THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
THE LAND LEVIATHAN
THE STEEL TSAR
Nelson Doubleday, Inc. Garden City, New York.
Michael Moorcock

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR Copyright © 1971 by Michael Moorcock
THE LAND LEVIATHAN Copyright © 1974 by Michael Moorcock
THE STEEL TSAR Copyright © 1981 by Michael Moorcock
All rights reserved
All of the characters in these books are fictitious, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
THE WARLORD OF THE AIR and THE STEEL TSAR
are published by arrangement with
DAW Books, Inc.
1633 Broadway
New York, New York 10019
THE LAND LEVIATHAN
is published by arrangement with
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
245 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10167
Printed in the United States of America

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR 1
THE LAND LEVIATHAN 157
THE STEEL TSAR 303

FOR JULIE
"The War is ceaseless. The most we can
hope for are occasional moments of
tranquility in the midst of the conflict."
—Lobkowitz

EDITOR'S NOTE
I never met my grandfather Michael Moorcock and knew
very little of him until my grandmother's death last year
when I was given a box of his papers by my father. "These
seem to be more in your line than mine," he said. "I didn't
know we had another scribbler in the family." Most of the
papers were diaries, the beginnings of essays and short
stories, some conventional Edwardian poetry—and a type-
written manuscript which, without further comment, we
publish here, perhaps a little later than he would have
hoped.
Michael Moorcock
Ladbroke Grove
London.
January 1971

Book One
HOW AN ENGLISH ARMY OFFICER
ENTERED THE
WORLD OF THE FUTURE AND
WHAT HE SAW THERE

CHAPTER I
The Opium Eater of Rowe Island
In the spring of 1903, on the advice of my physician, I had occa-
sion to visit that remote and beautiful fragment of land in the middle
of the Indian Ocean which I shall call Rowe Island. I had been over-
working and had contracted what the quacks now like to term "ex-
haustion" or even "nervous debility." In other words I was com-
pletely whacked out and needed a rest a long way away from
anywhere. I had a small interest in the mining company which is the
sole industry of the island (unless you count Religion!) and I knew
that its climate was ideal, as was its location—one of the healthiest
places in the world and fifteen hundred miles from any form of
civilisation. So I purchased my ticket, packed my boxes, bade fare-
well to my nearest and dearest, and boarded the liner which would
take me to Jakarta. From Jakarta, after a pleasant and uneventful
voyage, I took one of the company boats to Rowe Island. I had man-
aged the journey in less than a month.
Rowe Island has no business to be where it is. There is nothing
near it. There is nothing to indicate that it is there. You come upon it
suddenly, rising out of the water like the tip of some vast underwater
mountain (which, in fact, it is). It is a great wedge of volcanic rock
surrounded by a shimmering sea which resembles burnished metal
when it is still or boiling silver and molten steel when it is testy. The
rock is about twelve miles long by five miles across and is thickly
wooded in places, bare and severe in other parts. Everything goes
uphill until it reaches the top and then, on the other side of the hill,
the rock simply falls away, down and down into the sea a thousand
feet below.
Built around the harbour is a largish town which, as you approach
it, resembles nothing so much as a prosperous Devon fishing village—
until you see the Malay and Chinese buildings behind the facades of

8
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the hotels and offices which line the quayside. There is room in the
harbour for several good sized steamers and a number of sailing ves-
sels, principally native dhows and junks which are used for fishing.
Further up the hill you can see the workings of the mines which em-
ploy the greatest part of the population which is Malay and Chinese
labourers and their wives and families. Prominent on the quayside
are the warehouses and offices of the Welland Rock Phosphate Min-
ing Company and the great white and gold facade of the Royal Har-
bour Hotel of which the proprietor is one Minheer Olmeijer, a
Dutchman from Surabaya. There are also an almost ungodly number
of missions, Buddhist temples, Malay mosques and shrines of more
mysterious origin. There are several less ornate hotels than Ol-
meijer's, there are general stores, sheds and buildings which serve the
tiny railway which brings the ore down from the mountain and along
the quayside. There are three hospitals, two of which are for natives
only. I say "natives" in the loose sense. There were no natives of any
sort before the island was settled thirty years ago by the people who
founded the Welland firm; all labour was brought from the Penin-
sula, mainly from Singapore. On a hill to the south of the harbour,
standing rather aloof from the town and dominating it, is the resi-
dence of the Official Representative, Brigadier Bland, together with
the barracks which houses the small garrison of native police under
the command of a very upright servant of the Empire, Lieutenant
Allsop. Over this spick and span collection of whitewashed stucco
flies a proud Union Jack, symbol of protection and justice to all who
dwell on the island.
Unless you are fond of paying an endless succession of social calls
on the other English people, most of whom can talk only of mining
or of missions, there is not a great deal to do on Rowe Island. There
is an amateur dramatic society which puts on a play at the Official
Representative's residence every Christmas, there is a club of sorts
where one may play billiards if invited by the oldest members (I was
invited once but played rather badly). The local newspapers from
Singapore, Sarawak or Sydney are almost always at least a fortnight
old, when you can find them, the Times is a month to six weeks old
and the illustrated weeklies and monthly journals from home can be
anything up to six months old by the time you see them. This spar-
sity of up-to-date news is, of course, a very good thing for a man
recovering from exhaustion. It is hard to get hot under the collar
about a war which has been over a month or two before you read
about it or a stock market tremor which has resolved itself one way

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
9
or the other by the previous week. You are forced to relax. After all,
there is nothing you can do to alter the course of what has become
history. But it is when you have begun to recover your energy, both
mental and physical, that you begin to realise how bored you are—
and within two months this realisation had struck me most forcibly. I
began to nurse a rather evil hope that something would happen on
Rowe Island—an explosion in the mine, an earthquake, or perhaps
even a native uprising.
In this frame of mind I took to haunting the harbour, watching the
ships loading and unloading, with long lines of coolies carrying sacks
of corn and rice away from the quayside or guiding the trucks of
phosphate up the gangplanks to dump them in the empty holds. I
was surprised to see so many women doing work which in England
few would have -thought women could do! Some of these women
were quite young and some were almost beautiful. The noise was al-
most deafening when a ship or several ships were in port. Naked
brown and yellow bodies milled everywhere, like so much churning
mud, sweating in the intense heat—a heat relieved only by the breezes
off the sea.
It was on one such day that I found myself down by the harbour,
having had my lunch at Olmeijer's hotel, where I was staying, watch-
ing a steamer ease her way towards the quay, blowing her whistle at
the junks and dhows which teemed around her. Like so many of the
ships which ply that part of the world, she was sturdy but unlovely to
look upon. Her hull and superstructure were battered and needed
painting and her crew, mainly laskars, seemed as if they would have
been more at home on some Malay pirate ship. I saw the captain, an
elderly Scot, cursing at them from his bridge and bellowing incoher-
ently through a megaphone while a half-caste mate seemed to be per-
forming some peculiar, private dance of his own amongst the sea-
men. The ship was the Maria Carlson bringing provisions and, I
hoped, some mail. She berthed at last and I began to push my way
through the coolies towards her, hoping she had brought me some
letters and the journals which I had begged my brother to send me
from London.
The mooring ropes were secured, the anchor dropped and the
gangplanks lowered and then the half-caste mate, his cap on the back
of his head, his jacket open, came springing down, howling at the
coolies who gathered there waving the scraps of paper they had re-
ceived at the hiring office. As he howled he gathered up the papers

10
THE NOMAD OF TIME
and waved wildly at the ship, presumably issuing instructions. I
hailed him with my cane.
"Any mail?" I called.
"Mail? Mail?" He offered me a look of hatred and contempt
which I took for a negative reply to my question. Then he rushed
back up the gangplank and disappeared. I waited, however, in the
hope of seeing the captain and confirming with him that there was,
indeed, no mail. Then I saw a white man appear at the top of the
gangplank, pausing and staring blankly around him as if he had not
expected to find land on the other side of the rail at all. Someone
gave him a shove from behind and he staggered down the bouncing
plank, fell at the bottom and picked himself up in time to catch the
small seabag which the mate threw to him from the ship.
The man was dressed in a filthy linen suit, had no hat, no shirt. He
was unshaven and there were native sandals on his feet. I had seen
his type before. Some wretch whom the East had ruined, who had
discovered a weakness within himself which he might never have
found if he had stayed safely at home in England. As he straightened
up, however, I was startled by an expression of intense misery in his
eyes, a certain dignity of bearing which was not at all common in the
type. He shouldered his bag and began to make his way towards the
town.
"And don't try to get back aboard, mister, or the law will have
you next time!" screamed the mate of the Maria Carlson after him.
The down-and-out hardly seemed to hear. He continued to plod
along the quayside, jostled by the coolies, frantic for work.
The mate saw me and gesticulated impatiently. "No mail! No
mail!"
I decided to believe him, but called: "Who is that chap? What's he
done?"
"Stowaway," was the curt reply.
I wondered why anyone should want to stowaway on a ship bound
for Rowe Island and on impulse I turned and followed the man. For
some reason I believed him to be no ordinary derelict and he had
piqued my curiosity. Besides, my boredom was so great that I should
have welcomed any relief from it. Also I was sure that there was
something different about his eyes and his bearing and that, if I could
encourage him to confide in me, he would have an interesting story
to tell. Perhaps I felt sorry for him, too. Whatever the reason, I has-
tened to catch him up and address him.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
11
"Don't be offended," I said, "but you look to me as if you could
make some use of a square meal and maybe a drink."
"Drink?"
He turned those strange, tormented eyes on me as if he had recog-
nised me as the Devil himself. "Drink?"
"You look all up, old chap." I could hardly bear to look into that
face, so great was the agony I saw there. "You'd better come with
me.
Unresistingly, he let me lead him down the harbour road until we
reached Olmeijer's. The Indian servants in the lobby weren't happy
about my bringing in such an obvious derelict, but I led him straight
upstairs to my suite and ordered my houseboy to start a bath at
once. In the meantime I sat my guest down in my best chair and
asked him what he would like to drink.
He shrugged. "Anything. Rum?"
I poured him a stiffish shot of rum and handed him the glass. He
downed it in a couple of swallows and nodded his thanks. He sat
placidly in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, staring at the table.
His accent, though distant arid bemused, had been that of a culti-
vated man—a gentleman—and this aroused my curiosity even fur-
ther.
"Where are you from?" I asked him. "Singapore?"
"From?" He gave me an odd look and then frowned to himself.
He muttered something which I could not catch and then the house-
boy entered and told me that he had prepared the bath.
"The bath's ready," I said. "If you'd like to use it I'll be looking
out one of my suits. We're about the same size."
He rose like an automaton and followed the houseboy into the
bathroom, but then he re-emerged almost at once. "My bag," he
said.
I picked up the bag from the floor and handed it to him. He went
back into the bathroom and closed the door.
The houseboy looked curiously at me. "Is he some—some relative,
sahib?"
I laughed. "No, Ram Dass. He is just a man I found on the
quay."
Ram Dass smiled. "Aha! It is the Christian charity." He seemed
satisfied. As a recent convert (the pride of one of the local missions)
he was constantly translating all the mysterious actions of the En-
glish into good, simple Christian terms. "He is a beggar, then? You
are the Samaritan?"

12
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"I'm not sure I'm as selfless as that," I told him. "Will you fetch
one of my suits for the gentleman to put on after he has had his
bath?"
Ram Dass nodded enthusiastically. "And a shirt, and a tie, and
socks, and shoes—everything?"
I was amused. "Very well. Everything."
My guest took a very long time about his ablutions, but came out
of the bathroom at last looking much more spruce than when he had
gone in. Ram Dass had dressed him in my clothes and they fitted ex-
traordinarily well, though a little loose, for I was considerably better
fed than he. Ram Dass behind him brandished a razor as bright as
his grin. "I have shaved the gentleman, sahib!"
The man before me was a good-looking young man in his late
twenties, although there was something about the set of his features
which occasionally made him look much older. He had golden wavy
hair, a good jaw and a firm mouth. He had none of the usual signs of
weakness which I had learned to recognise in the others of his kind I
had seen. Some of the pain had gone out of his eyes, but had been re-
placed by an even more remote—even dreamy—expression. It was
Ram Dass, sniffing significantly and holding up a long, carved pipe
behind the man, who gave me the clue.
So that was it! My guest was an opium eater! He was addicted to a
drug which some had called the Curse of the Orient, which contrib-
uted much to that familiar attitude of fatalism we equate with the
East, which robbed men of their will to eat, to work, to indulge in
any of the usual pleasures with which others beguile their hours—a
drug which eventually kills them.
With an effort I managed to control any expression of horror or
pity which I might feel and said instead:
"Well, old chap, what do you say to a late lunch?"
"If you wish it," he said distantly.
"I should have thought you were hungry."
"Hungry? No."
"Well, at any rate, we'll get something brought up. Ram Dass?
Could you arrange for some food? Perhaps something cold. And tell
Mnr. Olmeijer that I shall have a guest staying the night. We'll need
sheets for the other bed and so on."
Ram Dass went away and, uninvited, my guest crossed to the side-
board and helped himself to a large whisky. He hesitated for a mo-
ment before pouring in some soda. It was almost as if he were trying
to remember how to prepare a drink.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
13
"Where were you making for when you stowed away?" I asked.
"Surely not Rowe Island?"
He turned, sipping his drink and staring through the window at the
sea beyond the harbour. "This is Rowe Island?"
"Yes. The end of the world in many respects."
"The what?" He looked at me suspiciously and I saw a hint of
that torment in his eyes again.
"I was speaking figuratively. Not much to do on Rowe Island. No-
where to go, really, except back where you came from. Where did
you come from, by the way?"
He gestured vaguely. "I see. Yes. Oh, Japan. I suppose."
"Japan? You were in the foreign service there, perhaps?"
He looked at me intently as if he thought my words had some hid-
den meaning. Then he said: "Before that, India. Yes, India before
that. I was in the Army."
"How—?" I was embarrassed. "How did you come to be aboard
the Maria Carlson—the ship which brought you here?"
He shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't remember. Since I left—since I
came back—it has been like a dream. Only the damned opium helps
me forget. Those dreams are less horrifying."
"You take opium?" I felt like a hypocrite, framing the question
like that.
"As much as I can get hold of."
"You seem to have been through some rather terrible experience,"
I said, forgetting my manners completely.
He laughed then, more in self-mockery than at me. "Yes. Yes. It
turned me mad. That's what you'd think, anyway. What's the date,
by the way?"
He was becoming more communicative as he downed his third
drink.
"It's the 29th of May," I told him.
"What year?"
"Why, 1903!"
"I knew that really. I knew it." He spoke defensively now. "1903,
of course. The beginning of a bright new century—perhaps even the
last century of the world."
From another man, I might have taken these disconnected ram-
blings to be merely the crazed utterances of the opium fiend, but
from him they seemed oddly convincing. I decided it was time to in-
troduce myself and did so.
He chose a peculiar way in which to respond to this introduction.

14
THE NOMAD OF TIME
He drew himself up and said: "This is Captain Oswald Bastable, late
of the 53rd Lancers." He smiled at this private joke and went and sat
down in an armchair near the window.
A moment later, while I was still trying to recover myself, he
turned his head and looked up at me in amusement. "I'm sorry, but
you see I'm in a mood not to try to disguise my madness. You're
very kind." He raised his glass in a salute. "I thank you. I must try to
remember my manners. I had some once. They were a fine set of
manners. Couldn't be beaten, I dare say. But I could introduce my-
self in several ways. What if I said my name was Oswald Bastable—
Airshipman."
"You fly balloons?"
"I have flown airships, sir. Ships twelve-hundred feet long which
travel at speeds in excess of one hundred miles an hour! You see. I
am mad."
"Well, I would say you were inventive, if nothing else. Where did
you fly the airships?"
"Oh, most parts of the world."
"I must be completely out of touch. I knew I was receiving the
news rather late, but I'm afraid I haven't heard of these ships. When
did you make the flight?"
Bastable's opium-filled eyes stared at me so hard that I shud-
dered.
"Would you really care to hear?" he said in a cold, small voice.
My mouth felt dry and I wondered if he were about to become vi-
olent. I moved toward the bell-rope. But he knew what was in my
mind because he laughed again and shook his head. "I won't attack
you, sir. But you see now why I smoke opium, why I know myself to
be mad. Who but a madman would claim to have flown through the
skies faster than the fastest ocean liner? Who but a madman would
claim to have done this in the year 1973 A.D.—nearly three-
quarters of a century in the future?"
"You believe that you have done this? And no one will listen to
you. Is that what makes you so bitter?"
"That? No! Why should it? It is the thought of my own folly
which torments me. I should be dead-that would be just. But instead
I am half-alive, hardly knowing one dream from another, one reality
from another."
I took his empty glass from his hand and filled it for him. "Look
here," I said. "If you will do something for me, I'll agree to listen to

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
15
what you have to say. There's precious little else for me to do, any-
way."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to eat some lunch and try to stay off the opium for a
while—until you've seen a doctor, at least. Then I want you to agree
that you'll put yourself in my care, perhaps even return with me to
England when I go back. Will you do that?"
"Perhaps." He shrugged. "But this mood could pass, I warn you.
I've never had the inclination to speak to anyone about—about the
airships and everything. Yet, perhaps history is alterable. . ."
"I don't follow you."
"If I told you what I know, what happened to me—what I saw—it
might make a difference. If you agreed to write it down, publish it, if
you could, when you got back."
"When we got back," I said firmly.
"Just as you like." His expression altered, became grim, as if his
decision had a significance I had not understood.
And so the lunch was brought up and he ate some of the cold
chicken and the salad. The meal seemed to do him good, for he be-
came more coherent.
"I'll try to begin at the beginning," he said, "and go through to the
end—telling it as it happened."
I had a large notebook and several pencils by me. In the early
days of my career I had earned my living as a Parliamentary Re-
porter and my knowledge of short-hand stood me in good stead as
Bastable began to speak.
He told me his story over the next three days, in which time we
scarcely left that room, scarcely slept. Occasionally Bastable would
revive himself by recourse to some pills he had—which he swore to
me were not opium—but I needed no other stimulant than Bastable's
story itself. The atmosphere in that hotel room became unreal as the
tale unfolded.' I began by thinking I listened to the fantastic ravings
of a madman but I ended by believing without any doubt that I had
heard the truth—or, at least, a truth. It is up to you to decide if what
follows is fiction or not. I can only assure you that Bastable said it
was not fiction and I believe, profoundly, that he was right.
Michael Moorcock
Three Chimneys
Mitcham, Surrey.
October 1904.

CHAPTER H
The Temple at Teku Benga
i don't know if you've ever been in North East India (began Basta-
ble) but if you have you'll know what I mean when I say it's the
meeting place of worlds both old and immeasurably ancient. Where
India, Nepaul, Tibet and Bhutan come together, about two hundred
miles north of Darjiling and about a hundred west of Mt. Kinchun-
maja, you'll find Kumbalari: a state which claims to be older than
Time. It's what they call a "Theocracy"—priest-ridden in the ex-
treme, full of dark superstitions and darker myths and legends, where
all gods and demons are honoured, doubtless to be on the safe side.
The people are cruel, ignorant, dirty and proud—they look down
their noses at all other races. They resent the British presence so
close to their territory and over the past couple of hundred years
we've had a spot or two of trouble with them, but never anything
much. They won't go far beyond their own borders, luckily, and their
population is kept pretty low thanks to their own various barbaric
practises. Sometimes, as on this occasion, a religious leader pops up
who convinces them of the necessity of some kind of jehad against
the British or British protected peoples, tells them they're impervious
to our bullets and so forth, and we have to go and teach them a les-
son. They are not regarded very seriously by the Army, which is
doubtless why I was put in charge of the expedition which, in 1902,
set off for the Himalayas and Kumbalari.
It was the first time I had commanded so many men and I felt my
responsibility very seriously. I had a squadron of a hundred and fifty
sowars of the impressive Punjabi Lancers and two hundred fierce,
loyal little sepoys of the 9th Ghoorka Infantry. I was intensely proud
of my army and felt that if it had had to it could have conquered the
whole of Bengal. I was, of course, the only white officer, but I was
perfectly willing to admit that the native officers were men of much

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
17
greater experience than myself and whenever possible I relied on
their advice.
My orders were to make a show of strength and, if I could, to
avoid a scrap. We just wanted to give the beggars an idea of what
they would come up against if we started to take them seriously.
Their latest leader—an old fanatic by the name of Sharan Kang—was
their King, Archbishop and C-in-C all rolled into one. Sharan Kang
had already burned one of our frontier stations and killed a couple of
detachments of Native Police. We weren't interested in vengeance,
however, but in making sure it didn't go any further.
We had some reasonably good maps and a couple of fairly trust-
worthy guides—distant kinsmen of the Ghoorkas—and we reckoned it
would take us little more than two or three days to get to Teku
Benga, which was Sharan Kang's capital, high up in the mountains
and reached by a series of narrow passes. Since we were on a diplo-
matic rather than a military mission, we showed great care in dis-
playing a flag of truce as we crossed the borders into Kumbalari,
whose bleak, snow-streaked mountains lowered down at us on all
sides.
It was not long before we had our first glimpse of some Kum-
balaris. They sat on shaggy ponies which were perched like goats on
high mountain ledges: squat, yellow-skinned warriors all swathed in
leather and sheepskin and painted iron, their slitted eyes gleaming
with hatred and suspicion. If these were not the descendants of Attila
the Hun, then they were the descendants of some even earlier warrior
folk which had fought on these slopes and gorges a thousand or two
thousand years before the Scourge of God had led his hordes East
and West, to pillage three-quarters of the known world. Like their
ancestors, these were armed with bows, lances, sabres, but they also
had a few carbines, probably of Russian origin.
Pretending to ignore these watching riders I led my soldiers up the
valley. I had a moment's surprise when a few shots rang out from
above and echoed on and on through the peaks, but the guides as-
sured me that these were merely signals to announce our arrival in
Kumbalari.
It was slow going over the rocky ground and at times we had to
dismount and lead our horses. As we climbed higher and higher the
air grew much colder and we were glad when evening came and we

18
THE NOMAD OF TIME
could make camp, light warming fires and check our maps to see
how much further we had to go.
The respective commanders of the Cavalry and the Infantry were
Risaldar Jenab Shah and Subadar J. K. Bisht, both of them veterans
of many similar expeditions. But for all their experience they were in-
clined to be warier than usual of the Kumbalaris and Subadar Bisht
advised me to put a double guard on the camp, which I did.
Subadar Bisht was worried by what he called "the smell on the
wind." He knew something about the Kumbalaris and when he spoke
of them I saw a glint of what in anyone but a Ghoorka's eyes I might
have mistaken for fear. "These are a cunning and treacherous peo-
ple, sir," he told me as we ate together in my tent, with Jenab Shah,
a silent giant, beside us. "They are the inheritors of an ancient evil—
an evil which existed before the world was born. In our tongue
Kumbalari is called The Kingdom of the Devil. Do not expect them
to honour our white flag. They will respect it only while it suits
them."
"Fair enough," I said. "But they'll have respect for our numbers
and our weapons, I dare say."
"Perhaps." Subadar Bisht looked dubious. "Unless Sharan Kang
has convinced them that they are protected by his magic. He is
known to draw much power from nameless gods and to have devils
at his command."
"Modern guns," I pointed out, "usually prove superior to the most
powerful devil, Subadar Bisht."
The Ghoorka looked grave. "Usually, Captain Bastable. And then
there is their cunning. They might try to split up our column with
various tricks—so they can attack us independently, with more
chance of success."
I accepted this. "We'll certainly be on guard against that sort of
tactic," I agreed. "But I do not think I fear their magic."
Risaldar Jenab Shah spoke soberly in his deep, rumbling voice. "It
is not so much what we fear," he said, "but what they believe." He
smoothed his gleaming black beard. "I agree with the Subadar. We
must understand that we are dealing with crazy men—reckless fa-
natics who will not count the cost of their own lives."
"The Kumbalaris hate us very much," added Subadar Bisht.
"They want to fight us. They have not attacked. This I find suspi-
cious. Could it be, sir, that they are letting us enter a trap?"
"Possibly," I replied. "But there again, Subadar Bisht, they may
simply be afraid of us—afraid of the powers of the British Raj which

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
19
will send others to punish them most severely if anything should hap-
pen to us."
"If they are certain that punishment will not come—if Sharan
Kang has convinced them thus—it will not help us." Jenab Shah
smiled grimly. "We shall be dead, Captain Bastable."
"If we waited here," Subadar Bisht suggested, "and let them ap-
proach us so that we could hear their words and watch their faces, it
would be easier for us to know what to do next."
I agreed with his logic. "Our supplies will last us an extra two
days," I said. "We will camp here for two days. If they do not come
within that time, we will continue on to Teku Benga."
Both officers were satisfied. We finished our meal and retired to
our respective tents.
And so we waited.
On the first day we saw a few riders round the bend in the pass
and we made ready to receive them. But they merely watched us for
a couple of hours before vanishing. Tension had begun to increase
markedly in the camp by the next night.
On the second day one of our scouts rode in to report that over a
hundred Kumbalaris had assembled at the far end of the pass and
were riding towards us. We assumed a defensive position and contin-
ued to wait. When they appeared they were riding slowly and
through my field glasses I saw several elaborate horse-hair standards.
Attached to one of these was a white flag. The standardbearers rode
on both sides of a red and gold litter slung between two ponies.
Remembering Subadar Bisht's words of caution, I gave the order for
our cavalry to mount. There is hardly any sight more impressive than
a hundred and fifty Punjabi Lancers with their lances at the salute.
Risaldar Jenab Shah was at my side. I offered him my glasses. He
took them and stared through them for some moments. When he
lowered them he was frowning. "Sharan Kang seems to be with
them," he said, "riding in that litter. Perhaps this is a genuine parley
party. But why so many?"
"It could be a show of strength," I said. "But he must have more
than a hundred warriors."
"It depends how many have died for religious purposes," Jenab
Shah said darkly. He turned in his saddle. "Here is Subadar Bisht.
What do you make of this, Bisht?"
The Ghoorka officer said: "Sharan Kang would not ride at their
head if they were about to charge. The Priest-Kings of Kumbalari do

20
THE NOMAD OF TIME
not fight with their warriors." He spoke with some contempt. "But I
warn you, sir, this could be a trick."
I nodded.
Both the Punjabi sowars and the Ghoorka sepoys were plainly
eager to come to grips with the Kumbalaris. "You had better remind
your men that we are here to talk peace, if possible," I said, "not to
fight."
"They will not fight," Jenab Shah said confidently, "until they
have orders to do so. Then they will fight."
The mass of Kumbalari horsemen drew closer and paused a few
hundred feet from our fines. The standardbearers broke away and,
escorting the fitter, came up to where I sat my horse at the head of
my men.
The red and gold litter was covered by curtains. I looked enquir-
ingly at the impassive faces of the standardbearers, but they said
nothing. And then at last the curtain at the front was parted from
within and I was suddenly confronting the High Priest himself. He
wore elaborate robes of brocade stitched with dozens of tiny mirrors.
On his head was a tall hat of painted leather inlaid with gold and
ivory. And beneath the peak of the hat was his wizened old face. The
face of a particularly malicious devil.
"Greetings, Sharan Kang," I said. "We are here at the command
of the great King-Emperor of Britain. We come to ask why you at-
tack his houses and kill his servants when he has offered no hostility
to you."
One of the guides began to interpret, but Sharan Kang waved his
hand impatiently. "Sharan Kang speaks English," he said in a
strange, high-pitched voice. "As he speaks all tongues. For all
tongues come from the tongue of the Kumbalari, the First, the Most
Ancient."
I must admit I felt a shiver run through me as he spoke. I could
almost believe that he was the powerful sorcerer they claimed him to
be.
"Such an ancient people must therefore also be wise." I tried to
stare back into those cruel, intelligent eyes. "And a wise people
would not anger the King-Emperor." .
"A wise people knows that it must protect itself against the wolf,"
Sharan Kang said, a faint smile curving his lips. "And the British
wolf is a singularly rapacious beast, Captain Bastable. It has eaten
well in the lands of the south and the west, has it not? Soon it will
turn its eyes towards Kumbalari."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
21
"What you mistake for a wolf is really a lion," I said, trying not to
show I was impressed by the fact that he had known my name. "A
lion which brings peace, security, justice to those it chooses to pro-
tect. A lion which knows that Kumbalari does not need its protec-
tion."
The conversation continued in these rather convoluted terms for
some time before Sharan Kang grew visibly impatient and said sud-
denly:
"Why are so many soldiers come to our land?"
"Because you attacked our frontier station and killed our men," I
said.
"Because you put your 'frontier station' inside our boundaries."
Sharan Kang made a strange gesture in the air. "We are not a greedy
people. We have no need to be. We do not hunger for land like the
Westerners, for we know that land is not important when a man's
soul is capable of ranging the universe. You may come to Teku
Benga, where all gods preside, and there I will tell you what you may
say to this upstart barbarian lion who dignifies himself with grandiose
titles."
"You are willing to discuss a treaty?"
"Yes—in Teku Benga, if you come with no more than six of your
men." He gestured, let the curtain fall, and the Utter was turned
round. The riders began to move back up the valley.
"It is a trick, sir," Bisht remarked at once. "He hopes that in sepa-
rating you from us he will cut off our army's head and thus make it
easier to attack us."
"You could be right, Subadar Bisht, but you know very well that
such a trick would not work. The Ghoorkas are not afraid to fight." I
looked back at the sepoys. "Indeed, they seem more than ready to go
into battle at this moment."
"We care nothing for death, sir—the clean battle-death. But it is
not the prospect of battle which disturbs me. In my bones I feel
something worse may happen. I know the Kumbalaris. They are a
deeply wicked people. I think what may happen to you in Teku
Benga, Captain Bastable."
I laid an affectionate hand on my Subadar's shoulder. "I am hon-
oured you should feel thus, Subadar Bisht. But it is my duty to go to
Teku Benga. I have my orders. I must settle this matter peacefully if
it is at all possible."
"But if you do not return from Teku Benga within a day, sir, we
shall advance towards the city. Then, if we are not given full evi-

22
THE NOMAD OF TIME
dence that you are alive and in good health, we shall attack Teku
Benga."
"There's nothing wrong with that plan," I agreed.
And so, with Risaldar Jenab Shah and five of his sowars, I rode
next morning for Teku Benga and saw at last the walled mountain
city into which no stranger had been admitted for a thousand years.
Of course I was suspicious of Sharan Kang. Of course I wondered
why, after a thousand years, he was willing to let foreigners defile the
holy city with their presence. But what could I do? If he said he was
willing to discuss a treaty, then I had to believe him.
I was at a loss to imagine how such a city, rearing as it did out of
the crags of the Himalayas, had been built. Its crazy spires and
domes defied the very laws of gravity. Its crooked walls followed the
line of the mountain slopes and many of the buildings looked as if
they had been plucked up and perched delicately on slivers of rock
which could scarcely support the weight of a man. Many of the roofs
and walls were decorated with complicated carvings of infinitely deli-
cate workmanship, set with jewels and precious metals, rare woods,
jade and ivory. Finials curled in on themselves and curled again.
Monstrous stone beasts glared down from a score of places on the
walls. The whole city glittered in the cold light and it did, indeed,
seem older than any architecture I had ever seen or read about. Yet,
for all its richness and its age, Teku Benga struck me as being a
rather seedy sort of place, as if it had known better days. Perhaps the
Kumbalaris had not built it. Perhaps the race which had built it had
mysteriously disappeared, as had happened elsewhere, and the Kum-
balaris had merely occupied it.
"Oof! The stench!" With his handkerchief, Risaldar Jenab Shah
fastidiously wiped his nose. "They must keep their goats and sheep
in their temples and palaces."
Teku Benga had the smell of a farm yard which had not been too
cleanly kept and the smell grew stronger as we entered the main gate
under the eyes of the glowering guards. Our horses trod irregularly
paved streets caked with dung and other refuse. No women were
present in those streets. All we saw were a few male children and a
number of warriors lounging, with apparent unconcern, by their po-
nies. We kept going, up the steeply sloping central street, lined with
nothing but temples, towards a large square in what I judged to be
the middle of the city. The temples themselves were impressively
ugly, m a style which a scholar might have called decadent Oriental

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
23
baroque. Every inch of the buildings was decorated with repre-
sentations of gods and demons from virtually every mythology in the
East. There were mixtures of Hindu and Buddhist decoration, of
Moslem and some Christian, of what I took to be Egyptian, Phoeni-
cian, Persian, even Greek, and some which were older still; but none
of these combinations was at all pleasing to the eye. At least I now
understood how it came to be called the Place Where All Gods
Preside—though they presided, it seemed to me, in rather uneasy jux-
taposition to each other.
"This is distinctly an unhealthy place," said Jenab Shah. "I will be
glad to leave it. I should not like to die here, Captain Bastable. I
would fear what would happen to my soul."
"I know what you mean. Let us hope Sharan Kang keeps his
word."
"I am not sure I heard him give his word, sir," said the Risaldar
significantly as we reached the square and reined in our horses. We
had arrived outside a huge, ornate building, much larger than the
others, but in the same sickening mixture of styles. Domes, minarets,
spiralling steeples, lattice-walls, pagoda-like terraced roofs, carved
pillars, serpent finials, fabulous monsters grinning or growling from
every corner, tigers and elephants standing guard at every doorway.
The building was predominantly coloured green and saffron, but
there was red and blue and orange and gold and some of the roofs
were overlaid with gold- or silver-leaf. It seemed the oldest temple of
them all. Behind all this was the blue Himalayan sky in which grey
and white clouds boiled. It was a sight unlike anything I had ever
previously experienced. It filled me with a sense of deep foreboding
as if I were in the presence of something not built by human hands at
all.
Slowly, from all the many doorways, saffron-robed priests began
to emerge and stand stock still, watching us from the steps and gal-
leries of the building which was Temple or Palace, or both, I could
not decide.
These priests looked little different from the warriors we had seen
earlier and they were certainly no cleaner. It occurred to me that if
the Kumbalaris disdained land, then they disliked water even more. I
remarked on this to Risaldar Jenab Shah who flung back his great
turbanned head and laughed heartily—an action which caused the
priests to frown at us in hatred and disgust. These priests were not
shaven-headed, like most priests who wore the saffron robe. These
had long hair hanging down their faces in many greasy braids and

24
THE NOMAD OF TIME
some had moustaches or beards which were plaited in a similar fash-
ion. They were a sinister, unsavoury lot. Not a few had belts or cum-
merbunds into which were stuck scabbarded swords.
We waited and they watched us. We returned their gaze, trying to
appear much less concerned than we felt. Our horses moved uneasily
under us and tossed their manes, snorting as if the stink of the city
was too much, even for them.
Then at last, borne by four priests, the golden litter appeared from
what must have been the main entrance of the temple. The curtains
were parted and there sat Sharan Kang.
He was grinning.
"I am here, Sharan Kang," I began, "to listen to anything you
wish to tell me concerning your raids on our frontier stations and to
discuss the terms of a treaty which will let us live together in peace."
Sharan Kang's grin did not falter, but I'm afraid my voice did a lit-
tle as I stared into that wrinkled, evil face. I had never before felt
convinced that I was in the presence of pure evil, but I did at that
moment.
After a moment he spoke. "I hear your words and must consider
them. Meanwhile you will be guests here"—he gestured behind him—
"here at the Temple of the Future Buddha which is also my palace.
The oldest of all these ancient buildings."
A little nervously we dismounted. The four priests picked up
Sharan Kang's litter and bore it back inside. We followed. The inte-
rior was heavy with incense and poorly lighted by sputtering bowls of
flaming oil suspended from chains fixed to the ceiling. There were no
representations of the Buddha here, however, and I supposed that
this was because the "future Buddha" had not yet been born. We fol-
lowed the litter through a system of corridors, so complicated as to
seem like a maze, until we reached a smallish chamber in which food
had been laid on a low table surrounded by cushions. Here the litter
was lowered and the attendant priests retired, apparently leaving us
alone with Sharan Kang. He gestured for us to seat ourselves on the
cushions, which we did.
"You must eat and drink," intoned Sharan Kang, "and then we
shall all feel more like talking."
After washing our hands in the silver bowls of warm water and
drying them on the silken towels, we reached, rather reluctantly, to-
wards the food. Sharan Kang helped himself to the same dishes and
began to eat heartily, which was something of a relief to us. When we

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
25
tasted the food we were glad that it did not seem poisoned, for it was
delicious.
I complimented the High Priest sincerely on his hospitality and he
accepted this graciously enough. He was beginning to seem a much
less sinister figure. In fact I was almost beginning to like him.
"It is unusual," I said, "to have a Temple which is also a Palace—
and with such a strange name, too."
"The High Priests of Kumbalari," said Sharan Kang smiling, "are
also gods, so they must live in a temple. And since the Future Bud-
dha is not yet here to take up residence, what better place than this
temple?"
"They must have been waiting a long time for him to come. How
old is this building?"
"Some parts of it are little more than fifteen hundred to two thou-
sand years old. Other parts are perhaps three to five thousand years
old. The earliest parts are much, much older than that."
I did not believe him, of course, but accepted what he said as a
typical oriental exaggeration. "And have the Kumbalaris lived here
all that time?" I asked politely.
"They have lived here a long, long time. Before that there were—
other beings . . ."
A look almost of fear came into his eyes and he smiled quickly.
"Is the food to your taste?"
"It is very rich," I said. I felt an emotion of fondness for him, as I
might have felt as a child to a kindly uncle. I looked at the others.
And that was when I became suspicious, for all had stupid, vacant
grins on their faces. And I was feeling drowsy! I shook my head, try-
ing to clear it. I got unsteadily to my feet. I shook Risaldar Jenab
Shah's shoulder. "Are you all right, Risaldar?"
He looked up at me and laughed, then nodded sagely as if I had
made some particularly wise pronouncement.
Now I understood why I had felt so well-disposed towards the
cunning old High Priest.
"You have drugged us, Sharan Kang! Why? You think any con-
cessions we make in this state will be honoured when we realise what
has been done to us? Or do you plan to mesmerise us—make us give
orders to our men which will lead them into a trap."
Sharan Kang's eyes were hard. "Sit down, captain. I have not
drugged you, I ate the food you ate. Am I drugged?"
"Possibly ..." I staggered and had to force my legs to support

26
THE NOMAD OF TIME
me. The room had begun to spin. "If you are used to the drug and
we are not. What is it? Opium?"
Sharan Kang laughed. "Opium! Opium! Why should it be, Captain
Bastable. If you are feeling sleepy it is only because you have eaten
so much of the rich food of Kumbalari. You have been living on the
simpler diet of a soldier. Why not sleep for a while and. . . ?"
My mouth was dry and my eyes were watering. Sharan Kang, mur-
muring softly, seemed to sway before me like a cobra about to strike.
Cursing him I unbuttoned my holster and drew out my revolver.
Instantly a dozen of the priests appeared, their curved swords at
the ready. I tried to aim at Sharan Kang.
"Come closer and he dies," I said thickly.
I was not sure that they understood the words, but they gathered
my meaning.
"Sharan Kang." My own voice seemed to come from a great dis-
tance away. "My men will march on Teku Benga tomorrow. If I do
not appear before them, alive and well, they will attack your city and
they will destroy it and all who live in it."
Sharan Kang only smiled. "Of course you will be alive and well,
captain. Moreover you will see things in an improved perspective, I
am sure."
"My God! You'll not mesmerise me! I'm an English officer—not
one of your ignorant followers!"
"Please rest, captain. In the morning . . ."
From the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Two more
preists were rushing me from behind. I turned and fired. One went
down. The other closed with me, trying to wrench the gun from my
grasp. I fired it and blew a great hole in him. With a cry he released
my wrist and fell writhing to the ground. Now the Punjabis were be-
side me, their own pistols drawn, doing their best to support each
other, for all were as badly drugged as was I. Jenab Shah said with
difficulty: "We must try to reach fresh air, captain. It might help.
And if we can get to our horses, we may escape. .
"You'll be fools to leave this room," said Sharan Kang evenly.
"Even we do not know every part of the maze which is the Temple
of the Future Buddha. Some say that sections of it do not even exist
in our own time. . ."
"Be silent!" I ordered, covering him again with my pistol. "I'll not
listen further to your lies."
We began to back away from Sharan Kang and his remaining
priests, our revolvers at the ready as we looked around for the en-
trance through which we had come. But all entrances looked alike.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
27
At last we chose one and staggered through it, finding ourselves in al-
most total blackness.
As we blundered about, seeking a door which would lead us out-
side, I wondered again at the reasons for Sharan Kang's drugging us.
I shall never know what his exact plans were, however.
Suddenly one of our men gave a yell and fired into the darkness.
At first I saw nothing but a blank wall. Then two or three priests
came running at us from thin air, apparently unarmed—but impervi-
ous to the man's bullets.
"Stop firing!" I rasped, convinced that this was an optical illusion.
"Follow me!" I stumbled down a flight of steps, pushed through an
awning, found myself in another chamber laid out with food—but not
the same chamber in which we had eaten. I hesitated. Was I already
in the grip of a drugged dream? I crossed the room, knocking over a
small stool as I passed the table, and dashed back a series of silk cur-
tains until I discovered an exit. With my men behind me I passed
through the archway striking my shoulders painfully as I weaved
from side to side of the corridor. Another flight of steps. Another
chamber almost exactly like the first, laid out with food. Another exit
and still another flight of steps leading downward. A passage.
I don't know for how long this useless stumbling about went on,
but it felt like an eternity. We were completely lost and our only con-
solation was that our enemies seemed to have given up their pursuit.
We were deep in an unlit part of the Temple of the Future Buddha.
There was no smell of incense here—only cold, stale air. Everything I
touched was cold; carved from rock and studded with raw jewels and
metal, every inch of the walls seemed covered in gargoyles. Some-
times my fingers would trace part of a carving and then recoil in hor-
ror at the vision which was conjured up.
The drug was still in us, but the strenuous exercise had dismissed
part of its effect. My head was beginning to clear when at last I
paused, panting, and tried to review our position.
"I think we are in an unused part of the Temple," I said, "and a
long way below the level of the street, judging by all those steps we
went down. I wonder why they haven't followed us. If we wait here
for a little while and then try to make our way back undetected, we
stand a chance of reaching our men and warning them of Sharan
Kang's treachery. Any other ideas, Risaldar?"
There was silence.
I peered into the darkness. "Risaldar?"
No reply.
I reached into my pocket and took out a box of matches. I lit one.

28
THE NOMAD OF TIME
All I saw were the horrid carvings—infinitely more disgusting than
those in the upper parts of the building. They seemed both inhuman
and unbelievably ancient. I could understand now why we had not
been followed. I dropped the match with a gasp. Where were my
men?
I risked calling out. "Risaldar? Jenab Shah?"
Still silence.
I shuddered, beginning to believe in everything I had been told
about Sharan Kang's power. I found myself stumbling forward, try-
ing to run, falling on the stone and picking myself up, running again,
insane with terror, until, completely exhausted, I fell to the deathly
cold floor of the Temple of the Future Buddha.
I might have passed out for a short while, but the next thing I
remember was a peculiar noise—unmistakably the sound of distant,
tinkling laughter. Sharan Kang? No.
I reached out, trying to touch the walls. I found only empty space
on both sides of me. I had left the corridor, I supposed, and entered
a chamber. I shivered. Again that peculiar, tinkling laughter.
And then I saw a tiny fight ahead of me. I got up and began to
move towards it, but it must have been a very long way away, for it
grew no larger.
I stopped.
Then the light began to move towards me!
And as it came closer, the sound of the unearthly laughter grew
louder until I was forced to holster my pistol and cover my ears. The
light intensified. I squeezed my eyes shut in pain. The ground be-
neath my feet began to sway. An earthquake?
I risked opening my eyes for a moment and through the blinding
white light got an impression of more inhuman carvings, or strange,
complicated things which might have been machines built by the an-
cient Hindu gods.
And then the floor seemed to give way beneath me and I was
plunging downwards, was caught by a whirlwind and hurled upward,
was tossed head over heels, dashed from side to side, hurled down-
ward again, until my senses left me altogether, save for that sensation
of bitter, bitter cold.
Then I felt nothing, not even the cold. I became convinced that I
was dead, slain by a force which had lurked below the Temple since
the beginnings of Time and which even Sharan Kang, Master Sor-
cerer of Teku Benga, had been afraid to face.
Then I ceased to think at all.

