'I could always scupper the Lo/a Monte% and retire,' he told me. ‘I’d be welcome enough in the Islands. But I'm afraid of the boredom. I once entertained the notion of writing novels, you know. I always felt I had a book or two in me. But the notion isn't as attractive as it once was - for who would read me? Who, indeed, would publish me? And I can't say I'm optimistic about writing for posterity when posterity might not even exist! No, I think you're right, Bastable. Time for a new adventure. There are still a couple of largish navies in South America and Indo-China. There are even one or two in Africa. I had hoped that one of the Scandinavian countries would employ us, but yesterday's news has scotched that scheme.'
The previous day we had heard that the armies of the Black Attila had finally reached Northern Europe and overrun the last bastions of Western culture. The stories of what had been done to the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians chilled my blood. Now black chieftains rode through the streets of Stockholm in the carriages of the murdered Royal Family and the citizens of Oslo had been enslaved, piecemeal, to build the vast generators and chemical plants required to power the mobile war machines of the Black Horde. There had been no one to enslave in Copenhagen, for the city had resisted a massive siege and now nothing remained of it but smoking rubble.
Brooding on this, Korzeniowski added a little later: "The other argument against retiring to the Islands is, of course, the rumour that the Black Attila has plans to invade Britain. If he did so, sooner or later the Highlands and Islands would be threatened.'
'I can't bear to think of that,' I said. 'But if it did happen, I would be for carrying on some sort of guerrilla war against him. We'd go under, sooner or later, but we'd have done something…'
Korzeniowski smiled. 'I have no special loyalties to Britain, Bastable. What makes you think I'd agree to such a scheme?•
I was nonplussed. Then his smile broadened. 'But I would, of course. The Scots have been good to me. If I have any sort of homeland now I suppose it is in the Outer Hebrides. However, I have a hunch that the black conquest of Britain would only be a token affair. Cicero Hood has his eye on larger spoils.'
General Cicero Hood (or so he called himself) was the military genius now known as the Black Attila. We had heard that he was not a native of Africa, at all, but had been born in Arkansas, the son of a slave. It was logical to suspect that his next main objective would be the United States of America (though 'United' meant precious little these days), if his main motive for attacking the Western nations was revenge upon the White Race for the supposed ills it had done him and his people.
I commented on the massive egotism of the man. Even his namesake had somewhat nobler motives than simple vengeance in releasing his Huns upon the world.
'Certainly,' agreed Korzeniowski, 'but there is a messianic quality about Hood. He pursues the equivalent of a religious jehad against the enslavers of his people. We have had leaders like that in Poland. You would not understand such feelings, I suppose, being British, but I think I can. Moreover, whatever your opinion of his character (and we know little of that, really), you must admit that he is something of a genius. First he united a vast number of disparate tribes and countries, fired them with his ideals, and worked with amazing speed and skill to make those ideals reality.'
I said that I did not doubt his ability as a strategist or, indeed, his intelligence, but it seemed to me that he had perverted a great gift to a mean-spirited ambition.
Korzeniowski only added: 'But then, Mr Bastable, you are not a Negro.'
I hardly saw the point of this remark, but dropped the subject, since there was nothing more I had to say on it.
It was perhaps ironic, therefore, that a couple of months later, having sounded out possible 'employers', we sailed for Bantustan with the intention of joining that country's navy. Bantustan had been better known in my own world as South Africa. It had been one of the first colonies to make a bid for independence during those pre-War years when O'Bean's inventions had released the world from poverty and ignorance. Under the leadership of a young politician of Indian parentage called Gandhi, it had succeeded in negotiating a peaceful withdrawal from the British Empire, almost without the Empire realizing what had happened. Naturally, the great wealth of Bantustan - its diamonds and its gold alone - was not something which British, Dutch and American interests had wished to give up easily, yet Gandhi had managed to placate them by offering them large shareholdings in the mines without their having to invest any further capital. Since most of the companies had been public ones, shareholders' meetings had all voted for Gandhi's schemes. Then the War had come and there was no longer any need to pay dividends to the dead and the lost. Bantustan had prospered greatly during and after the War and was well on its way to becoming an important and powerful force in the post-War political game. By building up its military strength, by signing pacts with General Hood which ensured him of important supplies of food and minerals at bargain prices, President Gandhi had protected his neutrality. Bantustan was probably one of the safest and most stable small nations in the world, and since it required our experience and our ship, it was the obvious choice for us. Moreover, we were assured, we should find no racial-istic nonsense there. Black, brown and white races lived together in harmony - a model to the rest of the world. My only reservations concerned the political system operating there. It was a republic, but a republic based upon the theories of a German dreamer and arch-Socialist called Karl Marx. This man, who in fact lived a large part of his life in a tolerant England, had made most radicals sound like the highest of High Tories, and personally I regarded his ideas as at best unrealistic and at worst morally and socially dangerous. I doubted if his main theories could have worked in any society and I expected to have quick proof of this as soon as we docked in Cape Town.
We arrived in Cape Town on 14 September 1906, and were impressed not only by a serviceable fleet of surface and underwater ships, but also a large collection of shipyards working at full capacity. For the first time I was able to see what O'Bean's world must have been like before the Wa±. A great, clean city of tall, beautiful buildings, its streets filled with gliding electric carriages, criss-crossed by public monorail lines, the skies above it full of individual airboats and large, stately airships, both commercial and military. Well-fed, well-dressed people of all colours strolled through wide, tree-lined arcades, and the London I had visited in some other 1973 seemed as far behind this Cape Town as my own London had seemed behind that London of the future.
Suddenly it did not seem to matter what political theories guided the ruling of Bantustan, for it was obvious that it scarcely mattered, so rich was the country and so contented were its people. We had no difficulty in communicating with our new colleagues, for although the official language was Bantu, everyone spoke English and many also spoke Afrikaans, which is essentially Dutch. Here there had been no South African war and as a result there had been little bitterness between the English and Dutch settlers, who had formed a peaceful alliance well before President Gandhi had risen to political power. Seeing what South Africa had become, I almost wept for the rest of the world. If only it had followed this example! I felt prepared to spend my life in the service of this country and give it my loyalty as I had once given Britain my loyalty.