“But if it’s exactly the same as the one that came in second and third and fourth and they are all in time for the same edition…?”
Corker looked at him sadly. “You know, you’ve got a lot to learn about journalism. Look at it this way. News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead. We’re paid to supply news. If someone else has sent a story before us, our story isn’t news. Of course there’s color. Color is just a lot of bull’s-eyes about nothing. It’s easy to write and easy to read but it costs too much in cabling so we have to go slow on that. See?”
That afternoon Corker told William a great deal about the craft of journalism. The Francmaçon weighed anchor, swung about and steamed into the ochre hills, through the straits and out into the open sea while Corker recounted the heroic legends of Fleet Street; he told of the classic scoops and hoaxes; of the confessions wrung from hysterical suspects; of the innuendo and intricate mis-representations, the luscious detailed inventions that composed contemporary history; of the positive, daring lies that got a chap a rise of screw; how Wenlock Jakes, highest paid journalist of the United States, scooped the world with an eye-witness story of the sinking of the Lusitania four hours before she was hit; how Hitchcock, the English Jakes, straddling over his desk in London, had chronicled day by day the horrors of the Messina earthquake; how Corker himself, not three months back, had had the rare good fortune to encounter a knight’s widow trapped by the foot between lift and landing. “It was through that story I got sent here,” said Corker. “The boss promised me the first big chance that turned up. I little thought it would be this.”
Many of Corker’s anecdotes dealt with the fabulous Wenlock Jakes. “… syndicated all over America. Gets a thousand dollars a week. When he turns up in a place you can bet your life that as long as he’s there it’ll be the news center of the world.
“Why, once Jakes went out to cover a revolution in one of the Balkan capitals. He overslept in his carriage, woke up at the wrong station, didn’t know any different, got out, went straight to a hotel, and cabled off a thousand word story about barricades in the streets, flaming churches, machine guns answering the rattle of his typewriter as he wrote, a dead child, like a broken doll, spread-eagled in the deserted roadway below his window—you know.
“Well they were pretty surprised at his office, getting a story like that from the wrong country, but they trusted Jakes and splashed it in six national newspapers. That day every special in Europe got orders to rush to the new revolution. They arrived in shoals. Everything seemed quiet enough but it was as much as their jobs were worth to say so, with Jakes filing a thousand words of blood and thunder a day. So they chimed in too. Government stocks dropped, financial panic, state of emergency declared, army mobilized, famine, mutiny and in less than a week there was an honest to God revolution under way, just as Jakes had said. There’s the power of the Press for you.
“They gave Jakes the Nobel Peace Prize for his harrowing descriptions of the carnage—but that was color stuff.”
Towards the conclusion of this discourse—William took little part beyond an occasional expression of wonder—Corker began to wriggle his shoulders restlessly, to dive his hand into his bosom and scratch, to roll up his sleeve and gaze fixedly at a forearm which was rapidly becoming mottled and inflamed.
It was the fish.
*
For two days Corker’s nettle-rash grew worse, then it began to subside.
William often used to see him at his open door; he sat bare to the waist, in his pajama trousers, typing long, informative letters to his wife and dabbing himself with vinegar and water as prescribed by the ship’s doctor; often his disfigured face would appear over the gallery of the dining saloon calling petulantly for Vichy water.
“He suffers,” remarked the functionary with great complacency.
Not until they were nearing Aden did the rash cool a little and allow of Corker coming down to dinner. When he did so William hastened to consult him about a radiogram which had arrived that morning and was causing him grave bewilderment. It read:
OPPOSITION SPLASHING FRONTWARD SPEEDIEST STOP ADEN REPORTED PREPARED WARWISE FLASH FACTS BEAST.
“I can’t understand it,” said William.
“No?”
“The only thing that makes any sense is Stop Aden.”
“Yes?” Corker’s face, still brightly patterned was, metaphorically, a blank.
“What d’you think I’d better do?”