CHAPTER in
The Shadow from the Sky
Consciousness returned first as a series of vague impressions:
armies, consisting of millions of men, marching against a background
of grey and white trees; black flames burning; a young girl in a white
dress, her body pierced by dozens of long arrows. There were many
images of that sort and slowly they became stronger and the colours
grew richer and richer. I became aware of my own body. It was
colder than ice—colder even than it had been before I had passed
out. And yet, oddly, I felt no discomfort. I felt nothing—I just knew
that I was cold.
I tried to move the fingers on my right hand (I could still see noth-
ing) and thought that perhaps the index finger rose a fraction.
The images in my head grew more horrific. Corpses filled my skull
—brutally maimed corpses. Dying children stretched out their hands
to me for help. Bestial soldiers in colourless uniforms raped women.
And everywhere there was fire, black smoke, collapsing buildings. I
had to escape those images and I made a great effort to move my
arm.
At last the arm began to bend, but it was amazingly stiff. And as it
bent pain flooded through me so that I cried out—a strange, grating
noise. My eyes sprang open and at first I saw nothing but a milky
haze. I moved my neck. Again the sickening pain. But the images
were beginning to fade. I bent my leg and gasped. Suddenly fire
seemed to fill me, melting the ice which had frozen my blood. I
began to shake all over, but the pain diminished. And now I saw that
I lay on my back staring up at the blue sky. I seemed to be at the
bottom of a pit, for there were steep walls on every side.
After a very long time I was able to sit upright and inspect my sur-
roundings. I was in a pit of sorts—but a man-made pit, for the shaft
was of carved stone. The carvings were similar to those I had

30
THE NOMAD OF TIME
glimpsed fleetingly before I collapsed. In the daylight they did not
look quite so daunting, but they were ugly things nonetheless.
I smiled at my fears. Plainly there had been an earthquake and it
had shaken down the Temple of the Future Buddha. The other
things I had seen had been caused by the action of the drug on my
frightened brain. Somehow I had escaped the worst of the earth-
quake and was relatively unhurt. I doubted if Sharan Kang and his
people had been so lucky, but I had best go warily until I knew for
certain that they were not waiting for me up above. Probably poor
Risaldar Jenab Shah and the sowars had been killed in the cata-
combs. But at least Nature had done the work I had been commis-
sioned to do—the earthquake would have "pacified" even Sharan
Kang. Even if he were not dead, he would now be discredited, for
those of his people still alive would see the earthquake as a sign from
the gods.
I got to my feet, staring at my hands. They were caked with dust
that was not only thick but which seemed to have been there for
ages. And my clothes were in rags. As I slapped at the dust, bits of
cloth fell away. I fingered my jacket. The fabric seemed to have rot-
ted! I was momentarily disturbed, but then reasoned that they had
been affected by the action of some peculiar gas which filled the
deeper chambers of the temple—a gas which had perhaps combined
with the drug to make me suffer those strange hallucinations.
When I felt in slightly better shape, I began, as cautiously as I
could, to try to make my way up to the top of the pit, which was
some thirty feet above my head. I was extremely weak and frightfully
stiff and the rock was soft, often breaking away as I tested it for a
foothold. But by using the gargoyles as steps, I slowly managed to
clamber to the top of the pit, haul myself over the edge and peer cau-
tiously around me.
There was no sign of Sharan Kang or his men. Indeed, there was
no sign of life at all. Everywhere I looked I saw ruins. Not a single
building in Teku Benga had escaped the earthquake. Many of the
temples seemed to have disappeared altogether.
I stood up and began to walk over the cracked remains of the
pavements.
And then I stopped suddenly and, for the first time since I had
awakened, I realised that there was something I could not rationalise.
There were no corpses—which might have been expected if the
earthquake had occurred the previous night, as I thought. But per-
haps the people had managed to escape the city. I could accept that

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
31
What brought me up short was not that the pavements were
cracked—but that weeds grew in profusion between the cracks!
And now that I looked, there were creepers, tiny mountain
flowers, patches of heather growing everywhere on the ruins. These
ruins were old. It had been years since anyone had occupied them!
I licked my lips and tried to pull myself together. Perhaps I was
not in Teku Benga at all? Perhaps I had been carried from Sharan
Kang's city and left to die among the ruins of another city?
But this was plainly Teku Benga. I recognised the ruins of several
buildings. And there was hardly another city like Teku Benga, even
in the mysterious Himalayas.
Besides, I recognised the surrounding mountains, the distant pass
which led up to what had been the city wall. And it was obvious that
I stood in the ruins of the central square in which the Temple of the
Future Buddha had been erected.
Again I experienced a dreadful shiver of fear. Again I glanced
down at my dust-caked body, at my rotting clothes, at the weeds be-
neath my split boots, at all the evidence—evidence which mocked my
sanity—evidence to show that not hours but years had passed since I
had sought to escape the trap which Sharan Kang had set for me!
Could I still be dreaming? I asked myself. But if this were a
dream, it was unlike anything I had ever dreamed before. And one
can always tell a dream from reality, no matter how sharp and coher-
ent a dream it is. (That is what I felt then, but now I wonder, I won-
der. . .)
I seated myself on a slab of broken masonry and tried to think.
How was it possible that I could still be alive? At least two years
must have passed since the earthquake—if earthquake it were—and
while my clothes had been subjected to the normal processes of
Time, my flesh was unaffected. Could the gas I suspected as having
caused the rot have actually preserved me? It was the only explana-
tion—and a wild enough one, at that. It would take a clever scientist
to investigate the matter. I wasn't up to it. Now my job was to get
back to civilisation, contact my regiment and find out what had been
going on since I had lost consciousness.
As I clambered over the ruins I tried to force the astounding
thoughts from my brain and concentrate on my immediate problem.
But it was difficult and I still could not rid myself entirely of the idea
that I had gone quite mad.
Eventually I reached the crumbling walls and hauled my aching
body over them. Reaching the top I looked down the other side,

32
THE NOMAD OF TIME
seeking the road which had been there. But it was gone. In its place
was a yawning chasm, as if the rock had cracked wide open and the
part of the mountain on which the city had stood had moved at least
a hundred feet away from the rest. There was absolutely no way of
crossing to the other side. I began to laugh-a harsh, exhausted
cackle—and then was seized by a series of dry, racking sobs. Some-
how Fate had spared my life, only to present me with the prospect of
a lingering death as I slowly starved on this lifeless mountain.
Wearily, I lay down my head and must have slept a natural sleep
for an hour or two, for when I awoke the sun was lower in the sky. It
was about three o'clock in the afternoon.
I dragged myself to my feet, tinned and began to move back
through the ruins. I would try to get to the other side of the city and
see if there were any other means of climbing down the mountain.
All around me were the snow-capped flanks of the Himalayas:
impassive, uncaring. And above me was the pale blue sky in which
not even a hawk flew. It was almost as if I were the last creature
alive in the world.
I stopped myself from continuing this line of thought, for I knew
that madness would be the result if I did begin to reason in that way.
When I did eventually reach the far side of the city hopelessness
once again consumed me, for on all the remaining quarters there were
sheer cliffs going down several hundred feet at least. That was doubt-
less the reason for locating the city here in the first place. There was
only one approach—or had been—and it meant that Teku Benga was
safe from anything but a frontal attack. I shrugged in despair and
began to wonder which of the plants might be edible. Not that I was
hungry at that moment. I smiled bitterly. Why should I be, if I had
remained alive for at least two years? The joke made me laugh. It
was a crazy laugh. I stopped myself. The sun was beginning to set
and the air had grown cold. At length I crawled into a shelter formed
by two slabs of masonry and fell once more into a deep, dreamless
sleep.
It was dawn when I next awoke. I felt a new confidence and I had
devised a plan of sorts. My leather belt and shoulder strap had been
unaffected by time and though slightly cracked were still strong. I
would search the ruins until I found more leather. Somewhere there
must still be storechests, even the remains of the Kumbalari warriors
who had died in the earthquake. I would devote what remained of

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
33
my energy to discovering enough leather out of which I might plait a
rope. With a rope I could try to get down the mountain. And if I
died in the attempt, well, it would be no worse than the alternative
means of dying which were presented to me.
I spent the next several hours clambering in and out of the ruins,
discovering first a skeleton still dressed in the furs, iron and leather
of a Kumbalari soldier. Around his waist was wound quite a good
length of leather cord. I tested it and it was still strong. My spirits
lifting, I continued to search.
I was crouching in the ruins of one of the temples, trying to drag
out another skeleton, when I first heard the sound. At first I thought
it was a noise made by the bones scraping on the rock, but it was too
soft. Then I wondered if I were not, after all, alone in the ruins.
Could I be hearing the purr of a tiger? No—though that was more
like the sound. I stopped tugging at the skeleton and cocked my
head, trying to listen harder. A drum, perhaps? A drumbeat echoing
through the mountains? It could be fifty miles away, however. I
crawled back through the gap and as I did so a shadow began to
spread across the rubble before me. A huge, black shadow which
might have been that of an enormous bird, save that it was long, reg-
ular in shape and curved.
Again I doubted my own sanity and in some trepidation I forced
myself to look upward.
I gasped in astonishment. This was no bird, but a gigantic cigar-
shaped balloon! And yet it was like no balloon I had ever seen, for
its envelope seemed rigid—constructed of some silvery metal—and at-
tached to this envelope (not swinging from it by ropes) was a gon-
dola almost the length of the balloon itself.
What astonished me even more was the slogan, inscribed in huge
lettering on the hull:
ROYAL INDIAN AIR SERVICE
From its stern projected four triangular "wings" which resembled
nothing so much as the flat tail-fins of a whale. And painted on each
of these in shining red, white and blue was a large Union Jack.
For a moment I could only stare at the flying monster in incredu-
lous wonderment. And then I began to leap about the ruins, waving
and yelling for all I was worth!

CHAPTER IV
An Amateur Archaeologist
I must have seemed a pretty strange sight myself, with my filthy
body clad in rotting clothes, dancing and roaring like a madman
among the ruins of that ancient city, just as if I were some castaway
of old who had at last caught sight of the schooner which could save
him. But it did not look as if this schooner of the air had seen me.
Imperturbably it sailed on, heading towards the distant northern
mountains, its four great engines thumping out their smooth, regular
beat, turning the massive, whirling screws which apparently pro-
pelled the vessel.
It passed over the ruins and seemed to be continuing on its course,
as unaware of me as it might have been of a fly settling on its side.
The engines stopped. I waited tensely. What would the balloon do
next? It was still moving forward, carried on by its own momentum.
When the engines started again their sound was more high-pitched.
I sank down in despair. Possibly the flyers (assuming there were men
in the monster) had thought they had seen something but then de-
cided it was not worth stopping to investigate. A tremor ran through
the great silver bulk and then, very slowly, it began to drift back-
wards—back to where I sat panting and anxious. The screws had
been put into reverse, rather as the screws on a steamer are reversed.
Again I leapt up, my face splitting into a huge grin. I was to be
saved—even if it were by the strangest flying machine ever invented.
Soon the great bulk—the size of a small steamer itself—was over
my head, blotting out the sky. Half-crazy with joy, I continued to
wave. I heard distant shouts from above but could not distinguish the
words. A siren started to blow, but I took this to be a greeting, like a
Ship's whistle.
Then, suddenly, something dropped from the ship. I was struck

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
35
savagely in the face and smashed backwards against the rock. I
gasped for breath, unable to understand the reason for the attack or,
for that matter, what missile had been used.
Blinking, I sat up and peered around me. For yards in all direc-
tions the ruins glistened wetly—and there were several huge puddles
now in evidence. I was soaked through. Was this some rather bad
joke at my expense—their way of telling me that I needed a bath? It
seemed unlikely. Shakily, I got up, half-expecting the airship to send
down another mass of water.
But then I realised that the vessel was sinking rapidly towards the
ruins, looming low in the sky, still sounding its siren. It was lucky for
me it had not carried sand as ballast—for ballast was what that water
had been! Much lightened, the balloon was able to come to my assis-
tance more quickly.
Soon it was little more than twenty feet above me. I stared hard at
the slogan on its side, at the Union Jacks on its tail-fins. There was
no question of its reality. I had once seen an airship flown by Mr.
Santos-Dumont, but it had been a crude affair compared with this
giant. There had been a great deal of progress in the last couple of
years, I decided.
Now a circular hatch was opened in the bottom of the metal
gondola and amused British faces peered over the lip.
"Sorry about the bath, old son," called one in famliar Cockney
tones, "but we did try to warn you. Understand English?"
"I am English!" I croaked.
"Blimey! Hang on a minute." The face disappeared.
"All right," said the face, reappearing. "Stand clear there."
I stepped back nervously, expecting another drenching, but this
time a rope ladder snaked down from the hatch. I ran forward and
grabbed it in relief but as soon as my hand clasped the first rung I
heard a yell from overhead:
"Not yet! Not yet! Oh, Murphy, the idiot! The-"
I missed the rest of the oath for I was being dragged over the
rocks until I managed to let go of the rung and fall flat on my face.
The flying machine had yawed round a fraction in the sky—a fraction
being a good few feet—and laid me low for a second time! I got up
and did not attempt to grab the rope ladder again.
"We'll come down," shouted the face. "Stay where you are."
Soon two smartly dressed men clambered from the hatch and
began to descend the ladder. They were dressed in white uniforms
very similar to those worn by sailors in the tropics, though their

36
THE NOMAD OF TIME
jackets and trousers were edged with broad bands of light blue and I
did not recognise the insignia on their sleeves. I admired the casual
skill and speed with which they climbed down the swaying ladder,
paying out a rope which led upwards into the ship. When they were a
few rungs above me they tossed me the rope.
"Easy now, old son," called the man who had originally addressed
me. "Tie this round you—under your arms—and we'll take you up!
Understand?"
"I understand." Swiftly I obeyed his instructions.
"Are you secure?" called the man.
I nodded and took a good grip on the rope.
The sky "sailor" signalled to an unseen shipmate. "Haul away,
Bert!"
I heard the whine of a motor and then I was being dragged up-
wards. At first I began to spin wildly round and round and felt ap-
pallingly sick and dizzy until one of the men on the ladder leaned out
and caught my leg, steadying my ascent.
After what must have been a minute but which seemed like an
hour I was tugged over the side of the hatch and found myself in a
circular chamber about twelve feet in diameter and about eight feet
high. The chamber was made entirely of metal and rather resembled
a gun-turret in a modern ironclad.
The small engine-driven winch which had been the means of
bringing me up was now switched off by another uniformed man,
doubtless "Bert." The other two clambered aboard, gathered in the
rope ladder in an expert way, and shut the hatch with a clang, bolt-
ing it tight.
There was one other man in the chamber, standing near an oval-
shaped door. He, too, was dressed in "whites," but wore a solar
topee and had major's pips on the epaulettes of his shirt. He was a
smallish man with a sharp, vulpine face, a neat little black moustache
which he was smoothing with the end of his swagger-stick as he
peered at me, poker-faced.
After a pause, while his large, dark eyes took in my appearance
from head to toe, he said: "Welcome aboard. English are you?"
I finished removing the rope from under my arms and saluted.
"Yes, sir. Captain Oswald Bastable, sir."
"Army, eh? Bit odd, eh? I'm Major Howell, Royal Indian Air
Police—as you've probably noticed, what? This is the patrol ship
'Pericles'." He scratched his long nose with the edge of his stick.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
37
"Amazin'—amazin'. Well, we'll talk later. Sick Bay for you first, I'd
say, what?"
He opened the oval door and stood aside while the two men
helped me through.
I now found myself in a long passageway, blank on one side but
with large portholes on the other. Through the portholes I could see
the ruins of Teku Benga slowly falling away below us. At the end of
the passage was another door and, beyond the door, a corner into a
shorter passage on both sides of which were ranged more doors bear-
ing various signs. One of the signs was SICK BAY.
There were eight beds inside, none of which was occupied. There
were all the facilities of a modern hospital, including several gadgets
at whose use I could not begin to guess. I was allowed to undress
behind a screen and take a long bath in the tub I found there. Feeling
much better, I got into the pair of pyjamas (also white and sky blue)
provided and made my way to the bed which had been prepared up
at the far end of the room.
I was in something of a trance, I must admit. It was difficult to
remember that I was in a room which at this moment was probably
floating several hundred feet or more above the mountains of the
Himalayas. Occasionally there was a slight motion from side to side
or the odd bump, such as one might feel on a train, and, in fact, it
did rather feel as if I were on a train—a rather luxurious first class
express, perhaps.
After a few minutes the ship's doctor entered the room and had a
few words with the orderly who was folding up the screens. The doc-
tor was a youngish man with a great round head and a shock of red
hair. When he spoke it was in a soft Scottish accent.
"Captain Bastable is it?"
"That's right, doctor. I'm all right, I think. In my body, at any
rate."
"Your body? What d'you think's wrong with your head?"
"Frankly, sir, I think I'm probably dreaming."
"That's what we thought when you were first spotted. How on
earth did you manage to get up into those ruins? I thought it was im-
possible." As he spoke he checked my pulse, looked at my eyes and
did the usual things doctors do to you when they can't find anything
specifically wrong.
"I'm not sure you'd believe me, doctor, if I told you I rode up on
horseback," I said.

38
THE NOMAD OF TIME
He gave me a peculiar laugh and stuck a thermometer into my
mouth. "No, I don't think I would! Rode up! Ha!"
"Well," I said cautiously, after he had removed the thermometer,
"I did ride up there."
"Aye." Plainly he didn't believe me. "Possibly you think you did.
And the horse jumped that chasm, did it?"
"There wasn't a chasm there when I went there."
"No chasm-?" He laughed aloud. "My stars! No chasm! There's
always been a chasm there—for a damned long time, at any rate.
That's why we were flying over the ruins. The only way to reach
them is by airship. Major Howell's a bit of an amateur archaeologist.
He's got permission to reconnoitre this area with a view to exploring
Teku Benga some time. He knows more about the lost civilisations
of the Himalayas than anyone. He's a scholar, our Major Howell."
"I'd hardly count Kumbalari as a lost civilisation," I said. "Not
in the strict sense. That earthquake could only have happened a cou-
ple of years ago, surely. That's when I went there."
"Two years ago? You've been in that God-forsaken place for two
years? You poor fellow. But you're remarkably fit on it, I'll say
that." He frowned suddenly. "Earthquake? I haven't heard of an
earthquake in Teku Benga. Mind you . . ."
"There hasn't been an earthquake in Teku Benga in living mem-
ory." It was the sharp, precise voice of Major Howell who had come
in as we talked. He looked at me with a certain wary curiosity. "And
I very much doubt that anyone could live there for two years.
There's nothing to eat, for one thing. On the other hand, there's no
other explanation as to how you got there—unless a private expedi-
tion I haven't heard about flew there two years ago."
It was my turn to smile. "Hardly likely, sir. No ship of this kind
existed two years ago. In fact, it's remarkable how. .
"I think you had better check him up here, Jim," said Major How-
ell tapping his head with his stick. "The poor chap's lost all sense
of time—or something. What was the date when you left for Teku
Benga, Captain Bastable?"
"June Twenty-fifth, sir."
"Um. And what year?"
"Why, 1902, sir."
The doctor and the major stared at each other in some concern.
"That's when the earthquake happened, all right," Major Howell
said quietly. "1902. Almost everyone killed. And there were some
English soldiers there . . . Oh, by God! This is ridiculous!" He re-

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
39
turned his attention to me. "You are in a serious condition, young
man. I wouldn't call it amnesia—but some sort of false memory.
Mind playing you tricks, um? Maybe you've read a lot of history, eh,
like me? Perhaps you're an amateur archaeologist, too? Well, I ex-
pect we can soon cure you and learn what really happened."
"What's so odd about my story, major?"
"Well, for one thing, old chap, you're a bit too well-preserved to
have gone up to Teku Benga in 1902. That was over seventy years
ago. This is July the Fifteenth. The year, I'm afraid, is 1973. A.D.,
of course. Does that ring a bell?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, major. But I'll agree with you on one
thing. I'm obviously completely insane."
"Let's hope it's not permanent," smiled the doctor. "Probably
been reading a bit too much H. G. Wells, eh?"

CHAPTER V
My First Sight of Utopia
Evidently out of a mistaken sense of kindness, both the doctor
and Major Howell left me alone. I had received a hypodermic injec-
tion containing some kind of drug which made me drowsy, but I
could not sleep. I had become totally convinced now that some pecu-
liar force in the catacombs of the Temple of the Future Buddha had
propelled me through Time. I knew that it was true. I knew that I
was not mad. Indeed, if I were mad, then there would be little point
in fighting such a detailed and consistent delusion—I might just as
well accept it. But now I wanted more information about the world
into which I had been plunged. I wanted to discuss the possibilities
with the doctor and the major. I wanted to know if there were any
evidence of such a thing having happened before—any unexplained
reports of men who claimed to have come from another age. At this
thought I became depressed. Doubtless there were other accounts.
And doubtless, too, those men had been considered mad and com-
mitted to lunatic asylums, or charlatans and committed to prison. If I
were to remain free to see more of this world of the Future, to dis-
cover, if I could, a means of returning to my own time, then it would
not do for me to make too strong a claim for the truth. It would be
better for me to affect amnesia. That they would understand better.
And if they could invent an explanation as to how I came to be in
the ruins of Teku Benga seventy years after the last man had been
able to set foot there, then good luck to them!
Feeling much happier about the whole thing, having made my de-
cision, I settled back in the pillows and fell into a doze.
"The ship's about to land, sir."
It was the voice of the orderly which wakened me from my trance.
I struggled up in the bed, but he put a restraining hand on me.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
41
"Don't worry, sir. Just lie back and enjoy the ride. We're transferring
you to the hospital as soon as we're safely moored. Just wanted to let
you know."
"Thanks," I said weakly.
"You must have been through it, sir," said the orderly sympa-
thetically. "Mountain climbing is a tricky business in that sort of
country."
"Who told you I'd been mountain climbing?"
He was confused. "Well, nobody, sir. We just thought . . . Well,
it was the obvious explanation."
"The obvious explanation? Yes, why not? Thank you again, or-
derly."
He frowned as he turned away. "Don't mention it, sir."
A little while later they began to remove the bolts which had fixed
the bed to the deck. I had hardly been aware—save for a slight sink-
ing sensation and a few tremors—that the ship had landed. I was
wheeled along the corridors until we reached what I guessed to be
the middle of the ship. Here huge folding doors had been lowered to
form steps to the ground and a ramp had been laid over the steps to
make it possible to wheel my bed down.
We emerged into clear, warm air and the bed bumped a trifle as it
was wheeled over flattened grass to what was plainly a hospital van,
for it had large red crosses painted on its white sides. The van was
motorised, by the look of it. There were no horses in evidence. Glanc-
ing around me I received my second shock of pure astonishment at
the sight which now met my gaze. Dotted about a vast field were a
number of towers, smaller than, but strongly resembling, the Eiffel
Tower in Paris. About half of these towers were in use—great pyra-
mids of steel girders to which were moored the best part of a dozen
airships, most of which were considerably larger than the giant in
which I had been brought! It was obvious that not all the flying mon-
sters were military vessels. Some were commercial, having the names
of their lines painted on their sides and decorated rather more elabo-
rately than, for instance, the "Pericles."
The doctor came up alongside as my bed bumped across the grass.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better, thanks. Where are we?"
"Don't you recognise it? It's Katmandu. Our headquarters are
here."
Katmandu! The last time I had seen the city it had been very dis-

42
THE NOMAD OF TIME
tinctly 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 Nepalese 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 disap-
peared 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 fa-
miliar 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 expedi-
tion 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

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
43
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 Win-
ston. 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 be-
come 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 hospi-
tal train leaves for Calcutta. I think you need a specialist in—am-
nesia. 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 seri-
ous. 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 ex-
claimed 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!

44
THE NOMAD OF TIME
I think I alarmed my nurse when she returned, for I was both em-
barrassed 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 Howell 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 some-
thing 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 histori-
cally 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 was 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 air-
ship. Weather conditions change so quickly. The best equipped expe-
dition 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 regi-
ment you belonged to, that sort of thing. You'll soon know who you

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
45
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 better 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 jus-
tice 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 it 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.

46
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"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 terri-
tories." 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, Vietnam, 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 there-
abouts, who foresaw the British Empire crumbling. . ."
Major Howell laughed heartily. "Crumbling, eh? You mean pessi-
mists 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 had 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 apologise. 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 ges-
tured 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,

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
47
revealing a view of the white towers of Katmandu and, beyond them,
a section of the airship park.
"The towers are truly an impressive sight," 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 com-
munications. 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 hav-
ing 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 Howell. I was never much of
a scientist at the best of times. I accepted the mystery of this "plas-
tic" 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 the 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 Howell 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 realised 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."
He began to walk towards the door.

48
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Then something happened. A dull thump which seemed to shake
the whole building. In the distance I heard sirens sounding, bells
ringing.
Major Howell's face was suddenly grim and white and his dark
eyes blazed with anger.
"What is it, Major?"
"Bomb."
"Here?"
"Anarchists. Madmen. European troublemakers, almost certainly.
Not the Indians at all. Germans—Russians—Jews, they've all got a
vested interest in the disruption of order."
He ran from the room. Duty was indeed calling him now.
The sudden change from tranquillity to violence had taken my
breath away. I lay back in the bed trying to see what was happening
outside. I saw an army motor race across the airpark. I heard the
sound of another far-off explosion. Who on earth could be insane
enough to plot the destruction of such a Utopia as this?

CHAPTER VI
A Man Without A Purpose
There was little point in speculating about the causes of the ex-
plosions any more than there was in brooding about how I had man-
aged to move through Time to 1973. The events which followed the
bomb incidents in Katmandu moved rapidly for me as I was shifted
about the world, a bit like a rare museum specimen. The next morn-
ing I was bundled aboard the "Monorail" train for Calcutta. The
train was shaped rather like an airship itself—though this was truly of
steel, all gleaming with brasswork and new paint—and it pulled fifty
carriages behind it at a terrifying speed touching almost a hundred
miles an hour on some straight sections of its raised track. The mo-
tive power for this incredible machine was, I learned, electricity.
Making a few short stops, we had reached Calcutta within the day!
My impression of Calcutta was of a vast city—much larger in area
than the Calcutta we know—with gleaming towers of concrete, glass
and steel dwarfing anything I had earlier marvelled at in Katmandu.
In Calcutta General Hospital I was tested by a score of experts, all of
whom pronounced themselves baffled, and it was decided to ship me,
post-haste, to England by the first available airship. The thought of
sailing such a huge distance through the sky filled me with some per-
turbation—I still could not get used to accepting that a material lighter
than steel could yet be stronger than steel and it was also difficult to
conceive of Man's ability to fly six thousand miles without once
landing.
The authorities preferred me in England for a number of reasons,
but one of them was, of course, that they had been unable to trace a
Captain Oswald Bastable as missing from any British regiment in the
last decade. They had, however, checked the records of my own regi-
ment back to 1902 and discovered, naturally, that a Captain Basta-
ble had been killed in Teku Benga. I was not, now, just a puzzle for

50
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the doctors but a problem for army intelligence who were curious to
know how the "Mystery Man" (as they called me) could have as-
sumed the identity of someone who had been dead for seventy years.
I think they suspected that I might be some sort of foreign spy, but
their notions were as vague as mine on that score, I later learned.
And so I took passage on the great liner of the clouds, the A.S.
(for Air Ship) Light of Dresden, a commercial vessel owned jointly
by the German firm of Krupp Luftschifahrt A.G. and the British firm
of Vickers Imperial Airways. As far as registration was concerned,
the Light of Dresden was completely British and bore the appro-
priate insignia on her tail-fins, but the captain was a German as were
at least half the crew. The Germans, it had emerged, had been the
first to develop airship flight on any sort of scale and for some time
the now defunct Zeppelin Company had led the world in airship de-
velopment, until Britain and America, working together, had in-
vented the boron-fibre hull and a method of raising and lowering the
ships in the air without recourse to ballast, as such. The Light of
Dresden was equipped with this device, which involved both heating
and cooling the helium gas at great speed and intensity. The massive
liner also had the latest example of an electrically powered mechani-
cal calculating machine which the people of 1973 called a "com-
puter" and which was capable of correcting the ship's trim automat-
ically, without recourse to human involvement. The nature of the
engine I could never quite determine. It was a single huge gas turbine
engine which powered a gigantic single screw—or more properly
"propeller"—at the back of the ship. This screw was housed within
the span of the great tail-fins. There were subsidiary oil-driven en-
gines which helped adjust the ship's trim and which could swivel
through 360° and which were variably pitched and reversible, able to
push the ship upward or downward.
But I have not really described the most immediately impressive
feature of this mighty ship of the air and that was that she was well
over a thousand feet long and three hundred feet high (much of this
bulk being, of course, her great gas-container). She had three decks,
one beneath the other, arranged with the First Class Deck at the bot-
tom and the Third Class Deck at the top. This single great gondola
was, in fact, indivisible with the "hull" (as the gas-bag was called).
At the front, in the ship's tapering nose, was the control bridge
where, for all the delicate machinery "thinking" for the ship, there
were more than a dozen officers on duty at any one time.
The Light of Dresden needed three mooring masts to keep her

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
51
safely near the ground and, when I first glimpsed her at the Calcutta
Airpark (which was, in fact, about ten miles from the city) I gasped,
for she made all the other ships—and there were some largish ones
moored nearby—look like minnows surrounding a whale. I had al-
ready heard that she could carry 400 passengers and fifty tons of
cargo without trouble. When I saw her, I believed it.
I went aboard the airship via a lift which bore me and several
other passengers up through the metal cage which was the mooring
mast and set us off level with a covered catwalk leading into the pas-
sage below the ship's bridge. I was travelling First Class with my
"guide," a Lt. Jagger, into whose keeping I had been put until we
reached London. The amenities on the ship were astonishingly luxu-
rious and put to shame anything to be found on the finest ocean
liners of our own time. I began to relax somewhat as I looked around
me. And when, later, the Light of Dresden let go her moorings and
began to sweep with magnificent dignity into the sky, I felt almost
safer than I had felt on land.
The journey from Calcutta to London took, with short stops at
Karachi and Aden, 72 hours! Three days in which we had sailed over
India, Africa, and Europe, over three great oceans, through most
kinds of weather. I had seen cities laid out before me. I had seen des-
erts, mountains, forests, all speeding past below. I had seen clouds
which resembled organic objects. I had been above the clouds when
it had rained, drifting tranquilly in a blue, sunny sky while the people
below were drenched! I had eaten luncheon at a table as steady as a
table at the Ritz (and laid with a meal almost as good as one would
receive there) while we crossed the Arabian Sea and I had enjoyed
my dinner while flying high above the burning sands of the Sahara
Desert!
By the time we got to London, I had become quite blase about
flying. It was certainly the most comfortable form of travel I had ever
experienced—and also the most civilised.
I was, I will admit, beginning to count myself the luckiest man in
the history of the world. I had been taken from the grip of a deadly
earthquake in 1902 and placed in the lap of luxury in 1973—a world
which appeared to have solved most of its problems. Was not that
the best kind—the most unbelievable kind—of good fortune. I thought
so then, I must admit. I was yet to meet Korzeniowski and the
otjiers. . .
I apologise for the digression. I must try to tell my story as it hap-

52
THE NOMAD OF TIME
pened, give you an idea of my feelings at the time things were hap-
pening, not what I felt about everything later.
Well, at sunset of our third day, we crossed the channel and I had
the experience of seeing the white cliffs of Dover far below me.
Shortly after that we circled over the indescribably immense airpark
at Croydon in Surrey and began our mooring manoeuvres. Croydon
was the main airpark for London because, naturally, a big airpark
can hardly be placed in the middle of Piccadilly. The Croydon Air-
park was, I discovered later, the largest in the world and had a cir-
cumference of nearly twelve miles. The airpark was crowded, need-
less to say, with scores of airships both large and small, commercial
and military, old and new. Those of us who had journeyed all the
way from India had no need to pass the Customs inspection and we
went through the reception buildings and took our places on the spe-
cial monorail train for London. Once again I was dazed by all that
was going on and was grateful for the steady, solid presence of Lieu-
tenant Michael Jagger who steered me to my seat and took his place
beside me.
Lt. Jagger had purchased a newspaper at Croydon and he offered it
to me. I accepted gratefully. The size of the paper and the type were
unfamiliar, as were some of the abbreviations, but I gathered the gist
of most that was printed. It was the first newspaper I had seen since
arriving in 1973.1 had ten minutes to scan it before we reached Lon-
don. In that time I learned of a new treaty which had been signed by
all the Great Powers, guaranteeing a fixed scale of tariffs on many
goods (how those Free Traders would have hated this!) and the rec-
ognition of various general laws, applying to all countries and their
citizens. It would no longer be possible in the future, the newspaper
told me, for a criminal to commit a crime in Taiwan and escape
across the sea to, for instance, Japanese Manchuria or even British
Canton. The law, it appeared, had been agreed on unanimously by
all the Great Powers, and had been inspired by the increasing inci-
dence of lawlessness created by groups of Nihilists, Anarchists or
Socialists who, the paper informed me, were bent only upon destruc-
tion for its own sake. There were other news reports, some of which
I could barely understand and others of a slight nature. But I read
over the reference to nihilists for it had some relation to what I had
experienced on my first day in the hospital at Katmandu. As the
paper suggested, these acts of violence seemed totally without logical
point in a world which was steadily marching towards peace, order

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
53
and justice for all. What could these madmen want? Some, of
course, were native nationalists who demanded dominion status
rather before they were ready for it. But the others—what did they
demand? How is it possible to improve Utopia? I thought wonder-
ingly.
And then we had arrived at Victoria Station which, in its main
features, was little changed from the Victoria Station I had known in
1902.
As we disembarked from the monorail train and walked towards
the exit I saw that, though it was night, the city was alive with light!
Electrical illuminations of all imaginable colours and combina-
tions of colours blossomed from every slender tower and massive
dome. Brightly lit ramps bore motor traffic around these towers on
many levels, winding up and down as if supported on the very air it-
self.
In this London there were no ugly billboards, no illuminated ad-
vertisements, no tasteless slogans and, as we climbed into the steam-
brougham and began to move along one of the ramps, I realised that
there were no seedy slums of the sort found in many parts of the
London I had known in 1902. Poverty had been banished! Disease
had been exiled! Misery must surely be unknown!
I hope I have managed to convey some of the elation I experi-
enced when first encountering the London of 1973. There is no ques-
tion of its beauty, its cleanliness, its marvellously ordered civic ame-
nities. There is no question that the people were well fed, cheerful,
expensively dressed and, all in all, very much satisfied with their lot.
During the next day or so I was taken around London by a Doctor
Peters who hoped that some familiar sight might awaken my brain
from its sleep. I went through with this charade because there was
precious little else I could do. Eventually, I knew, they would give
up. I would then be free to choose a profession—perhaps rejoin the
army, since I was used to army life. But until that time I was a man
without a purpose and I might just as well do what others wanted me
to do. Everywhere I went I was amazed at the change which had
taken place in that once dirty, fog-bound city. Fog was a thing of the
past and the air was clean and sharp. Trees and shrubs and flowers
grew wherever there was a space to plant them. Butterflies and birds
flew about in great profusion. Fountains played in pretty squares and
sometimes we would come upon a brass band entertaining the public,
or a conjurer, or a Punch and Judy show, or some nigger minstrels.
Not all the old buildings had gone. As fresh and clean as if they had

54
THE NOMAD OF TIME
just been built I saw Tower Bridge and the Tower of London itself,
St. Paul's, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace (where
a new King Edward—King Edward VIII, now quite an old man—had
his residence). The British people were, as always, accepting the best
of the new and conserving the best of the old.
I began to see my visit to 1973 as a wonderful holiday. A holiday
which, if I were lucky, might go on forever.

Book Two
MORE STRANGE EVENTS
—A REVELATION—
AND SEVERAL DISASTERS!

CHAPTER I
A Question of Employment
Over the next six months I must admit that I led a life of ease. I
continued to feign amnesia and, naturally enough, nothing the doc-
tors could do would bring back my "memory." Sometimes it even
seemed to me that the world of 1902 had been nothing more than an
extremely detailed dream. At first this worried me, but eventually
it no longer came to matter to me in which period of time I
"belonged."
I was regarded as something of a phenomenon and, for a short
time, was a celebrity. Newspaper articles were written about my mys-
terious appearance in the Himalayan mountains and the speculation,
particularly in the farthing press, grew wilder and wilder. Some of
those articles were so fanciful that they even touched on the truth! I
was interviewed for the kinematograph (whose coloured pictures
could now talk as well as move), for the Marconiphone—now a ver-
sion of the telephone which, from central stations, broadcast news re-
ports, plays and popular music to almost every home where the re-
ceivers were amplified so that they no longer had to be lifted to the
ear, but could be heard from another room if desired. I attended a
reception at which the Liberal Prime Minister was present (the Lib-
erals had been in office for over thirty years and the Conservatives
were very much a party in decline) and learned that Socialist agita-
tion in the late 19 th and early 20th centuries had actually had a good
effect on saner political parties, like the Liberals—had, in fact, given
a certain amount of impetus to many of the social improvements I
had witnessed. Only recently had the serpent of Socialism—almost
incredibly—begun to rear its head again in political life. Not that the
creed had any support from the British people. As usual a few fa-
natics and neurotic intellectuals used it as a means of rationalising
their own insane dreams.

<58
THE NOMAD OF TIME
During this first six months I was taken by monorail, or airship, or
steamer or electrical carriage to all parts of Britain and, of course,
little was recognisable. All major cities were modelled on similar
lines to London and there was constant and rapid movement between
these great "conurbations" as they were called. Where Trade had en-
couraged improvements in travel and communications, these benefits
had now been extended to everyone for their convenience and their
pleasure.
The population had risen considerably, but the working man was
as well-to-do as many middle-class people of 1902 and he had only
to work a 30-hour week to keep himself in virtual luxury. And there
was no problem of finding a well-appointed house to live in or a job
of work to do, for the excess population of the nation was more than
willing to expand beyond the British Isles. Every year thousands left
to go out to all corners of the Empire: to Africa, to India, to the pro-
tectorates in China or the dominions of Australia, New Zealand and
Canada. All over the world the British were settling and administer-
ing—and so civilising—even the most inaccessible areas, thanks to the
invention of the airship.
At home, rural England was unspoiled and as lovely as it had ever
been. No steam locomotives cast palls of smoke over trees and
plants, and advertisement hoardings had long-since been abolished,
as had all the uglier features of English life at the beginnings of the
20th century. Electrically-driven bicycles were available to those of
the most modest income and it meant that town people could enjoy
the pleasures of the countryside whenever they desired. Prices were
low and wages were high (some skilled workmen getting as much as
£5 per week) and if one had a few extra sovereigns to spare, then
an air trip to France or Germany was often in order. By a little dili-
gent saving, the man in the street could even afford passage by air-
ship to visit relatives in the more distant lands of the Empire. And as
for the seamier side of life, well, there was hardly any at all, for the
social and moral evils which had created them had been abolished.
The Suffragettes of my own day would have been happy to hear that
women over thirty now had the vote and there was talk of extending
the franchise to women of twenty-one. The length of girls' frocks, in-
cidentally, was if anything shorter in London than the first I had seen
in Katmandu. After some months I managed to work up courage to
invite one or two pretty girls to the theatre or to a concert. Usually
these were the daughters of the doctors or army officers with whom I
spent my leisure time and, by our standards, the girls were rather

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<59
"forward," accepting very much an equal position in society and as
outspoken as any man. After my initial surprise I found this most
refreshing—as I found the plays I saw, which had many rather daring
Shavian qualities (though politics, thankfully, was missing from
them).
Eventually my notoriety faded and I began to feel uneasy about
my long "holiday" in the Future. I refused offers from publishers to
write my memoirs (rather difficult if I really were suffering from
amnesia!) and began to consider the various forms of honest employ-
ment open to me. Since my career had originally been in the army, I
decided that I would prefer to continue, if possible, to serve my
country in this way. However, I also entertained the notion that I
should like to fly in airships and after making a few enquiries dis-
covered that, without a great deal of training in the various functions
of airship flying and navigation, I could obtain a position in the
recently formed Special Air Police. There would be various exams
and I should have to train for a minimum of six months, but I was
confident that I could get through all that without too much trouble.
It would not take me long to learn service discipline, for instance!
The new branch of the service, the Special Air Police, had been
formed from the army, primarily, but there were also volunteers
from the navy and the air service. It had been formed because of the
need to protect civil aircraft against acts of piracy in the air, against
potential saboteurs (there had been threats from fanatics but so far
no serious damage done) and to protect passengers who might be
bothered either by thieves aboard or criminals, for instance, on the
run.
And so I applied and was accepted. I was taken to the Air Service
Training School at Cardington and taught some of the mysteries of
the wireless telephone—used to communicate within the ship and also
with the ground, when necessary. I learned how an airship was flown
and what the various technical terms meant. I was given a little prac-
tical experience in flying—this was really the only exciting part of my
training—and taught the mysteries of meteorology and so forth. Al-
though an air policeman was an army officer rather than a flyer,
therefore not expected to fly a vessel, it was considered necessary to
know what to do, in case of emergencies. Thus, by the end of my first
year in the future (a strange sort of contradiction that, in a way) I
was commissioned as a Lieutenant in His Majesty's Special Air Po-
lice and assigned to the A.S. Loch Ness.
For all she invited the name, the Loch Ness was no monster, but a

<60
THE NOMAD OF TIME
trim little airship of not much more than 80 tons, with a useful lift of
about 60 tons, and she handled beautifully. I was lucky to be as-
signed to her, though the captain pooh-poohed the necessity of hav-
ing me aboard and at first was a bit cool towards me. The bigger an
airship, the more docile she normally is, but the little Loch Ness was
quick witted, good natured and reliable. She was never a long hauler.
I think the longest run we ever went on was to Gibraltar and the
Loch Ness was not really equipped for that, being what was called a
"soft-covered" ship (her hull was fabric not "plastic"), and she
didn't have an automatic temperature control, so it was the very devil
keeping her gas from expanding in the sort of heat you got in the
Med. She taught me a lot about airships. It was a bit of a wrench to
leave her, for you become attached to an airship rather as a navy
man becomes attached to an ordinary ship. But I had only been as-
signed to her in order to gain some practical experience and I gather
I did pretty well because the Macaphee house (who owned the Loch
Ness) asked for my C.O. to put me on board the pride of their line,
the recently built Loch Etive.
The Loch Etive was similar to the first commercial ship on which
I'd flown, the Light of Dresden. But now that I was familiar with the
details of airships, I could fully appreciate her marvels. She was a
thousand feet long, with eight diesel engines mounted four a side,
with reversible propellers. Her helium capacity was 12,000,000 cubic
feet, contained in 24 separate bags inside the hull. Her frame was
"duralloy" and she could carry a maximum of 400 passengers and
fifty tons of cargo. She could cruise easily at 100 miles an hour and
her top speed was 150 mph in good weather. All her works were
housed inside the hull, with the exception of the engine casings and
propellers. The inspection catwalks on the top and sides of the hull
were covered in and for emergencies we had parachutes, inflatable
boats, life-jackets and a couple of non-rigid balloons. For the enter-
tainment of the passengers there were kinemas, ballrooms, phono-
graphs, deck sports and party games, restaurants—all anyone might
desire concentrated in a space of a quarter of a mile floating two or
three thousand feet above the surface of the Earth!
We were doing the round the world cruise on what was called the
All Red Route (i.e. the colour on the map of the countries in ques-
tion) but with a trip over the U.S.A. thrown in for good measure. We
went from Britain via Canada and the U.S.A. down to British Ecua-
dor and across to Australia, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Aden, Cairo and

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<61
back to London. My job was to keep a look out for suspicious cus-
tomers, check for weapons, bombs, that sort of thing, and—the least
pleasant bit—deal with passenger complaints ranging from petty
thefts, card-sharping to suspected sabotage attempts. It was a job
which, on the whole, left me plenty of time to enjoy the flights and
there were rarely any serious emergencies. We had an interesting se-
lection of passengers from all nations and of all colours and creeds-
Indian princes, African tribal leaders, British diplomats, American
congressmen, high-ranking soldiers, and once we carried the ageing
president of the Chinese Republic (which was scarcely more, I'm
sorry to say, than a collection of provinces under the control of vari-
ous warlords). I was particularly impressed by the education and so-
phistication of the native leaders, particularly the Africans, many of
whom might have been mistaken for English gentlemen, save for the
colour of their skins.
The man who had overall responsibility for every detail of the run-
ning of the Loch Etive and for every soul aboard her was old Cap-
tain Harding, who had been flying airships almost from the start,
when it had been altogether a much more perilous business. He had,
I learned, been one of the last to command a "flying bomb" as they
called the ships which had been filled with explosive gases, like hy-
drogen, before the Elephant disaster of 1936, when all hydrogen-
filled ships had, by international agreement, been grounded and
broken up. I gathered that he was not altogether happy about com-
manding a passenger liner, particularly one as modern as the Loch
Etive, but on the other hand he hated the idea of retiring. The air, he
said, was his natural environment and he was damned if he was going
to spend more of his fife than he had to in some blasted birdcage in
Balham. I got the impression that he would die if he was forced to
give up flying. He was one of the most decent men I had ever met
and I developed an enormous affection for him, spending much time
in Ms company during the long periods aboard when there was noth-
ing much to do. "They don't need a blasted captain on that gadget-
run bridge," he would say, a trifle bitterly. "They could command it
by telephone from London if they wanted to."
I suppose it was my strong affection for Captain Harding which
led to the first disaster of my new life. A disaster which was to lead
to others, of increasing consequence, until the final one . . . But
again I'm running ahead of my story.
It all began with a freakish change in the weather after we had left

<52
THE NOMAD OF TIME
San Francisco, bound for British Ecuador, Tahiti, Tonga and points
west. You could blame it on the elements, I suppose, or on me—but
I'm rather inclined to blame an offensive little Californian "scout-
leader" called Egan. Certainly, if Egan had not come aboard the
Loch Etive I should not have found myself at the centre of subse-
quent events—events which were to alter the destinies of a good many
people and perhaps even the whole world.

CHAPTER II
A Man with a Big Stick
We were moored at Berkley Airpark, taking on cargo and passen-
gers. Because of a delay in finding mast-space, we were a bit behind
schedule and hurrying to make up the time as fast as we could. I was
keeping an eye on both cargo and passengers, watching the great
crates being winched into the bowels of the ship through her loading
hatches underneath the lower deck. The liner was secured by about
fifty thick steel cables, keeping her perfectly steady at her mast. In
the bright sunlight, she cast a wide shadow across the field. I couldn't
help feeling proud of her as I looked up. Her hull was silver blue and
the round Union Jack shields shone on her huge tailplanes. Her par-
ticulars were emblazoned on her main hull: RMA 801 (her regis-
tration number) Loch Etive, London. Macaphee Lines, Edinburgh.
All about me were moored ships of American Imperial Airways,
the Versailles Line, Royal Austro-Prussian Aerial Navigation Com-
pany, Imperial Russian Airship Company, Air Japan, Royal Italian
Air Lines and many smaller lines, but the Loch Etive, it seemed to
me, was the finest. She was certainly one of the most famous aerial
passenger liners.
Some distance away from the airpark buildings I made out a green
electric omnibus, bouncing over the turf towards our mast. These
would be the last of our passengers. Rather late, I thought. I had
been warned that the William Randolph Hearst, of American Impe-
rial, had developed engine trouble and that, since we flew basically
the same route, some of her passengers were being transferred to
our ship. Probably these were they. We were almost ready to go. I
watched the last item of cargo being winched aboard, saw the loading
doors shut in the ship's belly, and with a sense of relief went back to-
wards the mast.
Although there was a lift moving up and down in the central col-

<64
THE NOMAD OF TIME
umn of the mooring mast, this was for the use of passengers and
officers. The ground crew were using the spiral staircase which
wound round the lift-shaft. I watched them hurrying up to take their
positions. The fuel lighters had long-since been towed away.
At the entrance to the lift-shaft I stood beside the embarkation
officers who stood on both sides of the doors, checking boarding
cards and tickets. There was nothing suspicious about the well-to-do
Americans who were coming aboard, though they seemed a trifle an-
noyed at discovering they were to fly on a different ship.
I smiled a little as I saw the man at the end of the queue. He was
about fifty and dressed rather ridiculously in khaki shorts, knee
stockings and green badge-festooned shirt. He carried a polished pole
with a little flag on it and on his head was a wide-brimmed brown
hat. His comical appearance was heightened by the look of stern self-
importance on his red, lumpy face. His knees shone as redly as his
nose and I wondered if he were, perhaps, a kinematograph or music
hall comedian who had not had time to change. Behind him were a
score of similarly clad boys of about twelve years old, with knap-
sacks on their backs and poles in their hands, all looking as deadly
serious as the man.
"Why on earth is he dressed like that?" I asked the nearest officer.
"It's the American version of the Baden-Powell Youth Brigade,"
said the man. "Weren't you ever in the Brigade?"
I shook my head. "And what are these?"
"The Roosevelt Scouts," my informant told me. "The Young
Roughriders, I believe they're called."
"Their leader doesn't look too young." The man had now turned
his back on me, presenting a bulging posterior on which the khaki
cloth threatened to burst.
"A lot of these people stay in the scouts," said the officer. "They
never grow up. You know the type. Enjoy ordering the kids around."
"I'm glad I'm not in charge of that gang," I said feelingly, casting
my eye over the pimply faces which glowered nervously now from
beneath the brims of their hats. They had plainly not been on an air-
ship before.
Then I noticed something which made me realise I was forget-
ting my duties. Around the scout-leader's rather portly middle was
strapped a leather belt and on the belt was attached a large pistol
holster. When he came up to the officer inspecting tickets I waited
until he was finished and then saluted politely.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid all weapons must be given into the

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<65
care of the purser until you disembark. If you wouldn't mind hand-
ing me your revolver . .
The man gestured angrily with his pole and tried to push past me.
"Come on, boys!"
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't allow you to go aboard until. .
"It is my right to wear a gun if I choose. What sort of tom-
fool. . . ?"
"International airshipping regulations, sir. If you'll allow me to
take the gun I'll get a receipt for it and you can claim it"—I glanced
at his tickets—"when you reach Sydney, Mr. Egan."
"Captain Egan," he snapped. "Roughriders."
"Captain Egan. Unless you give me your pistol, we can't allow
you to join the flight."
"I wouldn't have this trouble on an American ship. Wait
until. . ."
"International regulations apply to American ships as well as Brit-
ish, sir. We shall have to leave without you." I glanced significantly
at my watch.
"Snotty-nosed upstart!" Purple with rage he snarled something
else under his breath, then fumbled with his buckle and slid the
holster off his belt. He hesitated, then handed it to me. I snapped it
open and looked at the gun.
"I know," he said. "It's an air pistol. But it's very powerful."
"The regulations still apply, sir. Are—um—any more of your chaps
armed in this way?"
"Of course not. I was in the Roughriders. The real Roughriders.
One of the last to be disbanded. Come on, men." He pointed forward
with his pole and marched into the lift, the earnest troop behind him
all glaring at me in outrage at my having caused their leader to lose
face. There was room in the lift for me, but I decided to use the
stairs. I wasn't sure I could keep a straight face for very much longer.
Once aboard I gave the gun to the purser and received a receipt in
exchange. I gave the receipt to the first steward I encountered and
told him to take it to Captain Egan's cabin. Then I went up to the
bridge. We were about to let go. This was when it was worth being
on the bridge and I never tired of the experience. One by one the
anchor cables were released and I felt the ship surge a little as if im-
patient to be freed completely and get back aloft. The motors began
to murmur and in the side-mirrors I could see the propellers slowly
turning. The captain looked forward and then below and checked his

<66
THE NOMAD OF TIME
periscopes to make sure our stern was clear. He gave the instructions
and the catwalk was drawn away from the mast, back into the hull.
Now all that held the ship were the couplings attaching her to the
mast.
Captain Harding spoke into the telephone. "Stand by to slip."
"Ready to slip, sir," replied the Mast Controller's voice from the
receiver.
"Slip."
There was a slight jerk as the couplings fell free. The Loch Etive
began to turn, her nose still nestling in the cone.
"All engines half-speed astern." By his tone, Captain Harding was
relieved to be on his way. He stroked his white walrus moustache
rather as a satisfied cat might stroke its whiskers. The diesels began
to roar as we pulled out of the cone. Our bow rose.
"Half-speed ahead," said the captain. "Two degrees to port, Steer-
ing Coxswain."
"Aye, aye, sir. Two degrees to port."
"Take us up to five hundred feet, Height Coxswain, and hold
steady."
"Five hundred feet, sir." The Height Cox turned the large wheel at
which he was positioned. All around us on the large bridge instru-
ments were whirring and clicking and we were presented with a dis-
play of readings which would have thoroughly confused an old-time
ship's captain.
The vast airpark fell away below us and we turned towards the
sparkling ocean of San Francisco Bay. Below us we saw the hulls of
the land-bound ships dwindling in size. The Loch Etive was behaving
as beautifully as usual, almost flying herself.
Now we were over the ocean.
"Five degrees to port, Steering Coxswain," said Captain Harding,
leaning over the computer console.
"Five degrees to port, sir."
We began to turn so that from our starboard portholes we could
see the skyscrapers of San Francisco—painted in a thousand dazzling
colours.
"Take her up to two thousand feet, Height Coxswain."
"Two thousand feet, sir."
Up we went, passing through a few wisps of cloud, into the vast
sea of blue which was the sky.
"All engines full ahead."
With a great roar of power, the mighty engines pushed the ship

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<57
forward. She surged on at a steady hundred and twenty miles an
hour, heading for South America, carrying 385 human souls and 48
tons of cargo as effortlessly as an eagle might carry a mouse.
By that evening, the story of my encounter with the scout-leader
had spread throughout the crew. Fellow officers stopped me and
asked how I was getting on with "Roughrider Robbie" as someone
had nicknamed him, but I assured them that, unless he proved to be
a dangerous saboteur, I was going to avoid him punctiliously for the
rest of the voyage. However, it was to emerge that he did not share
my wish.
My second encounter came that night when I was making my tour
of duty through the ship, normally a long and rather boring business.
The fittings of the Loch Etive were described in the company's
brochures as "opulent" and, particularly in the first class quarters,
they were certainly lavish. Everywhere the "plastic" was made to
look exactly like marble, like oak, mahogany and teak, like steel or
brass or gold. There were curtains of plush and silk drawn back from
the wide observation ports running the length of the ship, there were
deep carpets in blue and red and yellow, comfortable arm chairs in
the lounges or on the decks. The recreation decks, restaurants, smok-
ing rooms, bars and bathrooms were all equipped with the latest ele-
gant gadgets and blazed with electric lighting. It was this luxury
which made the Loch Etive one of the most expensive aerial liners in
the skies, but most passengers thought it worth paying for.
By the time I had reached the third class section I was looking for-
ward to turning in. Then, suddenly, from out of a subsidiary passage
leading to the dining rooms, stormed the Captain of Roughriders
himself. His face was scarlet. He was spluttering with rage and he
grabbed me by the arm.
"I've a complaint!" he shouted.
I hadn't expected a compliment. I raised my eyebrows.
"About the restaurant," he continued.
"That's something to take up with the stewards, sir," I said in re-
lief.
"I've already complained to the Chief Steward and he refused to
do anything about it." He eyed me narrowly. "You are an officer,
aren't you?"
I admitted it. "However, my job is to look after the security of the
ship."
"What about the morals?"

