held my tongue. I was about to wonder, aloud, if Calcutta had changed as much as Katmandu.

“And it’s peaceful, these days,” I said, “around here, is it?”

“Peaceful? I should hope so. Oh, there’s the odd bit of trouble from extreme nationalist groups from time to time, but nothing serious. There haven’t been any
wars
for, what, a hundred years.”

“My amnesia
is
bad,” I said, smiling.

He stood awkwardly at my bedside. “Aye—well... Ah!” He exclaimed in relief. “Here’s your nurse. Cheerio, Bastable. Keep your spirits up. I’ll just—” He took the nurse by her elbow and steered her outside, closing the door.

I would not be a man, with a man’s instincts, if I did not admit I had been both surprised and delighted at the appearance of my nurse. It had only been a glimpse, but it showed me just how much things had changed since 1902. The nurse’s uniform had been starched white and blue, with a stiff cap on her neatly pinned auburn hair. A fairly ordinary nurse’s uniform, save for one thing: her skirt was at least
twelve inches
clear of the floor and revealed the prettiest pair of calves, the neatest set of ankles I had ever seen off the stage of The Empire, Leicester Square! It certainly gave the nurse greater freedom of movement and was, essentially, practical. I wondered if all women were dressed in this practical and attractive way. If so, I could see unexpected pleasures arising from my unwitting trip into the future!

I
think I alarmed my nurse when she returned, for I was both embarrassed and fascinated by her appearance. It was hard to see her as an ordinary, decent—indeed, rather prim—young woman when she was, in the terms of my own day, dressed like a ballet girl! I think I must have been blushing rather noticeably, for the first thing she did was to take my pulse.

A little while later, Major Powell came in and drew up the steel-framed chair beside the bed. “Well, how are you feeling now, old chap?”

“Much better,” I said. “I think I must have amnesia.” (I had repeated this line so frequently it was almost as if I were trying to convince myself!)

“So the doc was saying. More like it. And you remember something about a mountain climbing expedition, do you?”

“I think I do remember going up the mountain,” I said truthfully.

“Splendid! It won’t take long for your memory to come back. Mind you, I’m damned interested in what you were saying. It would have been good luck for me if you really had come from 1902, what?”

I smiled weakly. “Why is that, major?”

“Would have helped my researches. I’m particularly interested in Teku Benga. It’s an enigma, you know, architecturally and historically speaking. It has no right to be there, by all logic. And the aerial photographs we’ve got of it show a mixture of architectural styles which suggests that it was for a time a meeting place for all the world’s cultures. Hard to credit, I know.”

“I agree with you, though,” I said. “And I also believe that there are some cultures represented there which existed before any sort of recorded history. They are very, very old buildings, indeed.”

“There are a few legends, of course. Remarkably few, really. Most of the Kumbalari priests were killed in the 1902 earthquake and the rest of the people are pretty ignorant. After the earthquake, they stopped talking about Teku Benga altogether and most of the oral tradition had died out by the time trained scientists went up there. I suppose that’s what you were after, eh? Looking for a clue. A damned dangerous expedition. Not one I’d like to risk, even by airship. Weather conditions change so quickly. The best-equipped expedition could get stranded.” He frowned. “It’s still funny I never read about it. I thought I’d read everything on the subject. I’ve got our records people onto you, by the way. Trying to find out what regiment you belonged to, that sort of thing. You’ll soon know who you are. Then, if you’ve relatives at home, we’ll send you back to them.”

“That’s kind of you,” I said.

“Least we could do. Are you an archaeologist, by the by? Do you remember?”

“I suppose I am in a way,” I admitted. “I seem to know a lot about the past and nothing at all about the—present.”

He laughed briefly. “Think I understand you. Same here, really. Always digging about in the past. In many ways it was a damned sight better than today, eh?”

“I could answer that if I could remember anything about today.” I laughed in turn.

“Yes, of course.” His face became serious. “You mean you know everything that happened up until the year 1902— well before you were born—and remember nothing since. It’s certainly the funniest case of amnesia I’ve ever heard of. You must have been a pretty good scholar, if your ‘memory’ is that detailed. Is there anything I can do to help trigger your memory in some way?”

“You could give me a brief outline of history since 1902.” I thought I had been very clever in leading into this.

He shrugged. “Nothing much has happened really. Seventy years of glorious peace, all in all. Damned dull.”

“No wars at all?”

“Nothing you’d call wars, no. I suppose the last scrap was the Boer War.”

“A war in South Africa, eh?”

“Yes—in 1910. Boers made a bid for independence. Had some justice to it, I gather. But we calmed them down, fought them for six months then made a lot of concessions. It was a pretty bloody war while is lasted, from all I’ve read.” He took a cigarette case from his jacket pocket. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all.”