“Just what they tell you, old boy.”
“Yes, I suppose I’d better.”
“Far better.”
But William was not happy about it. “It doesn’t make any sense, read it how you will. I wonder if the operator has made a muddle somewhere,” he said at last.
“I should ask him,” said Corker, scratching. “And now if you don’t mind I must get back to the vinegar bottle.”
There had been something distinctly unmatey about his manner, William thought. Perhaps it was the itch.
*
Early next morning they arrived off Steamer Point. The stewards, in a frenzy of last minute avarice, sought to atone for ten days’ neglect with a multitude of unneeded services. The luggage was appearing on deck. The companion ladder was down, waiting the arrival of the official launch. William leaned on the taffrail gazing at the bare heap of clinker half a mile distant. It did not seem an inviting place for a long visit. There seemed no frontward splashing to oppose. The sea was dead calm and the ship’s refuse lay all round it—a bank holiday litter of horrible scraps—motionless, undisturbed except for an Arab row-boat peddling elephants of synthetic ivory. At William’s side Corker bargained raucously for the largest of these toys.
Presently the boy from the wireless room brought him a message. “Something about you,” he said and passed it on to William.
It said: COOPERATING BEAST AVOID DUPLICATION BOOT UNNATURAL.
“What does that mean?”
“It means our bosses have been getting together in London. You’re taking our special service on this Ishmaelia story. So you and I can work together after all.”
“And what is unnatural.”
“That’s our telegraphic name.” Corker completed his purchase, haggled over the exchange from francs to rupees, was handsomely cheated, and drew up his elephant on a string. Then he said casually. “By the by, have you still got that cable you had last night?”
William showed it to him.
“Shall I tell you what this says? @Opposition splashing@ means that rival papers are giving a lot of space to this story. @Frontward speediest@—go to the front as fast as you can—full stop—Aden is reported here to be prepared on a war-time footing—@Flash facts@—send them the details of this preparation at once.”
“Good heavens,” said William. “Thank you. What an extraordinary thing… It wouldn’t have done at all if I’d stayed on at Aden, would it?”
“No, brother, not at all.”
“But why didn’t you tell me this last night?”
“Brother, have some sense. Last night we were competing. It was a great chance, leaving you behind. Then the Beast would have had to take U.N. Laugh? I should have bust my pants. However they’ve fixed things up without that. Glad to have you with me on the trip, brother. And while you’re working with me, don’t go showing service messages to anybody else, see?”
Happily nursing his bakelite elephant Corker sauntered back to his cabin.
Passport officers came on board and sat in judgment in the first-class smoking-room. The passengers who were to disembark assembled to wait their turn. William and Corker passed without difficulty. They elbowed their way to the door, through the little knot of many colored, many tongued people who had emerged from the depths of the ship. Among them was a plump, dapper figure redolent of hairwash and shaving soap and expensive scent; there was a glint of jewelry in the shadows, a sparkle of reflected sunlight on t
he hairless, conical scalp. It was William’s dining companion from the blue train. They greeted one another warmly.
“I never saw you on board,” said William.
“Nor I you. I wish I had known you were with us. I would have asked you to dine with me in my little suite. I always maintain a certain privacy on the sea. One so easily forms acquaintances which become tedious later.”
“This is a long way from Antibes. What’s brought you here?”
“Warmth,” said the little man simply. “The call of the sun.”
There was a pause and, apparently, some uncertainty at the official table behind them.
“How d’you suppose this bloke pronounces his name?” asked the first passport officer.
“Search me,” said the second.
“Where’s the man with the Costa-Rican passport?” said the first passport officer, addressing the room loudly.
A Hindu who had no passport tried to claim it, was detected and held for further enquiry.
“Where’s the Costa-Rican?” said the officer again.
“Forgive me,” said William’s friend, “I have a little business to transact with these gentlemen,” and, accompanied by his valet, he stepped towards the table.
“Who’s the pansy?” asked Corker.