<68
THE NOMAD OF TIME
I was frankly astonished. "Morals, sir?" I stuttered.
"That's what I said, young man. I have a duty to my scouts. I
hardly expected them to be subjected to the indignities, the display of
loose behaviour. . . Come with me."
Out of curiosity more than anything else, I allowed him to lead me
into the dining room. Here a rather insipid jazz band was playing and
a few couples were dancing. At the tables people were eating or talk-
ing and not a few were staring at the table where all twenty boy
Roughriders were seated.
"There!" hissed Egan. "There! What do you say now?"
"I can't see anything, sir."
"Nobody told me that I was coming aboard a flying Temple of
Jezebel! Immoral women displaying themselves—look! Look!" I was
bound to say that the girls were wearing rather scanty evening frocks,
but nothing one would not see every night in London. "And disgust-
ing music—jungle music!" He pointed at the bored-looking band on
the rostrum. "And, worse than that," he drew close and hissed in my
ear, "there are, young man, niggers eating right next to us. What kind
of a decent ship do you call this?"
At the nearest table to the scouts sat a party of Indian civil ser-
vants who had recently finished their exams in London and were on
their way to Hong Kong. They were well-dressed and sat quietly
talking among themselves.
"White boys being forced to eat elbow to elbow with niggers,"
Egan continued. "We were transferred without our agreement to this
ship, you know. On a decent American ship . . ."
The Chief Steward came up. He gave me a weary, apologetic look.
I thought of a solution.
"Perhaps this passenger and his boys could eat in their cabins," I
suggested to the steward.
"That won't do!" There was a hard, mad gleam in Egan's eye. "I
have to supervise them. Make sure they eat properly and keep them-
selves clean."
I was ready to give up when the steward suggested, poker-faced,
that screens might be placed around the table. They would not keep
out the music, of course, but at least the captain and his lads would
not be forced to see either the scantily dressed ladies or the Indian
civil servants. Egan accepted this compromise with poor grace and
was about to return to his table when one of the boys came rushing
up, his handkerchief over his mouth, his face very green indeed. An-
other boy followed. "I think Dubrowski's being airsick, sir."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<69
I hurried off, leaving Egan shouting wildly for a "medic."
For all that it is primarily a psychological illness, airsickness can
be catching and I soon learned to my relief that Egan and his entire
troop had gone down with it. When, two days later, we reached
Quito in British Ecuador, I had heard nothing more of the scout-
master, though I believe one of the ship's doctors had been kept
pretty busy.
We made a quick stopover at Quito and took on a few passengers,
some airmail and a couple of cages of live monkeys bound for a zoo
in Australia.
By the time we headed out over the Pacific, Egan was well
known to the crew and passengers alike and though there were some
who supported him, he had become to most a figure of some consid-
erable entertainment value.
Captain Harding had not directly encountered Egan and he was
faintly amused by the reports he had heard concerning my own em-
barrassment. "You must be more firm with him, Lieutenant Bastable.
It is a particular knack, you know, controlling a difficult passenger."
"This one's mad, skipper." We were having a drink in the little bar
above the control cabin which was especially for the officers. "You
ought to see his eyes," I said.
Harding smiled sympathetically, but it was obvious he put much of
my trouble down to my own inexperience and the fact that I was es-
sentially a groundman.
Our crossing of that wide stretch of ocean between South America
and the first of the South Sea islands was as peaceful as usual and we
flew through blue and sunny skies.
By the time we sighted Puka Puka, however, we were receiving
telephoned messages about a freak storm blowing up in the Papeete
region. Heavy electrical interference soon cut these messages off, but
at this stage we had no trouble keeping the ship in trim. Stewards
warned the passengers that it was likely to get a bit bumpy as we
neared Tahiti, but we expected to reach the island on time. We took
the ship up to 2,500 feet and hoped to avoid the worst of the winds.
The engineers working in the diesel nacelles were ordered to keep the
Loch Etive at full speed ahead when we hit the disturbance.
A few minutes later it became strangely dark and a peculiar,
cold grey light streamed through our portholes. The electrics were
switched on.

<70
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Next moment we had plunged into the storm and heard the
thunder of hailstones beating against the huge hull. The sound was
like a thousand machine guns going off at once and we could hardly
hear each other speak. The temperature dropped dramatically and
we shivered with cold until the ship's heating system responded to
our need. As thunder and lightning crashed and flashed around us
the Loch Etive shook a little but her engines roared defiantly back
and we plunged on into the swirling black cloud. There was no dan-
ger of lightning striking our fully insulated hull. Occasionally the
clouds would part to show us the sea boiling about below.
"Glad I'm not down there," said Captain Harding with a grin.
"Makes you glad the airship was invented."
Soft music began to sound from the telephone receivers on the
bridge. The skipper told his second officer to switch it off. "Never
could understand the theory behind that."
My stomach turned over as the ship fell a few feet and then
recovered. I began to feel little tendrils of fear creep into my mind. It
was the first time I had felt nervous aboard an airship since Major
Howell had picked me up at Teku Benga. That seemed centuries ago
now.
"Very dirty weather, indeed," murmured the captain. "Worst I've
ever known at this time of year." He buttoned up his jacket. "How's
our height, Height Cox?"
"Holding steady, sir."
The door to the bridge opened and the third officer came in. He
was furious.
"What's up?" I said.
"Damn it!" he swore. "I've just had a tangle with your chap, Bas-
table. Bloody fellow Egan! Screaming about life-rafts and para-
chutes. He's berserk. Never known a passenger like it. Says we're
going down. I've had the most awful shouting match with him. He
wanted to see you, sir." The third officer addressed the captain.
I smiled at Harding who grinned wryly back. "What did you tell
him, number three?"
"I think I calmed him down in the end, sir." The third officer
frowned. "It was all I could do to stop myself punching him on the
jaw."
"Better not do that, number three." The captain took out his pipe
and began to light it. "Not very good for the company if he sues us,
eh? And we've a special responsibility, too—courtesy to American
Imperial, that sort of thing."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<71
The third officer turned to me. "I suppose he's told you he's got
powerful political connections in America. That he'll have you
drummed out of the service."
I laughed. "No, I haven't had that one yet."
Then the hail hit us even harder and the wind howled in fury as if
at our insolence in remaining airborne. The ship dropped horribly
and then re-adjusted. She shuddered the length of her hull. It was
black as night outside. Lightning spat at us on all sides. With some
idea of reassuring the passengers and, since there was nothing practi-
cal I could do on the bridge, I went towards the door.
And at that moment it burst open and in rushed Egan, the picture
of terrified anger, his white-faced scouts behind him.
Egan gesticulated wildly with his pole as he advanced towards
Captain Harding. "I've a duty to these boys. Their parents entrusted
me with their fives! I demand that life-rafts and parachutes be issued
to us at once!"
"Please return to your cabin, sir," said Harding firmly. "The ship
is perfectly safe. It is much better, however, if passengers are not
wandering about—particularly on the bridge. If you are nervous, one
of the ship's doctors will give you a sedative."
Egan screamed something incoherent in reply. Captain Harding
put his pipe in his mouth and turned his back.
"Please leave my bridge, sir."
I stepped forward. "I think you'd better—"
But Egan had put his beefy hand on Captain Harding's shoulder.
"Now just look here, captain. I've a right. . ."
The skipper turned, speaking very coldly. "I wonder if one of you
gentlemen would mind escorting this passenger back to his cabin?"
The third officer and I took hold of Egan and dragged him back.
He made surprisingly little resistance. He was trembling all over. We
took him out of the bridge and into the passage where I called for a
couple of ratings to take over from me, for I was furious at the way
Egan had treated Harding and did not trust myself to deal calmly
with the man.
When I got back to the bridge Harding was sucking on his pipe as
if nothing had happened. "Damned hysterical woman," he said to no
one in particular. "Hope this storm blows over soon."

CHAPTER III
Disaster—and Disgrace!
When at last we reached Tahiti and began to drop through the
clouds in the hope of mooring, it became evident that a full-scale ty-
phoon had hit the island. The ship shuddered and swerved about in
the sky and it was all we could do to keep her in reasonable trim.
Below whole groves of palms had been bent to the ground by the
wind and a number of buildings had been severely damaged. Only
the three mooring masts in the airpark stood upright and to these
there were already two ships anchored. A whole web of extra cables
had been used to secure them.
After sizing up the situation the skipper ordered the Steering Cox
to keep circling over the airpark and then left the bridge. "Back in a
moment," he said.
The third officer winked at me. "Gone for a shot of rum, I
shouldn't wonder. Can't blame him, what with the storm and that
Egan chap."
The big ship continued to circle at full speed against the howling
force of a storm which showed no sign of abating. Every so often I
looked down at the airpark and saw that the savage winds still swept
it.
A quarter of an hour passed and still the captain did not reappear
on the bridge. "It's not like him to be gone so long," I said.
The third officer tried to get through to the captain's cabin by tele-
phone but there was no reply. "Expect he's on his way back," he
said.
Another five minutes passed and then the third officer told a rating
to go and look in the captain's cabin to make sure he was all right.
A couple of moments later the rating came running back, a look of
terrible consternation on his face. "It's the captain, sir. Up in the
parachute lockers—hurt, sir. There's a doctor coming."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<73
"Parachute lockers? What's he doing up there?" Since it was im-
possible for any of the other airship officers to leave the bridge, I fol-
lowed the rating down the narrow passage and up the short compan-
ion ladder leading to the officers' quarters. We passed the captain's
cabin and reached another short ladder to the catwalk between the
lockers where the lifesaving equipment was stored. The light was dim
here, but I could make out the captain lying at the foot of the ladder,
his face twisted in pain. I knelt beside him.
"Fell down the damned ladder." The captain spoke with difficulty.
"Broken my leg, I think." The ship shook as another great gust of
wind hit her. "Blasted Egan feller—found him trying to open the
parachute lockers. Went up to make him come down. He pushed me
-ah!"
"Where's Egan now, sir?"
"Ran off. Scared, I suppose."
The doctor arrived and inspected the leg. "A fracture, I'm afraid.
You'll be grounded for quite a while, captain."
I saw the look in the captain's eyes when he heard the doctor's
words. It was a look of pure fear. If he was grounded now it would
mean he was grounded forever. He was already well past retirement
age. Scout-leader Egan had successfully ended Harding's flying days
—and therefore ended his fife. If I had been close to Egan at that mo-
ment, I think I would have killed him!
Eventually the storm blew itself out and within half-an-hour we
were manoeuvring into the waiting cone on the airpark mast. The sky
was completely clear and the sun was shining and Tahiti looked as
beautiful as ever. Apart from a bit of damage to some buildings and
a few broken trees, you might never have known that the typhoon
had been there.
Later, I watched the medical orderlies pick up the captain's
stretcher and carry it down to the nose. I saw the lift bear Captain
Harding down to the ground to where the ambulance awaited.
I was miserable. And I was sure I would never see the skipper
again. God, how I hated Egan for what he had done! I have never
hated anyone so much in my life. Harding had been one of the few
people in this world of the future to whom I could properly relate-
perhaps because Harding was an old man and therefore more of my
world than of his own—and now he was gone. I felt damned lonely, I
can tell you. I decided to keep a special watch on "Captain" Egan
now.

<74
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Tonga came and went and we were soon heading for Sydney, mak-
ing a speed of just under 120 mph against a head wind which was
scarcely more than a gentle breeze compared with the typhoon we
had recently experienced.
For the whole time since arriving in Tahiti, Egan and his scouts
only left their cabins to eat their meals behind their foolish screens.
At least he seemed cowed by his own stupidity and he knew he
had got off lightly regarding the affair of the parachute lockers.
When, once, we met in a corridor, he lowered his eyes and did not
speak to me as we passed each other.
But then came the incident which was to lead to the real disasters
of the coming months.
On the last night before we were due to reach Sydney, a call came
through to the bridge from the third class dining room. Trouble of
some kind. It was my duty to go there and sort it out.
Reluctantly, I left the bridge and made my way to the dining hall.
In the corner near the galley door there was confusion. White-coated
stewards, ratings in midnight blue, men in evening dress and girls in
short frocks, were all scuffling about, dragging at a man dressed
in the all-too-familiar khaki shorts and green shirt of a Young
Roughrider. Around the edges of this melee stood a number of
frightened boy scouts. I glimpsed Egan's face then. He was clutching
his pole in his hands and striking out at those who tried to hold him.
His eyes were staring, his face was purple and he resembled some lu-
dicrous tableau of Custer at the Victory of Little Bighorn. He was
screaming incoherently and I caught only a single, distasteful word:
"Niggers! Niggers! Niggers!"
To one side, some of the Indian civil servants were talking to the
young officer who had summoned me.
"What's all this about, Muir?" I asked.
Muir shook his head. "As far as I can tell this gentleman," he in-
dicated the civil servant, "asked if he could borrow the salt from Mr.
Egan's table. Mr. Egan hit him, sir, then started on this gentleman's
friends. . ."
I saw now that there was a livid mark on the Indian's forehead.
I pulled myself together as best I could and called out: "All right,
everybody. Let him go. Could you please stand back? Stand back,
please."
Gratefully, the passengers and crew members moved away from
Egan who stood panting and glaring and plainly out of his mind.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<75
With a sudden movement he leapt onto a nearby table, hunched with
his stick at the ready.
I tried to speak civilly, remembering that it was my duty to protect
both the good name of the shipping company, to protect the name of
my own service and to give Mr. Egan no opportunity to sue anyone
or use his political connections to harm anyone. It was hard to
remember all this, particularly when I hated the man so much. I did
my best to feel sorry for him, to humour him. "It's over now, Cap-
tain Egan. If you will apologise to the gentleman you struck—"
"Apologise? To that scum!" With a snarl, Egan aimed a blow at
me with his pole. I grabbed it and dragged him off the table. If I had
struck him then, in order to calm him down, I might have been for-
given. But it was as if his own madness was infectious.
Egan put his snarling face up against mine and growled: "Give me
my stick, you damned nigger-loving British sissy!"
It was too much for me.
I don't actually remember striking the first blow. I remember
punching and punching and being pulled back. I remember seeing his
blood flowing from his cut face. I remember shrieking something
about what he had done to the skipper. I remember his pole clutched
in my hands rising and falling and then I was being pulled back by
several ratings and everything became suddenly, terrifyingly calm
and Egan lay on the floor, bruised and bloody and completely insen-
sible, perhaps dead.
I turned, dazed, and saw the shocked faces of the scouts, the pas-
sengers, the crew.
I saw the second officer, now in command, come mnning up. I saw
him look down at Egan's body and say, "Is he dead?"
"He should be," said someone. "But he isn't."
The second officer came up to me and there was pity in his face.
"You poor devil, Bastable," he said. "You shouldn't have done it,
old man. You're in trouble now, I'm afraid."
Of course, I was suspended from duty as soon as I got to Sydney
and reported to the local S.A.P. headquarters. Nobody was unsym-
pathetic, especially when they had heard the full story from the other
officers of the Loch Etive. But Egan had already given his story to
the evening papers. The worst was happening. AMERICAN TOUR-
IST ATTACKED BY POLICE OFFICER, said the Sydney Herald,
and most of the reports were of the most sensational kind and most
of them were on the front page. The company and the name of the
ship were mentioned; His Majesty's most recently formed service,

<76
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the Special Air Police, were mentioned ("Is this what we may ex-
pect from those commissioned to protect us?" asked one paper).
Passengers had been interviewed and a non-committal statement
from the company's Sydney office was quoted. I had said nothing to
the press, of course, and some of the newspapers had taken this as
an admission that I had set upon Egan without provocation and
tried to kill him. Then I received a cable from my C.O. in London.
RETURN AT ONCE.
Depression filled my mind and set there, hard and cold, and I
could think nothing but black thoughts on the journey back to Lon-
don in the aerial man-o'-war Relentless. There was no possible ex-
cuse, as far as the army was concerned, for my behaviour. I knew I
would be court-martialled and almost certainly cashiered. It was not
a pleasant prospect.
When I arrived in London I was taken immediately to the S.A.P.
headquarters near the small military airpark at Limehouse. I was
confined to barracks, pending a decision from my C.O. and the War
Office as to what to do with me.
As it emerged, Egan was persuaded to drop his charges against ev-
eryone and was further persuaded to admit that he had seriously pro-
voked me, but I had still behaved badly and a court-martial was still
in order.
Several days after hearing about Egan's decision, I was summoned
to the C.O.'s office and asked to sit down. Major-General Fry was a
decent type and very much of the old school. He understood what
had happened but put his position bluntly:
"Look here, Bastable, I know what you've been through. First the
amnesia and now this—well, this fit of yours, if you like. Fit of rage,
what? I know. But you see we can't be sure you won't have another.
I mean—well, the old brain-box and all that—a trifle shaky, um?"
I smiled wryly at him, I remember. "You think I'm mad, sir?"
"No, no, no, of course not. Nervy, say. Anyway, the long and the
short of it is this, Bastable: I want your resignation."
He coughed with embarrassment and offered me a cigar without
looking at me. I refused.
Then I stood up and saluted. "I understand perfectly, sir, and I ap-
preciate why you want to do it this way. It's decent of you, sir. Of
course, you shall have my resignation from the service. Morning all
right, sir?"
"Fine. Take your time. Sorry to lose you. Good luck, Bastable. I

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<77
gather you needn't worry about Macaphees taking any action. Cap-
tain Harding spoke up for you with the owners. So did the rest of the
officers, I gather."
"Thank you for letting me know, sir."
"Not at all. Cheerio, Bastable." He got up and shook my hand.
"Oh, by the way, your brother wants to see you. I got a message.
He'll meet you at the Royal Aeronautical Club this evening."
"My brother, sir?"
"Didn't you know you had one?"
I did have a brother. In fact I had three. But I had left them
behind in 1902.
Feeling as if I had gone completely mad I left the C.O.'s office,
went back to my quarters, composed my letter of resignation, packed
my few things into a bag, changed into civilian clothes and took an
electric hansom to Piccadilly and the Royal Aeronautical Club.
Why should someone claim to be my brother? There was probably
a simple explanation. A mistake, of course, but I could not be sure.

CHAPTER IV
A Bohemian "Brother"
As I sat back in the smoothly moving cab, I stared out of the win-
dows and tried to collect my thoughts. Since the incident with Egan I
had been stunned and only now that I had left my barracks behind
me was I beginning to realise the implications of my action. I also
realised that I had got off rather lightly, all things considered. Yet my
efforts to become accepted by the society of 1974 had, it now ap-
peared, been completely wasted. I was much more of an outsider
than when I had first arrived. I had disgraced my uniform and put
myself beyond the pale.
What was more the euphoric dream had begun to turn into a crazy
nightmare. I took out my watch. It was only three o'clock in the af-
ternoon. Not evening by anyone's standards. I was uncertain as to
what kind of reception I might have at the R.A.C. I was, of course, a
member, but it was quite possible they would wish me to resign, as I
had resigned from the S.A.P. I couldn't blame anyone for wishing
this. After all, I was likely to embarrass the other members. I would
leave my visit until the last possible moment. I tapped on the roof
and told the cabbie to stop at the nearest pedestrian ingress, then I
got out of the cab, paid my fare and began to wander listlessly
around the arcades beneath the graceful columns supporting the
traffic levels. I stared at the profusion of exotic goods displayed in
the shop windows; goods brought from all corners of the Empire,
reminding me of places I might never see again. Searching for escape
I went into a kinema and watched a musical comedy set in the 16th
century and featuring an American actor called Humphrey Bogart
playing Sir Francis Drake and a Swedish actress (Bogart's wife, I be-
lieve) called Greta Garbo as Queen Elizabeth. Oddly, it is one of the
clearest impressions I have of that day.
At about seven o'clock I turned up at the club and slipped unno-

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<79
ticed into the pleasant gloom of the bar, decorated with dozens of
airship mementoes. There were a few chaps chatting at tables but
luckily nobody recognised me. I ordered a whisky and soda and
drank it down rather quickly. I had had several more by the time
someone touched me on the arm and I turned suddenly, fully expect-
ing to be asked to leave.
Instead I was confronted by the cheerful grin on the face of a
young man dressed in what I had learned was the fashion amongst
the wilder undergraduates at Oxford. His black hair was worn rather
long and brushed back without a parting. He wore what was virtually
a frock coat, with velvet lapels, a crimson cravat, a brocade waist-
coat and trousers cut tightly to the knee and then allowed to flare at
the bottoms. We should have recognised it in 1902 as being very sim-
ilar to the dress affected by the so-called aesthetes. It was deliber-
ately Bohemian and dandified and I regarded people who wore this
"uniform" with some suspicion. They were not my sort at all. Where
I had escaped notice, this young man had the disapproving gaze of
all. I was acutely embarrassed.
He seemed unaware of the reaction he had created in the club. He
took my limp hand and shook it warmly. "You're brother Oswald,
aren't you?"
"I'm Oswald Bastable," I agreed. "But I don't think I'm the one
you want. I have no brother."
He put his head on one side and smiled. "How d'you know, eh? I
mean, you're suffering from amnesia, aren't you?"
"Well, yes . . It was perfectly true that I could hardly claim to
have lost my memory and then deny that I had a brother. I had
placed myself in an ironic situation. "Why didn't you come forward
earlier?" I countered. "When there was all that stuff about me in the
newspapers?"
He rubbed his jaw and eyed me sardonically. "I was abroad at the
time," he said. "In China, actually. Bit cut off there."
"Look here," I said impatiently, "you know damn' well you're not
my brother. I don't know what you want, but I'd rather you left me
alone."
He grinned again. "You're quite right. I'm not your brother. The
name's Dempsey actually—Cornelius Dempsey. I thought I'd say I
was your brother in order to pique your curiosity and make sure you
met me. Still," he gave me that sardonic look again, "it's funny you
should be suffering from total amnesia and yet know that you haven't

<80
THE NOMAD OF TIME
got a brother. Do you want to stay and chat here or go and have a
drink somewhere else?"
"I'm not sure I want to do either, Mr. Dempsey. After all, you
haven't explained why you chose to deceive me in this way. It would
have been a cruel trick, if I had believed you."
"I suppose so," he said casually. "On the other hand you might
have a good reason for claiming amnesia. Maybe you've something
to hide? Is that why you didn't reveal your real identity to the au-
thorities?"
"What I have to hide is my own affair. And I can assure you, Mr.
Dempsey, that Oswald Bastable is the only name I have ever owned.
Now—I'd be grateful if you would leave me alone. I have plenty of
other problems to consider."
"But that's why I'm here, Bastable, old chap. To help you solve
those problems. I'm sorry if I've offended you. I really did come to
help. Give me half-an-hour." He glanced around him. "There's a
place round the corner where we can have a drink."
I sighed. "Very well." I had nothing to lose, after all. I wondered
for a moment if this dandified young man, so cool and self-possessed,
actually knew what had really happened to me. But I dismissed the
idea.
We left the R.A.C. and turned into the Burlington Arcade, which
was one of the few places which had not changed much since 1902,
and stepped into Jermyn Street. At last Cornelius Dempsey stopped
at a plain door and rapped several times with the brass knocker until
someone answered. An old woman peered out at us, recognised
Dempsey, and admitted us to a dark hallway. From somewhere
below came the sound of voices and laughter and, by the smell, I
judged the place to be a drinking club of some kind. We went down
some stairs and entered a poorly lit room in which were set out a
number of plain tables. At the tables sat young men and women
dressed in the same Bohemian fashion as Dempsey. One or two of
them greeted him as we made our way among the tables and sat
down in a niche. A waiter came up at once and Dempsey ordered a
bottle of red Vin Ordinaire. I felt extremely uncomfortable, but not
as badly as I had felt at my own club. This was my first glimpse of a
side of London life I had hardly realised existed. When the wine
came I drank down a large glass. If I were to be an outcast, I thought
bitterly, then I had best get used to this kind of place.
Dempsey watched me drink, a look of secret amusement on his
face. "Never been to a cellar club before, eh?"

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<81
"No." I poured myself another drink from the bottle.
"You can relax here. The atmosphere's pretty free and easy. Wine
all right?"
"Fine." I sat back in my chair and tried to appear confident.
"Now what's all this about, Mr. Dempsey?"
"You're out of work at the moment, I take it?"
"That's an understatement. I'm probably unemployable."
"Well, that's just it. I happen to know there's a job going if you
want one. On an airship. I've already talked to the master and he's
willing to take you on. He knows your story."
I became suspicious. "What sort of a job, Mr. Dempsey? No de-
cent skipper would. . ."
"This skipper is one of the most decent men ever to command a
ship." He dropped his bantering manner and spoke seriously. "I ad-
mire him tremendously and I know you'd like him. He's straight as a
die."
"Then why-?"
"His ship is a bit of a crate. Not one of your big liners or anything
like that. It's old-fashioned and slow and carries cargo mainly. Cargo
that other people aren't interested in. Small jobs. Sometimes danger-
ous jobs. You know the kind of ship."
"I've seen them." I sipped my wine. The chance was the only sort
I might expect and I was incredibly lucky to get it. It was logical that
small "tramp" airships should be short of trained airshipmen when
the rewards for working for the big ships were so much greater. And
yet, at that moment, I hardly cared. I was still full of bitterness at my
own foolishness. "But are you sure the captain knows the whole
story? I was chucked out of the army for good reason, you know."
"I know the reason," said Dempsey earnestly. "And I approve of
it."
"Approve? Why?"
"Just say I don't like Egan's type. And I admire what you did for
those Indians he attacked. It proves you're a decent type with your
heart in the right place."
I'm not sure I appreciated such praise from that young man. I
shrugged. "Defending the Indians was only incidental," I told him.
"I hated Egan, because of what he did to my skipper."
Dempsey smiled. "Put it how you like, Bastable. Anyway, the
job's going. Want it?"
I finished my second glass of wine and frowned. "I'm not
sure. . ."

<82
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Dempsey poured me another glass. "I'm not trying to persuade
you to do something you don't want to—but I might point out that
few people will want to employ you as anything more than a deck-
hand—for a while, at least."
"I'm aware of that."
Dempsey lit a long cheroot. "Perhaps you have friends who've
offered you a ground job?"
"Friends? No. I've no friends." It was true. Captain Harding had
been the nearest thing I had had to a friend.
"And you've experience of airships. You could handle one if you
had to?"
"I suppose so. I passed an exam equivalent to a Second Officer's.
I'm probably a bit weak on the practical side."
"You'll soon learn that, though."
"How do you happen to know the captain of an air freighter?" I
asked. "Aren't you a student?"
Dempsey lowered his eyes. "You mean an undergraduate? Well, I
was. But that's another story altogether. I've followed your career,
you know, since you were found on that mountain top. You captured
my imagination, you might say."
I laughed then, without much humour. "Well, I suppose it's gener-
ous of you to try to help me. When can I see this captain of yours?"
"Tonight?" Dempsey grinned eagerly. "We could go down to
Croydon in my car. What do you say?"
I shrugged. "Why not?"

CHAPTER V
Captain Korzeniowski
Dempsey drove down to Croydon at some speed but I was forced
to admire the way he controlled the old-fashioned Morgan steamer.
We reached Croydon in half-an-hour.
The town of Croydon is an airpark town. It owes its existence to
the airpark and everywhere you look there are reminders of the fact.
Many of the hotels are named after famous airships and the streets
are crowded with flyers of every nationality. It is a brash, noisy town
compared with most and must be quite similar to some of the old
seaports of my own age (perhaps I should use the future tense for all
this and say "will be" and so on, but I find it hard to do, for all these
events took place, of course, in my personal past).
Dempsey drove us into the forecourt of a small hotel in one of the
Croydon backstreets. The hotel was called The Airman's Rest and
had evidently been a coaching inn in earlier days. It was, needless to
say, in the old part of the town and contrasted rather markedly with
the bright stone and glass towers which dominated most of Croydon.
Dempsey took me through the main parlour full of flyers of the
senior generation who plainly preferred the atmosphere of The Air-
man's Rest to that of the more salubrious hotels. We went up a flight
of wooden stairs and along a passage until we came to a door at the
end. Dempsey knocked.
"Captain? Are you receiving visitors, sir?"
I was surprised at the genuine tone of respect with which the
young man addressed the unseen captain.
"Enter." The voice was harsh and guttural. A foreign voice.
We walked into a comfortable bed-sitting room. A fire blazed in
the grate, providing the only illumination. In a deep leather armchair
sat a man of about sixty. He had an iron grey beard cut in the Impe-
rial style and hair to match. His eyes were blue-grey and their gaze

<84
THE NOMAD OF TIME
was steady, penetrating, totally trustworthy. He had a great beak of a
nose and a strong mouth. When he stood up he was relatively short
but powerfully built. His handshake was dry and firm as Dempsey in-
troduced us.
"Captain KorzeniowsM, this is Lieutenant Bastable."
"How do you do, lieutenant." The accent was thick but the words
were clear. "Delighted to meet you."
"How do you do, sir. I think you'd better refer to me as plain
'mister.' I resigned from the S.A.P. today. I'm a civilian now."
Korzeniowski smiled and turned towards a heavy oak sideboard.
"Would you care for a drink—Mister Bastable?"
"Thank you, sir. A whisky?"
"Good. And you, young Dempsey?"
"A glass of that Chablis I see, if you please, captain."
"Good."
Korzeniowski was dressed in a heavy white roll-neck pullover. His
trousers were the midnight blue of a civil flying officer. Over a chair
near the desk, against the far wall I saw his jacket with its captain's
rings, and on top of that his rather battered cap.
"I put the proposal to Mr. Bastable, sir," said Dempsey as he ac-
cepted his glass. "And that's why we're here."
Korzeniowski fingered his lips and looked thoughtfully at me.
"Doubtless," he murmured. "Doubtless." After giving us our drinks
he went back to the sideboard and poured himself a modest whisky,
filling the glass up with soda. "You know I need a second officer
pretty badly. I could do with a man with rather more experience of
flying, but I can't get anyone in England and I don't want the type of
man I'd be likely to find out of England. I've read about you. You're
hot-tempered, eh?"
I shook my head. Suddenly it seemed to me that I wanted very
much to serve with Captain Korzeniowski for I had taken an instant
liking to the man. "Not normally, sir. These were—well, special cir-
cumstances, sir."
"That's what I gathered. I had a fine second officer until recently.
Chap named Marlowe. Got into some trouble in Macao." The cap-
tain frowned and took a cheroot case from his desk. He offered me
one of the hard, black sticks of tobacco and I accepted. Dempsey re-
fused with a grin. As he spoke, Captain Korzeniowski kept his eyes
on me and I felt he was reading my soul. He spoke rather pon-
derously and all his actions were slow, calculated. "You were found
in the Himalayas. Lost your memory. Trained for the air police. Got

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<85
into a fight with a passenger on the Loch Etive. Lost your temper.
Hurt him badly. Passenger was a bore, eh?"
"Yes, sir." The cheroot was surprisingly mild and sweet-smelling.
"Objected to eating with some Indians, I gather?"
"Among other things, sir."
"Good." Korzeniowski gave me another of his sharp, penetrating
glances.
"Egan was responsible, sir, for our skipper's breaking his leg. It
meant that the old man would be grounded for good. The skipper
couldn't bear that idea, sir."
Korzeniowski nodded. "Know how he feels. Captain Harding.
Used to know him. Fine airshipman. So your crime was an excess of
loyalty, mm? That can be a pretty serious crime in some circum-
stances, eh?"
His words seemed to have an extra significance I couldn't quite di-
vine. "I suppose so, sir."
"Good."
Dempsey said, "I think, sir, that temperamentally at any rate he's
one of us."
Korzeniowski raised his hand to silence the young man. The cap-
tain was staring into the fire, deep in consideration of something. A
few moments later he turned round and said, "I am a Pole, Mr. Bas-
table. A naturalised Briton, but a Pole by birth. If I went back to my
homeland, I would be shot. Do you know why?"
"No, sir."
The captain smiled and spread his hands. "Because I am a Pole.
That is why."
"You are an exile, sir? The Russians. . . ?"
"Exactly. The Russians. Poland is part of their empire. I felt that
this was wrong, that nations should be free to decide their own des-
tinies. I said so—many years ago. I was heard to say so. And I was
exiled. That was when I joined the British Merchant Air Service. Be-
cause I was a Polish patriot." He shrugged. I wondered why he was
telling me this, but I felt there must be a point to it, so I listened re-
spectfully. Finally he looked up at me. "So you see, Mr. Bastable, we
are both outcasts, in our way. Not because we wish it, but because
we have no choice."
"I see, sir." I was still puzzled, but said no more.
"I own my own ship," said Korzeniowski. "She isn't much to look
at, but she's a good little craft. Will you join her, Mr. Bastable?"
"I would like to, sir, I'm very grateful . . ."

<86
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"You've no need to be grateful, Mr. Bastable. I need a second
officer and you need a position. The pay isn't very high. Five pounds
a month, all found."
"Thank you, sir."
"Good."
I still wondered what connection there could possibly be between
the young Bohemian and the old airship skipper. They seemed to
know each other quite well.
"I think you'll be able to find accommodation for the night in this
hotel, if it suits you," Captain Korzeniowski continued. "Join the
ship tomorrow. Eight o'clock be all right?"
"Fine, sir."
"Good."
I picked up my bag and looked expectantly at Dempsey. The
young man glanced at the captain, grinned at me and patted me on
the arm. "Get yourself settled in here. I'll join you later. One or two
things to discuss with the captain." Still in something of a daze I said
goodbye to my new skipper and left the room. As I closed the door I
heard Dempsey say, "Now, about the passengers, sir. . ."
Next morning I took an omnibus to the airpark.
There were dozens of airships moored there, coming and going
like monstrous bees around a monstrous hive. In the autumn sun-
shine the hulls of the vessels shone like silver or gold or alabaster.
Before he had left the previous night Dempsey had given me the
name of the ship I was to join. She was called The Rover (rather ro-
mantic name, I thought) and the airpark authorities had told me she
was moored to Number 14 mast. I was, in the cold light of day as it
were, beginning to wonder if I had not acted rather hastily in accept-
ing the position, but it was too late for second thoughts. I could al-
ways leave the ship later if I found that I wasn't up to what was ex-
pected of me.
When I got to Number 14 mast I found that she had been shifted
to make room for a big Russian freighter with a combustible cargo
which had to be taken off in a hurry. Nobody seemed to know where
The Rover was now moored.
Eventually, after half-an-hour of fruitless wandering about, I was
told to go to Number 38 mast, right on the other side of the park. I
trudged beneath the huge hulls of liners and cargo ships, dodging
between the shivering mooring cables, circumnavigating the steel
girders of the masts, until at last I saw Number 38 and my new craft.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<87
She was battered and she needed painting, but she was as brightly
clean as the finest liner. She had a hard hull, obviously converted
from a soft, fabric cover of the old type. She was swaying a little at
her mast and seemed, by the way she moved in her cables, very
heavily loaded. Her four big, old-fashioned engines were housed in
outside nacelles which had to be reached by means of partly-covered
catwalks, and her inspection walks were completely open to the ele-
ments. I felt like someone who had been transferred from the Oce-
anic to take up a position on a tramp steamer. For all that I came
from a period of time before any airship had seemed a practical
means of travel, my interest in The Rover was almost one of histori-
cal curiosity as I looked her over. She was certainly weather-beaten.
The silvering on her hull was beginning to flake and the lettering of
her number (806), name and registration (London) had peeled off
in places. Since it was illegal to have even a partially obliterated reg-
istration, there were a couple of airshipmen hanging in a pulley plat-
form suspended from the topside catwalk, touching up the transfers
with black creosote. She was even older than my first ship, the Loch
Ness, and much more primitive, with a slightly piratical look about
her. I doubted she boasted such things as computers, temperature
regulators or anything but the most unsophisticated form of wireless
telephone, and her speed could not have been much over 80 mph.
I had a moment of trepidation as I stood there, watching her turn
sluggishly in her cables and then, reluctantly, swing back to her origi-
nal position. She was about 600 feet long and not an inch of her
looked as if it should have been passed as airworthy. I began to
climb the mast, hoping that my lateness had not held the ship up.
I got the the top of the mast and entered the cone. From cone to
ship there was a narrow gangplank with rope sides. It bent as I set
foot on it and began to cross. No special covered gangways for The
Rover, no reinforced plastic walls so that passengers needn't see the
ground a hundred feet below. A peculiar feeling of satisfaction began
to creep over me. After my initial shock, I was beginning to like the
idea of flying in this battered old tramp of the skylanes. She had a
certain style about her and there was nothing fancy about her
fixtures. She had something of the aura of the early pioneer ships
which Captain Harding had often reminisced about.
As I reached the circular embarkation platform I was greeted by
an airshipman in a dirty pullover. He jerked his thumb towards a
short aluminium companionway which wound up from the centre of

<88
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the platform. "You the new number two, sir? Captain's expecting
you on the bridge."
I thanked him and climbed the steps to emerge on the bridge. It
was deserted but for the short, stocky man in the well-pressed but
threadbare uniform of a Merchant Air Service captain. He turned,
his blue-grey eyes as steady and as contemplative as ever, one of his
black cheroots in his mouth, his grey Imperial jutting forward as he
stepped towards me and shook my hand.
"Glad to have you aboard, Mr. Bastable."
"Thank you, sir. Glad to be aboard. I'm sorry I'm late, but . . ."
"I know, they shifted us to make way for that damned Russian
freighter. You haven't delayed us. We're still giving our registration
particulars a lick of paint and our passengers haven't arrived yet."
He pointed to where a flight of six steps led to a door in the stern of
the bridge. "Your cabin's through there. You mess with Mr. Barry
this voyage, but you'll have your own quarters as soon as we drop
the passengers. We don't often carry many—though we've deck pas-
sengers coming aboard at Saigon—and your cabin's the only one suit-
able. All right?"
"Thank you, sir."
"Good."
I hefted my bag.
"Cabin's on the right," said Korzeniowski. "Mine's directly ahead
and the passengers'—what will be yours—is on the left. I think Barry's
expecting you. See you in fifteen minutes. Hoping to cast off, then."
I climbed the companionway and opened the connecting door to
find myself in a short passage with the three doors leading off it. The
walls were of plain grey colour, chipped and scored. I knocked on
the door on my right.
"Enter."
Inside a tall, thin man with a great shock of red hair was sitting in
his underclothes on the unmade bottom bunk. He was pouring him-
self a generous measure of gin. As I entered he looked up and nod-
ded sociably. "Bastable? I'm Barry. Drink?" He extended the bottle
then, as if remembering his manners, offered me the glass.
I smiled. "Bit early for me. I'm on the top bunk, eh?"
"Afraid so. Not what you're used to, probably, after the Loch
Etive."
"It suits me."
"You'll find a couple of uniforms in the locker, yonder. Marlowe
was about your size, luckily. You can stow your other gear there,

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<89
too. I heard about your fight. Good for you. This is a whole bloody
ship of misfits. Not too strong on formal discipline, but we work hard
and the skipper's one of the best."
"I liked him," I said. I began to put my gear in the locker and
then took out a crumpled uniform. Barry was dragging on his trou-
sers and a jersey.
"One of the best," he repeated. He finished his drink and carefully
put bottle and glass away. "Well, I think I heard the passengers
come aboard. We can leave at last. See you on the bridge when we
let go."
As he opened the door to leave I glimpsed the back of one of the
passengers entering the opposite cabin. A woman. A woman in a
dark, heavy travelling coat. It was odd that Captain Korzeniowski
should take on passengers. He didn't seem the type to welcome
groundmen. But then it was likely that The Rover was glad to make
any extra profit she could. Ships like her ran on a very narrow
margin.
A short while later I joined the captain and Mr. Barry on the
bridge. Height and Steering Coxswains were at their controls and the
wireless telephone operator was crouched in his cubbyhole in contact
with the main traffic building, waiting to be told when we could let
slip from our mast.
I looked through the wrap-round window of the bridge at all the
fine ships. Our little freighter seemed so out of place here that I
would be very glad to get away.
Captain Korzeniowski picked up a speaking tube. "Captain to all
engines. Make ready."
A second later I heard the grumble of the diesels as their engineers
began to warm them up.
The order came through from ground control. We could leave.
The captain took his position in the bow and peered down so that
he could see the main mooring chains and the gangway. Barry went
to the annunciator and stood by with the tube in his hand. The
bosun stood halfway down the companionway to the embarkation
platform, his body bisected by the deck of the bridge.
"Gangway withdrawn," said the captain. "Close and seal em-
barkation doors, bosun."
The bosun relayed this order to an unseen man below. There were
noises, thumps, shouts. Then the bosun's head appeared on the com-
panionway again. "All ready to slip, sir."
"Let slip." The captain straightened his back and drove both

<90
THE NOMAD OF TIME
hands into the pockets of his jacket, his cheroot clamped between his
teeth.
"Let slip below," said Barry into the tube.
There was a jerk as we were released by the mast.
"All cables free."
"All cables free, below," said Barry.
The mooring cables snapped away and we were released into the
air.
"Engines full astern."
Barry adjusted a switch. "All engines full astern." He was speak-
ing now to the engineers crouched in their outside nacelles, nursing
their diesels.
The ship shuddered and bucked slightly as the engines backed her
away from the mast.
"Two hundred and fifty feet, Height Coxswain," said the captain,
still peering through the bow observation port.
"Two hundred and fifty, sir." The coxswain spun his great metal
wheel.
Slowly we crawled into the sky, our bow tilting upward slightly as
the Elevator Coxswain operated his controls, adjusting the tailplanes.
And for the first time I had a sense of loss. I felt I was leaving
behind everything I had come to understand about this world of the
1970s, embarking on what for me would be a fresh voyage of discov-
ery. I felt a bit like one of the ancient Elizabethan navigators who
had set off to look for the other side of the planet.
Croydon Airpark dropped behind us and we cruised over the fields
of Kent towards the coast, gradually rising to a height of a thousand
feet, moving at something under fifty miles an hour. The ship re-
sponded surprisingly well and I began to realise that there was more
to The Rover than I had realised. I was learning not to judge an air-
ship by her appearance. Primitive though her controls were, she flew
smoothly and steadily and was almost stately in her progress through
the sky. Barry, whom I had taken for a drunkard at the end of an un-
savoury career, proved an efficient officer and I was to discover he
drank heavily only when he was not in the air. I hoped that my stiff
manner did not make my fellow officers think me a bit of a prig.
During the first day and night of our journey the passengers failed
to emerge from their cabin. This did not strike me as particularly ec-
centric. They could be suffering from airsickness or perhaps they had
no desire to go anywhere. After all, there were no promenade decks

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<91
or kinemas on The Rover. If one wished to walk the length of the
ship and see anything but the cargo stacked in semi-darkness, one
had to go out onto the outside catwalks and cling to the rails for fear
of being blown overboard.
I performed my duties with enthusiasm, if awkwardly at first, anx-
ious to show Captain Korzeniowski that I was keen. I think both the
skipper, Barry and the crew understood this and I soon found I was
beginning to relax.
By the time we were over the bright blue waters of the Mediter-
ranean and heading for Jerusalem, our first port of call, I had started
to get the feel of The Rover. She had to be treated gently and with
what I can only describe as "grace." Handled in this way, she would
do almost anything you asked of her. This may seem sentimental and
foolish, but there was a sense of affection on that ship—a sense of hu-
manity which extended to crew and craft alike.
But still I didn't see the passengers. They took their meals in their
cabin and not in the little mess next to the galley where officers and
ratings ate. It began to seem that they were shy of being seen, save
by Captain Korzeniowski or Mr. Barry, both of whom visited them
occasionally.
We had no-one on board who was specifically a Navigator or Me-
teorological Officer. These duties were shared between the skipper,
Barry and myself. The night before we arrived at Jerusalem, I had
taken the dog watch and was checking our course against our charts
and instruments when the telephone operator wandered in and
started up a conversation. At length he said:
"What do you make of our passengers, Bastable?"
I shrugged. "I don't make anything of them, Johnson. I've only
had a glimpse of one of them. A woman."
"I think they're refugees," Johnson said. "The old man says
they're getting off at Brunei."
"Really. Not the safest spot in the world. Haven't they had bandit
trouble there?"
"Terrorists of some kind. Well-organised, I gather. I heard the
Germans and Japanese are backing them. Want some of our col-
onies, I shouldn't wonder."
"There are agreements. They wouldn't dare."
Johnson laughed. "You are a bit green, you know, Bastable.
There's trouble brewing all over the East. Nationalism, old man.
India, China, South East Asia. People are getting worried."

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Johnson was a pessimist who relished such prospects. I took ev-
erything he said with a pinch of salt.
"I shouldn't be surprised if our passengers aren't countrymen of
the old man. Polish exiles. Or even Russian anarchists, eh?"
I laughed aloud. "Come off it, Johnson. The skipper would have
nothing to do with that sort of thing."
Johnson shook his head in mock reproof. "Oh dear, oh dear, Bas-
table. You are green. Sorry to have interrupted." He sauntered out of
the bridge. I smiled and dismissed his bantering. He was plainly try-
ing to agitate me. The sort of joke which is often played on "new
boys" on board any ship. Still, the passengers did seem anxious to
keep themselves to themselves.
Next morning we moored at Jerusalem and I changed into my
whites before seeing to the cargo, which was mainly boxes of farming
machinery being delivered to the Palestinian Jewish immigrants. It
was hot and dry and there was some confusion over two boxes which
they had been expecting and which hadn't arrived.
Since I hadn't joined the ship until the cargo had all been taken
on, I sent someone to find the captain. While I waited I bought an
English-language newspaper from the boy who was selling them
around the airpark. I glanced at it casually. The only real news con-
cerned a bomb explosion at the house of Sir George Brown—one of
the leading political figures—a few days earlier. Luckily Sir George
had been away and a servant had been the sole person slightly hurt.
But the papers were understandably upset by the outrage. The words
Freedom for the Colonies had been scrawled on the wall of the
house. The whole thing was plainly the work of fanatics and I won-
dered what kind of madmen could consider such means worthwhile.
There were six or eight photographs of people suspected of being
connected with the murder attempt, among them the notorious Count
Rudolfo Guevara who had long since been chased out of his Portu-
guese homeland and had, until the bombing, been thought to be in
hiding in Germany. Why a nobleman should turn against his own
kind and all the ideals of his upbringing, nobody could understand.
Eventually the captain arrived and began to sort out the confu-
sion. I folded the newspaper in my back pocket and continued with
my duties.
The ways of Fate are strange indeed. It is hard to understand their
workings—and I should know, for I have had enough experience of
them, one way or another. What happened next is a fair example.