“Care for one?”

“Thanks.” I accepted.

He grinned crookedly as he lit my cigarette with something which resembled a tinder box but which hissed—a sort of portable gas-jet, I gathered. I tried not to goggle at it as I leant forward to receive the light. “I feel like a prep-school master,” he said, putting the portable gas-jet away. “Telling you all this, I mean. Still, if it helps...”

“It really does,” I assured him. “What about the other Great Powers—France, Italy, Russia, Germany...”

“... and Japan,” he said, almost disapprovingly.

“What sort of trouble have they had with their colonies?”

“Not much. They deserve trouble, some of them, mind you. The way the Russians and the Japanese administer their Chinese territories.” He cleared his throat. “I can’t say I like their methods. Still, they can be a pretty unruly lot, the Chinese.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. “The Americans can be a bit soft—particularly in their Indo-Chinese colonies—but I’d rather see it that way than the other.”

“The Americans have colonies?”

He laughed at this. “Seem strange, does it? Cuba, Panama, Hawaii, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Korea, Taiwan—oh, yes, they’ve a fair-sized Empire all right. Not that they call it that, of course. The Greater American Commonwealth. They’ve had a rather strained relationship with France and Russia, but luckily England’s got her fill of responsibilities. Let them get on with it, say I. Our Empire—and the Pax Britannica—will outlast them all, in my opinion.”

“There were some people,” I said cautiously, “in 1902 or thereabouts, who foresaw the British Empire crumbling...”

Major Powell laughed heartily. “Crumbling, eh? You mean pessimists like Rudyard Kipling, Lloyd George, people like that? I’m afraid Kipling’s rather been discredited these days. His heart was in the right place, of course, but it seems to me he lost faith at the last minute. If he hadn’t been killed in the Boer War, he might have changed his mind, I suppose. No, I think it’s fair to say that the old Empire’s brought a stability to the world it has never known before. It’s maintained the balance of power pretty successfully— and it hasn’t done that badly for the natives, after all.”

“Katmandu has certainly changed a great deal—since 1902...”

He gave me another of his odd, wary looks. “Ah,” he said. “You know, Bastable, if I didn’t know better I could almost believe you had been on that damned mountain for seventy years. It’s pretty strange, listening to a chap as young as you talking about the past in that way.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t apologize. Not your fault. You’ll be a joy for the brain-doctors to get their teeth into, I must say!”

I smiled. “You don’t make it sound very attractive for me.” I gestured towards the window. “Would you mind raising the blind?”

He tapped a little box which lay on the bedside table. The box had three switches mounted on it. “Press this one,” he said. I did as he suggested and was amazed to see the blind wind itself slowly up, revealing a view of the white towers of Katmandu and, beyond them, a section of the airship park.

“Those ships are magnificent,” I said.

“Why, yes,” he said. “I suppose they are. Take ’em a bit for granted, you know. But the airship has done a lot for India. For the Empire, come to that—for the whole world, if you like. Faster communications. Swifter trade exchanges. Greater mobility of troops.”

“What surprises me,” I said, “is how they can stay up. I mean, those gas-bags seem made of metal.”

“Metal!” he laughed heartily. “I wish I could think you were having a joke with me, Bastable. Metal! The hulls are made of boron-fibre. It’s stronger than steel and infinitely lighter. The gas is helium. There’s some metal in the gondola sections, but mainly it’s plastic.”

“‘Plastic’—plastic what?” I asked curiously.

“Um—plastic material—it’s made of chemicals—Good God, you must have heard of plastic, man. I suppose it’s sort of rubber, but it can be made to harden at different strengths, in different forms, different degrees of pliability...”

I gave up trying to understand Major Powell. I was never much of a scientist at the best of times. I accepted the mystery of this “plastic” as I had accepted, while a schoolboy, the mysteries of electrical lighting. Still, it was a comfort to me, in the face of all these new wonders, that some things had not changed a great deal. Indeed, they had improved.

The carping critics of Imperialism in my own day would have been silenced pretty sharply if they had heard what I had just heard—and seen the evidence of prosperity and stability which I could now see from my window. I warmed with pride at that moment, and thanked Providence, for this vision of Utopia. Over the past seventy years the White Man had shouldered his burden jolly well, it seemed to me.

Major Powell stood up and went to the window, echoing my own thoughts as he stared out, his hands clasped over his swagger stick behind his back. “How those Victorians would have loved to see all this,” he murmured. “All their ideals and dreams realized so fully. But there’s still work for us to do.” He turned and looked hard at me, his face half in shadow. “And a proper study of the lessons of the past, Bastable, helps us with that work.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

He nodded. “I know I am.” He came to attention and saluted me with his swagger stick. “Well, old chap, I must be off. Duty calls.”