“Believe it or not,” William replied, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
His business seemed to take a long time. He was not at the gangway when the passengers disembarked, but as they chugged slowly to shore in the crowded tender a speed-boat shot past them in a glitter of sunlit spray, bouncing on the face of the sea and swamping their bulwarks in its wash. In it sat Cuthbert the valet, and his enigmatic master.
*
There were two nights to wait in Aden for the little ship which was to take them to Africa. William and Corker saw the stuffed mermaid and the wells of Solomon. Corker bought some Japanese shawls and a set of Benares trays; he had already acquired a number of cigarette boxes, an amber necklace and a model of Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus during his few hours in Cairo; his bedroom at the hotel was an emporium of Oriental Art. “There’s something about the East always gets me,” he said. “The missus won’t know the old home when I’ve finished with it.”
These were his recreations. In his serious hours he attempted to interview the Resident, and was rebuffed; tried the captain of a British sloop which was coaling for a cruise in the Persian Gulf; was again rebuffed; and finally spent two hours in conference with an Arab guide who for twenty rupees supplied material for a detailed cable about the defenses of the settlement. “No use our both covering it,” he said to William. “Your story had better be British unpreparedness. If it suits them, they’ll be able to work that up into something at the office. You know—@Aden the focal point of British security in the threatened area still sunk in bureaucratic lethargy@—that kind of thing.”
“Good heavens, how can I say that?”
“That’s easy, old boy. Just cable ADEN UNWARWISE.”
On the third morning they sailed for the little Italian port from which the railway led into the mountains of independent Ishmaelia.
*
In London it was the night of the Duchess of Stayle’s ball. John Boot went there because he was confident of finding Mrs. Stitch. It was the kind of party she liked. For half an hour he hunted her among the columns and arches. On all sides stood dignified and vivacious groups of the older generation. Elderly princesses sat in little pools of deportment, while the younger generation loped between buffet and ballroom in subdued and self-conscious couples. Dancing was not an important part of the entertainment; at eleven o’clock the supper-room was full of elderly, hearty eaters.
John Boot sought Mrs. Stitch high and low; soon it would be too late for she invariably went home at one; she was indeed just speaking of going when he finally ran her to earth in the Duke’s dressing-room, sitting on a bed, eating foie-gras with an ivory shoe-horn. Three elderly admirers glared at him.
“John,” she said, “how very peculiar to see you. I thought you were at the war.”
“Well, Julia, I’m afraid we must go,” said the three old boys.
“Wait for me downstairs,” said Mrs. Stitch.
“You won’t forget the Opera on Friday?” said one.
“I hope Josephine will like the jade horse,” said another.
“You will be at Alice’s on Sunday?” said the third.
When they had gone, Mrs. Stitch said: “I must go too. Just tell me in three words what happened. The last thing I heard was from Lord Copper. He telephoned to say you had left.”
“Not a word from him. It’s been very awkward.”
“The American girl?”
“Yes, exactly. We said good bye a fortnight ago. She gave me a lucky pig to wear round my neck—it was made of bog-oak from Tipperary. We were both very genuinely affected. Since then I haven’t dared go out or answer the telephone. I only came here because I knew she wouldn’t be coming.”
“Poor John. I wonder what went wrong… I like the bit about the pig very much.”
BOOK TWO
Stones £20
One
Ishmaelia, that hitherto happy commonwealth, cannot conveniently be approached from any part of the world. It lies in the North-Easterly quarter of Africa, giving color by its position and shape to the metaphor often used of it—“the Heart of the Dark Continent.” Desert, forest and swamp, frequented by furious nomads, protect its approaches from those more favored regions which the statesmen of Berlin and Geneva have put to school under European masters. An inhospitable race of squireens cultivate the highlands and pass their days in the perfect leisure which those peoples alone enjoy who are untroubled by the speculative or artistic itch.