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<93
One of the cargo handlers had left a baling hook in a packing case
and, as I moved into the hold, I caught my shirt against it, ripping it
right across the back. It wasn't serious and I carried on with my job
until the captain noticed what had happened.
"You'll get your back sunburned, if you're not careful," he said.
"You'd better go and change, Mr. Bastable."
"If you think so, sir." I let one of our riggers keep an eye on the
cargo and went back through the main passage between the holds
and climbed the companionway up to the bridge and from there to
my cabin. It was stinking hot in the little passage and all the doors of
the cabins were open. For the first time, I got a clear look at the pas-
sengers as I passed. I couldn't stop and gape at them, though it took
a considerable effort of will not to do so. I went into my own cabin
and closed the door.
I was shaking as I sat down on the lower bunk and slowly re-
moved the folded newspaper from my pocket. I had seen a man and
a woman in the passenger cabin. The woman I had not recognised,
but the face of the man was all too familiar. I opened the newspaper
and looked again at the photographs of the anarchists wanted in con-
nection with the attempt on Sir George Brown's life. My brain seeth-
ing with a hundred different thoughts I looked hard at one of the
photographs. There was no doubt about it. The tall, handsome man I
had seen in the cabin was Count Rudolfo Guevara the notorious
anarchist and assassin!
Tears came into my eyes as the implications of this revelation
dawned on me.
The kindly old airship skipper who had impressed me so much as
a man of character and integrity, into whose hands I had so willingly
put my fate, was himself at very least a Socialist sympathiser!
I was overwhelmed by a profound sense of betrayal. How could I
have misjudged someone so badly?
I should, of course, contact the authorities and warn them at once.
But how could I leave the ship without arousing suspicion? Doubt-
less all the officers and every member of the crew were of the same
desperate persuasion as their captain. It was unlikely that I would
reach the police in Jerusalem alive. And yet it was my duty to try.
Time must have passed rapidly while I carried on this debate with
myself for, suddenly, I felt the ship lurch and I realised that we had
already let slip from the mooring mast.
I was aloft, helpless now to do anything, in a ship full of danger-

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ous and fanatical men who would certainly stop at nothing to silence
me if they realised I suspected them.
With a groan I buried my head in my hands.
What a fool I had been to trust Dempsey—evidently, now, one of
the same gang! I put it down to the fact that I had been badly
disorientated after giving in my resignation.
The door opened suddenly and I jumped nervously. It was Barry.
He was smiling. I looked at him in horror. How could he disguise his
true nature so well?
"What's the matter, old chap?" he asked blandly. "Touch of the
sun? The old man sent me to see if you were all right."
"Who—?" I spoke with great effort. "The—the passengers—why are
they aboard?" I wanted to hear him give me an answer which would
prove his and Captain Korzeniowski's innocence.
He looked at me in surprise for a moment and then said, "What—
them across the passage? Why they're just old friends of the skip-
per's. He's doing them a favour."
"A favour?"
"That's right. Look here, you'd better lie down for a bit. You
should have worn a hat, you know. Would you like a drop of some-
thing strong to pull you round?" He moved towards his locker.
How could he act so casually. I could only suppose that a life led
so long beyond the bounds of the Law created an attitude of
indifference both to the suffering caused to others and the corruption
in one's own soul.
What chance had I against such men as Barry?

Book Three
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN—
THE TABLES TURNED—ENTER THE
WARLORD OF THE AIR—AND EXIT
THE TEMPORAL EXCURSIONIST . . .

CHAPTER I
General O. T. Shaw
As i lay there in the cabin thinking back over the events of the past
few days, I realised how Cornelius Dempsey, and later his compa-
triots in crime, had come to believe I was one of them. Seen from
their perspective, my attack on Egan had been an attack on the kind
of authority he represented. Several hints had been dropped and, in
misinterpreting them, I had allowed myself to be sucked into this ap-
palling situation.
"We are both outcasts, in our way," Captain Korzeniowski had
said. Only now was I aware of the significance of those words! He
thought me as desperate a character as himself! A Socialist! An
Anarchist even!
But then it began to dawn on me that I was in the perfect position
to win back my honour—for every disgrace to be forgotten—to ensure
that I was reinstated in the service I loved.
For they did not suspect me. They thought me one of themselves,
still. If I could somehow seize control of the ship and force it to turn
back to a British Air Port, I could then deliver the lot of them to the
police. I should become a hero (not that I wanted honours for their
own sake) and almost certainly I would be asked to rejoin my regi-
ment. And then in my mind's eye I saw Captain Korzeniowski's face,
his steady eyes, and I felt a dreadful pang. Was I to deliver this man
into captivity? A man who had befriended me? A man who seemed
so decent on the surface?
I hardened my heart. That was why he had managed to remain at
liberty for so long—because he seemed so decent. He was a devil.
Doubtless he had deceived many others in his long career of anarchy
and crime, fooling them as he had fooled me.
I stood up, moving stiffly as if under the power of a mesmerist. I
walked to Barry's locker where I knew he kept a large service re-

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
volver. I opened the locker. I took out the revolver and made sure
that it was loaded. I tucked it into my belt and put on my jacket so
that the gun was hidden.
Then I sat down again and tried to make a plan.
Our next port of call was Kandahar in Afghanistan. Although
nominally allied to Britain, Afghanistan was notoriously fickle in her
loyalties. In Kandahar there were Russians, Germans, Turks and
Frenchmen, all conspiring to win that mountainous state to their
side, all playing what Mr. Kipling calls the Great Game of politics
and intrigue. Even if I was able to leave the ship, there was no cer-
tainty that I should find a sympathetic ear in Kandahar. What then?
Force the ship to turn back to Jerusalem? There were difficulties
there, too. No, I must wait until we had let slip from Kandahar air-
park and were on our way to the third port of call—Lahore, in British
India.
So, until Kandahar was behind us, I must continue to try to act
normally. Reluctantly, I replaced Barry's revolver in his locker. I
drew a deep breath, tried to relax my features, and went up onto the
bridge.
How I managed to deceive my new "friends" I shall never know. I
carried out my normal duties over the next few days and was as
efficient as ever. Only in conversation with Korzeniowski, Barry or
the others did I have difficulty. I simply could not bring myself to
speak casually with them. They thought that I was still suffering
some slight effects from the sun and were sympathetic. If I had not
discovered them for what they were, I should have believed that their
concern was genuine. Perhaps it was genuine—but they thought they
were concerned for the well-being of one of their own.
Kandahar was reached—a walled city of bleak stone buildings
which had not changed since my own day—and then we had left it.
The tension within me increased. Again I availed myself of Barry's
revolver. I checked the charts assiduously, waiting for the moment
when we had crossed the border and arrived in India (which was
now, of course, completely under British rule). Within a day we
should be in Lahore. Feigning sickness, once more, I remained in my
cabin and in my mind sketched out the final details of my plan.
I had ensured that none of the crew members nor the officers
carried weapons as a rule. My plan depended on this fact.
The hours ticked by. We were due to moor at Lahore at noon. At
eleven o'clock I left my cabin and went on to the bridge.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<99
Captain Korzeniowski was standing with his back to the door,
staring down through wisps of cloud at the brown, sun-beaten plains
drifting past below us. Barry was at the computer, working out the
best path of approach to Lahore airpark. The telephone operator
was bent over his apparatus. Height and Steering Coxes were studying
their controls. Nobody saw me as I entered silently and drew the re-
volver from my belt, holding it behind my back.
"Everything clear for Lahore?" I said.
Barry looked up, frowning. "Hullo, Bastable. Feeling better?"
"Absolutely top-hole," I said. There was a funny note to my voice
which even I heard.
Barry's frown darkened. "Splendid," he said. "If you feel like rest-
ing a bit longer. There's three-quarters of an hour at least before we
moor. . ."
"I'm fine. I just wanted to make sure we do get to Lahore."
Korzeniowski turned, smiling. "Why shouldn't we? Have you seen
something in your tea-cup?"
"Not my tea-cup . . . I'm afraid you've been under a misap-
prehension about me, captain."
"Have I?" He raised his eyebrows and continued to puff on his
pipe. His coolness maddened me. I revealed the gun in my hand. I
cocked the hammer. "Yes," he said, without changing his tone or his
expression. "I think you may be right. More than a touch of the sun,
mm?"
"Nothing to do with the sun, captain. I trusted you—trusted you
all. I suppose it isn't your fault—after all, you thought I was one of
you. 'Temperamentally, at least,' to quote your friend Dempsey.
But I'm not. I made the mistake of thinking you decent men—and
you made the mistake of thinking me a villain like yourselves. Ironic,
isn't it?"
"Very." Still Korzeniowski's demeanour did not alter. But Barry
was looking startled, glancing first at my face and then at the cap-
tain's, as if he thought we had both gone mad.
"You know what I'm talking about, of course," I said to Kor-
zeniowski.
"I must admit I'm not sure, Bastable. If you want my frank opin-
ion, I think you're having a fit of some kind. I hope you don't intend
to hurt anyone."
"I'm extremely rational," I said. "I have discovered what you and
your crew are, captain. I mean to take this ship to Lahore—the mili-

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tary section of the airpark—and there deliver it and you up to the au-
thorities."
"For smuggling, perhaps?"
"No, captain—for treason. You pointed out to me that you were a
British subject. For harbouring wanted criminals-your two passen-
gers. Guevara and the girl. You see, I know who they are. And I
know what you are—anarchist sympathisers, at best. At worst,
well. .
"I see that I did misjudge you, my boy." Korzeniowski removed
the pipe from his mouth. "I did not want you to find out about our
passengers because I wanted you to share no part of the burden—in
case we were caught. My sympathies do, in fact, lie with people like
Count Guevara and Miss Persson—she is the count's lady friend.
They are what I think of as moderate radicals. You think they had
something to do with the bombings?"
"The newspapers do. The police do."
"That is because they will brand everyone with the same iron,"
Korzeniowski said. "As you doubtless do."
"You can't talk your way out of this, captain." My hand had
begun to shake and for a moment I felt a weakening of my resolve.
"I know you for the hypocrite you are."
Korzeniowski shrugged. "This is silly. But I agree—it is also ironic.
I thought you, well, neutral, at least."
"Whatever else I am, captain, I am a patriot," I said.
"I think that I am that, too," he smiled. "I believe most strongly
in the British ideal of justice. But I should like to see that ideal
spread a little further than the shores of one small island. I should
like to see it put into practice the world over. I admire what Britain
stands for in many ways. But I do not admire what she has done to
her colonies, for I have had some experience of what it is to live
under foreign rule, Bastable."
"Russia's conquest of Poland is scarcely the same as Britain's ad-
ministration of India," I said.
"I see no great difference, Bastable." He sighed. "But you must do
what you think right. You have the gun. And the man with the gun is
always right, eh?"
I refused to be drawn into this trap. Like most Slavs, he had
proved to be a superb logic-splitter.
Barry broke in, his Irish brogue seemingly thicker than before.
"Conquest—administration—or, in the American's terms, the loan of
'advisors'—it's all the same, Bastable, me boy. And it has the same

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<101
vice at its root—the vice of greed. I've yet to see a colony that is
better off than the nation which colonised it. Poland—Ireland—
Siam. .
"Like most fanatics," I pointed out coolly, "you share at least one
characteristic with children—you want everything now. All improve-
ments take time. You cannot make the world perfect overnight.
Things are considerably better for more people today than they were
in my—in the early years of this century, for instance."
"In some ways," Korzeniowski said. "But the old evils remain.
And will continue until those who have the most power are made to
understand that they are promoting evil."
"And you would make them understand by exploding bombs,
murdering ordinary men and women, agitating ignorant natives to
take part in risings in which they are bound to come off worst? That
is not my idea of people who oppose evil."
"Nor is it mine, in those terms," said Korzeniowski.
"Guevara has never let off a bomb in his life!" said Barry.
"He has given his blessing to those who do. It is the same thing," I
countered.
I heard a small sound behind me and tried to back away to see
what caused it. But then I felt something press forcefully into my
ribs. A hand appeared and covered the cylinder of my revolver and a
quiet, slightly amused voice said:
"I suppose you are right, Senor Bastable. When all is said and
done, we are what we are. Our temperaments are such that we sup-
port one side or the other. And, I'm afraid, your side is not doing too
well today."
Before I could think, he had taken the gun from my hand and I
turned to confront the cynically smiling face of the arch-anarchist
himself. Behind him stood a pretty girl dressed in a long, black trav-
elling coat. Her short, dark hair framed her heart-shaped, serious lit-
tle face and she stared at me curiously with steady, grey eyes which
reminded me immediately of Korzeniowski's.
"This is my daughter, Una Persson," said the captain from over
my shoulder. "You know Count Guevara already, of course."
Once again I had failed to fulfil an ambition in this world of the
future. I became convinced that I was doomed never to succeed in
anything I set out to do. Was it simply because I was a man existing
in a period of history not his own? Or, faced with similar situations

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in my own time, would I have bungled my opportunities as I had
these?
This was the drift of my thoughts as I sat in my cabin, a prisoner,
as the ship came and went from Lahore and began heading for its
next destination, which was Calcutta. After Calcutta came Saigon
where the "deck passengers" were due to come aboard, and then
Brunei, where Guevara and his beautiful woman friend were bound
(doubtless to join the terrorists seeking to end British rule there).
After Brunei we were due to pay a call at Canton, where we would
put off the pilgrims who were our deck passengers (or more likely
terrorist friends of Korzeniowski's!) and then start back, via Manila
and Darwin. I wondered which of these ports I should visit before
the anarchists decided what to do with me. Probably they were trying
to decide that now. It should not be difficult to claim that I had been
lost overboard at some convenient point.
Barry brought my food in, his own revolver once again in his pos-
session. So distorted was his point of view that he seemed genuinely
sorrowful that I had turned out to be a "traitor." Certainly he
seemed more sympathetic than angry. I still found it hard to see
Barry and Korzeniowski as villains and once I asked Barry if Una
Persson, the captain's daughter, was in some way a hostage for the
captain's good behaviour. Barry laughed at this and shook his head.
"No, me boy. She's her father's daughter, that's all there is to that!"
But it was evidently the connection—why The Rover had been cho-
sen as the vessel in which they had made their escape from Britain. It
also proved to me that the captain's moral sensibilities must be
stunted, to say the least, if he allowed his daughter to share a cabin
with a man to whom she was evidently not married (where was Mr.
Persson? I wondered—doubtless another anarchist who had been ap-
prehended). Plainly I did not have much chance of living more than
a few hours longer.
I had one hope. Johnson, the telephone operator, had certainly not
been in the know about Guevara's identity. Although he might have
other reasons for choosing to serve aboard The Rover, he was not
the committed socialist the others were. Perhaps I could bribe John-
son in some way? Or offer him help, if he needed it, if he would help
me now. But how was I to contact Johnson? And if I did contact
him, would he not fall under suspicion and be unable to get a tele-
phone message out to a British airpark?
I stared through the tiny porthole of my cabin. When we had
berthed at Lahore, Guevara had kept me at gunpoint so that I might

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<103
not shout out or drop a message through. I could see nothing but grey
clouds going on and on for miles. And all I could hear was the
steady roar of The Rover's cumbersome engines, bearing me, it
seemed, closer and closer to my doom.
At Calcutta, Guevara once again joined me in my cabin, his re-
volver pointing at my breast. I glanced out at the sunshine, at a dis-
tant city I had known and loved in my own time but now could not
recognise. How could these anarchists say that British rule was bad
when it had done so much to modernise India? I put this to Guevara
who only laughed.
"Do you know how much a pair of good boots costs in England?"
"About ten shillings," I said.
"And here?"
"Probably less."
"About thirty shillings in Calcutta—if you are an Indian. About
five shillings if you are a European. Europeans you see control the
bootmaking trade. While they are able to buy from source, the In-
dian has to buy from a shop. Retail shops need to charge thirty
shillings and this is what the average Indian earns in a month. Food
costs more in Delhi than it does in Manchester, but the Indian work-
man earns a quarter of what the English workman earns. You know
why this is?"
"No." It seemed a pack of lies to me.
"Because Britain's prices and incomes are maintained artificially,
at the expense of her colonies. All trade agreements favour her. She
sets the price at which she buys. She controls the means of produc-
tion so that the price remains stable, no matter how the market fluc-
tuates. The Indian starves so that the Briton may feast. It is the same
in all colonies and 'possessions' and protectorates, no matter how it
is dressed up."
"But there are hospitals, welfare programmes, there is a dole sys-
tem," I said. "The Indian does not starve."
"True—he is kept alive. It is silly to let your pool of available
labour die altogether, for you never know when you may not next
need it. Slaves represent wealth, do they not?"
I refused to rise to this sort of inflammatory stuff. I was not sure
his economics were particularly sound, for one thing, and for another
I was certain that he saw everything through the distorting glass of
his own mind.
"All I know is that the average Indian is better off than he was in

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1900," I said. "Better off than many English people were in those
days."
"You have seen only the cities. Do you know that Indians are only
allowed to come to the cities if they have permission from the gov-
ernment? They must carry passes which say they have a job here. If
they have no job, they are returned to the countryside where they live
in villages where schools, hospitals and all the other advantages of
British rule are few and far between. This sort of system applies
throughout Africa and the East. It has been developed over the years
and now even applies to some European colonies—Poland under the
Russians, Bohemia under the Germans."
"I know the system," I said. "It is not inhumane. It is merely a
means of controlling the flow of labour, of stopping the cities from
turning into the slums they once were. Everyone benefits."
"It is a system of slavery," said the aristocratic anarchist. "It is
unjust. It leads to further erosions of liberty. You support tyrants,
my friend, when you support such a system."
I smiled and shook my head. "Ask the Indian man in the street
how he feels. He will tell you he is satisfied, I am sure."
"Because he knows no better. Because the British conspire to
teach him just a little—enough to confuse his mind and let him swal-
low their propaganda, no more. It is strange that their educational
spending remains the same, when certain other forms of 'welfare'
spending go up to meet the demand. Thus have you broken the spirit
of those you have conquered. You are the ones who speak compla-
cently of free enterprise, of a man standing on his own feet, of 'bet-
tering himself' by his own efforts—and then are horrified when those
you colonise resent your patronage, your 'system of controlling the
flow of labour.' Bah!"
"I might remind you," I said, "that, compared with seventy years
ago, this world has a stability it has previously never known. There
have been no major wars. There has been a hundred years of peace
throughout most of the world. Is that an evil?"
"Yes—for your stability has been achieved at the expense of the
pride of others. You have destroyed souls, not bodies, and in my
opinion that is an evil of the worst kind."
"Enough of this!" I cried impatiently. "You're boring me, Count
Guevara. You should feel satisfied that you have defeated my plans.
I'll listen no longer. I regard myself as a decent man—a humane man
—indeed, a liberal man—but your kind makes me want to—want to—
well, I had better not say..." I controlled my temper.

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<105
"You see!" Guevara laughed. "I am the voice of your conscience.
That which you refuse to hear. And you are so determined not to
hear it that you would wipe out anyone who tries to make you hear!
You are so typical of all those 'decent,' 'humane' and 'liberal' men
who hold two thirds of the world in slavery." He gestured with his
pistol. "It is strange how all authoritarians automatically assume that
the libertarian wishes to impose his own views on them when all he
actually wants to do is to appeal to the authoritarian's better nature.
But I suppose you authoritarians can only see things in your own
terms."
"You cannot confuse me with your arguments. At least give me
the privilege of spending my last hours in silence."
"As you wish."
Until we let slip from the mooring mast, he said little, save to mut-
ter something about the "dignity of man" having come to mean noth-
ing more than the "arrogance of the conqueror." But I shut my ears
to his ravings. It was he who was arrogant, in seeking to foist his rev-
olutionary notions onto me.
During the next part of the voyage I made desperate efforts to
contact Johnson, saying that I was sick of my food being brought by
Barry and I would enjoy seeing a face other than his.
Instead, they sent me the captain's daughter. Her grace and her
beauty were such that I could scarcely scowl at her as I had at the
others. I tried, once or twice, to find out from her what her father in-
tended to do with me but she said he was still "puzzling it over."
Would she help me? I asked directly. She seemed astonished at this
and made no reply of any sort, but left the cabin in some haste.
At Saigon—I could tell it must be Saigon by the glitter of gilded
temples in the distance—I heard the babble of the Indo-Chinese pil-
grims taking their places in the space allotted for them amongst the
bales of cargo. I did not envy them those hot, cramped quarters, but,
of course, they were lucky—if they were genuine Buddhist pilgrims—
to get an airship passage at all.
Once again—although Saigon was a "free" port, under American
patronage—I was guarded vigilantly by a Count Rudolfo Guevara
who seemed less sure of himself than on the previous occasions we
had met. He was definitely ill at ease and it occurred to me that the
American authorities might have had some wind of The Rover's mis-
sion and were asking awkward questions. We certainly left in what

<106
THE NOMAD OF TIME
seemed to be a hurry and took the air scarcely three hours after we
had moored and refueled, the engines going full out.
Later that evening I heard from across the little passage the
sounds of voices raised in argument. I recognised the voices as
belonging to Guevara, the captain, Barry and Una Persson—and
there seemed to be another voice, softer and very calm, which I did
not recognise.
I heard a few words—"Brunei"—"Canton"—"Japanese"—"Shan-
tung"—mainly names of places which I recognised, but I could not
guess the nature of the argument.
A day passed and I was brought food only once—by Una Persson
who apologised that it was a cold meal. She looked strained and
rather worried. I asked her if anything were wrong. It was politeness
which made me ask. She gave me a baffled look and a brief, bewil-
dering smile. "I'm not sure," was all she said before leaving and
locking my door on the outside as usual.
It was midnight, when we must have been well on our way to
Brunei, that I heard the first shot. At first I thought it was a sound
made by one of the engines, but I knew at once that I was wrong.
I got up, still dressed in my clothes, and stumbled to the door,
pressing my ear against it and listening hard. Now I heard more shots
—shouting—the sound of running feet. What on Earth was happen-
ing? Had the villains fallen out amongst themselves? Or had we
landed without my realising it and taken on a boarding party of Brit-
ish or American police?
I went to the porthole. We were still airborne, flying high over the
China Sea, if my guess were right.
The sounds of fighting went on for at least another half-an-hour.
Then there were no more shots, but voices raised in angry exchange.
Then the voices died. I heard footfalls in the passage, I heard the key
turn in the lock on my door.
Light burst in and half-blinded me.
I blinked at the tall figure which stood framed in the opening, a re-
volver in one hand, his other hand on the doorknob. He was dressed
in flowing Asiatic robes but his handsome face was distinctly Eura-
sian—a mixture of Chinese and English if I were not mistaken.
"Good morning, Lieutenant Bastable," he said in perfect Oxford
English. "I am General O. T. Shaw and this ship is now under my
command. I believe you have some flying experience. I should be

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<107
very grateful if you would allow me to avail myself of that experi-
ence."
My jaw dropped in stupefied astonishment.
I knew that name. Who did not? The man who addressed me was
known far and wide as the fiercest of the bandit chieftains who
plagued the Central Government of the Chinese Republic. This was
Shuo Ho Ti—Warlord of Chihli!

CHAPTER H
The Valley of the Morning
My first thought was that I had been lifted out of the frying pan
into the fire. But then I realised that it was the habit of many Chinese
warlords to hold their European prisoners to ransom. With luck, my
government might pay for my release. I smiled to myself when I
thought that Korzeniowski and Company had innocently taken on
board a gang of rascals even more villainous than themselves. Here
was the best irony of them all.
General O. T. Shaw (or Shuo Ho Ti as he styled himself for the
sake of his Chinese followers) had built himself an army of bandits,
renegades and deserters so big that it controlled large areas of the
provinces of Chihli, Shantung and Kiangsu, giving Shaw a strangle-
hold on the routes between Peking and Shanghai. He charged such
an extortionate sum as a "toll" on trains and motors which came
through his territory that trade and communications between the two
cities was now conducted almost wholly by airship—and not every
airship was safe if it flew low enough to be shot at by Shaw's cannon.
The Central Government was powerless against him and too fearful
of seeking assistance from the foreigners who administered large
parts of China which were not in the Republic. For the foreigners-
Russians and Japanese for the most part—might make it their excuse
to occupy that territory and refuse to leave. This was what gave
Shaw—and warlords like him—his power.
I had been taken aback at meeting such a famous and romantic
figure in the flesh. But now I managed to speak.
"Why—why should you want me to fly the ship?"
The tall Eurasian smoothed his straight, black hair and looked
more like a devil than ever as he replied softly: "I'm afraid Mr.
Barry is dead. Captain Korzeniowski is wounded. You are the only
person qualified to do the job."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<109
"Barry dead?" I should have been exultant, but instead I felt a
sense of loss.
"My men reacted hastily when they saw he had a gun. They are
frightened, you see, of being so high in the air. They feel that if they
die the spirits of the upper regions—devils all—will capture their
souls. They are ignorant, superstitious men, my followers."
"And how badly is Captain Korzeniowski hurt?"
"A head wound. Not a serious one. But, naturally, he is very dizzy
and not up to commanding the ship."
"His daughter—and Count Guevara?"
"They are locked in their cabin, with the captain."
"Johnson?"
"He was last seen on the outer catwalk. I believe he fell overboard
during a fight with some of my men."
"My God," I muttered. "My God." I felt sick. "This is piracy.
Murder. I can hardly believe it."
"It is all of those things, I regret to say," said Shaw. I recognised
the soft voice now, of course. I had heard it earlier when they had
been arguing in the opposite cabin. "But we do not wish to kill any
more, now that we have control of the ship and can fly it to
Shantung. None of this would have happened if your Count Guevara
had not insisted we go to Brunei, even though I warned him that the
British knew he was aboard The Rover and would be waiting for him
there."
"How did you know that?"
"It is the duty of a leader to know everything he can and so
benefit his people accordingly," was the rather ambiguous reply.
"And what will you do for me if I agree to help you?" I asked.
"It is what we shall do to the others which might interest you
more. We shall refrain from torturing them to death. This might not
impress you, however, since they are enemies of yours. But they
are"—he lifted his right eyebrow sardonically—"fellow white men."
"Whatever they are—and I've nothing but contempt for them—I
wouldn't want them tortured by your ruffians."
"If all goes well, nobody will be harmed." Shaw uncocked his re-
volver and lowered it, but he did not put it back in the holster at his
hip. "I assure you that I do not enjoy killing and I give you my word
that the lives of all aboard The Rover will be spared—if we reach
the Valley of the Morning safely."
"Where is this valley?"

<110
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"In Shantung. It is my headquarters. We will guide you when you
reach Wuchang. It is expedient that we reach there quickly. Origi-
nally we meant to go to Canton and move overland from there, but
someone had telephoned that we were aboard—Johnson, I suppose—
and it became obvious we must go directly to our base, without
pause. If Count Guevara had not objected to this plan, all trouble
might have been averted."
So Johnson had been on my side! In trying to save me and warn
the authorities of all that was happening aboard The Rover, he had
brought about this disaster and caused his own death.
It was horrible. Johnson had, in effect, died trying to save me. And
now his killer was asking me to fly him to safety. But if I did not,
others would die, too. Though some of them deserved death, they did
not deserve to have it served to them in the manner which Shaw had
hinted at. I sighed deeply and my shoulders sagged as I made my
reply. All heroics seemed pointless now.
"I have your word that we shall not be harmed if I do as you
wish?"
"You have my word."
"Very well, General Shaw. I'll fly your damned airship."
"That's very decent of you, old man," said Shaw beaming and
clapping me on the shoulder. He holstered his revolver.
When I arrived on the bridge my horror was increased by the sight
of the blood spattered everywhere on the floor, the bulkheads, the in-
struments. At least one person had been shot at close range—proba-
bly poor Barry. The coxswains were at their positions. They looked
pale and shocked. Beside each coxswain stood two Chinese bandits,
their bodies criss-crossed with bandoliers of bullets, their belts bris-
tling with knives and small-arms. I had never in my life seen such a
murderous gang as Shaw's followers. No attempt had been made to
clean the mess, and charts and log-tables were scattered about the
bridge, some of them soaked in blood.
"I can do nothing until all this is cleaned up," I said bleakly. Shaw
said something in Cantonese and, very reluctantly, two of the bandits
left the bridge to return with buckets and mops. As they worked, I
inspected the instruments to make sure they were still in working
order. Apart from some dents caused by bullets, nothing was badly
damaged except the telephone which looked to me as if it had been
scientifically destroyed, perhaps by Johnson himself before he had
made a rim for the outer catwalk.

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<111
At last the bandits finished. Shaw gestured towards the main con-
trols. We were flying very low at not much more than three hundred
feet—a dangerous height.
"Put her up to seven hundred and fifty feet, Height Coxswain," I
said grimly. Without a word, the coxswain did as he was ordered. The
ship tilted steeply and Shaw's eyes narrowed, his hand going to his
holster, but then we levelled out. I found the appropriate charts for
China and studied them.
"I think I can get us to Wuchang," I said. If necessary, we could
always follow the railway line, but I doubted if Shaw was prepared to
drop speed. He seemed anxious to get into his own territory by
morning. "But before I begin, I want to be certain that Captain Kor-
zeniowski and the others are still alive."
Shaw pursed his lips and gave me a hard look. Then he toned on
his heel. "Very well. Follow me." Another order in Cantonese and a
bandit fell into step behind me.
We reached the middle cabin and Shaw took a key from his belt,
unlocking the door.
Three wretched faces stared up at us from the cabin. A crude
bandage had been tied around Captain Korzeniowski's head. It was
soaked in blood. His face was ashen and he looked much older than
the last time I had seen him. He did not appear to recognise me. His
daughter was cradling his head in her lap. Her hair was awry and she
seemed to have been crying. She offered Shaw a glare of hatred and
contempt. Guevara saw us and looked away.
"Are you—all right?" I asked rather foolishly.
"We are not dead, Mr. Bastable," Guevara said bitterly, standing
up and turning his back on us. "Is that what you meant?"
"I am trying to save your lives," I said, a little priggishly under the
circumstances, but I wanted them to know that a chap of my sort
was capable of generosity towards his enemies. "I'm going to fly this
ship to—General—Shaw's base. He says he'll not kill any of us if I do
that."
"His word's hardly to be trusted after what's happened tonight,"
said Guevara. He gave a strange, harsh laugh. "Odd that you should
find our politics so disgusting when you can throw in your lot cheer-
fully with him!"
"He's scarcely a politician," I pointed out. "Besides, it wouldn't
matter who he was. He holds all the cards—save the one I'm playing
now."

<112
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Goodnight, Mr. Bastable," said Una Persson, stroking her fa-
ther's head. "I think you mean well. Thank you."
Embarrassed I backed out of the cabin and returned to the bridge.
By morning we had reached Wuchang and Shaw was evidently
much more relaxed than he had been during the night. He went so
far as to offer me a pipe of opium which I instantly refused. In those
days opium seemed pretty disgusting stuff—it shows you how much
I've changed, eh?
Wuchang was quite a large city, but we passed it before it was
properly awake, flying over terraced roofs, pagodas, little blue-roofed
houses, while Shaw got his bearings and pointed out the direction in
which we should go.
There is nothing like a Chinese sunrise. A great watery sun ap-
peared over the horizon and the whole land was turned to soft tones
of pink, yellow and orange as we approached a line of sand-coloured
hills. I felt that we offended such beauty with our battered, noisy air-
ship full of so many cutthroats of various nationalities.
Then we were flying over the hills themselves and Shaw told us to
slow our speed. He issued more rapidly orders in Cantonese and one
of his men left the bridge and made for the ladder which would lead
him onto the outer catwalk on the top of the hull. Plainly the man
was to make some sort of signal that we were friendly.
Then, suddenly, we were over a valley. It was a deep, wide valley
through which a river wound. It was a green, lush valley which
seemed to have no business in that rocky landscape. I saw herds of
cattle grazing. I saw small farmhouses, rice fields, pigs and goats.
"Is this the valley?" I asked.
Shaw nodded. "This is the Valley of the Morning. And look, Mr.
Bastable—there is my 'camp'. . ."
He pointed ahead. I saw high, white buildings, separated by
patches of greenery. I saw fountains splashing and nearby were the
tiny figures of children at play. Over this modern township there
flew a large, crimson flag—doubtless Shaw's battle flag. I was as-
tonished to see such a settlement in these wilds and even more as-
tonished to learn that it was Shaw's, headquarters. It seemed so
peaceful, so civilised!
Shaw was grinning at me, wholly amused by my surprise.
"Not bad for a barbarian warlord, eh? We built it all ourselves. It
has every amenity—and some which even London cannot boast."
I looked at Shaw through new eyes. Bandit, pirate, murderer he

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<113
might be—but he must be something more than these to have built
such a city in the Chinese wilderness.
"Haven't you read my publicity, Mr. Bastable? Perhaps you
haven't seen the Shanghai Express recently. They are calling me the
Chinese Alexander! This is my Alexandria. This is Shawtown, Mr.
Bastable!" He was chuckling like a schoolboy, delighted at his own
achievements. "I built it. I built it."
My first shock of amazement died away. "Perhaps you did," I
murmured, "but you built it from the flesh and bones of those you
have murdered and painted it with the same crimson blood which
stains your flag."
"A rather rhetorical statement for you, Mr. Bastable. As it hap-
pens, I am not normally much of a hand at murder. I'm a soldier, re-
ally. You appreciate the difference?"
"I appreciate the difference, but my experience has shown me that
you are not anything more than a murderer, 'General' Shaw."
He laughed again. "We'll see, we'll see. Now—look over there. Do
you recognise her? There—on the other side of the city? There!"
I saw her at last, her huge bulk moving gently in the wind, her
mooring ropes holding her close to the ground. And I recognised her,
sure enough.
"My God!" I exclaimed. "You've got the Loch Etive!"
"Yes," he said eagerly, again like a schoolboy who has added a
rather good new stamp to his collection. "That's her name. She's to
be my flagship. At this rate I'll soon have my own airfleet. What
d'you think of that, Mr. Bastable? Soon I'll control not only the
ground, but the air as well. What a warlord I shall be! Something of
a warlord, eh?"
I stared at his eager, glowing face and I could think of no reply.
He was not mad. He was not naive. He was not a fool. He was, in
fact, one of the most intelligent men I had ever encountered. He
baffled me absolutely.
He had thrown back his head and was laughing joyfully at his own
cleverness-at his own wholly gargantuan act of cheek in stealing
what was perhaps the finest and biggest aerial liner in the skies!
"Oh, Mr. Bastable!" His half-Chinese features were still creased
with mirth. "What larks, Mr. Bastable! What larks!"

CHAPTER IK
Chi'ng Che'eng Ta-Chia
There were no mooring masts on the flat space outside the city
and so ropes had to be flung down to waiting men who manhandled
the ship until the gondola touched the ground. Then cables and ropes
were pegged into the earth, holding The Rover as, further away, the
Loch Etive was held.
As we disembarked, under the suspicious gaze of Shaw's armed
bandits, I expected to see coolies come hurrying up to strip the ship
of its cargo, but the men who arrived were healthy, well-dressed
fellows whom I first mistook for clerks or traders. Shaw had a word
with them and they began to go aboard the airship, showing no sub-
servience of the sort normally shown to bandit chieftains by their
men. In fact the pirates who disembarked with their guns and knives
and bandoliers, their ragged silks, sandals and beaded headbands,
looked distinctly out of place here. Shortly after landing, they
climbed into a large motor wagon and steamed away towards the far
end of the valley. "They go to join the rest of the army," Shaw ex-
plained. "Chi'ng Che'eng Ta-Chia is primarily a civilian settlement."
I was helping Captain Korzeniowski, supporting one elbow while
Una Persson supported the other. Guevara strode moodily ahead of
us as we moved towards the town. Korzeniowski was better today
and his old intelligence had returned. Behind us streamed the crew-
men of The Rover, looking about them in open amazement.
"What was the name you used?" I asked the "General."
"Chi'ng Che'eng Ta-Chia—it's hard to translate. The name of the
city yonder."
"I thought you called it Shawtown."
He burst into laughter again, his great frame shaking, his hands on
his hips. "My joke, Mr. Bastable! The place is called—well—Demo-

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<115
cratic Dawn City, perhaps? Dawn City Belonging to Us All? Some-
thing like that. Call it Dawn City, if you like. In the Valley of the
Dawn. The first city of the New Age."
"What New Age is that?"
"Shuo Ho Ti—his New Age. Do you want the translation of my
Chinese name, Mr. Bastable? It is 'One Who Makes Peace'—The
Peacemaker."
"Now that isn't a bad joke at all," I said grimly as we strode over
the grass towards the first tall, elegant buildings of Dawn City. "Con-
sidering that you've just murdered two English officers and stolen a
British airship. How many people did you have to kill to get your
hands on the Loch Etive?"
"Not many. You must meet my friend Ulianov—he will tell you
that the ends justify the means."
"And what exactly are your ends?" I grew impatient as Shaw flung
an arm round my shoulders, his bland Oriental face beaming.
"First—the Liberation of China. Driving out all foreigners—Rus-
sians, Japanese, British, Americans, French—all of them."
"I doubt if you'll manage it," I said. "And even if you did, you'd
probably starve. You need foreign money."
"Not really. Not really. Foreigners—particularly the British with
their opium trade—ruined our economy in the first place. It will be
hard to build it up again alone, but we shall do it."
I said nothing to this. His were evidently messianic dreams, not
unlike those of old Sharan Kang—he believed himself much more
powerful than he actually was. I almost felt sorry for him then. It
would only take a fleet of His Majesty's aerial battleships to turn his
whole dream into a nightmare. Now that he had committed acts of
piracy against Great Britain he had become something more than a
local problem to be dealt with by the Chinese authorities.
As if reading my thoughts, he said, "The passengers and crew of
the Loch Etive make useful hostages, Mr. Bastable. I doubt if we'll
be attacked by your battleships immediately, eh?"
"Perhaps you're right. What are your plans after you have liber-
ated all China?"
"The world, of course."
It was my turn to laugh. "Oh, I see."
He smiled a secret smile, then. "Do you know who lives in Dawn
City, Mr. Bastable?"
"How could I? Members of your government-to-be?"
"Some of those, yes. But Dawn City is a town of outlaws. There

<116
THE NOMAD OF TIME
are exiles here from every oppressed country in the world. It is an in-
ternational settlement."
"A town of criminals?"
"Some would call it that." We were now strolling through wide
streets flanked by willows and poplars, grassy lawns and bright beds
of flowers. From the open window of one of the houses drifted the
sound of a violin playing Mozart. Shaw paused and listened, the crew
of The Rover coming to a straggling halt behind us. "Beautiful, isn't
it?"
"Very fine. A phonograph?"
"A man. Professor Hira. He's an Indian physicist. Because of his
nationalist sympathies he was put in prison. My men helped him es-
cape and now he is continuing his research in one of our labora-
tories. We have many laboratories—many new inventions. Tyrants
hate original thinking. So the original thinkers are driven to Dawn
City. We have scientists, philosophers, artists, journalists—even a few
politicians."
"And plenty of soldiers," I said harshly.
"Yes, plenty of soldiers—lots of guns and stufl," he said vaguely as
if slightly put out by my interruption.
"And it will all be wasted," said Guevara suddenly, turning to
look back at us. "Because you wish to control too much power,
Shaw."
Shaw waved a languid hand. "I have been lucky in that, Rudy. I
have the power. I must use it."
"Against fellow comrades. I was expected in Brunei. A revolt was
planned. Without me there to lead it, it would have collapsed. It
must have collapsed by now."
I stared at him. "You know each other?"
"Very well," Guevara said angrily. "Too damn' well."
"Then you, too, are a socialist?" I said to Shaw.
Shaw shrugged. "I prefer the term communist, but names don't
matter. That is Guevara's trouble—he cares about names. I told you,
Rudy, that the British authorities were waiting to arrest you, that the
Americans already knew there was something suspicious about The
Rover when you reached Saigon. Your telephone operator must have
been sending out secret messages to them. But you wouldn't listen—
and Barry and the telephone man died because of your obstinacy!"
"You had no right to take over the ship!" shouted the Portuguese
count. "No right at all."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<117
"If I had not, we should all be in some British jail by now—or
dead."
Korzeniowski said weakly, "It's all over. Shaw has presented us
with a fait accompli and there it is. But I wish you had better control
over your men, Shaw . . . Poor Barry wouldn't have shot you, you
know that."
"They didn't know it. My army is a democratic army."
"If you're not careful they'll destroy you," Korzeniowski contin-
ued. "They serve you only because they consider you the best bandit
in China. If you try to discipline them, you'll find them cutting your
throat."
Shaw accepted this. He led the way up a concrete path towards a
low pagoda-style building. "I do not intend to rely on them much
longer. As soon as my airfleet is ready. . ."
"Airfleet!" snorted Guevara. "Two ships?"
"Soon I'll have more," Shaw said confidently. "Many more."
We entered the cool gloom of a hallway. "It is old-fashioned to
rely on armies, Rudy," Shaw went on. "I rely on science. We have
many projects nearing fruition—and if Project NFB is successful,
then I think I'll disband the army altogether."
"NFB?" Una Persson frowned. "What's that?"
Shaw laughed. "You are a physicist, Una—the last person I should
tell anything to at this stage."
A European in a neat, white suit appeared in the hallway. He
smiled at us in welcome. He had grey hair, a wrinkled face.
"Ah, Comrade Spender. Could you accommodate these people
here for a while?"
"A pleasure, Comrade Shaw." The old man walked to a section of
the blank wall and passed his hand across it. Instantly a series of
rows of coloured lights appeared on the wall. Some of them were
red, but most were blue. Comrade Spender studied the blue lights
thoughtfully for a moment then turned back to us. "We have the
whole of Section Eight free. One moment I'll prepare the rooms." He
touched a bank of blue lights and they changed to red. "It is done.
All operating now."
"ITiank you, Comrade Spender."
I wondered what this peculiar ritual could mean.
Shaw led us down a corridor with wide windows which looked out
onto a forecourt in which several fountains were playing. The foun-
tains were in the latest styles of architecture—not all entirely to my
taste. We came to a door with a large figure 8 stencilled on it. Shaw

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pressed his hand against the numeral and said: "Open!" At once the
door slid upwards, disappearing into the ceiling. "You'll have to
share rooms, I'm afraid," said Shaw. "Two of you in each room.
There's everything you need and you can communicate any other
wants by means of the telephones you'll find. Goodbye for now,
gentlemen." He turned and the door slid down behind him. I went up
to it and put my palm against it.
"Open!" I said.
As I expected nothing happened. Somehow the door was keyed to
recognise Shaw's hand and voice! This certainly was a city of scientific
marvels!
After some discussion and a general pacing about and testing of
the windows and doors we realised there was no easy means of es-
cape.
"You'd better share a room with me, I suppose," said Guevara,
tapping me on the shoulder. "Una and Captain Korzeniowski can go
next door." The crewmen were already entering their rooms, finding
that the doors opened and shut on command.
"Very well," I said distastefully.
We entered our room and found that there were two beds in it, a
writing desk, wardrobes, chests of drawers, bookshelves filled with a
wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, a telephone communicator
and something with a milky-blue surface which was oval in shape
and unidentifiable. Our windows looked out onto a sweet-scented
rose-garden, but the glass was unbreakable and the windows could
only be opened wide enough to let in the air and the scent. Pale blue
sleeping suits had been laid on the beds. Ignoring the suit, Rudolfo
Guevara flung himself on the bed fully clothed, turning his head and
giving me a bleak smile.
"Well, Bastable, now that you've met a real, full-blooded revolu-
tionary, I must look pretty pale in comparison, eh?"
I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to remove my boots
which were pinching. "You're all as bad," I said. "All that makes
Shaw different from you is that his madness is that much grander—
and a thousand times more foolish! At least you confined your activi-
ties to what was possible. He dreams of the impossible."
"That's what I like to think," Guevara said seriously. "But there
again—he's built Dawn City up a lot since I was last here. And one
would have thought it impossible to steal a liner the size of the Loch
Etive. And there's no doubting that his scientific gadgets—this whole
apartment building for instance—are in advance of anything which

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exists in the outside world." He frowned. "I wonder what Project
NFB could be?"
"I don't care," I said. "My only wish is to get back to the civilisa-
tion I know—a sane world where people behave with a reasonable de-
gree of decency!"
Guevara smiled patronisingly. Then he sat up and stretched. "By
God, I'm hungry! I wonder if we get any food?"
"Food," said a voice from nowhere. I watched, fascinated, as a
face appeared in the milky-blue oval. It was a Chinese girl. She
smiled and continued. "What would you like to eat, gentlemen. Chi-
nese food—or European?"
"Let's have some Chinese food, by all means," said Guevara with-
out consulting me. "I'm very fond of it. What have you got?"
"We will send you a selection." The girl's face vanished from the
screen.
A few moments later, while we were still recovering from that ex-
perience, a section of the wall opened to reveal an alcove in which
sat a tray piled high with all kinds of Chinese delicacies. Eagerly
Guevara sprang up, seized the tray and placed it on our table.
Forgetting for an instant everything but the mouth-watering smell
of the food, I began to eat, wondering, not for the first time, if this
were not perhaps some fantastically detailed dream induced by
Sharan Kang's drugs.

CHAPTER IV
Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov
After eating I washed, dressed myself in the sleeping suit and
climbed beneath the quilt covering the bed. The bed was the most
comfortable I had ever slept in and soon I was fast asleep.
I must have slept through the rest of the day and the whole of the
night, for I awoke the next morning feeling utterly splendid! I was
able to look back on the events of the past few days with a philosophi-
cal acceptance I found surprising in myself. I still believed Korzeni-
owski, Guevara, Shaw and the rest totally misguided, but I could see
that they were not inhuman monsters. They really believed they were
working for the good of people they considered to be "oppressed."
I was feeling so rested 1 wondered if perhaps the food had been
drugged but when I turned my head I saw that Guevara had evi-
dently not slept as well. His eyes were red-rimmed and he was still in
his outdoor-clothes, his hands behind his head, staring moodily at the
ceiling.
"You don't look too happy, Count Guevara," I said, getting up
and moving towards the wash-basin.
"Why have any of us reason to be happy, Mr. Bastable?" He ut-
tered a sharp, bitter laugh. "I am cooped up here at a time when i
should be out in the world, doing my work. I've no relish for Shaw's
theatrical revolutionary posturings. A revolutionist should be silent,
unseen, cautious. . ."
"You're not exactly unknown to the world," I pointed out, jump-
ing a little as boiling hot water issued from the tap. "Your picture is
frequently in the newspapers. Your books are widely distributed, I
understand."
"That is not what I meant." He glared at me and then shut his
eyes as if to blot my presence from his mind.
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anarchists—or socialists or communards or whatever they chose to
call themselves. Each seemed to have an individual dream of how the
world should be ordered and resented all other versions of that
dream. If they could only agree on certain essentials, I thought, they
would be rather more effective.
I glanced out of the window as I dried my face. Not that Shaw had
entirely failed. In the rose gardens I saw children of various ages and
a variety of nationalities playing together, laughing joyfully as they
ran about in the morning sunshine. And along the paths strolled men
and women, chatting easily to each other and smiling frequently.
Some were evidently married and not a few were members of the
coloured races married to members of the white race. This did not
shock me as it should have done. It all seemed natural to me. I
remembered what Shaw had said the city was called—Democratic
Dawn City—the City of Equality. But was such equality possible in
the outside world? Was not Shaw's dream city artificially conceived?
I expressed this thought to Guevara, who had opened his eyes again,
and added: "It does look tranquil—but isn't this place built on piracy
and murder, just as you said London was built on injustice?"
He shrugged. "I don't much care to discuss Shaw's ambitions."
Then he paused for a while. "But to be fair I think you could say
that Dawn City is a beginning—it is conceived in terms of the future.
London is an ending—the final conception of a dead ideology."
"What do you mean?"
"Europe has used up its dream. It has no future. The future lies
here, in China, which has a new dream, a new future. It lies in
Africa, India—throughout the Middle East and the Far East—perhaps
in South America, too. Europe is dying. I, for one, regret it. But be-
fore she dies, she offers certain notions of what is possible to the
countries she has dishonoured. . ."
"You are saying we are decadent?"
"If you like. It is not what I said."
I could not completely follow his argument so I let it drop. I
found my clothes newly cleaned and pressed at the end of my bed,
and put them on.
A little later there was a tap at the door and an old, old man
walked in. His hair was pure white and he had a long, white goatee
beard after the Chinese fashion. He was dressed in simple cotton
clothes and leaned on a stick. He looked as if he had lived a hundred
years and seen a great deal of the world. When he spoke it was in a
cracked, high-pitched voice with a thick accent identified as Russian.