Various courageous Europeans in the seventies of the last century came to Ishmaelia, or near it, furnished with suitable equipment of cuckoo clocks, phonographs, opera hats, draft-treaties and flags of the nations which they had been obliged to leave. They came as missionaries, ambassadors, tradesmen, prospectors, natural scientists. None returned. They were eaten, every one of them; some raw, others stewed and seasoned—according to local usage and the calendar (for the better sort of Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will not publicly eat human flesh, uncooked, in Lent, without special and costly dispensation from their bishop). Punitive expeditions suffered more harm than they inflicted and in the ’nineties humane counsels prevailed. The European powers independently decided that they did not want that profitless piece of territory; that the one thing less desirable than seeing a neighbor established there, was the trouble of taking it themselves. Accordingly, by general consent, it was ruled off the maps and its immunity guaranteed. As there was no form of government common to the peoples thus segregated, nor tie of language, history, habit or belief, they were called a Republic. A committee of jurists, drawn from the Universities, composed a constitution, providing a bicameral legislature, proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, an executive removable by the President on the recommendation of both houses, an independent judicature, religious liberty, secular education, habeas corpus, free trade, joint stock banking, chartered corporations, and numerous other agreeable features. A pious old darky named Mr. Samuel Smiles Jackson from Alabama was put in as the first President; a choice whose wisdom seemed to be confirmed by history for, forty years later, a Mr. Rathbone Jackson held his grandfather’s office in succession to his father Pankhurst, while the chief posts of the state were held by Messrs Garnett Jackson, Mander Jackson, Huxley Jackson, his uncle and brothers, and by Mrs. Athol (née Jackson) his aunt. So strong was the love which the Republic bore the family that General Elections were known as “Jackson Ngomas” wherever and whenever they were held. These, by the constitution, should have been quinquennial, but since it was found in practice that difficulty of communication rendered it impossible for the constituencies to vote simultaneously, the custom had grown up for the receiving officer and the Jackson cand
idate to visit in turn such parts of the Republic as were open to travel, and entertain the neighboring chiefs to a six days banquet at their camp, after which the stupefied aborigines recorded their votes in the secret and solemn manner prescribed by the constitution.
It had been found expedient to merge the functions of national defense and inland revenue in an office then held in the capable hands of General Gollancz Jackson; his forces were in two main companies, the Ishmaelite Mule Tax-gathering Force and the Rifle Excisemen with a small Artillery Death Duties Corps for use against the heirs of powerful noblemen; it was their job to raise the funds whose enlightened expenditure did so much to enhance President Jackson’s prestige among the rare foreign visitors to his capital. Towards the end of each financial year the General’s flying columns would lumber out into the surrounding country on the heels of the fugitive population and return in time for budget day laden with the spoils of the less nimble; coffee and hides, silver coinage, slaves, livestock and firearms would be assembled and assessed in the Government warehouses; salaries would be paid, covering in kind deposited at the bank for the national overdraft, and donations made, in the presence of the diplomatic corps, to the Jackson Non-sectarian Co-educational Technical Schools and other humane institutions. On the foundation of the League of Nations, Ishmaelia became a member.
Under this liberal and progressive regime, the Republic may be said, in some way, to have prospered. It is true that the capital city of Jacksonburg became unduly large, its alleys and cabins thronged with landless men of native and alien blood, while the country immediately surrounding it became depopulated, so that General Gollancz Jackson was obliged to start earlier and march further in search of the taxes; but on the main street there were agencies for many leading American and European firms; there was, moreover, a railway to the Red Sea coast, bringing a steady stream of manufactured imports which relieved the Ishmaelites of the need to practice their few clumsy crafts, while the adverse trade balance was rectified by an elastic system of bankruptcy law. In the remote provinces, beyond the reach of General Gollancz, the Ishmaelites followed their traditional callings of bandit, slave or gentleman of leisure, happily ignorant of their connection with the town of which a few of them, perhaps, had vaguely and incredulously heard.