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"Good morning, young man. Good morning, Guevara."
Guevara straightened up on the bed, his gloom forgotten, his face
brightening.
"Uncle Vladimir! How are you?"
"I'm well but feeling my age a little these days."
Guevara introduced us as the old man sat down in one of the easy
chairs. "Mr. Bastable, this is Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov. He was a rev-
olutionist before any of us were born!"
I did not correct him on that point but shook hands with the old
Russian.
Guevara laughed. "Mr. Bastable is a confirmed capitalist, uncle.
He disapproves of us all—calls us anarchists and murderers!"
Ulianov chuckled without rancour. "It is always amusing to hear
the mass-murderer accusing the man he seeks to destroy. I'll not for-
get the thousand accusations made against me in Russia in the twen-
ties, before I had to leave. Kerensky was President then—is he still?"
"He died last year, uncle. They have elected a new President now.
Prince Sukhanov is leader of the Duma."
"And doubtless licks the spittle of the Romanovs as his prede-
cessor did. Duma! A travesty of democracy. I was a fool even to let
myself be elected to it. That is not the way to challenge injustice. The
Tsar still rules Russia—even if it is nowadays through his so-called
parliament."
"True, Vladimir Ilyitch," murmured Guevara and I got the im-
pression he was humouring the man a little. There was no doubting
his admiration of this ancient revolutionist—but now he was tolerat-
ing him as one would a man who had done great hings in his day but
had now turned a trifle senile.
"Ah, if only I had had the opportunity," Ulianov went on, "I
would have shown Kerensky what democracy really meant. We
should have chained the Tsar's power—perhaps even kicked him out
altogether. Yes—yes—it might have been possible, if all the people
had risen up and opposed him. There must have been one moment in
history when that could have happened, and I missed it. Perhaps I
was sleeping, perhaps I was exiled in Germany at the time, perhaps I
was," he smiled fondly, "making love! Ha! But one day Russia will
be free, eh, Rudolfo? We shall make honest workers of the Ro-
manovs and send Kerensky and his 'Parliament' to Siberia, just as
they sent me there, eh? The revolution must come soon."
"Soon, uncle."
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little harder. Let them know disease and fear and death a little better
—then they will rise up. A tide of humanity which will sweep over the
corrupt princes and merchants and drown them in their own blood!"
"As you say, uncle."
"Oh! If only I had had my chance. If I could have controlled the
Duma—but that weasel Kerensky tricked me, discredited me, chased
me from my own homeland, my Russia."
"You will return some day."
Ulianov winked cunningly at Guevara. "I have returned once or
twice already. I have distributed a few pamphlets. I have visited my
rich politician friend Bronstein and given him a fright in case the
Okharna should discover me at his house and think him a revolu-
tionist, too. He was once, of course, but he chose to modify his views
and keep his place in the Duma. Jews! They are all the same."
Guevara looked a little disapproving at this sudden outburst.
"There are Jews and Jews, uncle."
"True. But Bronstein—ah, what is the use—he is ninety-seven years
old. Soon he will be dead and I will be dead."
"But your writings, Vladimir Ilyitch, will always live. They will
inspire each new generation of revolutionists—all those who learn to
hate injustice."
Ulianov nodded. "Yes," he said. "Let us hope so. But you will not
remember . . ." And now he launched on a new series of repetitive
anecdotes while Guevara disguised his impatience and listened po-
litely, even when the old man querulously attacked him, for a mo-
ment, as not following the True Way of the Revolution.
In the meantime I uttered the magic word "Food" and the Chinese
girl appeared in the milky-blue oval again. I asked for breakfast for
three and it was duly delivered. Guevara and I ate heartily, but
Ulianov was loath to waste time eating. He continued to drone on
as we enjoyed our breakfast. Ulianov reminded me somewhat of the
old Holy Men, the lamas I had occasionally come across in my for-
mer life as an officer in the Indian Army. Often his conversation
seemed as abstract as did theirs. And yet, as I had respected those
lamas, I respected Ulianov—for his age, for his Faith, for the way in
which he would repeat the articles of his creed over and over again.
He seemed a kindly, harmless old man—very different from my ear-
lier image of a confirmed revolutionist.
The door opened as he launched into the phrase he had used
earlier—"Let the people starve a little longer. Let them be made to
work a little harder. Let them know disease and fear and death a lit-

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tie better—then they will rise up! A tide . . It was Shaw who stood
in the doorway. He was dressed in a white linen suit and there was a
panama hat on his head. He was smoking a cigar. "A tide of human-
ity which will sweep away injustice, eh, Vladimir Ilyitch?" He smiled.
"But I disagree with you, as ever."
The old Russian looked up and wagged his finger. "You should
not argue with one as old as me, Shuo Ho Ti. That is not the Chinese
way. You should respect my words." He smiled back.
"What do you think, Mr. Bastable?" Shaw asked banteringly.
"Does despair breed revolution?"
"I know nothing of revolutions," I replied. "Though I might be in-
duced to agree with you that a few reforms might be in order—in
Russia, for instance."
Ulianov laughed. "A few reforms! Ho! That is what Kerensky
wanted. But the reforms went by the board when it proved expedient
to forget about them. It is always the same with 'reforms.' The sys-
tem must die!"
"It is hope, Mr. Bastable, not despair, which breeds revolution,"
said Shaw. "Give the people hope—show them what might be possi-
ble, what they can look forward to—then they might try to achieve
something. Despair breeds only more despair—people lose heart and
die in themselves. That is where Comrade Ulianov and those who
follow him make a mistake. They think that people will rise up when
their discomfort becomes unbearable. But that is not true. When
their discomfort becomes totally unbearable—they give up. Offer
them some extra comfort—and being human they will ask for more—
and more—and more! Then comes revolution. Thus we of Dawn City
work to distribute extra wealth among the coolies of China. We work
to set an example in China which will encourage the oppressed peo-
ples of the whole world."
Ulianov shook his head. "Bah! Bronstein had some such idea—but
look what became of him!"
"Bronstein? Ah—your old enemy."
"He was once my friend," said Ulianov, suddenly sad. He got up
with a sigh. "Still, we are all comrades here, even if we differ about
methods." He gave me a long, hard look. "Do not think we are
divided because we argue, Mr. Bastable."
I had thought exactly that.
"We are human beings, you see," Ulianov continued. "We have
fantastic dreams—but what the human mind can conceive, it can
make reality. For good or ill. For good or ill."

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<125
"Perhaps for good and ill," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Every coin has two sides. Every dream of perfection contains a
nightmare of imperfection."
Ulianov smiled slowly. "That is perhaps why we should not aim
for absolutes, eh? Is it absolutes which destroy themselves as surely
as they destroy us?"
"Absolutes—and abstractions," I said. "There are little acts of jus-
tice as well as large ones, Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov."
"You think that we revolutionists forsake our humanity to follow
fantasies of Utopia?"
"Perhaps not you. . ."
"You have voiced the eternal problem of the dedicated follower of
any faith, Mr. Bastable. There is never a resolution."
"Judging by my own experience," I said, "there is never a resolu-
tion to any problem concerning human affairs. I suppose you can call
that philosophy 'British pragmatism.' Take it as it comes . . ."
"The British certainly took it," said Guevara and laughed. "There
is a particular joy, I am sure you will agree, in looking for alterna-
tives and seeing whether those alternatives will work and if they are
better."
"There must be a better alternative to this world," said Ulianov
feelingly. "There must be!"
Shaw had come to take us on a tour of his city. The four of us—
Captain Korzeniowski, now fully recovered and with not even a scar
to show for his head wound, Una Persson, Count Guevara and myself
—followed Shaw from the apartment house and down a wide, sunlit
street.
Dawn City continued to be an education for me, who had always
seen revolutionists in terms of simple-minded nihilists, blowing up
buildings, murdering people, with no idea of what they might want to
build on the ruins of the world they were destroying. And here was
their dream made reality.
But wasn't it a slightly spurious reality? I wondered. Could it actu-
ally be extended throughout the world.
When I had first been hurled into the world of the 1970s I had
thought I found Utopia. And now I was discovering that it was only
a Utopia for some. Shaw wanted a Utopia which would exist for all.
I remembered the blood I had seen spread across the bridge of The

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
Rover. Barry's blood. It was hard to reconcile that image with the
one before us now.
Shaw took us to see schools, communal restaurants, workshops,
laboratories, theatres, studios, all full of happy, relaxed people of a
hundred different nationalities, races and creeds. I was impressed.
"This is what the whole of the East—and Africa—might have been
like by now if it had not been for the European's greed," Shaw told
me. "By now we would be economically stronger than Europe. That
would be a true balance of power. Then you would see what justice
was all about!"
"But it is a European ideal that you follow," I pointed out. "If we
had not brought it. .
"We should have found it. People learn by example, Mr. Bastable.
They do not have to have ideas forced upon them."
We had entered a darkened hall. Before us was a large kinema
screen. Shaw bade us be seated and then the screen flickered into life.
I watched in fascination as I saw pictures of Chinese men and
women being decapitated in their scores.
"The village of Shihnan in Japanese Manchuria," said Shaw in a
hard flat voice. "The villagers failed to produce their annual quota
of rice and are being punished. This happened last year."
I saw Japanese soldiers laughing as their long swords rose and fell.
I was stunned. "But that is Japan. . ." was all I could say.
A new series of pictures. Coolies working on a railway line. Uni-
formed men were using whips to force them to work harder. The uni-
forms were Russian.
"Everyone knows the Russians are cruel in their treatment of sub-
ject peoples. . ."
Shaw made no comment.
A rabble of Chinese—many of them women and children—armed
with farm implements were rushing towards a stone wall. The people
were all in rags and half-starved. Gunfire broke out from behind the
wall and the people fell down, twisted, bleeding, shrieking in agony. I
could hardly bear to look. The gunfire continued until all the people
were dead.
Men in brown uniforms with widebrimmed hats appeared from
behind the wall and moved amongst the corpses, checking that none
lived.
"Americans!"
"To be fair," General Shaw said tonelessly, "they were acting at
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<127
miles from Bangkok. American troops are helping the government to
keep order. There have been a number of minor rebellions in some
parts of Siam recently."
The next scene was an Indian township. Concrete huts were ar-
ranged in neat rows for as far as the eye could see.
"It's deserted," I said.
"Wait."
The camera took us along the desolate streets until we were out-
side the township. Here were soldiers in British red. They were
wielding spades, heaping bodies into trenches filled with lime.
"Cholera?"
"There was cholera—typhoid—malaria—smallpox—but that was not
why the whole village died. Look."
The camera moved in closer and I saw that there were many bullet
wounds in the bodies.
"They marched on Delhi without passes to enter the city limits,"
said Shaw. "They refused to halt when ordered to do so. They were
all shot down."
"But it could not have been an official decision," I said. "An
officer panicked. It sometimes happens."
"Were the Russians, the Japanese, the Americans panicking?"
"No."
"This is how your kind of power is used when others threaten it,"
said Shaw. I looked at his eyes. There were tears in them.
I knew something of what he was feeling. There were tears in my
eyes, too.
I tried to tell myself that the films were counterfeit—played by ac-
tors to impress people like me. But I knew that they were not coun-
terfeit.
I left the kinema. I was shaking. I felt sick. And I was still
weeping.
We walked in silence through the tranquil City of the Dawn, none
of us able to speak after what we had witnessed. We came to the
edge of the settlement and looked out over the makeshift airpark.
There were men there now, working on the girders for what was
evidently to be a good-sized mooring mast. We saw The Rover still
pegged to the ground in her spider-web of cables, but the bigger ship
had gone.
"Where is the Loch Etive?" It was Korzeniowski who spoke.
Shaw looked up absently and then, as if remembering a duty,

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
smiled. "Oh, she is on her way back. I hope her second mission will
be as successful as her first."
"Missions?" said Guevara. "What missions?"
"Her first was to shoot down the Imperial Japanese Airship Kana-
zawa. We have armed her with some experimental guns. They are ex-
cellent. No recoil at all. Always the problem with big guns aboard an
airship, eh?"
"True," said Korzeniowski. He took out his pipe and began to
light it. "True."
"And her second mission was to bomb a section of the Trans-
Siberian railroad and steal the cargo of a certain Moscow-bound
train. I recently heard that the cargo was stolen. If it is what I hope,
we shall be able to speed up Project NFB."
"Just what is this mysterious project?" Una Persson asked.
General O. T. Shaw gestured towards a large building like a fac-
tory which stood on the far side of the airpark. "Over there. A very
expensive project I don't mind saying. But I can't tell you any more,
I'm afraid. I hardly understand it myself. Most of our German and
Hungarian exiles are working on it. There are one or two Americans,
too, and an Englishman—all political refugees. But brilliant and orig-
inal scientists. Dawn City benefits by the tyranny imposed on curios-
ity in the West."
I could not believe that he had not considered the consequences of
these actions. "You have now earned the wrath of three great
powers," I said. "You stole a British airship to destroy a Japanese
man-o'-war and a Russian railway. They are bound to get together.
Dawn City will be lucky if it lasts a day!"
"We still have the hostages from the Loch Etive," Shaw mur-
mured serenely.
"Will that knowledge stop the Japanese or the Russians from
bombing you to bits?"
"It offers a serious diplomatic problem. The three nations must
argue it over for a while. In the meantime we are finishing off our
defences."
"Even you can't defend yourself against the combined aerial fleets
of Britain, Japan and Russia!" I said.
"We shall have to see," said Shaw. "Now, Mr. Bastable, what did
you think of my magic lantern show?"
"You convinced me that a closer watch should be kept on how the
natives are treated," I said.
"And that is afl?"

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<129
"There are other ways of stopping injustice," I said, "than revolu-
tion and bloody war."
"Not if the cancer is to be burned out completely," said Kor-
zeniowski. "I realise that now."
"Aha," said Shaw, looking towards the hills. "Here comes the
Fei-chi. .
"The what?"
"The flying machine."
"I can't see it," said Korzeniowski.
I, too, could see no sign of the Loch Etive, though I heard a
drone like that of a mosquito.
"Look," said Shaw grinning, "there!"
A speck appeared on the horizon and the droning became a shrill
whine.
"There!" He giggled in excitement. "I don't mean an airship—I
mean the Fei-chi—the little hornet—here she comes!"
Instinctively I ducked as something whizzed over my head. I
looked up. I had an impression of several windmill sails spinning at
fantastic speed, of long, bird-like wings, and then it was disappearing
in the distance, still voicing the same angry whine.
"My God!" said Korzeniowski, removing the pipe from his mouth
and registering his amazement for the first time since I had met him.
"It's a heavier than air flying machine. I was sure—I was always told—
such a thing was impossible."
Shaw grinned, almost breaking into a dance in his delight. "And I
have fifty of them, captain! Fifty little hornets with very bad stings.
Now you see why I feel up to defending Dawn City against anything
the Great Powers send!"
"They seem a bit fragile to me," I said.
"They are a bit," Shaw admitted, "but they can travel at speeds of
nearly five hundred miles an hour. And that is their strength. Who
would have time to train a gun on one of those before a Fei-chi had
been able to burst the hull of a flying ironclad with its special explo-
sive bullets?"
"Who—how did you come by this invention?" Guevara wanted to
know.
"Oh, one of my American outlaws had the idea," Shaw returned
airily. "And some of my French engineers made it practicable. We
built and flew the first machine in less than a week. Within a month
we had developed it into what you have just seen."

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
"I admire the man who would go up in one of those," said Gue-
vara. "Aren't they crushed by such speeds?"
"They have to wear special padded clothing, certainly. And, of
course, their reactions must be as fast as their machines if they are to
control them properly."
Korzeniowski shook his head. "Well," he said, "I think I'll stick to
airships. They're altogether more credible than those contraptions.
I've seen it—but I still can't believe in heavier than air machines."
Shaw looked almost cunningly at me. "Well, Mr. Bastable? Are
you still convinced I am mad?"
I continued to stare into the sky where the Fei-chi had disap-
peared. "You are not mad in the way I first thought," I admitted. A
sense of terrible foreboding seized me. I wished with all my heart that
I was back in my own time where heavier than air flying machines
and wireless telephones and coloured, talking kinemas which came to
life in one's room were the fantasies of children and lunatics. I
thought of Mr. H. G. Wells and I turned, looking towards the build-
ings which housed Project NFB. "I suppose you haven't invented a
Time Machine, by any chance?"
The Warload grinned. "Not yet, Mr. Bastable. But we are thinking
about it. Why do you ask?"
I shook my head and did not reply.
Guevara clapped me on the back. "You want to know where all
this leads, don't you? You want to travel into the future and see Gen-
eral Shaw's Utopia!" He had been quite won over to Shaw's side
now.
I shrugged. "I think I've had my fill of Utopias," I murmured.

CHAPTER V
The Coming of the Air Fleets
Throughout the days which followed I made no attempt to escape
Dawn City. The whole idea would have been pointless anyway. Gen-
eral O. T. Shaw's men controlled all roads and guarded both the air-
ships and the sheds where the new Fei-chi "hornets" were stored.
Sometimes I would watch as the Fei-chi were tested by their tall,
Chinese pilots—healthy, confident young men completely dedicated
to Shaw's cause, able to accept the heavier than air machines as I
could not.
Early on I assured myself that the Loch Etive hostages were safe
and well and I chatted with one or two fellows I had known on
board her, learning that Captain Harding had indeed died not long
after being sent home to that little house in Balham where he had
lodged during his leaves. Another aquaintance had died, too. In an
out-of-date newspaper I read that Cornelius Dempsey had been shot
in a street battle with armed policemen. Dempsey had been part of a
gang of anarchists trapped in a house in East London. So far his
body had not been found, but several witnesses confirmed that he
had been dead when his friends carried him away. I felt sadness
overwhelming me and adding to that mood of bitterness and depres-
sion which had come while I watched those terrible kinema films.
More recent newspapers brought in by Shaw's men were full of re-
ports of Shuo Ho Ti's daring raids, his acts of piracy and murder.
One or two of the papers saw him as "the first modern bandit" and it
was they, I think, who had dubbed him "Warlord of the Air." Cer-
tainly, while England strove to halt Russian and Japanese military
airships from taking instant vengeance and the Chinese Central Gov-
ernment vainly attempted to stop any aerial warships entering their
territory, Shaw pulled off a series of amazing raids, descending from
the sky on trains, motor convoys, ships and military and scientific es-

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tablishments to get what he needed. What he did not need he distrib-
uted to the Chinese population—his repainted "flagship," now no
longer the Loch Etive but the Shantien (Lightning) and flying his fa-
miliar crimson flags, appearing in the skies over an impoverished vil-
lage or town and showering money, goods and food—as well as pam-
phlets telling the people to join Shuo Ho Ti, the Peacemaker, in the
freeing of China from foreign oppression. Thousands came to swell
the ranks of his army at the far end of the Valley of the Morning.
And Shaw added more ships to his fleet, bringing merchant vessels to
land at gunpoint, releasing crews and passengers, flying the captured
craft back to Dawn City and there refitting them with his new can-
non. The only problem was a shortage among his own followers of
men trained to fly the craft. Inexperienced commanders had put their
ships into danger more than once and two had been lost through in-
competence. A couple of times Shaw proposed that I should become
his ally and help fly a ship of my choice, but I refused, for the only
reason I would board an airship would be to escape and I did not
wish to indulge in piracy just so that I might find a chance of gaining
my freedom.
Nonetheless there were conversations with the Warlord in which
he described his past to me as he continued to try to win me over.
His was an interesting story. He had been the son of an English
missionary and his Chinese wife who had worked in a remote
Shantung village for years until they came to the attention of the old
Warlord—"a traditional bandit" Shaw called him—of their part of the
world. The Warlord, Lao-Shu, had killed his father and taken his
mother as a concubine. He had been brought up as one of Lao-Shu's
many children and eventually ran away to Peking where his father's
brother taught. He had been sent to school in England where he had
been very unhappy and learned to hate what he considered the En-
glish superiority towards other races, classes and creeds. Later he
went to Oxford where he did well and began to "realise," as he put
it, that imperialism was a disease which robbed the majority of the
world's population of its dignity and the right to order its own affairs.
These were English conceptions, he was the first to admit, but what
he resented was that they were reserved for the English alone. "The
conqueror always assumes that his moral superiority—rather than his
ferocious greed—is what has allowed him to triumph." Leaving Ox-
ford, he had entered the army and done well, learning all he could of
English military matters, then getting transferred to the Crown Col-
ony of Hong Kong to serve in the police—for, of course, he spoke

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fluent Mandarin and Cantonese. He had soon deserted the police,
taking with him his whole detachment of native soldiers, two steam-
carts and a considerable amount of artillery. Then he had gone back
to Shantung where the Warlord still ruled and—
"There I killed my father's murderer and took his place," he said
baldly.
His mother had died in the meantime. With his connections with
revolutionists throughout the world he had conceived the idea of
Dawn City. He would take from Europe what, in its pride, it rejected
—its brilliant scientists, engineers, politicians and writers who were
too clever to be tolerated by their own governments—and he would
use it to the benefit of his China.
"It is part of what Europe owes us," he pointed out. "And soon
we shall be able to claim the rest of the debt. Do you know how they
first began the ruin of China, Mr. Bastable? It was the English,
mainly, but also the Americans. They grew opium in India—vast
fields of it—and secretly shipped it into China where, officially, it was
banned. This created such inflation (for those who smuggled it in
were paid in Chinese silver) that the whole economy was ruined.
When the Chinese government objected to this, the foreigners sent in
armies to teach the Chinese a lesson for their arrogance in com-
plaining. Those armies found a country in economic ruin and huge
sections of the population smoking opium. Naturally, the only thing
which could have brought this about was an innate decadence, a
moral inferiority . . ." Shaw laughed. "The opium clippers were spe-
cially designed for the China trade, to run swiftly from India with
their cargoes, and often they carried Bibles as well as opium, for the
missionaries would insist that if they, who could speak pidgin Chi-
nese, were to translate for the smugglers, they must be allowed to
distribute Bibles as well. After that, there was no looking back. And
Europeans think Chinese hatred of them unreasonable!"
Shaw would become serious at times like these and would say to
me: "Foreign devils? You think 'devils' is a strong enough word,
Mr. Bastable?"
Now his ambitions extended to the taking back of the whole of
China:
"And soon the great grey factories of Shanghai will be ours. The
laboratories and schools and museums of Peking will be ours. The
trading and manufacturing centres of Canton will be ours. The rich
rice fields—all will be ours!" His eyes gleamed. "China will be united.

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The foreigners will be driven out and all will be equal. We shall set
an example to the world."
"If you are successful," I said quietly, "let the world also see that
you are human. People are impressed by kindness as well as by fac-
tories and military strength."
Shaw gave me a peculiar stare.
There were now some fifteen airships tied up to the mooring masts
on the field beyond Dawn City and there were nearly a hundred
Fei-chi in the hangars. The whole valley was defended with artillery
and infantry and could withstand an attack from any quarter when it
came; and we knew it would come.
We? I don't know how I had come to identify myself with bandits
and revolutionists—and yet there was no mistaking the fact that I
had. I refused to join them, but I hoped that they might win. Win
against the ships of my own nation which would come against them
and which, doubtless, would be destroyed by them. How I had
changed in the past couple of weeks! I could contemplate, without
horror, the bloody deaths of British servicemen. Comrades.
But I had to face the fact that the people of Dawn City were my
comrades now—even though I would not commit myself to their
cause. I did not want Dawn City and all it represented to be de-
stroyed. I wanted General O. T. Shaw—the Warlord of the Air—to
drive the foreigners from his nation and make it strong again.
I waited in trepidation for the "enemy"—my countrymen—to come.
I was lying in my bed asleep when the news came through on the
tien-ying ("electric shadow") machine. The milky-blue oval became
General Shaw's face. He looked grim and he looked excited.
"They are on their way, Mr. Bastable. I thought you might like to
be awake for the show."
"Who. . ."Imurmuredblearily."What. . . ?"
"The air fleets—Americans, British, Russian, Japanese and some
French, I believe—they are coming to the Valley of the Morning-
coming to punish John Chinaman . . ."
I saw his head move and he spoke more rapidly.
"I must go now. Shall we see you at the ringside—the main head-
quarters building?"
"I'll be there." As the picture faded I sprang out of bed and
washed and dressed then hurried through the quiet streets of Dawn
City until I reached the circular tower which was the city's chief ad-

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ministrative building. There was, of course, furious activity. A wire-
less telephone message had been received from the British flagship
Victoria Imperatrix saying that if the Loch Etive hostages were freed
Shaw might send out with them his people's women and children
who would not be harmed. Shaw replied bluntly. The hostages were
already being taken to the far end of the valley where they would be
released. The people of Dawn City would fight together and, if neces-
sary, die together. The Victoria Imperatrix offered the information
that there were a hundred airships on their way to Dawn City and
that therefore Dawn City could not possibly hope to last more than
an hour against such a fleet. Shaw replied that he felt Dawn City
might last a little longer and he looked forward to the arrival of the
battle-fleet. In the meantime, he said, he had recently received the in-
teresting news that two Japanese flying gunboats had devastated a
village which had received help from Shaw. The British, doubtless,
would be making similar reprisals? At this, H.M.A.S. Victoria
Imperatrix cut off communication with Dawn City. Shaw smiled
bleakly.
He saw me standing in the room. "Hello, Bastable. By God! The
Japanese have got a lot to answer for where China's concerned. I'd
like to . . . What's this?" An assistant handed him a sheet of paper.
"Good. Good. Project NFB is proceeding apace."
"Where is Captain Korzeniowski?" I saw Count Rudolfo and Una
Persson on the other side of the room talking to one of Shaw's cot-
ton-clad "majors," but I could not see Mrs. Persson's father.
"Korzeniowski is back in command of The Rover," said Shaw,
pointing towards the airpark, plainly visible from this tower. I saw
tiny figures running back and forth as their ships prepared to take the
air. So far there was no sign of the Fei-chi flying machines. "And
look," added Shaw, "here comes the battle-fleet."
I thought at first that I saw a massive bank of black cloud moving
over the horizon of the hills and blotting out the pale sunshine. With
the cloud came a great thrumming sound, like many deep-voiced
gongs being beaten rapidly in unison. The sound grew louder as the
cloud began to fill the whole sky, casting a dark and ominous shadow
over the Valley of the Morning.
It was the allied Air Fleet of five nations.
Each ship was a thousand feet long. Each had a hull as strong as
steel. Each bristled with artillery and great grenades which could be
dropped upon their enemies. Each ship moved implacably through

136
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the sky, keeping pace with its mighty fellows. Each was dedicated to
exacting fierce vengeance upon the upstarts who had sought to ques-
tion the power of those it served. A shoal of monstrous flying sharks,
confident that they controlled the skies and, from the skies, the land.
Ships of Japan, with the Imperial crimson sun emblazoned on
their white and gleaming hulls.
Ships of Russia, with great black double-headed eagles glaring
from hulls of deepest scarlet, claws spread as if to strike.
Ships of France, on which the tricolour flag spread on back-
grounds of blue was a piece of blatant hypocrisy; a sham of republi-
canism and an affront to the ideals of the French Revolution.
Ships of America, bearing the Stars and Stripes, no longer the
banner of Liberty.
Ships of Britain.
Ships with cannon and bombs and crews who, in their pride,
thought it was to be a simple matter to raze Dawn City and what it
stood for.
Shark-ships, rapacious and cruel and arrogant, their booming en-
gines like triumphant anticipatory laughter.
Could we withstand them, even for an instant? I doubted it.
Now our ground defences had opened up. Shells sped into the sky
and exploded around the ships of the mighty Air Fleet, but on they
came, through the smoke and flame, careless and haughty, closer and
closer to Dawn City itself. And now our tiny fleet began to rise from
the airpark to meet the invaders—fifteen modified merchantmen
against a hundred specially designed men-o'-war. They had the ad-
vantage of the recoilless guns and could "stand" in the air and shoot
much longer and more accurately than the larger vessels, but there
were few weak points on those flying ironclads and most of the
explosive shells at worst only blackened the paint of the hulls or
cracked the windows in the gondolas.
There was a bellow and fire sprouted from the leading British air-
ship, H.M.A.S. Edwardus Rex, as its guns answered ours. I saw the
hull of one of our ships crumple and the whole vessel plunge towards
the rocky ground of the foothills, little figures leaping overboard in
the hope of somehow escaping the worst of the impact. Black smoke
curled everywhere over the scene. There came an explosion and a
blaze of flame as our ship struck the ground and its engines blew up,
the fuel oil igniting instantly.
Shaw was staring grimly through the window, controlling the for-

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mation of our ships through a wireless telephone. How hard it had
been to make an impact on the enemy fleet—and how easily they had
destroyed our ship!
Boom! Boom!
Again the great guns roared. Again an adapted merchantman
buckled in the air and sank to the earth.
Only now did I wish that I had accepted a commission on one of
the ships. Only now did I feel the urge to join the fight, to retaliate,
as much as anything, out of a spirit of fair play.
Boom!
It was The Rover, spiralling down with two engines on fire and its
hull buckling in half as the helium rushed into the atmosphere. I
watched tensely as it fell, praying there would be enough gas left in
the hull to let the ship come down relatively lightly. But that was a
hundred tons of metal and plastic and guns and men falling through
the sky. I closed my eyes and winced as I thought I felt the tremor of
its impact with the ground.
I was in no doubt of Korzeniowski's fate.
But then, as if inspired by the old captain's heroic death, the Shan-
tien (the old Loch Etive) offered a broadside to the Japanese flag-
ship, the Yokomoto, and must have struck right through to her am-
munition store for she exploded in a thousand fiery fragments and
there was scarcely a recognisable scrap of her left when the explosion
had died.
Now we saw two more ships go down—an American and a French
—and we cheered. We all cheered save for Una Persson who was
looking bleakly out at the spot where The Rover had disappeared.
Guevara was in animated conversation with the major and did not
seem to notice his mistress's grief. I went over to her and touched her
shoulder.
"Perhaps he is only wounded," I said.
She smiled at me through her tears and shook her head. "He is
dead," she said. "He died bravely, didn't he?"
"As he lived," I said.
She seemed puzzled. "I thought you hated him."
"I thought I did. But I loved him."
She pulled herself together at this and nodded, putting out a slen-
der hand and letting the tips of the fingers rest for a moment on my
sleeve. "Thank you, Mr. Bastable. I hope my father has not died for
nothing."
"We are giving a good account of ourselves," I said.

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
But I saw that we had at most five ships left from the original
fifteen and there were still nearly ninety allied battleships in the sky.
Shaw looked up, listening carefully. "Infantry and motorised cav-
alry attacking the valley on all sides," he said. "Our men are stand-
ing firm." He listened a little longer. "I don't think we've much to
fear from that quarter at the moment."
The invading ships had not yet reached Dawn City. They had been
forced to defend themselves against our first aerial attack and, now
that our gunners were getting their range from the ground, one or
two more were hit.
"Time to send up the Fei-chi, I think." Shaw telephoned the order.
"The Great Powers think they have won! Now we shall show them
our real strength!" He telephoned the soldiers defending the building
housing Project NFB and reminded them that on no account should
a ship be allowed to attack the place. The mysterious project was
evidently of paramount importance in his strategy.
I could not see the hangars where the "hornets" were stored and
my first glimpse of the winged and whirling little flying machines was
when they climbed through the black smoke and began to spray the
hulls of the flying ironclads with explosive bullets, attacking from
above and diving down on their opponents who, doubtless, were still
hardly aware of what was happening.
The Victoria Imperatrix went down. The Theodore Roosevelt
went down. The Alexandre Nevsky went down. The Tashiyawa went
down. The Emperor Napoleon and the Pyat went down. One after
another they fell from the air, circling slowly or breaking up rapidly,
but falling; without a doubt they were falling. And it did not seem
that a single delicate Fei-chi, flown by only two men—an aviator and
a gunner—had been hit. The guns of the foreign ships were simply
not designed to hit such tiny targets. They roared and belched their
huge shells in all directions, but they were baffled, like clumsy sea-
cows attacked by sharp-toothed piranha fish. They simply did not
know how to defend themselves. The Valley of the Morning was lit-
tered with their wreckage. A thousand fires burned in the hills, show-
ing where the proud aerial ironclads had met their end. Half the al-
lied fleet had been destroyed and five of our airships (including the
Shan-tien) were now coming in to moor, leaving the fighting to the
Fei-chi. Evidently the shock of facing the tiny heavier than air ma-
chines was too much for the attackers. They had seen their finest
ships blown from the skies in a matter of minutes. Slowly the cum-
bersome men-o'-war turned and began to retreat. Not a single bomb
had fallen on Dawn City.

CHAPTER VI
Another Meeting with the
Amateur Archaeologist
We had, at some cost, won the first engagement, but there were
many more still to come before we should know if we had driven the
Great Powers away for good. We learned that their land invasion had
also met with failure and that the allied forces had withdrawn. We
exulted.
During the next few days we waited and recouped our strength
and it was during this period that I, at last, offered my services to the
Warlord of the Air who accepted without comment of any kind and
put me in command of my old ship, now the Shan-tien.
It was confirmed that Captain Korzeniowski and his entire crew
had been killed when The Rover was shot down.
Then the attack began afresh and I prepared to go aboard my
ship, but Shaw asked me to remain in the headquarters tower for it
had become swiftly evident that the ships of the Great Powers had
adopted a more cautious strategy. They came as far as the hills on
the horizon and hovered there while they tried to shell the sheds
where our Fei-chi were stored. I noticed, once again, that Shaw
seemed more anxious for the safety of the Project NFB building than
for the flying machine sheds, but neither were badly hit, as it turned
out.
I felt an appalling sense of outrage, however, when some of the
shells exploded in Dawn City, damaging the pretty houses, breaking
windows, blasting trees and flower-beds, and I waited impatiently for
orders to go to my ship. But Shaw remained cool and he let the
enemy expend his fire-power for nearly an hour before he ordered
the Fei-chi into the sky.
"But what about me?" I said, aggrieved. "Aren't you going to let
me have a crack at them? I've several deaths to avenge, you know-
not least Korzeniowski's."

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
"We all have much to avenge, Captain Bastable." (As was his
practice he had conferred a high-sounding rank on me.) "And it is
not quite the time, I'm afraid, to let you take yours. The Shan-tien is
to fly the most important assignment of them all. But not yet—not
yet. . ."
That was all I could get from him then.
Once again our heavier than air machines drove the flying iron-
clads beyond the hills and destroyed seven in the process. But this
time we had casualties, for the airships had equipped themselves with
fast-firing machine guns which could be mounted on the tops of the
hulls in hastily manufactured armoured turrets where they could,
while they lasted, give good retaliatory fire. The delicate two-man
machines were easily destroyed once hit and we lost six during that
second engagement.
The attack continued for nearly two weeks with constant rein-
forcements being brought up by the enemy, but with our own re-
serves slowly dwindling. I don't think even Shaw had expected the
Great Powers to show such absolute resolve to destroy him. It was as
if they felt their grip on all their territories would weaken if they
were beaten by the Warlord. We heard encouraging news, however.
All over China peasants and workers and students were turning on
their oppressors. The entire nation was in the grip of revolution.
Shaw's hope was that trouble would break out in so many areas at
once that the allied forces would be spread too thinly to be effective.
As it was, Dawn City had forced the Powers to concentrate much
of their strength in one area and successful revolts had taken place in
Shanghai (now in the control of a revolutionary committee) and
Peking (where the occupying Japanese had been bloodily put to
death) as well as other cities and parts of provinces.
From Dawn City Shaw heard the news of his revolution's spread-
ing and his spirits rose, even as our supplies shrank.
Yet still we managed to hold the combined strength of the Great
Powers at bay and Shaw took an even keener interest in the progress
of that secret project of his.
One morning I was walking from my sleeping quarters to the cen-
tral tower when I heard a commotion ahead of me and broke into a
run. I found a crowd of people staring out at the airpark and point-
ing into the sky.
In astonishment I saw that a single airship was drifting in, its en-
gines dead. There was no mistaking the Union Jack emblazoned on

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its tail planes. Hurriedly I ran towards the headquarters tower, cer-
tain that they must have seen the mysterious ship by now.
As I reached the door of the tower there came an enormous explo-
sion which made the whole place shudder. I entered the lift and was
borne swiftly up to the top of the building.
The little British airship—not nearly so large as the men-o'-war we
had learned to expect—was bombing the Fei-chi sheds! It had waited
for a favourable wind and then drifted in at night, unseen and un-
heard, with the object of destroying our flying machines.
Already every gun we had was opening up on the airship, which
was very low in the sky. Luckily its bombs had not yet struck the
sheds themselves, though several smoking craters showed that it had
only just missed. This was no heavily armoured ship and its hull soon
burst, the ship plummeting down stern first and bouncing right across
the airpark, narrowly missing our tethered "fleet" before coming to a
stop. Immediately I and a number of others left the tower and
climbed into a motor car. We raced out of Dawn City and across the
airpark to where the ship was already being surrounded by Shaw's
colourfully dressed bandit-soldiers. As I thought, few of the crew had
been badly hurt. For the first time on that shattered hull I saw the
name of the ship and I received a shock of recognition. I had almost
forgotten it. It was the first airship I had ever seen. Evidently the
British had called upon their Indian airfleet to give assistance. The
survey ship I saw broken on the ground, quite close to the Project
NFB building, was none other than the Pericles—the ship which had
saved my life.
It gave me an odd turn to see that ship again, I don't mind admit-
ting. I realised that the Great Powers must be using every ship they
could spare in their efforts to destroy Dawn City.
And then I saw Major Howell himself come staggering from the
wreckage, a wild look in his dark eyes. His face was smeared with oil
and his uniform was torn. One arm was limp at his side, but he still
clutched his baton as he supervised his men's escape from the ship.
He recognised me right away.
His voice was high and strained. "Hello, Bastable. In league with
our Coloured Brethren now, are you? Well, well—wasn't much good
saving your life, was it?"
"Good morning, major," I said. "Let me compliment you on your
bravery."

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Stupidity. Still, it was worth a try. You can't win, you know—for
all your bloody little airboats. We'll get you in the end."
"It's costing you rather a lot, though," I pointed out.
Howell glared around suspiciously at Shaw's soldiers. "What are
they going to do? Torture us to death? Send our bodies back as a
warning to others?"
"You'll be well treated," I told him. I fell into step with him as he
and his men were disarmed and escorted back towards Dawn City.
"I'm sorry about the Pericles."
"So am I." He was almost crying—whether with fury or with sor-
row, I could not tell. "So that's what you were—a bloody nihilist.
That's why you claimed to have amnesia. And to think I believed
you were one of us."
"I was one of you," I said quietly. "Maybe I still am. I don't
know."
"This is a bad show, Bastable. All China in revolt. Parts of India
have caught the fever now, not to mention what's going on in South
East Asia. Poor benighted natives think they've got a chance. They
haven't, of course."
"I think they have—now," I said. "The days of imperialism are
ending—at least, as we understand it."
"If they are ending—it's to plunge us all back into the Dark Ages.
The Great Powers have ensured the peace of the world for a hundred
years—and now it's all over. It'll take a decade to get back to normal,
if we ever do."
"It will never be 'normal' again," I said. "That peace, major, was
bought at too dear a price."
He grunted. "They've certainly converted you. But they'll never
convert me. You'd rather have war in Europe, would you?"
"A war in Europe should have happened a long time ago. A war
between the Great Powers would have destroyed their grip on their
subject peoples. Don't you see that?"
"I don't see anything of the kind. I feel like someone witnessing
the last days of the Roman Empire. Damn!" He winced as he struck
his arm against a shed.
"I'll get that arm attended to as soon as we reach the city," I said.
"Don't want your charity," said Howell. "Bloody Chinks and
niggers running the world—that's a laugh."
I left him then and I did not see him again.
If I had been in two minds about my loyalties before, I was no
longer. Howell's parting sneer of contempt had succeeded in my de-

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<143
ciding to choose Shaw's side once and for all. The mask of kindly pa-
tronage had dropped away to show the hatred and the fear beneath.
When I got back to the central tower Shaw was waiting for me. He
looked resolute.
"That sneak attack determined something," he said. "Project NFB
is complete. I think it will be successful, though there is no time—or
method—to test it. We shall do what that ship did. We'll leave to-
night."
"I think you had better explain a little more clearly," I smiled.
"What are we to do?"
"The Great Powers are using the big airship yards at Hiroshima as
their main base. That is where they go for repairs and spares. It is
the only relatively nearby place where they can be serviced properly.
Also it is where many of the big flying ironclads are built. If we de-
stroy that base—we have considerably greater flexibility of manoeu-
vre, Captain Bastable."
"I agree," I said. "But we haven't enough airships to do it, Gen-
eral Shaw. We have very few bombs. The Fei-chi cannot fly that dis-
tance. Also there is every likelihood that we shall be sighted and shot
down when we leave the Valley of the Morning or at any point be-
yond it. How can we possibly do it?"
"Project NFB is ready. Is there a chance of taking the Shan-tien
out tonight and getting past the allied ships?"
"We've as good a chance as that ship had in reaching here," I
said. "If the wind's right."
"Then be ready to leave, Captain Bastable, at sunset."
I shrugged. It was suicide. But I would do it.

CHAPTER VII
Project NFB
By sunset we were all aboard. During the day there had been a few
desultory attacks by the enemy airships, but no serious damage had
been done.
"They are waiting for reinforcements," Shaw told me. "And those
reinforcements, according to my information, are due to come from
Hiroshima, starting out tomorrow morning."
"It's going to be a long flight for us," I said. "We'll not be back by
morning, even if we're successful."
"Then we'll go to Peking. It is in the hands of fellow revolu-
tionists now."
"True."
Ulianov, Guevara and Una Persson had come aboard with Gen-
eral Shaw. "I want them to see it so that they will believe it," he told
me. Also on board were a number of scientists who had supervised
the loading of a fairly large object into our lower hold. These were
serious looking Hungarians, Germans and Americans and they said
nothing to me. But they had an Australian with them and I asked
him what was going on.
He grinned. "Going up, you mean. Ha ha! Somebody ought to tell
you, but it's not my job. Good luck, sport."
And he left with the rest of his fellow scientists.
General Shaw put an arm round my shoulders. "Don't worry, Bas-
table. You'll know before we get there."
"It must be a bomb," I said. "A particularly powerful bomb? Ni-
tro-glycerine? A fire bomb?"
"Wait."
We all stood on the bridge of the Loch Etive watching the sun go
down. The ship—I should call her the Shan-tien—was not the luxury
liner I had known. She had been stripped of every non-essential

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fitting and through her portholes jutted the snouts of General O. T.
Shaw's recoilless guns. What had been promenade decks were now
artillery platforms. Where passengers had danced, ammunition was
stored. If we were discovered, we should give a good account of our-
selves. I thought back to that stupid incident with "Roughrider Rob-
bie" Egan. But for him, I should not today be in command of this
ship, flying a foolhardy assignment whose nature I could not even
guess at. It seemed that more time had passed since my encounter
with Egan than had passed since I had been flung from my own time
into the future.
Ulianov came up beside me as I stood at my controls and began to
prepare to let slip from the mast.
"Brooding, young man?"
I looked into his old, kindly eyes. "I was wondering what made a
decent English army officer turn into a desperate revolutionist over-
night," I smiled.
"It happens to many like that," he said. "I have seen them. But
you have to show them so much injustice first. . . Nobody wants to
believe that the world is cruel—or that one's own kind are cruel. Not
to know cruelty is to remain innocent, eh? And we should all like to
remain innocent. A revolutionist is a man who, perhaps, fails to keep
his innocence but so desperately wants it back that he seeks to create
a world where all shall be innocent in that way."
"But can such a world ever exist, Vladimir Ilyitch?" I sighed.
"You're describing the Garden of Eden, you know. A familiar dream
—but a reality? I wonder. . ."
"There are an infinite number of possible societies. In an infinite
universe, all may become real sooner or later. Yet it is always up to
mankind to make real what it really wishes to be real. Man is a crea-
ture capable of building almost anything he pleases—or destroying
anything he pleases. Sometimes, as old as I am, I am astonished by
him!" He chuckled.
I smiled back, reflecting that he would be really astonished if he
knew that, in effect, I was older than him!
It became dark and I drew a deep breath. Our only light came
from the illuminated instrument panels. I intended to get the ship up
to three thousand feet and remain at that height for as long as possi-
ble. The wind was blowing in roughly a North Easterly direction and
would take us the way we needed to go if we were to leave the valley
without recourse to our engines.
"Let slip," I said.

146
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Our mooring lines fell away and we began to rise. I heard the wind
whistling about our hull. I saw the lights of Dawn City dropping
down below us.
"Three thousand feet, Height Coxswain," I said. "Take it slowly.
Forty-five degrees elevation. Turn her port-side on to the wind,
Steering Cox." I checked our compass. "Keep her steady."
Everyone was silent. Guevara and Una Persson stood at the win-
dow, staring down. Shaw and Ulianov stood near me, peering at in-
struments which meant next to nothing to them. Shaw was dressed in
a blue cotton suit and was puffing on a cigarette. On his head was
tilted a coolie hat of woven reeds. There was a holstered revolver at
his belt. After a while he began to pace back and forth across the
bridge.
We were drifting slowly over the hills. Within minutes we should
be over the main enemy camp and in range of their artillery. If we
were sighted they could swiftly send up several ships and there would
be little doubt of the outcome. We should be blown from the sky,
along with Project NFB. With Shaw dead, I doubted if Dawn City
would have the will to carry on the fight much longer.
But at last the camp was behind us and we relaxed slightly.
"Can we start the engines yet?" Shaw asked.
I shook my head. "Not yet. Another twenty minutes, perhaps.
Maybe longer."
"We must get to Hiroshima before it is light."
"I understand."
"With those yards destroyed they will have almost as much
difficulty replenishing their ammunition as we have. It will make it
more of an equal fight."
"I agree," I said. "And now, General Shaw, can you tell me what
you hope to use to accomplish that destruction?"
"It is in the lower hold," he said. "You saw the scientists bring it
aboard."
"But what is it, this Project NFB."
"I'm told it's a powerful bomb. I know very little more—it is ex-
tremely scientific—but it has been a dream of some scientists to make
it since, I suppose, the beginnings of the century. It has cost us a lot
of money and several years of research just to build one—the one in
the lower hold."
"How do you know it will work?"
"I do not. But if it does work, it should, in a single explosion, dev-
astate the best part of the airship yards. The scientists tell me that

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<147
when it is detonated the explosion will be equal to several hundred
tons of TNT."
"Good God!"
"I was equally incredulous, but they convinced me—particularly
when three years ago they almost destroyed their entire laboratory
with a very minor experiment along these lines. It is something to do
with the atomic structure of matter, I believe. They had the theory
for the bomb for a long time, but it took years to make the thing
workable."
"Well, let's hope they're right," I smiled. "If we drop it and it
turns out to have the explosive power of a fire-cracker we are going to
look very foolish."
"Agreed."
"And if it is as powerful as you say, we had better keep high
enough up—blasts rise as well as spread. We should be at least a
thousand feet above ground-level when it goes off."
Shaw nodded absently.
Soon I was able to start the engines and the Shan-Hen's bridge
trembled slightly as we surged through the night at 150 mph with the
wind behind us! The roar of her engines going full out was music to
my ears. I began to cheer up and checked our position. We had not
much time to spare. By my calculations we should reach the Hiro-
shima airship yards about half-an-hour before the first intimation of
dawn.
For a while we were all lost in our own thoughts, standing on the
bridge and listening to the rapid note of the engines.
It was Shaw who broke the silence.
"If I die now," he said suddenly, expressing a notion not far from
the minds of any of us, "I think that I have sown the seeds for a suc-
cessful revolution throughout the world. The scientists at Dawn City
will perfect Project NFB even if this bomb is not successful. More of
the Fei-chi will be built and distributed amongst other revolutionists.
I will give power to the people. Power to decide their own fate. I have
already shown them that the Great Powers are not invincible, that
they can be overthrown. You see, Uncle Vladimir, it is hope and
not despair which breeds successful revolution!"
"Perhaps," Ulianov admitted. "Yet hope alone is not sufficient."
"No—political power grows out of the erupting casing of a bomb
like the bomb we are carrying. With such bombs at their disposal, the

148
THE NOMAD OF TIME
oppressed will be able to dictate any terms they choose to their
oppressors."
"If the bomb works," Una Persson said. "I am not sure it can.
Nuclear fission, eh? All very well—but how do you achieve it? I fear
you may have been deceived, Mr. Shaw."
"We'll see."
I remember the feeling of anticipation as the dark coast of Japan
was sighted against the gleam of the moonlit ocean and once again
we cut out the engines and began to drift on the wind.
I readied the controls which would release the safety bolts on the
loading doors (the main bolts had to be drawn by hand) and let the
bomb fall onto the unsuspecting airship yards. I saw ribbons of myr-
iad coloured lights. The city of Hiroshima. Beyond it lay the yards
themselves—miles of sheds, of mooring masts and repair docks, an
installation almost entirely given over to military airships, particu-
larly at this time. If we could destroy only a part of it, we should suc-
ceed in delaying the assault on Dawn City.
I remember staring at Una Persson and wondering if she were still
thinking of her father's death. And what was Guevara brooding
about? He had begun by hating Shaw but now he was bound to
admit that the Warlord of the Air was a genius and that he had
achieved what many another revolutionist had hoped to achieve.
Ulianov, for instance. It seemed that the old man hardly realised that
his dream was coming true. He had waited so long. I suppose I sym-
pathise with Ulianov more than most now. He had waited all his life
for revolution, for the rise of the proletariat, and he was never to see
it actually taking place. Perhaps it never did. . .
Shaw was leaning forward eagerly as we drifted high above the air-
ship yards. He had one hand on the holster, a cigarette in his other
hand. His yellow coolie hat was pushed back off his head and with
his handsome Eurasian features he looked every bit a hero of popu-
lar romance.
The yards were ablaze with light as men worked on the battleships
which were to be ready for the big invasion on Dawn City next day. I
saw the black outlines of the hulls, saw the flare of acetylene torches.
"Are we there?" Once again the Warlord who had changed history
looked like an excited schoolboy. "Are those the yards, Captain Bas-
table?"
"That's them," I said.

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<149
"The poor men," said Ulianov shaking his white head. "They are
only workers, like the others."
Guevara jerked his thumb back towards the city. "Their children
Will thank us when they grow up."
I wondered. There would be many orphans and widows in Hiro-
shima tomorrow.
Una Persson looked nervously at me. It seems she had lost her
doubts about the efficacy of the bomb. "Mr. Bastable, as I under-
stand it a bomb of this type can, in theory, produce incalculable de-
struction. Parts of the city might be harmed."
I smiled. "The city's nearly two miles away, Mrs. Persson."
She nodded. "I suppose you're right." She stroked her neat, dark
hair, looking down at the yards again.
"Take her down to a thousand feet, Height Cox," I said. "Easy as
she goes."
We could see individual people now. Men moved across the con-
crete carrying tools, climbing the scaffolding around the huge iron-
clads.
"There's the main fitting yards." Shaw pointed. "Can we get the
ship over there without power?"
"We'll be spotted soon. But I'll try. Five degrees, Steering Cox."
"Five degrees, sir," said the pale young man at the wheel. The
ship creaked slightly as she turned.
"Be ready to take her up fast, Height Cox," I warned.
"Aye, aye, sir."
We were over the fitting yards. I picked up my speaking tube.
"Captain to lower hold. Are the main loading doors ready?"
"Ready sir."
I pressed the lever which would release the safety bolts.
"Safety bolts gone, sir."
"Stand by to release cargo."
"Standing by, sir."
I was using a procedure normally used to lighten the ship in an
emergency.
The huge ship sank down and down through the night. I heard a
sighing breeze sliding about her nose. A melancholy breeze.
"Gunners make ready to fire. Return fire if fired upon." This was
in case we were recognised and attacked. I was relying on the sur-
prise of the big explosion to give us time to get away.
"All guns ready, sir."
Shaw winked at me and chuckled.

150
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Stand by all engines," I said. "Full ahead as soon as you hear the
bang."
"Standing by, sir."
"Ready cargo doors."
"Ready, sir."
"Let her go."
"She's gone, sir."
"Elevation sixty degrees," I said. "Up to three thousand, Height
Cox. We've made it."
The ship tilted and we gripped the handrails as the bridge sloped
steeply.
Shaw and the others were peering down. I remember their faces so
well. Guevara pursing his lips and frowning. Una Persson apparently
thinking of something else altogether. Ulianov smiling slightly to
himself. Shaw turned to me. He grinned. "She's just about to hit. The
bomb. . ."
I remember his face full of joy as the blinding white light flooded
up behind him, framing the four of them in black silhouette. There
was a strange noise, like a single, loud heartbeat. There was darkness
and I knew I was blind. I burned with unbearable heat. I remember
wondering at the intensity of the explosion. It must have destroyed
the whole city, perhaps the island. The enormity of what had hap-
pened dawned on me.
"Oh my God," I remember thinking, "I wish the damned airship
had never been invented."

CHAPTER VIII
The Lost Man
"And that's about it," Bastable's voice was harsh and cracked. He
had been talking for the best part of three days.
I laid down my pencil and looked wearily back through the pages
and pages of shorthand notes which recorded his fantastic story.
"You really believe you experienced all that!" I said. "But how do
you explain getting back to our own time?"
"Well, I was picked up in the sea, apparently; I was unconscious,
temporarily blinded and quite badly burned. The Japanese fishermen
who found me thought I was a seaman who'd been caught in an en-
gine-room accident. I was taken to Hiroshima and put into the
Sailors' Hospital there. I was quite astonished to be told it was Hiro-
shima, I don't mind admitting, since I was convinced the place had
been blown to smithereens. Of course, it was some time before I
realised I was back in 1902."
"And what did you do then?" I helped myself to a drink and
offered him one which he refused.
"Well, as soon as I came out of hospital I went to the British Em-
bassy, of course. They were decent. I claimed I had amnesia again. I
gave my name, rank and serial number and said that the last thing I
remembered was being pursued by Sharan Kang's priests in the Tem-
ple of the Future Buddha. They telegraphed my regiment and, natu-
rally, they confirmed that the particulars I had given were correct. I
had my passage and train fare paid to Lucknow, where my regiment
was then stationed. Six months had passed since the affair at Teku
Benga."
"And your commanding officer recognised you, of course."
Bastable gave another of his short, bitter laughs. "He said that I
had died at Teku Benga, that I could not have lived. He said that al-
though I resembled Bastable in some ways I was an imposter. I was
older, for one thing, and my voice was different."

152
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"You reminded him of things only you could remember?"
"Yes. He congratulated me on my homework and told me that if I
tried anything like that again he would have me arrested."
"And you accepted that? What about your relatives? Didn't you
try to get in touch with them."
Bastable looked at me seriously. "I was afraid to. You see this is
not completely the world I remember. I'm sure it's my memory.
Something caused by my passage to and fro in Time. But there are
small details which seem wrong . . ." He cast about with a wild eye,
like one who suddenly realises he is lost in a place he presumed fa-
miliar. "Small details . . ."
"The opium, perhaps?" I murmured.
"Maybe."
"And that's why you're afraid to go home. In case your relatives
don't recognise you?"
"That's why. I think I will have that drink." He crossed the room
and poured himself a large glass of rum. He had exhausted his sup-
ply of drugs while talking to me. "After being kicked out by my C.O.
—I recognised him, by the way—I wandered up to Teku Benga. I got
as far as the chasm and sure enough the whole place was in ruins. I
had a horrifying feeling that if I could cross that chasm I'd find a
corpse and it would be mine. So I didn't try. I had a few shillings and
I bought some native clothes—begged my way across India, some-
times riding the trains, looking, at first, for some sort of confirmation
of my own identity, somebody to tell me I really was alive. I talked
to mystics I met and tried to get some sense out of them, but it was
all no good. So I decided I'd try to forget my identity. I took to
swallowing opium in any form I could get it. I went to China. To
Shantung. I found the Valley of the Morning. I don't know what I
expected it to be. It was as beautiful as ever. There was a little, poor
village in it. The people were kind to me."
"Then you came here?"
"After a few other places, yes."
I didn't know what to make of the chap. I could not but believe
every word of what he had said. The conviction in his voice was so
strong.
"I think you'd better come back to London with me," I said. "See
your relatives. They'll be bound to know you."
"Perhaps." He sighed. "But you know, I think I'm not meant to
be here. That explosion—that awful explosion over Hiroshima—it-
spat me out of one time in which I didn't belong—into another . . ."
"Oh, nonsense."

THE WARLORD OF THE AIR
<153
"No, it's true. This is 1903-or a 1903-but it-it isn't my 1903."
I thought I understood what he meant, but I could hardly believe
that such a thing could be remotely true. I could accept that a man
had gone forward in Time and been returned to his own period—but
I couldn't believe that there might be an alternative 1903.
Bastable took another drink. "And pray to God that it wasn't your
1973," he said. "Science run wild—revolutions—bombs which can de-
stroy whole cities!" He shuddered.
"But there were benefits," I said hesitantly. "And I'm not sure the
natives you mention weren't, on the whole, well off."
He shrugged. "Different ages make the same people think in
different terms. I did what I did. There's nothing else to be said. I
probably shouldn't do it now. Besides, there is more freedom in this
world of ours, old man. Believe me—there is!"
"It's disappearing every day," I said. "And not everyone's free. I
admit that privilege exists . . ."
He raised a silencing hand. "No discussions of that kind, for God's
sake."
"All right."
"You might as well tear those notes up," he said. "Nobody will
believe you. Why should they? Do you mind if I take a bit of a stroll
—get some fresh air, while I think what to do?"
"Yes. Very well."
I watched him walk tiredly out of the room and heard his feet on
the stairs. What a strange young man he was.
I glanced through my notes. Giant airships—monorailways—elec-
tric bicycles—wireless telephones—flying machines—all the marvels.
They could not have been invented by the mind of one young man.
I lay down on my bed, still mulling the problem over, and I must
have fallen asleep. I remember waking briefly once and wondering
where Bastable was, then I slept till morning, assuming he was in the
next room.
But when I got up Ram Dass told me that the bed had not been
slept in. I went and enquired of Olmeijer if he knew where Bastable
was, but the fat Dutchman had not seen him.
I asked everyone in the town if they had come across Bastable.
Someone told me that they had seen a young man staggering down
by the harbour late at night and assumed him drunk.
A ship had left that morning. Perhaps Bastable had got aboard.
Perhaps he had thrown himself into the sea.
I heard no more of Bastable, though I advertised for news of him
and spent more than a year making enquiries, but he had vanished.

154
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Perhaps he had actually been snatched through Time again—to the
past or the future or even to the 1903 he thought he should belong
in?
And that was that. I've had the whole manuscript typed up, put it
into order, cut out repetitions and some unnecessary comments Bas-
table made while he spoke. I've clarified where I could. But essen-
tially this is Bastable's account as he told it to me.
Note (1907): Since I saw Bastable, of course, the air has been
conquered by the Wright brothers and the powered balloon is being
developed apace. Radiotelephony has became an actuality and I
heard recently that there are several inventors experimenting with
monorail systems. Is it all coming true? If so, for my own selfish
reasons, I look forward to a world made increasingly peaceful and
convenient, for I shall be dead before the world sees the revolu-
tionary holocaust Bastable described. And yet there are a few things
which do not coincide with his description. The heavier than air
flying machine is an actuality already. People in France and America
are flying them and there is even some talk of flying across the chan-
nel in one! But perhaps these aeroplanes will not last or are not ca-
pable of very great speeds or sustained flight.
I have tried to interest a number of publishers in Bastable's ac-
count, but all judge it too fantastical to be presented as fact and too
gloomy to be presented as fiction. Writers like Mr. Wells seem to
have the corner in such books. Only this one is true. I'm sure it is
true. I shall continue to try to get it published, for Bastable's sake.
Note (1909): Bleriot has flown the channel in an aeroplane!
Again I tried to interest a publisher in Bastable's story and, like sev-
eral others, he asked me to alter it—"put in more adventures—a love
story—a few more marvels" is what he said. I cannot alter what Bas-
table told me and so I consign the manuscript to the drawer for per-
haps another year.
Note (1910): Of! to China soon. Might look for the Valley of the
Morning to see what it is like and perhaps hope to find Bastable
there. He seemed to like the place and the villagers, he said, looked
after him well, China is full of revolutionists these days, of course,
but I expect I'll be safe enough. I may even be there when it becomes
a republic! Certainly things are shaky and it's likely the Russians and
Japanese will try to grab large chunks of the country.
If I do not return from China, I should be grateful if someone con-
tinues to try to get this published.
MCM

EDITOR'S NOTE
The above was the last note my grandfather made on the
manuscript—or the last we have found, anyway. He did re-
turn from China, but doubtless he didn't find Bastable
there or he would have mentioned it. I think he must have
given up trying to get the book published after 1910.
My grandfather went to France in 1914 and was killed
on the Somme in October, 1916.
Michael Moorcock, 1971.

Dedicated to Emma
(and also for Bertie)

Contents
INTRODUCTION	161
PROLOGUE: In Search of Oswald Bastable	164
BOOK ONE: The World in Anarchy	195
1.		The Return to Teku Benga	197
2.		The Dream—and the Nightmare—of the
Chilean Wizard	201
3.		The Polish Privateer	208
4.		The King of East Grinstead	214
5.		The Start of a New Career	222
6.		"A Haven of Civilisation"	228
7.		A Legend in the Flesh	235
8.		A Decision in Cold Blood	245
BOOK TWO: The Battle for Washington	255
1.		The Two Fleets Meet	257
2.		The Land Leviathan	268
3.		The Deserter	275
4.		The Triumphant Beast	282
5.		A Matter of Loyalties	296
EPILOGUE	300
EDITOR'S NOTE
302

Introduction
My grandfather, who died relatively young after he had volun-
teered for service in the Great War, became increasingly secretive
and misanthropic in his last years, so that the discovery of a small
steel safe amongst his effects was unsurprising and aroused no curios-
ity whatsoever in his heirs who, finding that they could not unlock it
(no key ever came to light), simply stored it away with his papers
and forgot about it. The safe remained in the attic of our Yorkshire
house for the best part of fifty years and doubtless would still be
there if it had not been for my discovery of the manuscript which I
published a couple of years ago under the title The Warlord of the
Air. After the book was published, I received many interesting letters
from people asking me if it were merely a piece of fiction or if the
story had come into my hands as I had described. I, of course,
believed Bastable's story (and my grandfather's) completely yet
sometimes felt quite as frustrated as my grandfather had when he had
tried to get people to share his belief, and I couldn't help brooding
occasionally on the mystery of the young man's disappearance after
those long hours spent talking to my grandfather on Rowe Island in
the early years of the century. As it turned out, I was soon to find
myself in possession of, for me, the best possible proof of my grand-
father's veracity, if not Bastable's.
I spent this past summer in Yorkshire, where we have a house
overlooking the moors of the West Riding, and having little to do but
go for long walks and enjoy the pleasures of rock climbing, I took to
looking through the rest of my grandfather's things, coming at length
upon the old steel safe jammed in a corner under the eaves of one of
our innumerable attics. The safe was hidden behind the moulting
remains of a stuffed timber wolf which had terrified me as a child,
and perhaps that was the reason I had not previously found it. As I
pushed the beast aside, his dusty glass eyes seemed to glare at me
with hurt dignity, and he toppled slowly sideways and fell with a
muffled crash into a heap of yellowing newspapers which another of
my relatives, for reasons of his own, had once thought worth preserv-

162
INTRODUCTION
ing. It was as if the wolf had been guarding the safe since the begin-
ning of time, and I had a slight feeling of invading hallowed ground,
much as some booty-hunting Victorian archaeologist must have felt
as he chipped his way into the tomb of a dead Egyptian king!
The safe was about eighteen inches deep and a couple of feet high.
The outside had grown a little rusty, and the handle would not budge
when I tried it. I hunted about the house for spare keys which might
fit the lock, finding the best part of a score of keys, but none which
would open the safe. By now my curiosity was fully whetted, and I
manhandled the safe downstairs and took it into my workshop,
where I tried to force it. All I succeeded in doing was to break two
or three chisels and ruin the blades of my hacksaw, so eventually I
had to telephone a specialist locksmith in Leeds and ask for expert
help in opening the thing. I was pessimistically certain that the safe
would contain only some out-of-date share certificates or nothing at
all, but I knew I should not be able to rest until it was opened. The
locksmith came, eventually, and it took him only a short while to get
the safe undone.
I remember the rather sardonic look he offered me as the contents
were displayed for the first time in almost sixty years. It was plain
that he thought I had wasted my money, for there were no family
treasures here, merely a pile of closely written foolscap sheets, begin-
ning to show their age. The handwriting was not even my grandfa-
ther's, and I experienced a distinct sinking sensation, for obviously I
had hoped to find notes which would tell me more about Bastable
and my grandfather's experiences after he had set off for China to
seek the Valley of the Morning, where he had guessed Bastable to
be.
As he left, the locksmith gave me what I guessed to be a pitying
look and said that his firm would be sending the bill along later. I
sighed, made myself a pot of coffee, and then sat down to leaf
through the sheets.
Only then did I realise that I had found something even more
revealing than anything I had hoped to discover (and, it emerged,
even more mystifying!), for these notes were Bastable's own. Here,
written in his hand, was an account of his experiences after he had
left my grandfather—there was even a brief note addressed to him
from Bastable:
Moorcock. I hope this reaches you. Make of it what you
will. I am going to try my luck again. This time if I am not

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
163
successful I doubt I shall have the courage to continue
with my life (if it is mine). Yours—Bastable.
Attached to this were some sheets in my grandfather's flowing
handwriting, and these I reproduce in the body of the text, making it
the first section.
This first section is self-explanatory. There is little I need to add at
all. You may read the rest for yourself and make up your own mind
as to its authenticity.
Michael Moorcock
Ladbroke Grove
September 1973

PROLOGUE
In Search of Oswald Bastable
If I were ever to write a book of travel, no matter how queer the
events it described, I am sure I would never have the same trouble
placing it with a publisher as I had when I tried to get into print Os-
wald Bastable's strange tale of his visit to the future in the year 1973.
People are not alarmed by the unusual so long as it is placed in an
acceptable context. A book describing as fact the discovery of a race
of four-legged, three-eyed men of abnormal intelligence and super-
natural powers who live in Tibet would probably be taken by a large
proportion of the public as absolutely credible. Similarly, if I had
dressed up Bastable's story as fiction, I am certain that critics would
have praised me for my rich imagination and that a reasonably wide
audience would have perused it in a couple of summer afternoons
and thought it a jolly exciting read for the money, then promptly for-
gotten all about it.
Perhaps it is what I should have done, but, doubtless irrationally, I
felt that I had a duty to Bastable to publish his account as it stood.
I could, were I trying to make money with my pen, write a whole
book, full of sensational anecdotes, concerning my travels in China—
a country divided by both internal and external pressures, where the
only real law can be found in the territories leased to various foreign
powers and where a whole variety of revolutionists and prophets of
peculiar political and religious sects squabble continuously for a
larger share of that vast and ancient country; but my object is not to
make money from Bastable's story. I merely think it is up to me to
keep my word to him and do my best to put it before the public.
Now that I have returned home, with some relief, to England, I
have become a little more optimistic about China's chances of saving
herself from chaos and foreign exploitation. There has been the revo-
lution resulting in the deposing of the last of the Manchus and the

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
165
setting up of a republic under Sun Yat-sen, who seems to be a rea-
sonable and moderate leader, a man who has learned a great deal
from the political history of Europe and yet does not seem content
just to ape the customs of the West. Possibly there is hope for China
now. However, it is not my business here to speculate upon China's
political future, but to record how I travelled to the Valley of the
Morning, following Bastable's somewhat vague description of its lo-
cation. I had gathered that it lay somewhere in Shantung province
and to the north of Wuchang (which, itself, of course, is in Hupeh).
My best plan was to go as directly as possible to Shantung and then
make my way inland. I consulted all the atlases and gazetteers, spoke
to friends who had been missionaries in that part of China, and got a
fairly clear idea of where I might find the valley, if it existed at all.
Yet I was still reluctant to embark upon what was likely to be a
long and exhausting expedition. For all that I had completely
believed Bastable, I had no evidence at all to substantiate my theory
that he had gone back to the Valley of the Morning, which, by 1973,
would contain the Utopian city built by General Shaw, the Warlord
of the Air, and called Ch'ing Che'eng Ta-Chia (or, in English,
roughly, Democratic Dawn City). Even if he had gone there—and
found nothing—he could easily have disappeared into the vastness of
the Asian continent and, as easily, perished in one of the minor wars
or uprisings which constantly ravaged those poor and strife-ridden
lands.
Therefore I continued to lead my conventional life, putting the
whole perplexing business of Captain Bastable as far into the back of
my mind as possible, although I would patiently send his original
manuscript to a fresh publisher every time it came back from the
last. I also sent a couple of letters to the Times in the hope that my
story of my meeting with Bastable would attract the attention of that
or some other newspaper, but the letters were never published; nei-
ther, it seemed, were any of the popular monthlies, like The Strand,
interested, for all that their pages were full of wild and unlikely pre-
dictions of what the future was bound to hold for us. I even consid-
ered writing to Mr. H. G. Wells, whose books Anticipations and The
Discovery of the Future had created such a stir a few years ago, but
Mr. Wells, whom I understood to be a full-blooded Socialist, would
probably have found Bastable's story too much out of sympathy with
his views and would have ignored me as cheerfully as anyone else. I
did draft a letter, but finally did not send it.
It was about this time that it was brought to my attention that I

166
PROLOGUE
was beginning to earn a reputation as something of a crank. This was
a reputation I felt I could ill afford, and it meant that I was forced, at
last, to come to a decision. I had been noticing, for several months, a
slightly odd atmosphere at my London club. People I had known for
years, albeit only acquaintances, seemed reluctant to pass the time of
day with me, and others would sometimes direct looks at me which
were downright cryptic. I was not particularly bothered by any of
this, but the mystery, such as it was, was finally made clear to me by
an old friend of mine who was, himself, a publisher, although he con-
centrated entirely on poetry and novels and so I had never had occa-
sion to submit Bastable's manuscript to him. He knew of it, however,
and had initially been able to give me the names of one or two pub-
lishers who might have been interested. Now, however, he ap-
proached me in the library of the club where, after lunch, I had gone
to read for half an hour. He attracted my attention with a discreet
cough.
"Hope you don't mind me interrupting, Moorcock."
"Not at all." I indicated a nearby chair. "As a matter of fact I
wanted a word with you, old boy. I'm still having trouble placing that
manuscript I mentioned. . . ."
He ignored my offer of a chair and remained standing.
"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. I've been
meaning to speak to you for a month or two now, but to tell you the
truth I've had no idea of how to approach you. This must sound like
damned interference and I'd be more than grateful if you would take
what I have to say in the spirit it's meant."
He looked extraordinarily embarrassed, squirming like a school-
boy. I even thought I detected the trace of a blush on his cheeks.
I laughed.
"You're making me extremely curious, old man. What is it?"
"You won't be angry—no—you've every reason to be angry. It's
not that I believe—"
"Come on, out with it." I put my book down and gave him a
smile. "We're old friends, you and I."
"Well, Moorcock, it's about Bastable's manuscript. A lot of peo-
ple—mainly in publishing, of course, but quite a few of them are
members of the club—well, they think you've been duped by the chap
who told you that story."
"Duped?" I raised my eyebrows.
He looked miserably at the carpet. "Or worse," he murmured.
"I think you'd better tell me what they're saying." I frowned. "I'm

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167
sure you mean well and I assure you that I'll take anything you have
to say in good part. I've known you too long to be offended."
He was plainly relieved and came and sat down in the next chair.
"Well," he began, "most people think that you're the victim of a
hoax. But a few are beginning to believe that you've turned a bit—a
bit eccentric. Like those chaps who predict the end of the world all
the time, or communicate with the astral plane, and so on. You know
what I mean, I suppose."
My answering smile must have seemed to him a bit grim. "I know
exactly what you mean. I had even considered it. It must seem a very
rum go to someone who never met Bastable. Now you mention it,
I'm not surprised if I'm the gossip of half London. Why shouldn't
people think such things about me? I'd be tempted to think them my-
self about you if you came to me with a story like Bastable's. As it is,
you've been extremely tolerant of me!"
His smile was weak as he tried to acknowledge my joke. I went
on:
"So they think I'm a candidate for Colney Hatch, do they? Well,
of course, I've absolutely no proof to the contrary. If only I could
produce Bastable himself. Then people could make up their own
minds about the business."
"It has become something of an obsession," suggested my friend
gently. "Perhaps it would be better to drop the whole thing?"
"You're right—it is an obsession. I happen to believe that Bastable
was telling the truth."
"That's as may be. . . ."
"You mean I should stop my efforts to get the account into print."
There was a hint of sorrow in his eyes. "There isn't a publisher in
London, old man, who would touch it now. They have their reputa-
tions to think of. Anyone who took it would be a laughingstock.
That's why you've had so much trouble in placing it. Drop it, Moor-
cock, for your sake and everyone else's."
"You could be right." I sighed. "Yet if I could come up with some
sort of proof, possibly then they would stop laughing."
"How could you find the proof which would convince them?"
"I could go and look for Bastable in China and tell him the trou-
ble he's caused me. I could hope that he would come back to Lon-
don with me—talk to people himself. I could put the matter into his
hands and let him deal with his own manuscript. What would you
say to that?"

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PROLOGUE
He shrugged and made a gesture with his right hand. "I agree it
would be better than nothing."
"But your own opinion is that I should forget all about it. You
think I should burn the manuscript and have done with it, once and
for all?"
"That's my opinion, yes. For your own sake, Moorcock-and your
family's. You're wasting so much of your time—not to mention your
capital."
"I know that you have my interests at heart," I told him, "but I
made a promise to Bastable (although he never heard me make it)
and I intend to keep it, if I can. However, I'm glad that you spoke to
me. It took courage to do that and I appreciate that it was done with
the best of intentions. I'll think the whole thing over, at any rate."
"Yes," he said eagerly, "do think it over. No point in fighting a
losing battle, eh? You took this very decently, Moorcock. I was
afraid you'd chuck me out on my ear. You had every right to do so."
Again I laughed. "I'm not that much of a lunatic, as you can see. I
haven't lost all my common sense. But doubtless anyone with com-
mon sense would listen to me and become convinced that I was a lu-
natic! Whether, however, I have enough common sense to put the
whole obsession behind me is quite another matter!"
He got up. "Let's stop talking about it. Can I buy you a drink?"
For the moment it was obviously politic to accept his offer so that
he should not think I had, after all, taken offence. "I'd be glad of
one," I said. "I hope the other members aren't afraid that I'm about
to run riot with a meat ax or something!"
As we left the library, he clapped me on the shoulder, speaking
with some relief. "I don't think so. Though there was some talk of
chaining down the soda syphon a week or two ago."
I only went back to the club once more during that period, and it
was noticeable how much better the atmosphere had become. I deter-
mined, there and then, to give up all immediate attempts to get Bas-
table's story published, and I began to make concrete plans for a trip
to China.
And so, one bright autumn morning, I arrived at the offices of the
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and booked the
earliest possible passage on a ship called the Mother Gangd which, I
gathered, was not the proudest ship of that particular line, but would
be the first to call at Weihaiwei, a city lying on the coast of that part

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
169
of Shantung leased to Britain in 1898. I thought it only sense to
begin my journey in relatively friendly country where I could seek
detailed advice and help before pressing on into the interior.
Mother Ganga took her time. She was an old ship and she had
evidently come to the conclusion that nothing in the world was ur-
gent enough to require her to hurry. She called at every possible port
to unload one cargo and to load another, for she was not primarily a
passenger ship at all. It was easy to see why she rid herself of some
of her cargoes (which seemed completely worthless) but hard to un-
derstand why the traders in those small, obscure ports should be
prepared to exchange something of relative value for them!
I was prepared for the slowness of the journey, however, and
spent much of my time working out the details of my plans and por-
ing over my original shorthand notes to see if Bastable had told me
anything more which might offer a clue to his whereabouts. I found
little, but by the time I disembarked I was fit (thanks to my habit of
taking plenty of exercise every day on board) and rested and ready
for the discomforts which must surely lie ahead of me.
The discomfort I had expected, but what I had not anticipated was
the extraordinary beauty and variety of even this relatively in-
significant part of China. It struck me as I went up on deck to super-
vise the unloading of my trunks, and I believe I must have gasped.
A huge pale blue sky hung over a city which was predominantly
white and red and gold—a collection of ancient Chinese pagodas and
archways mixed with more recent European buildings. Even these
later buildings had a certain magic to them in that light, for they had
been built of local stone and much of the stone contained fragments
of quartz which glittered when the sun struck them. The European
buildings were prominent on the waterfront where many trading
companies had built their offices and warehouses, and the flags of a
score of different Western nations fluttered on masts extended into
the streets, while the names of the various companies were embla-
zoned in their native alphabets and often translated into the beautiful
Chinese characters, in black, silver, or scarlet.
Chinese officials in flowing robes moved with considerable dif-
ficulty through throngs of sweating, near-naked coolies. British and
Chinese policemen, soldiers, and white-suited Europeans, sailors
from a dozen different countries—all mingled casually and with few
outward signs of discomfort in what seemed to me, the newcomer,
like some huge, dreamlike rugger scrum.
A young Chinese boy in a pigtail took me in charge as I left the

170
PROLOGUE
ship and shepherded me through the throng, finding me a rickshaw
and piling me and my luggage aboard until the wickerwork groaned.
I put what I hoped was an adequate tip into his outstretched hand
and he seemed delighted, for he grinned and bowed many times, ut-
tering the words "God bless, God bless" over and over again before
he told the Celestial between the rickshaw's shafts that I wanted to
go to the Hotel Grasmere, recommended by P&O as about the best
British hotel in Weihaiwei.
With a lurch the rickshaw set off, and it was with some astonish-
ment that I realised a moment or two later that I was being pulled by
a slip of a girl who could not have been much older than sixteen. She
made good speed through the crowded, narrow streets of the city and
had deposited me outside the Grasmere within twenty minutes.
Again my donation was received with near ecstacy, and it occurred
to me that I was probably being overgenerous, that a little money
would go a very long way for the average Chinese living in Shantung!
The hotel was better than I had expected, with excellent service
and fairly modern facilities. The rooms were pleasant and comfort-
able overlooking an exotic Chinese garden full of small, delicate
sculptures, huge, richly coloured blooms, and foliage of a score of
different shades of green so that the whole thing looked like a jungle
fancifully painted by some symbolist aesthete. The scents of the
flowers, particularly during the morning and the evening, were over-
powering. Electric fans (drawing their power from the hotel's own
up-to-date generator) cooled the rooms, and there were screens at
the windows to keep the largest of the insects at bay. I rather regret-
ted I would only be staying a short time in the hotel.
The morning after my arrival, I paid a visit on the British consul,
a youngish chap connected, I gathered, to one of our best families. A
little on the languid, foppish side, he gave the impression of being
infinitely bored with China and all things Chinese, but his advice
seemed sound and he put me in touch with a local man who made
regular trading visits into the hinterland of the province and who
agreed, for a sum of money, to escort me all the way to the Valley of
the Morning.
This chap was a tall, slightly stooped Chinese of early middle age,
who carried himself with the utmost dignity and, while wearing plain
cotton garments of the simplest sort, managed to convey the feeling
(in me, at least) that he had not always been a mere merchant. I
could not help but be reminded of the aristocratic merchant-adven-
turers of earlier European times, and, indeed, it was soon revealed to

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
171
me that Lu Kan Fon betrayed a singularly fine command of English
and French, knew German and Spanish pretty well, and could com-
municate adequately in Dutch. I also gathered that he had a good
knowledge of Japanese. Moreover, he had read a great deal in all of
these languages and, English aside, had a far better familiarity with
the literature of those countries than had I. He had been educated,
he said, by a European missionary who had taught him much of what
he now knew, but I found the explanation inadequate, though I was
too polite, of course, to tax him on it. I suspected him of being either
a dishonoured aristocrat (perhaps from Peking) or the younger son
of an impoverished family. The court intrigues of the Manchus and
their followers were notorious, and it was quite probable that he had,
at some time, played a game of politics in Peking which he had lost.
However, it was none of my business if he wished to disguise his past
or his origins, and I was relieved, for my part, to know that I would
be travelling in the company of a cultured companion whose English
was almost as fluent as my own (I had privately dreaded the difficul-
ties of communicating with a guide in the wilds of China, for my
knowledge of Mandarin and Cantonese has never been particularly
good).
Mr. Lu told me that his little caravan would not be leaving Wei-
haiwei for several days so, accordingly, I spent the rest of the week
in the city and did not waste it (as I saw it!) but assiduously en-
quired of anyone named Bastable, or answering Bastable's descrip-
tion, who might have been there. I received no information of any
obvious value, but at least felt content that I had not made the ironic
mistake of going off to look for a man who could, by the laws of co-
incidence, be found living in the next room to mine in the hotel!
At the end of the week I took a rickshaw to Mr. Lu's large and
rambling emporium near the centre of the Old Town, bringing with
me the bare necessities I would need on the long journey. The rest of
the party had already assembled by the time I arrived. They awaited
me in a spacious stable yard which reminded me somewhat of a
mediaeval English inn yard. Riding horses and pack animals were
being loaded and harnessed, their hooves churning the ground to
mud. Chinese, dressed in stout travelling garments of heavy cotton,
wool, and leather, shouted to one another as they worked, and I
noted that there was not a man, save for Lu Kan Fon himself, who
did not have a serviceable modern rifle over his shoulder and at least
one bandolier of cartridges strapped about him.
Lu saw me and came over to instruct his servants in the distri-

172
PROLOGUE
bution of my luggage on the packhorses, apologising for the confu-
sion and the condition of the horse I was to ride (it was a perfectly
good beast). I indicated the arms which his men bore.
"I see that you are expecting trouble, Mr. Lu."
He shrugged slightly. "One has to expect trouble in these times,
Mr. Moorcock. Those guns, however, should ensure that we see little
of it!"
I was relieved that the horsemen were to ride with us. Outside the
city I might well have mistaken them for the very bandits we feared.
I reflected that if we were to meet any bandits who looked half as
fierce as our own men, I would be more than a little perturbed!
At last we set off, Mr. Lu at the head of the caravan. Through the
crowded, bustling streets we rode, moving very slowly, for there
seemed to be no established right of way—one took one's chances. I
was expecting that we would head for the gates of the Old City, but
instead we turned towards the more modern sections of the city and
eventually arrived at the railway station (which might have been
transported stone by stone from London, save for the Chinese words
decorating it), and I found that we were riding directly through an
archway and onto one of the main platforms where a train was
waiting.
Mr. Lu plainly enjoyed my surprise, for he smiled quietly and
said: "The first lap will be by train—but in case the train should meet
obstacles, we take our horses with us. You call it insurance?"
I smiled back. "I suppose we do."
Horses and riders went directly into waiting goods trucks. I
learned from Mr. Lu that our entourage would travel with their ani-
mals, while we walked a little farther along the train to where a first-
class compartment had been prepared for us (Mr. Lu seemed to have
considerable influence with the railway company and I gathered that
he travelled this route fairly frequently).
We settled into a carriage which would have put most British car-
riages to shame and were immediately served with tea and light re-
freshments.
It was then that Mr. Lu, taking mild and humorous pleasure in
mystifying me slightly, revealed the destination of the train.
"With luck, we should get as far as Nanking," he told me. "Under
ordinary circumstances the journey would not take us more than
three days, but we must be prepared for some delays."
"What would be the cause of such delays?" I sipped the delicious
tea.

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
173
"Oh, there are many causes." He shrugged. "Bandits blow up the
lines. Peasants use the sleepers and the sections of rail for their own
purposes. Then again there is the general incompetence of the com-
pany employees—and that's probably the greatest problem of them
all!"
This incompetence was demonstrated very quickly. Our train was
due to leave at noon, but in fact did not leave the station until just
after four. However, any impatience I might have felt was soon dis-
sipated by the sights of the interior which greeted me after the city
was behind us. Immense stretches of flat paddy fields, interrupted by
the occasional low hill around which a village was invariably built,
shimmered in the soft light of the Chinese sun. Here was revealed the
real, immutable wealth of China—her rice. The value of silver might
fluctuate; industries would fail or prosper at the whim of the rest of
the world; cities and states could rise and fall; conquerors could
come and go; but China's rice and China's hardy peasantry were
eternal. That, at any rate, is how it seemed to me then. I had never
seen farming of any kind of such a scale as this. For miles and miles
in all directions the fields stretched, predominantly green or yellow,
intersected with low earthen dikes and somewhat broader ribbons of
silver which were the irrigation canals, and above all this was the
wide, hazy blue sky in which hung a few whisps of pale, lonely cloud.
The train chugged on, and while the landscape changed hardly at
all it did not become boring. There was always something to see: a
little group of scantily dressed peasants in their wide-brimmed straw
hats and their pigtails waving cheerfully to the train (I always waved
back!), a sampan making its way slowly up a canal, an ancient
bridge which looked like a perfect work of art to me and yet which
was plainly just a bridge built for an ordinary road between one tiny
township and another. Sometimes, too, I saw pagodas, small walled
cities (some virtually in ruins) with those highly ornate many-tiered
gates typical of Chinese architecture, houses decorated with red and
green tiles, with ceramic statuary, with bronzework, and with mirror
glass which made some of them seem as if they burned with a strange
silver fire. When the train came, as it frequently did, to a sudden
jerking stop, I had plenty of opportunities to study these sights in de-
tail.
It was on the third day, when we had made something over half of
our journey to Nanking, that I began to notice significant changes in
the demeanour of the people in the towns and villages we passed.
The peasants rarely waved to the trains and were inclined to look

174
PROLOGUE
upon us with a certain amount of apprehension and even downright
suspicion. Moreover, it soon became obvious that there were a great
many people about who were not local to the areas. I saw several de-
tachments of cavalry on the roads we passed and once thought I saw
an infantry division moving through the paddy fields. Elsewhere
there was evidence of, at very least, some sort of martial law in
operation—more than once I saw peasants being stopped, questioned,
and searched by men in uniforms of a variety of descriptions. There
was no question in my mind that this part of China was being dis-
puted over, probably by at least three factions, amongst them the
central authority. I had heard tales of the petty warlords who had
sprung up in the last few years, claiming all sorts of honours, titles,
and rights—each one claimed to represent the forces of law and
order, none would admit to being little more than a rapacious bandit
—and now it looked as if I was witnessing the truth of the tales for
myself. The long journey to Nanking passed without incident, how-
ever, and we disembarked from the train with some relief.
Nanking is a great and splendid city (if a little dilapidated here
and there) and deserves a fuller description than I have space for. It
is the capital of Kiangsu province and one of China's major cities (it
has, on occasions, been the capital). It lies at the foot of an impres-
sive range of mountains whose slopes are thickly wooded and richly
cultivated with terraced fields, and it is built on the banks of the
mighty Yangtze Kiang River. It is at once one of China's most an-
cient cities and one of the most modern. Ideal for trade, surrounded
by some of the most fertile agricultural land in the world, it has a
number of flourishing industries. Its financiers are famous for their
wealth and their power, and Nanking cuisine is highly regarded. In
contrast to most Chinese towns, Nanking's ramparts are irregular,
spreading from the river, along the banks of Lake Xuan-wu, to the
Hill of the Rain of Flowers. The naval shipyards and the market-
places are on the west of the city, between the ramparts and the
river. Again one finds a strange mixture of old Chinese architecture-
impressive, complicated buildings embellished with intricate ceramic
work—and more modern buildings, some of them very dull, but some
of them wonders of late Victorian Gothic which, fortunately, is be-
ginning to disappear in Europe to be replaced by the more gracious
architecture of those influenced by Art Nouveau movements. There
is much shipping on the river—sampans, junks, and steamers—used
for every possible purpose: as ferry boats, trading vessels, military
craft, and so on. There is a racecourse, an immense number of gar-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
175
dens, some large and ornate, some small and simple. There are li-
braries, museums, schools, and art galleries, the consulates of all the
great European powers, luxurious hotels, temples, palaces, wide ave-
nues lined with trees. I regretted greatly that our stay there was not
to be longer and made the best use of my time while Lu conducted
his business, seeing as much of interest in the city as possible. I also
called at the British consulate to apprehend them of my movements,
enquire after Bastable, and collect some cash I had arranged to be
cabled there.
The second stage of our journey was by steamer, and still the
horses had not been used! I began to envy the beasts—they seemed to
be the most underworked animals I had ever come across. Stables
had been prepared for them in the hold of the big paddle steamer,
and they seemed content to return to their cramped quarters while
Lu and myself retired to the merchant's stateroom where lunch was
immediately forthcoming. The steamer left on time, and we were
soon heading up the broad Yangtze Kiang on our way to Wuhan,
which would be our next stopping place. I was fretting somewhat, for
the journey was extremely roundabout, yet I was assured by Mr. Lu
that this was the safest route and the one most likely to get me to my
ultimate destination, for this part of China in particular was in a
highly unstable political state. He had learned, in fact, that an army
under General Zhang Xun was rumoured to be advancing on the city
and that there might well be heavy fighting in the outskirts. I had
noted the number of soldiers occupying the streets around the centre
and could well believe that we had narrowly missed being mixed up
in a war.
At any other time I would have been delighted to have remained
there and witnessed the sport, but it was important to me that Basta-
ble be located and I could not risk losing as competent a guide and
travelling companion as Lu Kan Fon. I had heard something of Gen-
eral Zhang Xun and gathered that he was a rascal of the first water,
that his men had created terrible havoc in other parts of the prov-
ince, stealing anything they could lay hands on, burning villages,
molesting women, and so forth.
Soon Nanking and her problems had disappeared behind us, and it
seemed that we were the only moving object in the whole wide world
at times, for as the river broadened we saw fewer and fewer other
vessels. The paddles of the steamer swept us along slowly but surely
with a heartening and steady beat. Our smoke drifted low behind us,
hanging over the water which was sometimes deep and blue, some-

176
PROLOGUE
times shallow and yellow. There were hills on both sides of us now,
and the variety of shades of green would have put even the lovely
English landscape to shame. Indeed I was reminded of the English
landscape the more I saw of China. The only difference was the
scale. What would have been a view stretching for a mile or two in
England became a scene stretching for scores of miles in China! Like
England, too, there was a sense of most of the landscape having been
nurtured and cultivated for all of time, used but used lovingly and
with respect for its natural appearance.
It was on the third day of our journey upriver that the first serious
incident took place. I was leaning on the rail of the ship, looking to-
wards the west bank (which was closest) and enjoying my first pipe
of the day, when I suddenly heard a sharp report and, looking in the
direction from which the sound had seemed to come, noticed a white
puff of smoke. Peering more carefully, I made out several riders
armed with rifles. More reports followed and I heard something
whizz through the rigging over my head. I realised that we were
being shot at and hastily ran along the deck to the wheelhouse with
the intention of warning the Dutch skipper of the boat.
Old Cornelius, the skipper, smiled at me as I told him what was
happening.
"Best stay inside, den, Meinherr," he said, puffing phlegmatically
on his pipe, his huge red face running with sweat, for it was all but
airless in the wheelhouse.
"Should we not pull farther out into midstream?" I enquired. "We
are surely in some danger."
"Oh yes, in danger we are, most certainly, but ve should be in
much greater danger if ve vent farther to midstream. De currents—
dey are very strong, sir. Ve must just hope dat not'in' serious is hit,
eh? Dey are alvays shootin' at us, dese days. Any powered vessel is
suspected off bein' a military ship."
"Who are they? Can we not report them to the nearest authori-
ties?"
"Dey could easily be de aut'orities, Meinherr." Cornelius laughed
and patted me on the shoulder. "Do not vorry, eh?"
I took his advice. After all, there was little else I could do! And
soon the danger was past.
Nothing of a similar nature happened to us in the course of the
next couple of days. Once I saw a whole town on fire. Lurid red
flames lit up the dusk, and thick, heavy smoke drifted over the river
to mingle with ours. I saw panic-stricken people trying to crowd into

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
177
sampans, while others hailed us from the bank, trying to get us to
help them, but the skipper would have none of it, claiming that it was
suicide to stop and that we should be overrun. I saw his logic, but I
felt a dreadful pang, for we sailed close enough to be able to see,
with the aid of field glasses, the fear-racked faces of the women and
children. Many women stood up to their waists in water, holding
their infants to them and screaming at us to help. The following
morning I saw several detachments of cavalry in the uniforms of the
central government, riding hell-for-leather along the bank, while be-
hind them rode either irregulars attached to them or pursuers—it was
hard to tell. In the afternoon I saw field artillery being drawn by six-
horse teams over a tall bridge spanning a particularly narrow section
of the Yangtze Kiang. It had obviously been involved in a fierce en-
gagement, for the soldiers were weary, wounded, and scorched, while
the wheels and barrels of the guns were thick with mud and there
were signs that the guns had been fired almost to destruction (I saw
only one ammunition tender and guessed that the others, empty, had
been abandoned). Framed against the redness of the setting sun, the
detachment looked as if it had returned from hell itself.
I was glad to reach Wuchang but somewhat nervous concerning
the next stage of our journey, which would be overland by horse-
back, backtracking to an extent, along the river, and then in the gen-
eral direction of Shancheng—unless we could get a train as far as
Kwang Shui. It was what we had originally hoped to do, but we had
heard rumours that the line to Kwang Shui had been blown up by
bandits.
Wuchang faces the point where the Han Ho River merges with the
Yangtze Kiang. It is one of three large towns lying close to each
other, and of them Wuchang is the loveliest. Han-yang and Han-kow
are beginning to take on a distinctly European character, giving
themselves over increasingly to industry and shipbuilding. But there
was no real rest in Wuchang. Martial law had been declared and a
mood of intense gloom hung over the whole city. Moreover, it had
begun to rain—a thin drizzle which somehow managed to soak
through almost any clothing one wore and seemed to chill one to the
very bone. The various officials who appeared at the dock as we
came in were overzealous in checking our papers and sorting through
our baggage, suspecting us, doubtless of being revolutionists or
bandits. The better hotels had been taken over almost entirely by
high-ranking officers, and we were forced at last to put up at a none-
too-clean inn near the quays and even here there were a good many

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soldiers to keep us awake with their drunken carousing into the night.
I pitied any town they might be called upon to defend!
Mr. Lu disappeared very early the next morning and returned
while I was eating an unpalatable breakfast of rice and some kind of
stew which had been served to me with genuine apologies on the part
of our host. There was little else, he said. The soldiers had eaten
everything—and no one was paying him.
Mr. Lu looked pleased with himself and soon took the opportunity
to let me know that he had managed to secure passage for us on the
next train leaving Wuchang. The train was chiefly a troop transport
but would take a certain number of boxcars. If I did not mind the
discomfort of travelling with the men and horses, we could leave al-
most immediately.
I was glad to agree and we gathered up our luggage and went to
meet the rest of our party on the far side of town where they had
been camped, sleeping in the open, curled up against their steeds.
They looked red-eyed and angry and were cursing at each other as
they saddled up and prepared the baggage for the pack animals.
We made our way to the station in something of a hurry, for there
was precious little time. Mr. Lu said that a troop transport was more
likely to leave on time—or even ahead of time if it was ready to go.
The army could decide.
We got to the station and the train was still in—drawn by one of
the largest locomotives I have ever seen. It belonged to no class I
recognised, was painted a mixture of bright blue and orange, and was
bellowing more fire and smoke than Siegfried's dragon.
We crowded into the boxcars, the doors were shut on us, and off
we jerked, hanging on for dear life as the train gathered speed.
Later we were able to get one of the sliding doors partly open and
look out. We were in high mountain country, winding our way
steadily upwards through some of the loveliest country I have ever
seen in my life. Old, old mountains, clothed in verdant trees, the very
image of those Chinese paintings which seem so formalised until you
have seen the original of what the artist described. And then you
realise that it is Nature herself who is formalised in China, that the
country has been populated so long that there is scarcely a blade of
grass, growing in no matter what remote spot, which has not in some
way received the influence of man. And here, as in other parts of
China, the wilderness is not made any less impressive by this imprint.
If anything, it is made more impressive. Mr. Lu shared my pleasure
in the sight (though he took a somewhat condescending, propri-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
179
etorial attitude towards me as I gasped and exclaimed and won-
dered).
"I expected to be delighted with China," I told him, "but I am
more than delighted. I am overawed—and my faith in the beauties of
Nature is restored forever!"
Mr. Lu said nothing, but a little later he took out his cigarette case
and offering me a fine Turkish, remarked that even Nature at her
most apparently invulnerable was still in danger from the works of
mankind.
I had been thinking of Bastable and his description of the bomb
which had blown him back into his own time, and I must admit that
I gave Mr. Lu a hard look, wondering if perhaps he knew more of
Bastable than he had said, but he added nothing to this remark and I
decided to accept it for one of generalised philosophy.
Accepting the cigarette, I nodded. "That's true. I sincerely hope
this civil strife does not destroy too much of your country," I said,
leaning forward to give him a match. The train swayed as it took a
bend and revealed to me a lush forest, full of the subtlest greens I
had ever seen. "For I have fallen in love with China."
"Unfortunately," said Mr. Lu in a dry but good-humoured tone,
"you are not the only European to be so smitten. But must one al-
ways take steps to possess that which one loves, Mr. Moorcock?"
I accepted his point. "I do not approve of my government's Chi-
nese policies," I told him. "But you will admit that there is more
law and order in the territories controlled by Britain than in other
parts of China. After all, the Chinese Question remains a vexed
one. . . ."
"There would be no Chinese Question, Mr. Moorcock," said Mr.
Lu with a ghost of a smile, "without Europe and Japan. Who was it
introduced massive importation of opium into our country? Who was
responsible for the devaluation of our currency? These were not in-
ternally created problems."
"Probably not. And yet. . ."
"And yet I could be wrong. Who is to tell?"
"The Manchus cannot be said to be incorruptible," I told him, and
I smiled a smile which echoed his.
His own smile became a broad grin, and he sat back against the
wall, waving the hand which held the cigarette, granting me, as it
were, the match. I think the gesture was made graciously rather than
from any real agreement with the point of view I had presented.
The train travelled steadily through the rest of the day and into the

180
PROLOGUE
night. We slept as best we could on the shuddering floor of the wag-
gon, ever in danger of a horse breaking free and trampling us. It was
almost dawn when the train came to a sudden screaming halt, caus-
ing the horses to buck about in fear, stamping and snorting, causing
our men to leap to their feet, hands on their rifles.
The noise of the stop gave way to a peculiar and uncanny silence.
In the distance we heard a few voices shouting back along the train,
and cautiously we slid the doors right back, peering into the murk to
try to see what was happening.
"At least there's no gunfire," said Mr. Lu calmly. "We are not
under direct attack. Perhaps it is nothing more than a blockage on
the line."
But it was plain he was not convinced by his own suggestion. To-
gether we clambered from the waggon and began to walk up the line
towards the locomotive.
The big engine was still ejaculating huge clouds of white steam,
and through this steam moved dark figures. From the windows of the
carriages there poked scores of heads as sleepy soldiers shouted en-
quiries or exchanged speculations about the reasons for our stopping.
Mr. Lu singled out one of the more competent-looking officers and
addressed a few short questions to him. The man replied, shrugging
frequently, making dismissive gestures, pointing towards the north
and up at the jagged mountain peaks above our heads.
The sun made its first tentative appearance as Mr. Lu rejoined me.
"The line has been blown up," he said. "We are lucky that the
driver acted with alacrity in stopping the train. There is no chance of
continuing. The train will have to go back to the nearest town. We
have the choice of going with it and enjoying the dubious security of
travelling with these soldiers, or we can continue our journey on
horseback."
I made up my mind immediately, for I was slowly becoming impa-
tient with the delays and diversions we had so far experienced. "I
should like to continue," I told Mr. Lu. "It is time those horses were
exercised!"
This was evidently the answer he had hoped for. With a quick
smile he turned and began to stride back to our section of the train,
calling out to his men to ready the horses and to load them, saying to
me in an English aside:
"Personally I think we stand a much better chance on our own.
This is territory at present controlled by the warlord General Liu
Fang. His main interest is in wiping out the troops which have been

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181
sent against him. I do not think he will bother an ordinary caravan,
particularly if we have a European gentleman travelling with us. Liu
Fang hopes, I gather, to recruit allies from Europe. A plan which is
almost certainly doomed to failure, but it will be of help to us."
Accordingly, we were soon on horseback, heading down the long
slope away from the stranded train. By noon we were deep into un-
populated country, following the course of a river along the floor of a
valley. The valley was narrow and thickly wooded, and at length we
were forced to dismount and lead our horses through the moss-
covered rocks. It had begun to rain quite heavily and the ground was
slippery, slowing our progress even more. Moreover, it had become
hard to see more than a few yards ahead of us. Owing to my lack of
sleep and the hypnotic effect of the rain falling on the foliage above
my head, I continued almost in a trance, hardly aware of my own
tiredness. We exchanged few words and emerged from the forest and
remounted when it was quite late in the afternoon, with only a few
hours of daylight left. The river began to rise and we still followed it,
from one valley into another, until we came upon some reasonably
level ground where we decided to make camp and consult our maps
to see what progress we had so far made.
It was as I watched the men erecting the tent which Mr. Lu and I
would share that I glanced up into the hills and thought I saw a
figure move behind a rock some distance away. I remarked on this to
Mr. Lu. He accepted that I had probably seen someone, but he reas-
sured me.
"It is not surprising. Probably only an observer—a scout sent to
keep an eye on us and make sure that we are not a disguised military
expedition. I doubt if we shall be bothered by him."
I could not sleep well that night, and I must admit that in my ex-
haustion I had begun to regret the impulse which had sent me on this
adventure. I wondered if it would all end in some sordid massacre, if,
by morning, my stripped corpse would lay amongst the remains of
our camp. I would not be the first European foolish enough to em-
bark upon such a journey and pay the ultimate price of his folly.
When I did sleep, at last, my dreams were not pleasant. Indeed, they
were the strangest and most terrifying dreams I have ever experi-
enced. Yet, for some reason, I awoke from all this feeling completely
refreshed and cleansed of my fears. I began to be optimistic about
our chances of reaching the Valley of the Morning and ate the crude
fare served us for breakfast with immense relish.
Mr. Lu was moved to comment on my demeanour. "We Chinese

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PROLOGUE
are famous for our stoicism," he said, "but we could learn something
from your British variety!"
"It's not stoicism," I said. "Merely a mood. I can't explain it."
"Perhaps you sense good luck. I hope so." He indicated the rocky
hills on both sides of us. "A fairly large company of men has been
moved up in the night. We are probably completely surrounded."
"Do they mean to attack, I wonder?" I glanced about but could
see no sign of the soldiers.
"I would suppose that this manoeuvre is a precaution. They are
probably still wondering if we are spies or part of a disguised army."
I now noticed that our men were betraying a certain nervousness,
fingering their rifles and bandoliers, glancing around them at the
rocks, and muttering amongst themselves in an agitated fashion. Lu
Kan Fon was the only person who seemed unconcerned; speaking
rapidly, he gave orders for our packhorses to be loaded, and, at first
reluctantly, his men moved to obey. It was only when the last bundle
had been secured and we prepared to mount that the soldiers re-
vealed themselves.
Unlike many of the government troops, these men wore uniforms
which were distinctively Chinese—loose smocks and trousers of
black, yellow, white, and red. On the backs and fronts of the smocks
were big circles on which had been printed Chinese characters, evi-
dently giving the rank and regiment of the soldier. Some wore
skullcaps, while others had wide-brimmed straw hats. All were clean-
shaven and well disciplined, and all possessed modern carbines, ap-
parently of German manufacture. Although their guns were pointed
at us, they were held at the hip rather than at the shoulder, denoting
that no immediate harm was intended to us. Immediately, Mr. Lu
held up his hand and ordered his men not to touch their own weap-
ons, whereupon there emerged from behind a large bush a mounted
figure of such splendid appearance that I thought at first he must
surely be arrayed for a festival.
He rode his shaggy pony slowly down the hillside towards us. He
must have been well over six feet in height and with massive shoul-
ders and chest. He was wearing a long brocade gown embroidered
for about a foot round the bottom with waves of the sea and other
Chinese devices. Over this was a long satin coat with an embroidered
breastplate and a similar square of embroidery on the back, with the
horseshoe cuffs, forced upon the Chinese by the Manchus when the
present dynasty came to the throne, falling over his hands. High
official boots, an amber necklace of very large beads reaching to his

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
183
waist, and aureole-shaped official cap with large red tassel completed
the costume. There was a large sword at his side, but no other visible
arms, and he guided his pony with one hand while keeping the other
on the hilt of the sword, somehow managing to retain an impressive
dignity while the horse picked its way down to where we waited, vir-
tually frozen in position.
His face was expressionless as he rode into our camp and brought
his mount to a halt, looking us over through his slanting, jet-black
eyes. Mr. Lu and myself came in for a particularly close examina-
tion, and it was while the man was inspecting me that I decided to try
to break the atmosphere and bowed slightly, saying in English:
"Good morning, sir. I am a British citizen on a private journey
with these traders. I regret it if we have inadvertently entered terri-
tory which you would prefer to remain untravelled. . . ."
My rather mealy-mouthed speech was interrupted by a grunt from
the magnificent rider who ignored me and addressed Mr. Lu in
flowing Mandarin.
"You know who I am? You know where you are? What is your
excuse for being here?"
Mr. Lu bowed low before speaking. "I know who you are, hon-
ourable one, and I most humbly ask your forgiveness for giving you
the trouble of needing to inspect our little caravan. But we were trav-
elling by train until yesterday when the train met an obstacle and was
forced to return to the nearest town. We decided to continue over-
land. . .
"You were seen leaving the troop train. You are spies, are you
not?"
"Not at all, mighty General Liu Fang. The troop train was the
only available transport. We are merchants: we are on our way to
trade in Shantung."
"Who is the foreigner?"
"An Englishman. A writer who wishes to write a book about our
country."
At this quick-witted piece of invention the legendary General Liu
Fang showed a flicker of interest. He also appeared slightly mollified,
for he had no reason to suspect I was anything but a neutral party in
his territory (as, of course, I was) and probably thought it might be
in his interest to cultivate the goodwill of one of the foreigners whose
aid he was rumoured to be seeking.
"Tell your men to disarm themselves," he ordered, and Mr. Lu

184
PROLOGUE
relayed the order at once. Scowling, his men unslung their guns and
dropped them to the ground.
"And where is your immediate destination?" said the general to
me in halting French.
I replied in the same tongue. "I have heard of a particularly beau-
tiful valley in these parts. It is called the Valley of the Morning." I
saw no point in beating about the bush, particularly since I might not
have another opportunity to discover the exact whereabouts of my
destination for some time.
General Liu Fang plainly recognised the name, but his reaction
was strange. He frowned heavily and darted a deeply suspicious look
at me. "Who do you seek there?"
"No one in particular," said I. "My interest in the place is purely,
as it were, geographical." I, in turn, noting his reaction, had become
cautious of revealing anything more.
He seemed to relax, momentarily satisfied with my reply. "I would
advise you against visiting the valley," he said. "There are bandits in
the area."
I wondered to myself sardonically what he called himself, but of
course let nothing of this show on my face as I said: "I am grateful
for the warning. Perhaps with the protection of your army . . ."
He gestured impatiently. "I am fighting a war, monsieur. I cannot
spare men to escort foreign journalists about the country."
"I apologise," I said, and bowed again.
There was still considerable tension in the situation, and I noted
that the soldiers had not relaxed but were still pointing their rifles at
us. There must have been at least a hundred of them in well-pro-
tected positions on both sides of the valley. The general returned his
attention to Mr. Lu. "What goods do you carry for trade?"
Mr. Lu had folded his arms. He said impassively: "Many kinds.
Mainly articles of artistic interest. Statuettes, ceramics, and the like."
"They will be inspected," said the general. "Instruct your men to
unload the goods."
Again Mr. Lu obeyed without demur. As his men began to unpack
the bundles which they had so recently strapped onto the packhorses,
he said to me in English: "We might escape with our lives, but not, I
fear, our possessions. . . ."
"Silence!" said the general firmly. He rode forward to where Mr.
Lu's goods had been laid out, looked them over with the shrewd eye
of a Chinese peasant woman inspecting fish in a market, and then

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
185
rode back to where we stood. "They will be requisitioned," he said,
"to help us win freedom from the Manchus."
Fatalistically, Mr. Lu bowed. "A worthy cause," he said dryly.
"The horses-?"
"The horses will also be requisitioned. They will be of particular
use. . . ."
It was at this point that he was interrupted by the sound of ma-
chine-gun fire, and I thought at first that he had somehow given the
signal for our slaughter. But the gunfire came from higher up the hill-
side, and I saw at once that it was his men who were the target for
the attack. My spirits lifted. Surely these must be government troops
coming to our rescue!
My relief was short-lived. Almost at once General Liu Fang
shouted an order to his men and, head well down over the neck of
his horse, spurred rapidly for the cover of some nearby rocks.
It had begun to rain suddenly—a heavy, misty rain which acted
like fog to obscure visibility—and I had no idea of what was happen-
ing, save that the general's troops were firing on us.
Mr. Lu's men dived for their own weapons, but half of them were
cut down before they could reach their rifles. Those who remained
snatched up their guns and sought what cover they could. Mr. Lu
grabbed my arm, and together we ran towards a depression in the
ground where we might escape the worst of the concentrated fire
from above. We flung ourselves down and buried our faces in the
soft moss while the three-sided battle went on all around us. I re-
member noting that the machine guns kept up an incredibly efficient
chattering, and I wondered how any Chinese army could have ac-
quired such artillery (for the Chinese are notorious for the poor
quality of their arms and their inefficiency in maintaining those that
they have).
Bullets thudded about us, and I expected to be hit at any moment.
I shouted over the noise of gunfire and the cries of the wounded.
"Who are they, Mr. Lu?"
"I do not know, Mr. Moorcock. All I do know is that whereas we
might have escaped with our fives, we now stand a very good chance
of being killed. They doubtless consider it more important to destroy
General Liu Fang than to save us!" He laughed. "I regret that I shall
be forced to return your fee—I have not kept my part of the bargain.
Your chances of finding the Valley of the Morning have become ex-
ceptionally slender. My protection has proved inadequate!"
"I am forced to agree with you, Mr. Lu," said I, and would have

186
PROLOGUE
continued had I not recognised the distinctive sound of a bullet
striking flesh and bone. I lifted my head, thinking at first that I had
been hit, but it was Mr. Lu. He must have died instantly, for he had
been shot not once but twice, almost simultaneously, in the head.
I had an immediate sense of grief, realising how much I had en-
joyed the sophisticated company of the Chinese, but the sight of his
ruined head sickened me and I was forced to avert my eyes.
The death of Mr. Lu seemed to be a signal for the fighting to stop.
Shortly afterwards the sound of gunfire ended, and I lifted my head
cautiously to peer through the drifting rain. Death was everywhere.
Our own men lay amongst the scattered and broken remains of the
works of art they had carried for so long and so far. A few had once
again laid down their weapons and were raising their hands high
above their heads. General Liu Fang was nowhere to be seen (I
learned later he had kept riding, abandoning his men to their fate),
but the warlord's soldiers lay in postures of death everywhere I
looked. I rose, raising my own hands. There came a few more iso-
lated shots, and I surmised that, in Chinese fashion, the wounded
were being finished off.
I must have waited for at least ten minutes before I got my first
sight of our "rescuers." They were all mounted, all wearing leather
caps of a distinctively Mongolian appearance, and all carried light
rifles of a decidedly unfamiliar pattern. Their loose shirts were of silk
or cotton, and some wore leather capes to protect themselves against
the worst of the rain, while others wore quilted jackets. They were
mainly good-looking northern Chinese, tall and somewhat arrogant
in their bearing, and none had pigtails. Most had armbands as their
only insignia—a fanciful design consisting of a circle from which
radiated eight slender arrows. I knew at once that they could not,
after all, be government troops, but were doubtless some rival bandit
army either fighting for themselves or allied with the government
troops against General Liu Fang.
And then their leader rode into sight from out of the misty rain. I
knew it must be the leader from the way in which the other riders fell
back. Also it was rare to see a handsome black Arab stallion in these
parts, and that was what the leader rode. Slender, a graceful rider,
dressed in a long black leather topcoat with a narrow waist and a
flaring skirt, a broad-brimmed leather hat hiding the face, a long
Cossack-style sabre hanging from a belt of elaborately ornamented
silk, the bandit chief rode towards me, lifted the brim of the hat away

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
187
from the face, and showed evident, and almost childish, amusement
at my astonishment.
"Good morning, Mr. Moorcock."
Her voice was clear and well modulated—the voice of an educated
Englishwoman (though bearing perhaps the slightest trace of an ac-
cent). She was young, no older than thirty at very most, and she had
a pale, soft complexion. Her eyes were grey-blue and her mouth was
wide and full-lipped. She had an oval face which would have been
merely pretty had it not been for the character in it. As it was, I
thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her slightly
waving black hair was short, framing her face but barely touching
her shoulders.
And all I could blurt out was "How do you know my name?"
She laughed. "Our intelligence is rather better than General Liu
Fang's. I am sorry so many of your men were killed—and I particu-
larly regret the death of Mr. Lu. Though he did not know that it was
I who attacked, we were old friends and I had been looking forward
to meeting him again."
"You take his death rather casually," I said.
"It was a casual death. I have not introduced myself. My name is
Una Persson. For some months we have been harassed by General
Liu, and this is the first opportunity we have had to teach him a les-
son. We were originally coming to find you and take you with us to
the Valley of the Morning, but I could not afford to miss the chance
of ambushing such a large number of the general's troops."
"How did you know I sought the Valley of the Morning?"
"I have known for at least a month. You have made many en-
quiries."
"Your name is familiar—where have I heard it . . . ?" Slowly it
dawned on me. "Bastable mentioned you! The woman on the airship
—the revolutionist. Una Persson!"
"I am an acquaintance of Captain Bastable."
My heart leapt. "Is he there? Is he in the Valley of the Morning as
I suspected?"
"He has been there," she agreed. "And he has left something of
himself behind."
"But Bastable? What of him? I am anxious to speak to him.
Where is he now?"
And then this mysterious woman made the most cryptic utterance
she had made so far. She shrugged and gave a little tired smile, pull-
ing on her horse's reins so that the beast began to move away.

188
PROLOGUE
"Where indeed?" she said. "It is not a question easily answered, Mr.
Moorcock, for we are all nomads of the time streams. . .
I stood there, puzzled, chilled, miserable, and too weary to ques-
tion her further. She rode to where Mr. Lu's goods lay scattered
about and beneath the corpses of men and horses. She dismounted
and stooped to inspect one shattered figurine, dipped her finger into
the hollow which had been revealed, and lifted the finger to her nose.
Then she nodded to herself as if confirming something she had al-
ready known. Then she began to give orders to her men in rapid
Cantonese dialect which I could scarcely follow at all. Carefully,
they began to gather up both the fragments and the few figurines
which were still unbroken. It did not take a particularly subtle intelli-
gence to put two and two together. Now I knew why Mr. Lu had
taken such an oddly circuitous route and why he had been eager to
leave the troop train as soon as possible. Plainly, he was an opium
smuggler. I found it hard to believe that such an apparently decent
and well-educated man could indulge in so foul a trade, but the evi-
dence was indisputable. For some reason I could not find it in my
heart to loathe the dead man, and I guessed that some sort of per-
verted idealism had led him to this means of making money. I also
had an explanation of the general's interest in Mr. Lu's goods—doubt-
less the bandit chief had guessed the truth, which was why he had
been so eager to "requisition" the articles.
The booty was collected quickly, and Una Persson mounted her
sleek stallion without another glance at me, riding off through the
rain. One of her silent warriors brought me a horse and signalled for
me to climb into the saddle. I did so with eagerness, for I had no in-
tention of becoming separated from the beautiful bandit leader—she
was my first real link with Bastable and there was every chance she
would take me to him. I felt no danger from these rascals and had an
inkling that Una Persson was, if not sympathetic, at least neutral
with regard to me.
Thus, surrounded by her men, I followed behind her as we left
that little vale of death and the remnants of Mr. Lu's party and can-
tered along a narrow track which wound higher and higher into the
mountains.
I was hardly aware of the details of that journey, so eaten up was I
with curiosity. A thousand questions seethed in my skull—how could
a woman who had been described by Bastable as being young in the
year 1973 be here, apparently just as young, in the year 1910? Once
again I experienced that almost fearful frisson which I had experi-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
189
enced when listening to Bastable's speculations on the paradoxes of
time.
And would Democratic Dawn City—Ch'ing Che'eng Ta-Chia—that
secret Utopian revolutionary citadel, be there when we arrived in the
Valley of the Morning?
And why was Una Persson taking part in China's internecine poli-
tics? Why did these tall, silent men follow her?
I hoped that I would have at least some answers to these questions
when we arrived in the Valley of the Morning, but, as it emerged, I
was to be disappointed in several ways.
It was after dark by the time that we reached Una Persson's camp
and the rain had fallen ceaselessly, so that it was still difficult to
make out details, but it was obvious that this was no city of the fu-
ture—merely the ruins of a small Chinese township with a few houses
still inhabitable. For the most part, however, the soldiers and their
women and children lived in makeshift shelters erected in the ruins,
while others had set up tents or temporary huts similar to the Mon-
golian yurt. Cooking fires guttered here and there amongst the fallen
masonry and half-burned timbers which spoke of some disaster hav-
ing befallen the town fairly recently. Much of the ground had been
churned to mud and was made even more treacherous by the arrival
of our horses. As I dismounted, Una Persson rode up and pointed
with a riding crop at one of the still-standing houses.
"You'll be my guest for supper, I hope, Mr. Moorcock."
"You are kind, madam," I replied. "But I fear I am not properly
dressed to take supper with such a beautiful hostess. . . ."
She grinned at the compliment. "You are picking up Chinese habits
of speech, I see. Your clothes were rescued. You'll find them in your
room. San Chui here will show you where it is. You'll be able to
wash there, too. Until later, then." She saluted me with the crop and
rode off to supervise the unloading of her spoils (which also
consisted of most of the weapons which had a short while ago
belonged to Mr. Lu's and the general's men). I had an opportunity to
see one of the machine guns I had initially only heard and was as-
tonished that it was so light and yet so capable of dealing out death
with extraordinary efficiency. This, too, was of a completely unfamil-
iar pattern. Indeed, it was the sort of weapon I might have expected
to find in a city of the future!
San Chui, impassive as his comrades, bowed and led the way into
the house, which was carpeted in luxurious style throughout but was
otherwise of a somewhat spartan appearance. In a room near the top

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PROLOGUE
of the house I found my baggage and my spare suit already laid out
on my sleeping mat (there was no bed). Shortly afterwards another
soldier, who had changed into a smock and trousers of blue linen,
brought me a bowl of hot water, and I was able to get the worst of
the mud and dust off my person, find a reasonably uncrumpled shirt,
don the fresh suit, and walk down to supper safe in the conviction
that I was able to make at least an approximate appearance of civ-
ilised demeanour.
I was to dine alone, it seemed, with my hostess. She herself had
changed into a simple gown of midnight-blue silk, trimmed with scar-
let in the Chinese fashion. With her short hair and her oval face she
looked, in the light of the candles burning on the dining table, almost
Chinese. She wore no ornament and there was no trace of paint on
her face, yet she looked even more beautiful than the first time I had
seen her. When I bowed, it was instinctively, in homage to that
beauty. The ground-floor room held the minimum of furniture—a
couple of chests against the walls and a low Chinese table at which
one sat cross-legged on cushions to eat.
Without enquiry, she handed me a glass of madeira and I thanked
her. Sipping the wine, I found it to be amongst the very best of its
kind and I complimented her on it.
She smiled. "Don't praise my taste, Mr. Moorcock. Praise that of
the French missionary who ordered it in Shanghai—and who is still, I
suppose, wondering what has become of it!"
I was surprised by her easy (even shameless) admission of her
banditry, but said nothing. Never having been a great supporter of the
established Church, I continued to sip the missionary's wine with
relish, however, and found myself relaxing for the first time since I
had left civilisation. Although I had so many questions to ask her, I
discovered myself to be virtually tongue-tied, not knowing where to
begin and hoping that she would illuminate me without my having to
introduce the subject, say, of Bastable and how she came to know
him when the last I had heard of her she had been aboard the airship
which had, in the year 1973, dropped a bomb of immense power
upon the city of Hiroshima. For the first time I began to doubt Bas-
table's story and wonder if, indeed, he had been describing nothing
but an opium dream which had become confused with reality to the
extent that he had introduced actual people he had known into it.
We seated ourselves to eat, and I decided to begin in a somewhat
elliptical manner, enquiring, as I sampled the delicious soup (served,

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191
in Western fashion, before the main courses): "And might I ask
after your father, Captain Korzeniowski?"
It was her turn to frown in puzzlement, and then her brow cleared
and she laughed. "Aha! Of course—Bastable. Oh, Korzeniowski is
fine, I think. Bastable spoke well of you—he seemed to trust you. In-
deed, the reason that you are here at all is that he asked me to do a
favour for him."
"A favour?"
"More of that later. Let us enjoy our meal—this is a luxury for me,
you know. Recently we have not had the leisure or the means to
prepare elaborate meals."
Once again she had politely—almost sweetly—blocked my ques-
tions. I decided to proceed on a new tack.
"This village has sustained a bombardment by the look of it," I
said. "Have you been attacked?"
She answered vaguely. "It was attacked, yes. By General Liu, I
believe, before we arrived. But one gets used to ruins. This is better
than some I have known." Her eyes held a distant, moody look, as if
she were remembering other times, other ruins. Then she shrugged
and her expression changed. "The world you know is a stable world,
Mr. Moorcock, is it not?"
"Comparatively," I said. "Though there are always threats, I sup-
pose. I have sometimes wondered what social stability is. It is proba-
bly just a question of point of view and personal experience. My own
outlook is a relatively cheerful one. If I were, say, a Jewish immi-
grant in London's East End, it would probably not be anything like
as optimistic!"
She appreciated the remark and smiled. "Well, at least you accept
that there are other views of society. Perhaps that is why Bastable
talked to you; why he liked you."
"Liked me? It is not the impression I received. He disappeared,
you know, after our meeting on Rowe Island—without any warning
at all. I was concerned for him. He was under a great strain. That, I
suppose, is the main reason I am here. Have you seen him recently?
Is he well?"
"I have seen him. He was well enough. But he is trapped—he is
probably trapped forever." Her next phrase was addressed to herself,
I thought. "Trapped forever in the shifting tides of time."
I waited for her to elaborate, but she did not. "Bastable will tell
you more of that," she said.
"Then he is here?"

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PROLOGUE
She shook her head, and her hair swayed like the branches of a
willow in the wind. She returned her attention to the meal and did
not speak for a while as we ate.
Now I had the strange impression that I was not quite real to her,
that she spoke to me as she might speak to her horse or a household
pet or a familiar picture on her wall, as if she did not expect me to
understand and spoke only to clarify her own thoughts. I felt a little
uncomfortable, just as someone might feel who was an unwilling
eavesdropper on an intimate conversation. Yet I was determined to
receive at least some clarification from her.
"I gather that you intend to take me to Bastable—or that Bastable
is due to return here?"
"Really? No, no. I am sorry if I have misled you. I have many
things on my mind at present. China's problems alone . . . the his-
torical implications ... the possibility of so much going wrong . . .
whether we should be interfering at all . . . if we are interfering, or
only think we are . . ." She lifted her head, and her wonderful eyes
stared deep into mine. "Many concerns—responsibilities—and I am
very tired, Mr. Moorcock. It is going to be a long century."
I was completely nonplussed and decided myself to finish the con-
versation. "Perhaps we can talk in the morning," I said, "when we
are both more rested."
"Perhaps," she agreed. "You are going to bed?"
"If you do not think it impolite. The dinner was splendid."
"Yes, it was good. This morning. . ."
I wondered if she, like Bastable, was also a slave to opium. There
was a trancelike quality in her eyes now. She could hardly under-
stand me.
"Until the morning, then," I said.
"Until the morning." She echoed my words almost mindlessly.
"Good night, Mrs. Persson."
"Goodnight."
I made my way back upstairs, undressed, lay myself down on the
sleeping mat, and, it seemed to me, was immediately dreaming those
peculiar, frightening dreams of the previous night. Again, in the
morning, I felt completely refreshed and purged. I got up, washed in
cold water, dressed, and went downstairs. The room was as I had left
it—the remains of the previous night's dinner were still on the table.
And I was suddenly seized with the conviction that everything had
been abandoned hastily—that I had also been abandoned. I walked
outside into a fine, pale morning. The rain had stopped and the air

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193
smelled fresh and clean. I looked for signs of activity and found
nothing. The only life I could see in the village consisted of one
horse, saddled and ready to ride. Soldiers, women, and children had
all disappeared. Now I wondered if, inadvertently, I had sampled
some of Mr. Lu's opium and had dreamed the whole thing! I went
back into the house calling out:
"Mrs. Persson! Mrs. Persson!"
There were only echoes. Not one human being remained in the
ruined village.
I went out again. In the distance the low green hills of the Valley
of the Morning were soft, gentle, and glowing after the rain which
must have stopped in the night. A large, watery sun hung in the sky.
Birds sang. The world seemed to be tranquil, the valley a haven of
perfect peace. I saw not one gun, one item of the spoils which the
bandits had brought back with them. The cooking fires were still
warm but had been extinguished. The mud was still thick and deep,
and there was evidence of many horses having left the village fairly
recently.
Perhaps the bandits had received intelligence of a large-scale
counterattack from General Liu's forces. Perhaps they had left to at-
tack some new objective of their own. I determined to remain in the
village for as long as possible in the hope that they would return.
I made a desultory perambulation of the village. I explored each
of the remaining houses; I went for a walk along the main road out
of the place. I walked back. There was no evidence for my first
theory, that the village had been about to suffer an attack.
By lunchtime I was feeling pretty hungry, and I returned to the
house to pick at the cold remains of last night's supper. I helped my-
self to a glass of the missionary's excellent madeira. I explored the
anterooms of the ground floor and then went upstairs, determined,
completely against my normal instincts, to investigate every room.
The bedroom next to mine still bore a faint smell of feminine per-
fume and was plainly Una Persson's. There was a mirror on the wall,
a bottle of eau de cologne beside the sleeping mat, a few whisps of
dark hair in an ivory hairbrush on the floor near the mirror. Other-
wise, the room was furnished as barely as the others. I noticed a
small inlaid table near a window leading onto a small balcony which
overlooked the ruins of the village. There was a bulky package lying
on the table, wrapped in oilskin, tied with cord.
As I passed it on my way to look out of the window, I glanced at
the package. And then I gave it very much of a second glance, for I

194
PROLOGUE
had recognised my own name written in faded brown ink on yel-
lowed paper! Just the word "Moorcock." I did not know the hand-
writing, but I felt fully justified in tearing off the wrappings to reveal
a great heap of closely written foolscap pages.
It was the manuscript which you, its rediscoverer (for I have no
intention of making a fool of myself again), are about to read.
There was a note addressed to me from Bastable—brief and
pointed—and the manuscript itself was in the same writing.
This must be, of course, what Una Persson had been referring to
when she had told me that Bastable had left something of himself
behind in the Valley of the Morning. I felt, too, that it was reason-
able to surmise that she had meant to give the manuscript to me be-
fore she left (if she had actually known she was going to leave so
suddenly).
I took the table, a stool, and the manuscript onto the balcony,
seating myself so that I was looking out over that mysteriously de-
serted village and the distant hills containing the valley I had sought
for so long, and I settled down to read a story which was, if anything,
far stranger than the first one which Bastable had told me. . . .

Book One
THE WORLD IN ANARCHY

CHAPTER ONE
The Return to Teku Benga
After I left you that morning, Moorcock, I had no intention of
departing Rowe Island so hastily. I genuinely intended to do no more
than take a stroll and clear my head. But I was very tired, as you
know, and inclined to act impulsively. As I walked along the quay-
side, I saw that a steamer was leaving; I observed an opportunity to
stow away, did so, was undiscovered, and eventually reached the
mainland of India, whereupon I made my way inland, got to Teku
Benga (still hoping to get back to what I was convinced was my
"real" time), discovered that the way across remained impassable,
and considered the possibility of chucking myself off the cliff and
having done with the whole mystery. But I hadn't the courage for
that, nor the heart to go back to your world, Moorcock—that world
that was so subtly different to the one I had originally left.
I suppose I must have gone into a decline of some sort (perhaps
the shock, perhaps the sudden cessation of supplies of opium to my
system, I don't know). I remained near the abyss separating me from
what might have been the fountainhead of that particular knowledge
I sought. I stared for hours at the dimly seen ruins of that ancient
and squalid mountain fortress, and I believe I must have prayed to it,
begging it to release me from the awful fate it (or Sharan Kang, its
dead priest-king) had condemned me to.
For some time (do not ask me how long) I lived the life of a wild
beast, eating the small vermin I was able to trap, almost relishing the
slow erosion of my mind and my civilised instincts.
When the snows came, I was forced to look for shelter and was
driven slowly down the mountainside until I discovered a cave which
provided more than adequate shelter. The cave bore evidence that it
had until recently been the lair of some wild beast, for there were
many bones—of goats, wild sheep, hill dogs, and the like (as well as

198
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the remains of more than one human being)—but there was no sign
that its previous occupant was still in evidence. The cave was long,
narrow, stretching so far back and becoming so dark that I never ex-
plored its whole extent and was content to establish myself close to
the mouth, building no fire, but wrapping myself in the inadequately
cured skins of my prey as the winter grew steadily colder.
The previous resident of the cave had been a huge tiger. I found
this out one morning when I heard a peculiar snuffling noise and
woke up to see the entrance blocked by a massive striped head and
the beginnings of a pair of monstrous feline shoulders. The tiger
regarded this cave as his winter home and plainly would not think
much of the idea of sharing it equably with me. I leapt up and began
to retreat into the depths of the cave, since my exit was completely
blocked as the tiger, who must have grown fatter during his summer
in the lowlands, squeezed his way slowly in.
That was how I discovered the cave to be in actuality a tunnel—
and moreover a man-made tunnel. It grew as dark as the grave as I
continued my retreat along it. I steadied myself with my hands
against the walls and slowly began to understand that the rough rock
had given way to smooth and that the projections were in fact cun-
ning carvings of a familiar pattern. I became a bit flustered, then—a
bit mad. I remember giggling, then stopping myself, realising that the
tiger might still be behind me. I paused, feeling carefully on both
sides of the narrow passage. I received a sickening sense of disgust as
my groping fingers made out details of the carvings; my dizziness
increased. And yet at the same time I was elated, knowing for certain
that I had stumbled into one of Teku Benga's many secret corridors
and that I might well have found my way back, at last, to that warren
of passages which lay beneath the immeasurably ancient Temple of
the Future Buddha! There was no question in my mind that, failing
to find a way across the gorge, I had inadvertently discovered a way
under it, for now the floor of the passage began to rise steeply and I
was attacked by a coldness of a quality and intensity which was to-
tally unlike the coldness of the natural winter. I had been terrified
when I first experienced it, and I was terrified now, but my terror was
mixed with hope. Strange little noises began to assail my ears, like
the tinkling of temple bells, the whispering of a wind which carried
half-formed words in an alien language. Once I had sought to escape
all this, but now I ran towards it, and I believe that I was weeping,
calling out. And the floor of the passage seemed to sway as I ran on,
the walls widened out so that I could no longer stretch my arms and

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199
touch them, and at last, ahead of me, I saw a point of white light. It
was the same I had seen before and I laughed. Even then I found my
laughter harsh and mad, but I did not care. The light grew brighter
and brighter until it was blinding me. Shapes moved behind the light;
there were nameless, glowing colours; there were webs of some vi-
brating metallic substance, and once more I was reminded of the leg-
ends of Hindu gods who had built machines to defy the laws of space
and time.
And then I began to fall.
Head over heels I spun, and I began to think that I fell through
the void which lies between the stars. Slowly all the little con-
sciousness that remained had left me, and I gave myself up to the an-
cient power which had seized me and made me its toy. . . .
I'm sorry if all this seems fanciful, Moorcock. You know that I'm
not a particularly imaginative sort of chap. I began my maturity as
an ordinary soldier, doing his duty to his country and his empire. I
should like nothing more than to continue my life in that vein, but
fate has ordained otherwise. I awoke in darkness, desperately hoping
that my flight through time had been reversed and that I should dis-
cover myself back in my own age. There was no way of knowing, of
course, for I was still in darkness, still in the tunnel, but the sounds
had gone, and that particular sort of coldness had gone. I got up,
feeling my body in the hope that I'd discover I was wearing my old
uniform, but I was not—I was still dressed in rags. This did not un-
duly concern me, and I turned to retrace myself, feeling that if I was
still in the age I hoped to have left, then I would give myself up to
the tiger and get it all over with.
At last I got back to the cave and there was no tiger. Moreover—
and this improved my spirits—there was no sign that I had occupied
the cave. I walked out into the snow and stood looking up at a hard,
blue sky, taking great gulps of the thin air and grinning like a school-
boy, sure that I was "home."
My journey out of the mountains was not a pleasant one, and how
I ever escaped severe frostbite I shall never know. I passed through
several villages and was treated with wary respect, as a holy man
might be treated, and got warmer clothes and food, but none of
those I spoke to could understand English and I had no familiarity
with their dialect. Thus it was nearly a month before I could begin to
hope for confirmation of my belief that I had returned to my own
time. A few landmarks began to turn up—a clump of trees, an oddly

200
THE NOMAD OF TIME
shaped rock, a small river—which I recognised, and I knew I was
close to the frontier station which Sharan Kang had attacked and
thus been the cause of my first visit to both Teku Benga and, ulti-
mately, the future.
The station came in sight a day or so later—merely a barracks sur-
rounded by a few native brick huts and the whole enclosed by a
serviceable wall. This was where our native police and their com-
manding officer had been killed, and I admit that I prayed that I
would find it as I had left it. There were signs of fighting and few
signs of habitation, and this cheered me up no end! I stumbled
through the broken gateway of the little fort, hoping against hope
that I would find the detachment of Punjabi Lancers and Ghoorkas
I had left behind on my way to Kumbalari. Sure enough there were
soldiers there. I shouted out in relief. I was weak from hunger and
exhaustion and my voice must have sounded thinly through the warm
spring air, but the soldiers sprang up, weapons at the ready, and it
was only then that I realised they were white. Doubtless the Indian
soldiers had been relieved by British.
Yet these men had recently been in a fight, that was clear. Had an-
other band of Sharan Kang's men attacked the fort while I had been
on my expedition into the old hill fox's territory?
I called out: "Are you British?"
I received the stout reply: "I certainly hope we are!"
And then I fell fainting on the dry dust of the compound.

CHAPTER TWO
The Dream—and the Nightmare—
of the Chilean Wizard
Naturally enough, my first words on regaining consciousness,
lying on a truckle bed in what remained of the barracks' dormitory,
were "What's the year?"
"The year, sir?" The man who addressed me was a young, bright-
looking chap. He had a sergeant's stripes on his dusty scarlet tunic
(it was a Royal Londonderry uniform, a regiment having close con-
nections with my own), and he held a tin cup of tea in one hand
while the other was behind my head, trying to help me sit up.
"Please, Sergeant, humour me, would you? What's the year?"
"It's 1904, sir."
So I had been "lost" for two years. That would explain a great
deal. I was relieved. Sipping the rather weak tea (I was later to dis-
cover it was almost their last), I introduced myself, giving my rank
and my own regiment, telling the sergeant that I was, as far as I
knew, the only survivor of a punitive expedition of a couple of years
earlier—that I had been captured, escaped, wandered around for a
bit, and had only just managed to make it back. The sergeant ac-
cepted the story without any of the signs of suspicion which I had
come to expect, but his next words alarmed me.
"So you would know nothing of the war, then, Captain Bastable?"
"A war? Here, on the Northwest Frontier? The Russians . . ."
"At the moment, sir, this is one of the few places scarcely touched
by the war, though you are right in supposing that the Russians are
amongst our enemies. The war is worldwide. Myself and less than a
score of men are all that remains of the army which failed to defend
Darjiling. The city and the best part of these territories are either
under Russian control or the Russians have been, in turn, beaten by
the Arabian Alliance. Personally I am hoping that the Russians are

202
THE NOMAD OF TIME
still in control. At least they let their prisoners live or, at worst, kill
them swiftly. The last news we had was not good, however. . .
"Are there no reinforcements coming from Britain?"
A look of pain filled the sergeant's eyes. "There will be little
enough coming from Blighty for some time, I shouldn't wonder, sir.
Most of Europe is in a far worse plight than Asia, having sustained
the greatest concentration of bombs. The war is over in Europe,
Captain Bastable. Here, it continues—a sort of alternative battle-
ground, you might call it, with precious little for anyone to win. The
power situation is grim enough—there's probably not one British keel
capable of lifting, even if it exists. . .
Now his words had become completely meaningless to me. I was
aware of only one terrifying fact, and I had become filled with de-
spair: This world of 1904 bore even less relation to my own world
than the one from which I had sought to escape. I begged the ser-
geant to explain recent history to me as he might explain it to a child,
using my old excuse of partial amnesia. The man accepted the excuse
and kindly gave me a breakdown of this world's history since the lat-
ter quarter of the nineteenth century. It was radically different either
to your world, Moorcock, or to the world of the future I described to
you.
It appears that by the 1870s, in Chile of all places, there had
emerged the genius who had, in a few short years, been responsible
for altering the lot of the world's poor, of providing plenty where
once there had been famine, comfort where there had been only
grinding misery. His name was Manuel O'Bean, the son of an Irish
engineer who had settled in Chile and a Chilean heiress (perhaps the
wealthiest woman in South or Central America). O'Bean had shown
signs of an enormous capacity to learn and to invent at an extraor-
dinarily young age. His father, needless to say, had encouraged him,
and O'Bean had learned everything his father could pass on by the
time he was eight years old. With the resources made available by his
mother's wealth, O'Bean had nothing to thwart this flowering of his
mechanical genius. By the time he was twelve he had invented a
whole new range of mining equipment which, when applied to his
family's holdings, increased their wealth a hundredfold. Not only did
he have an enormous talent for planning and building new types of
machines, he also had the ability to work out new power sources
which were less wasteful and infinitely cheaper than the crude
sources up to that time in use. He developed a method of converting
and reconverting electricity so that it did not need to be carried

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
203
through wires but could be transmitted by means of rays to almost
anywhere in the world from any other point. His generators were
small, efficient, and required the minimum of power, and these in
turn propelled most of the types of machinery he invented. Other en-
gines, including sophisticated forms of steam turbine depending on
fast-heating liquids other than water, were also developed. As well as
the mining and farming equipment he developed in those early years,
O'Bean invented a collection of highly efficient war machines (he
was still a boy, less than fifteen years old, and was fascinated, as
boys are, with such things), including underwater boats, mobile can-
nons, airships (in collaboration with the great flying expert the
Frenchman La Perez), and self-propelled armoured carriages some-
times called land ironclads. However, O'Bean soon abandoned this
line of research as his social conscience developed. By the time he
was eighteen he had sworn never to put his genius to warlike pur-
poses again and instead concentrated on machines which would irri-
gate deserts, tame forests, and turn the whole world into an infinitely
rich garden which would feed the hungry and thus extinguish what he
believed to be the well-spring of most human strife.
By the beginnings of the new century, therefore, it seemed that
Utopia had been achieved. There was not one person in the world
who was not well nourished and did not have the opportunity to re-
ceive a good education. Poverty had been abolished almost over-
night.
Man can live by bread alone when all his energies are devoted to
attaining that bread, but once his mind is clear, once he has ceased to
labour through all his waking hours to find food, then he begins to
think. If he has the opportunity to gather facts, if his mind is edu-
cated, then he begins to consider his position in the world and com-
pare it with that of other men. Now it was possible for thousands to
understand that the world's power was in the hands of a few—the
landowners, the industrialists, the politicians, and the ruling classes.
All these people had welcomed O'Bean's scientific and technical ad-
vances, for they were able to lease his patents, to build their own ma-
chines, to make themselves richer as those they ruled became better
off. But twenty-five years is enough time for a new generation to
grow up—a generation which has never known dire poverty and
which, unlike a previous generation, is no longer merely grateful that
it has leisure time and more than enough to eat. That generation be-
gins to want to control its own fate in myriad ways. In short, it seeks
political power.

204
THE NOMAD OF TIME
By 1900, in this world, civil strife had become a fact of life in al-
most every nation, large and small. In some countries, usually those
which had been the most backward, revolutions succeeded, and, at-
tended by a fanatical nationalism, new power groups were formed.
The Great Powers found their colonial territories snatched from
them—in Asia, in Africa, in the Americas—and since the sources of
power were cheap and O'Bean's patents were distributed everywhere,
since military power no longer depends so much on large, well-
trained armies (or even navies), these older nations were wary of
starting wars with the newer nations, preferring to try to retain their
positions by means of complicated diplomacy, by build-up "spheres
of influence." But complicated diplomatic games played in the far
corners of the world tend to have a habit of creating stronger ten-
sions at home, so in Europe, in particular, but also in the United
States and Japan, nationalism grew stronger and stronger and fierce
battles of words began to take place between the Great Powers.
Trade embargoes, crippling and unnecessarily unfair tariff restric-
tions, were applied and returned. A madness began to fill the heads
of those who ruled. They saw themselves threatened from within by
their young people, who demanded what they saw as more social jus-
tice, and from without by their neighbouring countries. More and
more resources were devoted to the building up of land, sea, and air
fleets, of large guns, of armies which could control dissident popula-
tions (and at the same time, hopefully, absorb them). In many coun-
tries enforced military service, after the Prussian model, became the
norm—and this in turn brought an increasingly furious reaction from
those who sought to reform their governments. Active, violent revo-
lutionary methods began to be justified by those who had originally
hoped to achieve their ends by means of oratory and the ballot box.
What O'Bean himself thought of this nobody knows, but it was
likely that he did feel enormously guilty. One story has it that on the
inevitable day when the Great Powers went to war he quietly com-
mitted suicide.
The war was at first contained only in Europe, and in the first
weeks most of the major cities of the Continent and Britain were re-
duced to ash and rubble. A short-lived Central American Alliance
lasted long enough to go to war with the United States and quickly
achieved a similar end. Huge mobile war machines rolled across the
wasted land; sinister aerial battleships cruised smoke-filled skies;
under the water lurked squadrons of subaquatic men-of-war, often
destroying one another without ever once rising to the surface where

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
205
more conventional ironclads blasted rivals to bits with the horrifically
powerful guns invented by a boy of thirteen years old.
"But most of the real fighting's over now," said the sergeant with a
tinge of contempt. "The fuel ran out for the generators and the en-
gines. The war machines that were left just—well—stopped. It all
went back to cavalry and infantry and that sort of stuff for a while,
but there was hardly anyone knew how to fight like that—and pre-
cious few people left to do it. And not much ammunition, I shouldn't
wonder. We're down to about one cartridge each." He tapped the
weapon which hung at his belt. "It'll be bayonets, if we ever do meet
the enemy. The bally Indians'll be top dogs—those who've still got
swords and lances and bows and arrows and that. . . ."
"You don't think the war will stop? People must be shocked by
what's happened—sickened by it all."
The soldier shook his head, waxing philosophical. "It's a madness,
sir. We've all got it. It could go on until the last human being crawls
away from the body of the chap he's just bashed to bits with a stone.
That's what war is, sir—madness. You don't think about what you're
doing. You know, you forget, don't you—you just go on killing and
killing." He paused, almost embarrassed. "Leastways, that's what 1
think."
I conceded that he could well be right. Filled with unutterable
gloom, obsessed by the irony of my escape from a relatively peaceful
world into this one, I yet felt the need somehow to get back to En-
gland, to see for myself if the sergeant had told me the truth, or
whether he had exaggerated, either from a misguided sense of drama
or from despair at his own position.
I told him that I should like to try to return to my own country,
but he smiled pityingly at me, telling me that there wasn't the
slightest chance. If I headed, say, for Darjiling, then I was bound to
be captured by the Russians or the Arabians. Even if I managed to
reach the coast, there were no ships in the harbours (if there were
harbours!) or the aerodromes. My best plan, he suggested, was to
fall in with them. They had done their duty and their position was
hopeless. They planned to get up into the hills and make some sort
of life for themselves there. The sergeant thought that, with the pop-
ulation killing itself off so rapidly, game would proliferate and we
should be able to live by hunting—"and live pretty well, too." But I
had had enough of the hills already. For better or worse, as soon as I
had recovered my strength I would try to get to the coast.
A couple of days later I bid farewell to the sergeant and his men.

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They begged me not to be so foolhardy, that I was going to certain
death.
"There was talk of plague, sir," said the sergeant. "Terrible dis-
eases brought about by the collapse of the sanitary systems."
I listened politely to all the warnings and then, politely, ignored
them.
Perhaps I had had my share of bad luck, for good luck stayed with
me for the rest of my journey across the Indian subcontinent. Dar-
jiling had, indeed, fallen to the Arabians, but they had evacuated the
shell of that city soon after occupying it. Their forces were stretched
pretty thin and had been needed on the home front. There were still
one or two divisions left, but they were busy looking for Russians,
and when they discovered that I was English, they took this to mean
that I was a friend (towards the end, I gathered, there had been some
attempt to make a pact between Britain and Arabia), and these
chaps were under what turned out to be the utterly false impression
that we were fighting on the same side. I fell in with them. They were
heading for Calcutta—or where Calcutta had once stood—where there
was some hope of getting a ship back to the Middle East. There was
a ship, too—to them, an old-fashioned steamer, using coal-burning
engines—and although the name on its side was in Russian, it flew the
crossed-scimitar flag of the Arabian Alliance. It was in a state of ter-
rible disrepair and one took one's life in one's hands when going
aboard, but there had been a chance in a million of finding any kind
of ship and I was not in a mood to miss it. She had been an old cargo
ship and there was very little room, as such, for passengers. Most of
the men were crowded into the holds and made as comfortable as
possible. As an officer and a "guest" I got to share a cabin with four
of the Arabians, three of whom were Palestinians and one of whom
was an Egyptian. They all spoke perfect English and, while some-
what reserved, were decent enough company, going so far as to lend
me a captain's uniform and most of the necessities of life which I had
learned, in recent months, to do without.
The ship made slow progress through the Bay of Bengal, and I
relieved my boredom by telling my companions that I had been the
prisoner of a Himalayan tribe for several years and thus getting them
to fill in certain details of their world's history which the sergeant
had been unable to give me.
There was some talk of a man whom they called the Black Attila,
a leader who had emerged of late in Africa and whom they saw as a
threat to themselves. Africa had not suffered as badly from the

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207
effects of the war as Europe, and most of her nations—many only a
few years old—had done their best to remain neutral. As a result they
had flourishing crops, functioning harvesting machines, and a reserve
of military power with which to protect their wealth. The Black
Attila had growing support in African nations for a jihad against the
whites (the Arabians were included in this category, as were Asi-
atics), but at the last my informants had heard, was still consolidating
local gains and had shown no sign of moving against what remained
of the countries of the West. There were other rumours which said
that he had already been killed, while some said he had invaded and
conquered most of Europe.
The ship had no radio apparatus (another example of my good
fortune, it emerged, for the Arabians had never reached the point of
signing a pact with Britain!), and thus there was no means of
confirming or denying these reports. We sailed down the coast of
India, through the Gulf of Mannar, managed to take on coal at
Agatti in the Laccadives, got into heavy weather in the Arabian Sea,
lost three hands and most of our rigging, entered the Red Sea, and
were a few days away from the approach to the Suez Canal when,
without any warning at all, the ship was struck by several powerful
torpedoes and began to sink almost immediately.
It was the work of an undersea torpedo boat—one of the few still
functioning—and it was not, it emerged, an act of war at all, but an
act of cynical piracy.
However, the pirate had done his work too well. The ship sighed,
coughed, and went to the bottom with most of her passengers and
crew. I and about a dozen others were left clinging to what little
wreckage there was.
The undersea boat lifted its prow from the water for a few seconds
to observe its handiwork, saw that there was nothing to be gained by
remaining, and left us to our fate. I suppose we should have been
grateful that it did not use the guns mounted along its sides to
finish us off. Ammunition had become scarce almost everywhere, it
seemed.

CHAPTER THREE
The Polish Privateer
I shan't describe in detail my experiences of the next twenty-four
hours. Suffice to say that they were pretty grim as I watched my com-
panions sink, one by one, beneath the waves and knew that ulti-
mately I should be joining them. I suppose I have had a great deal of
practice in the art of survival, and somehow I managed to remain
afloat, clinging to my pathetic bit of flotsam, until the late afternoon
of the next day when the monster rose from the waves, steaming
water pouring off its blue-black skin, its great crystalline eyes glaring
at me and a horrible, deep-throated roaring issuing from its belly. At
first my exhausted mind did see it as a living creature, but my second
thoughts were that the undersea torpedo boat had returned to finish
me off.
Slowly the disturbance in the water ceased and the growling sub-
sided to a quiet purring and the sleek and slender craft came to rest
on the surface. From hatches fore and aft sailors in sea-green uni-
forms sprang onto the deck and ran quickly to the rails. One of them
flung a life buoy out over the side, and with the last of my strength I
swam towards it, seizing it and allowing myself to be hauled towards
the ship. Hands dragged me aboard and a cup of rum was forced
down my throat while blankets were thrown around me and I was
carried bodily along the rocking deck and down into the forward
hatch. This hatch was closed swiftly over us, and as I was borne
below, I could feel the ship itself descending back below the waves.
The whole thing had taken place in the space of a few minutes, and I
had the impression of urgency, as if much had been risked in coming
to the surface at all. I surmised that this could not be the same ship
(it seemed larger, for one thing) which had left me to my fate, that it
must be another. It was certainly not a British ship, and I could
make little of the language spoken by the seamen who carried me to

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
209
a small steel-walled cabin and stripped me of my sodden Arabian
uniform before lowering me into the bunk and drawing warm blan-
kets over me. It was probably a Slavonic language, and I wondered if
I had been made a prisoner of war by the Russians. I heard the ship's
engines start up again, and there was a barely perceptible lurch as we
began to go forward at what I guessed to be a pretty high speed.
Then, careless of what my fate might be, I fell into a heavy and,
thankfully, dreamless sleep.
Upon awakening, I glanced automatically towards the porthole
but, of course, could not tell whether it was night or day, let alone
what the time was. All I saw was dark green swirling water rushing
past, faintly illuminated by the lights from the ship as it coursed with
sharklike speed through the deeps. For a while I stared in fascination
at the sight, hoping to make out some details of my first glimpse of
the mysterious underwater world, but we were doubtless moving too
rapidly. As I stared, the door of the cabin opened and a seaman en-
tered, bearing a large tin cup which proved to contain hot black
coffee. He spoke in a thick accent:
"The captain's compliments, sir. Would you care to join him in his
cabin, at your leisure."
I accepted the coffee, noting that my borrowed uniform had been
washed, dried, and pressed and that a fresh set of undergarments had
been laid out on the small table fixed against the opposite wall to the
bunk.
"Gladly," I replied. "Will there be someone to escort me there
when I have completed my toilet and dressed?"
"I will wait outside for you, sir." The sailor saluted and left the
cabin, closing the door smartly behind him. There was no question
that this was a superbly disciplined ship—the efficiency with which I
had been rescued spoke of that—and I hoped that the discipline ex-
tended to the honouring of the ordinary conventions of war!
As quickly as I could I readied myself and soon presented myself
outside the cabin door. The sailor set off along the narrow, tubular
passage which was remarkable for possessing Cork catwalks posi-
tioned on sides and ceiling as well as floor, indicating that the ship
was designed to function at any of the main positions of the quad-
rant. My surmise proved to be accurate (there were also "decks" on
the outside of the hull to match the catwalks, while the main control
room was a perfect globe pivoting to match the angle of the ship;
merely, it emerged, one of O'Bean's "throwaway" ideas!), and the

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
underwater craft was essentially much in advance of anything I had
encountered in that other future of 1973.
The tubular passage led us to an intersection, and we took the
portside direction, climbed a small companionway, and found our-
selves outside a plain, circular steel door upon which the seaman
knocked, uttering a few words in his unfamiliar language. A single
word answered him from the other side of the door, and he pulled
back a recess catch to open it and admit me, saluting again before he
left.
I found myself in an almost familiar version of any captain's quar-
ters of a ship of my own world. There was plenty of well-polished
mahogany and brass, a few green plants in baskets hanging from ceil-
ing and walls, a neatly made single bunk, a small chart table on
which were several maps and around the edges of which were clipped
a variety of instruments. Framed prints of clipper ships and of old
charts were fixed to the walls. The lighting glowed softly from the
whole ceiling and had the quality of daylight (yet another of
O'Bean's casual inventions). A smallish dapper figure, with whiskers
trimmed in the Imperial style, rose to greet me, adjusting his cap on
his head and smiling almost shyly. He was a young man, probably
not much older than myself, but he had the lines of experience upon
his face, and his eyes were the eyes of a much older man—steady and
clear, yet betraying a certain cool irony. He stretched out a hand and
I shook it, finding the grip firm and not ungentle. There was some-
thing naggingly familiar about him, but my mind refused to accept
the truth until, in good but gutturally accented English, he intro-
duced himself:
"Welcome aboard the Lola Montez, Captain. My name is Kor-
zeniowski and I am her master."
I was too stunned to speak, for I was confronting a much younger
version of my old mentor from the days I spent aboard The Rover.
Then Korzeniowski had been (or would be) a Polish airship captain.
The implications of all this were frightening. Was there now a chance
that I might meet a version of myself in this other world? I recovered
my politeness. Plainly Korzeniowski knew nothing of me, and I in-
troduced myself, for better or worse, by my name and my real regi-
ment, explaining quickly how I had come to be wearing my rather
elaborate Arabian uniform. "I hope Poland is not at war with the
Arabian Alliance," I added.
Captain Korzeniowski shrugged, turning towards a cabinet con-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
211
taining a number of bottles and glasses. "What will you have, Cap-
tain Bastable?"
"Whisky with a splash of soda, if you please. You are very kind."
Korzeniowski took out the whisky decanter, gesturing casually
with it as he extracted a glass from the rack, "Poland is not at war
with anyone now. First Germany broke her, then Russia extinguished
her, then Russia herself ceased to exist, as a nation at least. Poor
Poland. Her struggles are over for all time. Perhaps something less
ill-fated will emerge from the ruins." He handed me a full glass,
made as if to toss off his own, in the Polish manner, then restrained
himself and sipped it almost primly, tugging at the lobe of his left
ear, seeming to reprove himself for having been about to make a
flamboyant gesture.
"But you and your crew are Polish," I said. "The ship is Polish."
"We belong to no nation now, though Poland was the birthplace of
most of us. The ship was once the finest in our Navy. Now it is the
last survivor of the fleet. We have become what you might call priva-
teers. It is how we survive during the apocalypse." His eyes held a
hint of sardonic pride. "I think we are rather good at it—though the
prey becomes scarce. We had our eye on your ship for a while, but it
did not seem worth the waste of a torpedo. You might be glad to
know that the ship which attacked you was called the Mannanan and
that she belonged to the Irish Navy."
"Irish?" I was surprised. Home Rule, then, was a fact in this
world.
"We could not stop to pick you up right away, but decided that
you would have to take your chances. The Mannanan was a well-
equipped ship, and we were able to wound her and force her to the
surface quite easily. She was a 'fine prize,' as the buccaneers would
say!" He laughed. "We were able to take stores aboard which will
keep us going for three months. And spare parts."
She had deserved whatever Captain Korzeniowski had done to her.
Doubtless he had shown more mercy in his treatment of the Man-
nanan than she had shown to our poor battered steamer. But I could
not bring myself to voice these sentiments aloud and thus condone
what had been, after all, a similar act of piracy on the part of the
Lola Montez.
"Well, Captain Bastable," said Korzeniowski, lighting a thin
cheroot and signalling for me to help myself from his humidor,
"what do you want us to do with you? It's normally our habit to put
survivors off at the nearest land and let them take their chances. But

212
THE NOMAD OF TIME
yours is something of a special case. We're making for the Outer
Hebrides, where we have a station. Is there anywhere between here
and there that we can put you off? Not that there is anywhere partic-
ularly habitable on land, these days."
I told him how I had planned to try to reach England and that if
there was any chance of being put off on the south coast I would
more than welcome it. He raised his eyebrows at this.
"If you had said Scotland I might have understood—but the south
coast! Having been the agent of your escape from death, I am not
sure I could justify to my conscience my becoming the instrument of
your destruction! Have you not heard? Have you any idea of the hell
which southern England has become?"
"I gather that London sustained some very heavy bombing. . . ."
Evidently Korzeniowski could not restrain a bleak smile at this. "I
have always appreciated British understatement," he told me. "What
else have you gathered?"
"That there is a risk of catching disease—typhus, cholera, and so
on."
"And so on, yes. Do you know what kind of bombs the air fleets
were dropping towards the end, Captain Bastable?"
"Pretty powerful ones, I should imagine."
"Oh, extremely. But they were not explosives—they were bacteria.
The bombs contained different varieties of plague, Captain. They had
a lot of scientific names, but they soon became known by their nick-
names. Have you seen, for instance, the effects of the devil's mush-
room?"
"I haven't heard of it."
"It is called by that name after the fungus which begins to form on
the surface of the flesh less than two hours after the germs have in-
fected the victim. Scrape off the fungus and the flesh comes away
with it. In two days you look like one of those rotten trees you might
have seen in a forest sometimes, but happily by that time you are
quite dead and you have known no physical pain at all. Then there's
Prussian Emma, which causes hemorrhaging from all orifices—that
death is singularly painful, I'm told. And there's eye rot, red blotch,
Brighton blight. Quaint names, aren't they? As colourful as the mani-
festation of the diseases on the skin. Aside from the diseases, there
are roving gangs of cutthroats warring on one another and killing any
other human being they find (not always prettily). From time to time
you might set foot on a gas bomb which is triggered as you step on it
and blow a poison gas up into your face. If you escape those dan-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
213
gers, there are a dozen more. Believe me, Captain Bastable, the only
clean life now—the only life for a man—is on the high seas (or under
them). It is to the sea that many of us have returned, living out our
lives by preying upon one another, admittedly. But it is an existence
infinitely preferable to the terrors and degradations of the land. And
one still has a certain amount of freedom, is still somewhat in control
of one's own fate. Dry land is what the mediaeval painters imagined
hell to be. Give me the purgatory of the sea!"
"I am sure I would agree with you," I told him, "but I would still
see it for myself."
Korzeniowski shrugged. "Very well. We'll put you off at Dover, if
you like. But if you should change your mind, I could use a trained
officer, albeit an army officer, aboard this vessel. You could serve
with me."
This was indeed a case of history repeating itself (or was it
prefiguring itself?). Korzeniowski did not know it but I had already
served with him—and not in the Army either, but in airships. It
would be second nature for me to sail with him now. But I thanked
him and told him that my mind was made up.
"Nonetheless," he said, "I'll leave the berth open to you for a bit.
You never know."
A few days later I was put ashore on a beach just below the famil-
iar white cliffs of Dover and waved good-by to the Lola Montez as
she sank below the surface of the waves and was gone. Then I shoul-
dered my knapsack of provisions, took a firm grip on the fast-firing
carbine I had been given, and turned my steps inland, towards
London.

CHAPTER FOUR
The King of East Grinstead
If I had considered Korzeniowski's description of postwar England
to be fanciful, I soon had cause to realise that he had probably re-
strained himself when painting a picture of the conditions to be
found there. Plague was, indeed, widespread, and its victims were to
be seen everywhere. But the worst of the plagues were over, largely
because most of the population remaining had been killed off by
them and those who survived were resistant to most of the strains—or
had somehow recovered from them. Those who had recovered were
sometimes missing a limb, or a nose, or an eye, while others had had
parts of their faces or bodies eaten away altogether. I observed sev-
eral bands of these poor, half-rotted creatures, in the ruins of Dover
and Canterbury, as I made my way cautiously towards London.
The inhabitants of the Home Counties had descended from the
heights of civilisation to the depths of barbarism in a few short years.
The remains of the fine towns, the clean, broad highways, the mon-
orail systems, the light, airy architecture of the world O'Bean had
created, were still there to speak of the beauty that had come and
gone so swiftly, but now bands of beast-men camped in them, tore
them down to make crude weapons and primitive shelters, hunted
each other to death amongst them. No woman was safe, and,
amongst certain of the "tribes" roving the ruins, children were re-
garded as particularly excellent eating! Former bank managers,
members of the stock exchange, respectable tradesmen, had come to
regard vermin as delicacies and were prepared to tear a man's jugular
from his throat with their teeth if it Would gain them the possession
of a dead cat. Few modern weapons were in evidence (the produc-
tion of rifles and pistols had been on the decline since the invention
of airships and subaquatic boats), but rudely made spears, bows and
arrows, knives, and pikes could be found in almost every hand. By

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
215
day I lay hidden wherever there was good cover, watching the sav-
ages go by, and I travelled at night, risking ambush, since I regarded
my chances as being better at night when most of the "tribesmen" re-
turned to their camps. The country not only had sustained the most
horrifying mass aerial bombardment but had also (in this area in
particular) received huge punishment from long-range guns firing
from across the Channel. Twice the Home Counties had been in-
vaded by forces coming from sea and air, and these had ravaged
what remained, taking the last of the food, blowing up those build-
ings which still stood, before being driven back by the vestiges of our
Army. At night the hills of Kent and Surrey sparkled with points of
light indicating the locations of seminomadic camps where huge fires
burned day and night. The fires were not merely there for cooking
and heating, but to burn the regular supply of plague-created
corpses.
And so my luck held until I reached the outskirts of East Grin-
stead, once a pretty little village which I had known well as a boy,
but now a wasteland of blasted vegetation and torn masonry. As
usual I inspected the place from cover, noting the presence of what
seemed to be a crudely made stockade of tree trunks near the north-
ernmost end of the village. From this armed men came and went reg-
ularly, and I was surprised to see that many of them carried rifles
and shotguns and were dressed in rather more adequate rags than the
people I had seen to date. The community itself seemed to be a
larger one than the others, and better organised, settled in one place
rather than roaming about a small area of countryside. I heard the
distinctive sounds of cattle, sheep, and goats and surmised that a few
of these animals had survived and were being kept for safety inside
the stockade. Here was "civilisation" indeed! I considered the possi-
bility of making my presence known and seeking aid from the inhab-
itants, who might be expected to behave in a somewhat less aggres-
sive manner than the people I had observed up to now. But, warily, I
continued to keep watch on the settlement and see what information
I could gather before I revealed myself.
It was a couple of hours later that I had reason to congratulate
myself on my caution. I had hidden in a small brick building which
had somehow survived the bombing. It had been used, I think, as a
woodstore and was barely large enough to admit me. A grille, de-
signed for ventilation, was the means by which I could look out at
the stockade without being seen. Three men, dressed in a miscel-
laneous selection of clothing which included a black bowler hat, a

216
THE NOMAD OF TIME
deerstalker and a Panama, a woman's fur cape, golfing trousers, a
leather shooting coat, a tailcoat, and an opera cloak, were escorting a
prisoner back along the path to the gate. The prisoner was a young
woman, tall and dressed in a long black military topcoat which had
evidently been tailored for her. She had a black divided skirt and
black riding boots, and there was no question in my mind that she,
like me, was some sort of interloper. They were treating her roughly,
pushing her so that she fell over twice and struggled to her feet only
with the greatest difficulty (her hands were tied behind her back).
There was something familiar about her bearing, but it was only
when she turned her head to speak to one of her captors (evidently
speaking with the greatest contempt, for the man struck her in the
mouth by way of reply) that I recognised her. It was Mrs. Persson,
the revolutionist whom I had first met on Captain Korzeniowski's
airship, The Rover, and whom I understood to be Korzeniowski's
daughter. That could not be true now, for this woman was approxi-
mately the same age as Korzeniowski. I had had enough of specu-
lating about the mysteries and paradoxes of time—they were begin-
ning to become familiar to me and I was learning to accept them as
one might accept the ordinary facts of human existence, without
question. Now I merely saw Una Persson as a woman who was in
danger and who must therefore be rescued, if at all possible. I had
my carbine and several magazines of ammunition, and I had the ad-
vantage that none of the inhabitants of the stockade was aware of my
presence. I waited for nightfall and then crept out of my hiding
place, thanking providence that the full moon was hidden behind
thick cloud.
I got to the stockade and saw that it was an extremely crude affair
—no savage would have owned to its manufacture—and easily scaled,
so long as the timber did not collapse under me. Slowly I climbed to
the top and got my first sight of the interior.
It was a scene of the utmost barbarity. Una Persson hung spread-
eagled and suspended on a kind of trellis in the centre of the com-
pound. In front of her, cross-legged, sat what must have been the
best part of the "tribe"—many of them bearing the deformities mark-
ing them as recipients of various plague viruses. Behind the scaffold
was a sort of dais made from a large, oak refectory table, and on the
table there had been placed a high-backed, ornately carved armchair
of the sort which our Victorian ancestors regarded as the very epit-
ome of "Gothik" good taste. The velvet of the chair was much torn
and stained, and the woodwork had been covered with some sort of

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
217
poorly applied gold lacquer. A number of fairly large fires blazed in
a semicircle behind the dais, and oily smoke drifted across the scene,
while the red flames leapt about like so many devils and were
reflected in the sweating faces of the gathered inhabitants of the
stockade. This was what I saw before I dropped to the other side of
the fence and crept into the shadow of one of the ramshackle shelters
clustered nearby.
A sort of hideous crooning now issued from the throats of the
onlookers, and they swayed slowly from side to side, their eyes fixed
on Una Persson's half-naked body. Mrs. Persson herself did not
struggle, but remained perfectly still in her bonds, staring back at
them with an expression of utter disgust and contempt. As I had ad-
mired it once before, now I admired her courage. Few of us, in her
position, could have behaved so well.
Since she did not seem to be in any immediate danger, I waited to
see what would next develop.
From a hut larger than the rest and set back behind the semicircle
of fires, there now emerged a tall and corpulent figure dressed in full
morning dress, with a fine grey silk hat at a jaunty angle on his head,
his right thumb stuck in the pocket of his waistcoat, a diamond pin in
his cravat, looking for all the world like some music hall performer
of my own time. Slowly, with an air of insouciance, he ascended the
dais and seated himself with great self-importance in his gold chair
while the crowd ceased its humming and swaying for a moment to
greet him with a monstrous shout whose words I could not catch.
His own voice was clear enough. It was reedy and yet brutal, and,
for all that it was the uneducated voice of a small shopkeeper, it
carried authority.
"Loyal subjects of East Grinstead," it began. "The man—or
woman—who pulls their weight is welcome here as you well know.
But East Grinstead has never taken kindly to foreigners, scroungers,
Jews, and loafers, as is also well known. East Grinstead knows how
to deal with 'em. We have our traditions. Now this here interloper,
this spy, was caught hanging round near East Grinstead obviously up
to no good—and also, I might add, armed to the teeth. Well, draw
your own conclusions, my subjects. There is not much doubt in my—
our—mind that she is by way of being a definite foreign aviator, prob-
ably come back to see how we are getting on here after all them
bombs she dropped on us did their damage. She has found a flourish-
ing community—bloody but unbowed and ready for anything. Given
half a chance, I shouldn't be surprised if she was about to report

218
THE NOMAD OF TIME
back to her compatriots that East Grinstead wasn't finished—not by a
long shot finished—and we could have expected another lot of
bombs. But," and his voice dropped and became ruthless and sinis-
ter, plainly relishing Una's pain, "she won't be going back. And
we're going to teach her a lesson, aren't we, about what foreign avia-
tors and spies can expect if they try it on over East Grinstead again!"
He continued in this vein and I listened in horror. Could this man
once have served behind a counter in an ordinary village shop? Per-
haps he had served me with an ounce of licorice or a packet of tea.
And his "subjects," who growled and giggled and trembled with
bloodlust—were these once the decent, conservative folk of the Home
Counties? Did it take so little time to strip them of all their apparent
civilisation? If ever I returned to my own world, I would look on
these people in a new light.
Now the King of East Grinstead had risen from his chair and
someone had handed him a brand. The firelight turned his plump,
unshaven face into the mask of a devil as he raised the brand above
his head, his eyes glowing and his lips drawn back in a bestial grin.
"Now, we'll teach her!" he yelled. And his subjects rose up, arms
extended, screaming to him to do what he was about to do.
The brand came down and began to extend towards Una Persson's
head. She could not see what was happening, but it was obvious that
she guessed. She struggled once in the ropes, then her lips came
firmly together and she closed her eyes as the brand moved closer
and closer towards her hair.
Scarcely thinking, I raised my carbine to my shoulder, took aim,
and shot the King of East Grinstead squarely between the eyes. His
face was almost comic in its astonishment, and then the great bulk
fell forward off the dais and lay in a heap before its astonished sub-
jects.
I moved quickly then, thankful for my army training.
While those hideously ravaged faces looked at me with expressions
of stunned horror, I ran to the trellis and with a few quick strokes of
my knife cut Mrs. Persson free.
Then, quite deliberately, I shot down three of the nearest men.
One of them had been armed and I signed to Mrs. Persson to pick up
the rifle, which she did as quickly as she could, though she was
plainly still suffering a good deal of pain.
"This place is surrounded by my men," I told them. "All are
crack shots. The first man to threaten us with his weapon will die as
swiftly as your leader. As you can see, we are merciless. If you

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remain within the stockade and allow us to go through the gate
unhampered, no more of you will be harmed."
A few of the people growled like animals, but were too nonplussed
and alarmed to do anything more. I could not resist a parting speech
as we got to the gate.
"I might tell you that I am British," I said. "As British as you are
and from the same part of the world. And I am disgusted by what I
see. This is no way for Britons to behave. Remember your old stan-
dards. Recall what they once meant to you. The fields remain and
you have stock. Grow your food as you have always grown it. Breed
the beasts. Build East Grinstead up into a decent place again. . . ."
Mrs. Persson put a hand on my arm, whispering: "There is not
much time. They'll soon realise that you have no men. They are al-
ready beginning to look for them and not see them. Come, we'll
make for my machine."
We backed out of the gate and closed it behind us. Then, bent
low, we began to run. I followed Mrs. Persson, and she plainly had a
good idea of where she was going. We ran through a wood and
across several overgrown fields into another wood, and here we
paused, listening for sounds of pursuit, but there were none.
Panting, Una Persson pushed on until the forest thinned. Then she
bent over a bush and without any apparent effort seemed to pull the
whole thing up by the roots, revealing the faint gleam of metal. She
operated a control, there was a buzz, and a hatch swung upwards.
"Get in," she said. "There's just about room for both of us."
I obeyed. I found myself in a cramped chamber, surrounded by a
variety of unfamiliar instruments. Mrs. Persson closed the hatch over
her head and began turning dials and flicking switches until the
whole machine was shaking and whining. She peered through a con-
traption which looked to me rather like a stereoscopic viewer, then
pulled a large lever right back. The whining sound increased its pitch
and the machine began to move—heading downwards into the very
bowels of the earth.
"What sort of machine is this?" I enquired in my amazement.
"Haven't you seen one before?" she said casually. "It's an O'Bean
Mark Five tunneller. It's about the only way to move these days
without being spotted. It's slow. But it's sure." She smiled, pausing in
her inspection of the controls to offer me her hand. "I haven't
thanked you. I don't know who you are, sir, but I'm very grateful for
what you did. My mission in this part of Britain is vital and now it
has some chance of success."

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
It had become extremely hot, and I fancied that we were nearing
the core of the planet.
"Not at all," I replied. "Glad to be of service. My name's Basta-
ble. You're Mrs. Persson, aren't you?"
"Miss Persson," she said. "Were you sent to help me, then?"
"I happened to be passing, that was all." I wished now that I
hadn't admitted to knowing her name—the explanation could prove
embarrassing. I made a wild guess, remembering something of what I
had been told about her when I flew with The Rover. "I recognised
your photograph. You were an actress, weren't you?"
She smiled, wiping the perspiration from her face with a large
white handkerchief. "Some would say that I still am."
"What sort of depth are we at," I asked, feeling quite faint now.
"Oh, no more than a hundred feet. The air system isn't working
properly, and I don't know enough about these metal 'moles' to fix it.
I don't think we're in any immediate danger, however."
"How did you come to be in East Grinstead, Miss Persson?"
She did not hear me above the shaking of the machine and the
weird whining of its engine. She made some sort of adjustment to our
course as she cupped her hand to her ear and made me repeat the
question.
She shrugged. "What I was looking for was nearby. There was
some attempt to set up a secret centre of government towards the
end. There were plans for an O'Bean machine which was never per-
fected. There is only one of its type—in Africa. The plans will clarify
one or two problems which were troubling us."
"In Africa! You have come from Africa?"
"Yes. Ah, here we are." She pushed two levers forward, and I felt
the tunnelling machine begin to tilt rising towards the surface. "The
ground must have been mainly clay. We've made good speed."
She cut off the engines, took one last glance into the viewer,
seemed satisfied, moved to the hatch, pressed a button. The hatch
opened, letting in the refreshing night air.
"You'd better get out first," she said.
I clambered thankfully from the machine, waiting for my vision to
adjust itself. The ground all around me was flat and even. I could
just make out the silhouette of what at first appeared to be buildings
arranged in a circle which enclosed us. There was something decid-
edly familiar about the place. "Where are we?" I asked her.
"I think it used to be called the Oval," she told me as she joined

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me on the grass. "Hurry up, Mr. Bastable. My airboat should be just
over here."
It was a ridiculous emotion to feel at the time, I know, but I could
not help experiencing a tinge of genuine shock at our having dese-
crated one of the most famous cricket pitches in the world!

CHAPTER FIVE
The Start of a New Career
Una Persson's airboat was very different from the sort of air-
craft I had become used to in the world of 1973. This was a flimsy
affair consisting of an aluminium hull from which projected a sort
of mast on which was mounted a large three-bladed propeller. At the
tail was a kind of rudder, and on each side of the rudder were two
small propellers. From the hull sprouted two broad, stubby fins
which, like the small propellers, helped to stabilise and to steer the
boat once it had taken to the air. We rose, swaying slightly, from the
ground, while the boat's motor gave out a barely heard purring. It
was only now that I sought to enquire of our destination. We were
flying at about a height of a thousand feet over the remains of inner
London. There was not a landmark left standing. The entire city had
been flattened by the invader's bombs. The legendary fate of Car-
thage was as nothing compared to this. What had possessed one
group of human beings to do such a thing to another? Was this, I
wondered, how Hiroshima had looked after Shan-tien had dropped
its cargo of death? If so, I had much on my conscience. Or had I? I
had begun to wonder if I moved from dream to dream. Was reality
only what I made of it? Was there, after all, any such thing as
"history"?
"Where are we headed for, Miss Persson?" I asked, as we left
London behind.
"My first stop will have to be in Kerry, where I have a refueling
base."
"Ireland." I remembered the first subaquatic vessel I had seen. "I
had hoped. .
I realised, then, that I had already made up my mind to accept
Korzeniowski's offer. I had seen enough of my homeland and what
its inhabitants had become. Korzeniowski's statements about the sea

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being the only "clean" place to be were beginning to make sense to
me.
"Yes?" She turned. "I would take you all the way with me, Mr.
Bastable. I owe you that, really. But for one thing I have scarcely
enough power to get myself back, and another passenger would make
a crucial difference, while secondly you would probably have no taste
for the kind of life I would take you to. I could drop you somewhere
less dangerous than southern England. It is the best I can offer."
"I was thining of making for Scotland," I said. "Would I stand a
better chance of survival there?" I was reluctant to disclose my ac-
tual destination. Korzeniowski would not appreciate my revealing his
secret station.
She frowned. "The coast of Lancashire is about the best I can sug-
gest. Somewhere beyond Liverpool. If you avoid the large cities, such
as Glasgow, you should be all right. The Highlands themselves sus-
tained very little bombing and I doubt if the plagues reached there."
So it was that I bid farewell to Una Persson on a wild stretch of
saltings beside the coast of Morecombe Bay near a village called Sil-
verdales. It was dawn and the scenery around me made a welcome
change from that I had so recently left. The air was full of the cries
of seabirds searching for the breakfast, and a few sheep grazed on
the salt flats, taking a wary interest in me as they cropped the rich
grass. In the distance was the sea, wide, flat, and gleaming in the light
of the rising sun. It was a comforting picture of rural tranquillity and
much more the England I had hoped to find when I had first landed
at Dover. I waved good-by to Miss Persson, watching her airboat rise
rapidly into the sky and then swing away over the ocean, heading to-
wards Ireland, then I shouldered my carbine and tramped towards
the village.
The village was quite a large one, consisting mainly of those fine
stone houses one finds in such parts, but it was completely deserted.
Either the inhabitants had fled under the threat of some supposed
invasion, or else they had died of the plague and been buried by sur-
vivors who, in turn, had prudently gone away from the source of the
disease. But there were no signs of any sort of disaster. Hoping to
find food, maps, and the like, I searched several houses, finding them
completely in order. Much of the furniture had been neatly draped
with dust covers, and all perishable food had been removed, but I
was able to discover a good quantity of canned meats and bottled
fruit and vegetables which, while heavy to carry, would sustain me

224
THE NOMAD OF TIME
for some time. I was also fortunate enough to find several good qual-
ity maps of northern England and Scotland. After resting for a day in
Silverdales and granting myself the luxury of sleeping in a soft bed, I
set off in the general direction of the Lake District.
I soon discovered that life was continuing at a fairly normal pace
in these parts. The farming is largely sheep and cattle, and while the
people who remained were forced to live in what was comparative
poverty, the war had hardly altered their familiar pattern of exis-
tence. Instead of being regarded with fear and suspicion, as I had
been in the Home Counties, I was welcomed, given food, and asked
for any news I might have about the fate of the South. I was happy
to tell all I knew and to warn these friendly Northerners to beware of
the insanity which had swept the counties around London. I was told
that similar conditions existed near Birmingham, Manchester, Liver-
pool, and Leeds, and I was advised to skirt Carlisle, if I could, for
while the survivors of that city had not descended to the level of bar-
barity I had experienced in East Grinstead, they were still highly sus-
picious of those who seemed better off than themselves, and there
had been minor outbreaks of a variant of the disease known as
devil's mushroom, which had not improved their disposition towards
those who were not local to the area.
Heeding such warnings, proceeding with caution, taking advantage
of what hospitality I was offered, I slowly made my way north, while
the autumn weather—perhaps the finest I had ever known—lasted. I
was desperate to get to the Islands before winter set in and the
mountains became impassable. The Grampians, those stately mon-
archs of the Western Highlands, were reached, and at length I found
myself crossing the great Rannoch Moor, heading in the general di-
rection of Fort William, which lay under the shadow of Ben Nevis.
The mountains shone like red Celtic gold in the clear sunshine of the
early winter; there is no sight like it in the whole world, and it is im-
possible to think of the British Isles as being in any way small, as
they are in comparison with most other land areas, when you see the
Grampians stretching in all directions, inhabited by nothing save the
tawny Highland cattle, grouse, and pheasant, their wild rivers full of
trout and salmon. I ate like a king dining that part of my journey-
venison became a staple—and I was tempted to forget about my plan
for joining Korzeniowski in the Outer Hebrides and to make my life
here, taking over some abandoned croft, tending sheep, and letting
the rest of the world go to perdition in any way it chose. But I knew
that the winters could be harsh, and I heard rumours that the old

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clans were beginning to reform and that they were riding out on cattle
raids just as they had done in the days before the dreams of that
drunken dandy Prince Charles Edward Stuart had brought the old
Highland ways of life to a final and bitter end.
So I continued towards Skye, where I hoped I might find some sort
of ferry still operating on the Kyle of Lochalsh. Sure enough, the in-
habitants of Skye had not abandoned their crucial links with the
mainland. Sailing boats plied a regular trade with the island, and a
haunch of venison bought me a passage on one of them just as the
first snows of the winter started to drift from out of vast and steely
skies.
My real difficulties then began! The people of Skye are not un-
friendly. Indeed, I found them amongst the most agreeable folk in
the world. But they are close-mouthed at the best of times, and my
enquiries as to the possible whereabouts of an underwater vessel
called the Lola Montez fell on deaf, if polite, ears. I could not gain
an ounce of information. I was fed, given a considerable quantity of
strong, mellow local whisky, invited to dances all over the island (I
think I was regarded as an eligible bachelor by many of the
mothers!), and allowed to help with any work which needed to be
done. It was only when I offered to go out with the fishing boats
(hoping thus to spot Korzeniowski's ship) that my help was refused.
From Ardvasar in the South to Kilmaluag in the North the story was
the same—no one denied that underwater boats called, from time to
time, at the Islands, and no one admitted it either. A peculiar, distant
expression would come over the faces of young and old, male or fe-
male, whenever I broached the subject. They would smile, they
would nod, they would purse their lips, and they would look vaguely
into the middle distance, changing the subject as soon as possible. I
began to believe not only that there was at least one fueling station in
the Outer Hebrides but that the islanders derived a good deal of
their wealth, and therefore their security in troubled times, from the
ship or ships which used such a station. It was not that they mis-
trusted me, but they saw no point in giving away information which
could change their situation. At least, that is what I surmised.
Not that this made any great difference to me, it emerged. It was
evident that an effort was made to help, that the fueling station was
contacted, and that my description and name were registered there,
for one night, just after the spectacular New Year celebrations for
which the Island folk are justly famous, I sat in a comfortable chair
before a roaring fire in an excellent public house serving the town-

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
ship of Uig, sipping good malt whisky and chatting on parochial sub-
jects, when the door of the hostelry opened, the wind howled in,
bearing a few flakes of snow with it, until the door was slammed
back in its face, and there, swathed in a heavy leather sea cloak,
stood my old friend Captain Josef Korzeniowski, bowing his stiff,
Polish bow, and clicking the heels of his boots smartly together as he
saluted me, his intelligent eyes full of sardonic amusement.
He was evidently well known to the regular customers of the inn
and was greeted with warmth by several of them. I learned later that
it was the captain's policy to share at least half of his booty with the
islanders and in return he received their friendship and their loyalty.
When he needed new crew members, he recruited them from Skye,
Harris, Lewis, North and South Uist, and the smaller islands, for
many had been professional seamen and, as Korzeniowski informed
me, were amongst the most loyal, courageous, and resourceful in the
world, taking naturally to the dangers and the romance of his pirat-
ical activities!
We talked for hours, that night. I told him of my adventures and
confirmed all he had told me of what I would find in the South. In
turn, he described some of his recent engagements and brought me
up to date with what he knew of events in the rest of the world.
Things had, if anything, gone from bad to worse. The whole of
Europe and Russia had reverted almost completely to barbarism.
Things were scarcely any better in North America. Most of the na-
tions which had remained neutral were internally divided and took
no interest in international problems. In Africa the infamous Black
Attila had swept through the entire Middle East and incorporated
it into his so-called Empire, had crossed the Mediterranean and
claimed large areas of Europe, had conquered the best part of Asia
Minor.
"There is even a story that he has designs on Britain and the
United States," Korzeniowski informed me. "The only potential
threat to his dreams of conquest would be the Australasian-Japanese
Federation, but they pursue a policy of strict isolationism, refusing to
become involved in any affairs but their own. It saved them from the
worst effects of the war, and they have no reason to risk losing every-
thing by taking part in what they see as a conflict between different
tribes of barbarians. The Black Attila has so far offered the AJF no
direct threat. Until he does, they will not move to stop him. The Af-
rican nations who have so far been reluctant to join him are too
weak to oppose him directly and are hopeful that if they do not

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
227
anger him he will continue to concentrate on conquering territory
which is, after all, already lost to civilisation."
"But it is in the nature of such conquerors to consolidate easy
gains before turning their attention on more powerful prey, is it not?"
I said.
Korzeniowski shrugged and lit a pipe. The rest of the customers
had long since gone home, and we sat beside a dying fire, the remains
of a bottle of whisky between us. "Perhaps his impetus will dissipate
itself eventually. It is what most people hope. So far he has brought
some kind of order to the nations he has conquered—even a form of
justice exists, crude though it is, for those with brown, black, or yel-
low skins. The whites, I gather, receive a generally rawer deal. He
has a consuming hatred for the Caucasian races, regarding them as
the source of the world's evils—though I have heard that he has some
white engineers in his employ. Presumably they are useful to him and
would prefer to serve him rather than be subjected to some of the
awful tortures he has devised for other whites. As a result, his re-
sources grow. He has great fleets of land ironclads, airships, undersea
dreadnoughts—and they are increasing all the time as he captures the
remnants of the world's fighting machines."
"But what interest could he have in conquering England?" I
asked. "There is nothing for him here."
"Only the opportunities for revenge," said the Polish sea captain
quietly. He looked at his watch. "It is high time I returned to my
ship. Are you coming with me, Bastable?"
"That was my reason for being here," I said. I had a heavy heart
as I digested the implications of all Korzeniowski had told me, but I
tried to joke, remarking: "I used to dream of such things, as a boy.
But now the dream is reality—I am about to serve under the Jolly
Roger. Will it be necessary to sign my articles in blood?"
Korzeniowski clapped me on the shoulder. "It will not even be
required of you, my dear fellow, to toast the devil in grog—unless, of
course, you wish to!"
I got my few possessions from my room and followed my new
commander out into the chilly night.

CHAPTER SIX
"A Haven of Civilisation"
For well over a year I sailed with Captain Korzeniowski aboard
the Lola Montez, taking part in activities which would have carried
the death sentence in many countries of my own world, living the
desperate, dangerous, and not always humane life of a latter-day Sea
Wolf. In my own mind, if not in the minds of my comrades, I had
become a criminal, and while my conscience still sometimes troubled
me, I am forced to admit that I grew to enjoy the life. We went for
the big game of the sea, never taking on an unarmed ship and, by the
logic which had come to possess this cruel and ravaged world, usu-
ally doing battle with craft who had as much to answer for in the
name of piracy as had we.
But as the year progressed and we roamed the seas of the world
(ever cautious not to offend either the ships of the Australasian-
Japanese Federation or those sailing under the colours of the Black
Attila), we found our prey becoming increasingly scarce. As sources
of fuel ran out or parts needed replacing, even the few ships which
had survived the war began to disappear. I felt something of the
emotions that an American buffalo-hunter must have felt as he began
to realise that he had slaughtered all the game. Sometimes a month
or more would pass without our ever sighting a possible prize, and
we were forced to take a decision: Either we must risk the wrath of
the two main powers and begin to attack their shipping, or we must
go for smaller game. Both prospects were unpleasant. We should not
last long against the powers, and none of us would enjoy the sordid
business of taking on craft not of our size. The only alternative
would be to join the Navy of one of the smaller neutral nations.
There was no doubt that we should be welcomed with relief into
their service (for we had been a thorn in their side as pirates, and
they would rather have a ship of our tonnage working with them;

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229
most would prefer to forget any thoughts of revenge), but it would
not be pleasant to accept their discipline after having had virtually
the freedom of the high seas. For all that I had reservations, mine
was the chief voice raised in support of this latter scheme, and slowly
I won Korzeniowski over to the idea. He was an intelligent, far-
sighted skipper and could see that his days as a pirate were num-
bered. He confided to me that he had yet another consideration.
"I could always scupper the Lola Montez and retire," he told me.
"I'd be welcome enough in the Islands. But I'm afraid of the bore-
dom. I once entertained the notion of writing novels, you know. I al-
ways 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 chief-
tains 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 some-
thing. . . ."
Korzeniowski smiled. "I have no special loyalties to Britain, Bas-
table. 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 home-
land now, I suppose it is in the Outer Hebrides. However, I have a

230
THE NOMAD OF TIME
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 name-
sake had somewhat nobler motives than simple vengeance in releas-
ing his Huns upon the world.
"Certainly," agreed Korzeniowski, "but there is a messianic qual-
ity about Hood. He pursues the equivalent of a religious jihad 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 some-
thing 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 inde-
pendence during those prewar 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 suc-
ceeded in negotiating a peaceful withdrawal from the British Empire,
almost without the Empire realising what had happened. Naturally,
the great wealth of Bantustan—its diamonds and its gold alone—was

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231
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 postwar 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 na-
tions 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 racialistic 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 Ger-
man 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 September 14, 1906, and were
impressed not only by a serviceable fleet of surface and underwater
ships but also by a large collection of shipyards working at full ca-
pacity. For the first time I was able to see what O'Bean's world must
have been like before the war. A great, clean city of tall, beautiful
buildings, its streets filled with gliding electric carriages, crisscrossed
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,

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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 Africa War, and as a result there had been little bitterness be-
tween the English and Dutch settlers, who had formed a peaceful al-
liance well before President Gandhi had risen to political power. See-
ing 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.
President Gandhi personally welcomed us. He was a small, gnome-
like man, still quite young, with an infectious smile. In recent years
he had devoted quite a lot of his energies to attracting what remained
of the West's skilled and talented people to Bantustan. He dreamed
of a sane and tranquil world in which all that was best in mankind
might flourish. It was his regret that he needed to maintain a strong
military position (and thus in his opinion waste resources) in order
to guard against attack from outside, but he managed it gracefully
enough and felt, he told us at the private dinner to which Kor-
zeniowski and myself were invited, that there was some chance of
setting an example to men like Cicero Hood.
"Perhaps he will begin to see how wasteful his schemes are, how
his talents could be better put to improving the world and making it
into a place where all races live in equality and peace together."
I am not sure that, presented with these ideas in my own world, I
could have agreed wholeheartedly with President Gandhi, but the
proof of what he said lay all around us. O'Bean had thought that ma-
terial prosperity was enough to abolish strife and fear, but Gandhi
had shown that a clear understanding of the subtler needs of man-
kind was also necessary—that a moral example had to be made, that
a moral life had to be led without compromise, that hypocrisy (albeit
unconscious) amongst a nation's leaders led to cynicism and violence
amongst the population. Without guile, without deceiving those he
represented, President Gandhi had laid the foundations for lasting
happiness in Bantustan.
"This is, indeed, a haven of civilisation you have here," Captain
Korzeniowski said approvingly, as we sat on a wide veranda over-
looking the great city of Cape Town and smoked excellent local ci-
gars, drinking a perfect home-produced port. "But you are so rich,

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233
President Gandhi. Can you protect your country from those who
would possess your wealth?"
And then the little Indian gave Korzeniowski and myself a shy, al-
most embarrassed look. He fingered his tie and stared at the rooftops
of the nearby buildings, and he sounded a trifle sad. "It is something
I wished to speak of later," he said. "You are aware, I suppose, that
Bantustan has never spilled blood on behalf of its ideals."
"Indeed we are!" I said emphatically.
"It never shall," he said. "In no circumstances would I be respon-
sible for the taking of a single human life."
"Only if you were attacked," I said. "Then you would have to de-
fend your country. That would be different."
But President Gandhi shook his head. "You have just taken ser-
vice in a navy, gentlemen, which exists for only one reason. It is
effective only while it succeeds in dissuading those we fear from in-
vading us. It is an expensive and impressive scarecrow. But it is,
while I command it, as capable of doing harm as any scarecrow you
will find erected by a farmer to frighten the birds away from his
fields. If we are ever invaded, it will be your job to take as many
people aboard as possible and evacuate them to some place of rela-
tive safety. This is a secret that we share. You must guard it well. All
our officers have been entrusted with the same secret."
The enormity of President Gandhi's risk in revealing this plan took
my breath away. I said nothing.
Korzeniowski frowned and considered this news carefully before
replying. "You place a heavy burden on our shoulders, President."
"I wish that I did not have to, Captain Korzeniowski."
"It would only take one traitor . . ." He did not finish his sen-
tence.
Gandhi nodded. "Only one and we should be attacked and over-
whelmed in a few hours. But I rely on something else, Captain Kor-
zeniowski. People like General Hood cannot believe in pacifism. If a
traitor did go to him and inform him of the truth, there is every
chance that he would not believe it." He grinned like a happy child.
"You know of the Japanese method of fighting called jujitsu? You
use your opponent's own violence against him. Hopefully, that is
what I do with General Hood. Violent men believe only in such con-
cepts as 'weakness' and 'cowardice.' They are so deeply cynical, so
rooted in their own insane beliefs, that they cannot even begin to
grasp the concept of 'pacifism.' Suppose you were a spy sent by Gen-
eral Hood to find out my plans. Suppose you left here now and went

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back to the Black Attila and said to him, 'General, President Gandhi
has a large, well-equipped army, an air fleet, and a navy, but he does
not intend to use it if you attack him.' What would General Hood
do? He would almost certainly laugh at you, and when you insisted
that this was a fact, he would probably have you locked up or exe-
cuted as a fool who had ceased to be of use to him." President
Gandhi grinned again. "There is less danger, gentlemen, in living ac-
cording to a set of high moral principles than most politicians be-
lieve."
And now our audience was over. President Gandhi wished us hap-
piness in our new life, and we left his quarters in a state of consid-
erable confusion.
It was only when we got to our own ship and crossed the gang-
plank to go aboard, seeing the hundred or so similar craft all about
us, that Korzeniowski snorted with laughter and shook his head
slowly from side to side.
"Well, Bastable, what does it feel like to be part of the most ex-
pensive scarecrow the world has ever known?"

CHAPTER SEVEN
A Legend in the Flesh
A peaceful year passed in Bantustan—peaceful for us, that is, for
reports continued to reach us of the ever-increasing conquests of the
Black Attila. We learned that he had raised his flag over the ruins of
London and left a token force there, but had met with no real resis-
tance and seemed, as we had guessed, content (as the Romans had
once been before him) to claim the British Isles as part of his new
Empire without, at this moment in time, making any particular
claims upon the country. Our friends in the Outer Hebrides would be
safe for at least a while longer. Our most strenuous duties were to
take part in occasional naval manoeuvres or to escort cargo ships
along the coasts of Africa. These ships were crewed entirely by Ne-
groes, and we rarely had sight of land, for it was regarded as politic
for whites not to reveal themselves, even though Hood knew that
they were not discriminated against in Bantustan.
We had a great deal of leisure and spent it exploring President
Gandhi's magnificent country. Great game reserves had been made of
the wild veldt and jungle, and silent airboats carried one over them so
that one could observe all kinds of wildlife in its natural state with-
out disturbing it. There was no hunting here, and lions, elephants, ze-
bras, antelope, wildebeest, rhinoceri, roamed the land unharmed by
man. I could not help, sometimes, making a comparison with the
Garden of Eden, where man and beast had lived side by side in har-
mony. Elsewhere we found model farms and mines, worked entirely
by automatic machinery, continuing to add to the wealth of the coun-
try and, ultimately, the dignity of its inhabitants. Processing plants—
for food as well as minerals—lay close to the coast where the food in
particular was being stockpiled. Bantustan had more than enough to
serve her own needs, and the surplus was being built up or sold at
cost to the poorer nations. I had begun to wonder why so much food

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was being stored in warehouses when President Gandhi called a
meeting of a number of his air and sea officers and told us of a plan
he had had for some time.
"All over the world there are people reduced to the level of savage
beasts," he said. "They are brutes, but it is no fault of their own.
They are brutes because they are hungry and because they live in
fear. Therefore, over the last few years I have been putting aside a
certain percentage of our food and also medical supplies—serums
which my chemists have developed to cope with the various plagues
still lingering in Europe and parts of Asia. You all know the function
of your fleets is chiefly to give Bantustan security, but it has seemed a
shame to waste so much potential, and now I will tell you of my
dream."
He paused, giving us all that rather shy, winning smile for which
he was famous. "You do not have to share it. I am asking only for
volunteers, for there is danger involved. I want to distribute that food
and medicine where it is most needed. You, Mr. Bastable, have seen
and reported what has happened in southern England. Would you
not agree that these supplies would help to alleviate some of the
worst aspects of the conditions there?"
I nodded. "I think so, sir."
"And you, Mr. Caponi," said the President, addressing the dash-
ing and idealistic young Sicilian aviator who had made such a name
for himself when he had, almost singlehandedly, saved the survivors
of Chicago from the raging fires which had swept that city, by drop-
ping again and again into the inferno, risking almost certain death to
rescue the few who remained alive, "you have told me how your
countrymen have turned to cannibalism and reverted to their old,
feuding ways. You would see that changed, would you not?"
Caponi nodded eagerly, his eyes blazing. "Give me the supplies,
my President, and I will have my keels over Sicily by morning!"
Most of the old commanders echoed Captain Caponi's sentiments,
and President Gandhi was well pleased by their response.
"There are matters I must attend to before we embark on this
scheme," he said, "but we can probably begin loading the food and
medicine by the end of the month. In the meantime I had better warn
you, gentlemen, that General Hood is soon to make a state visit to
Bantustan."
This news was received with consternation by most of us—and by
undisguised disgust by some, including Caponi, who was never one to

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237
hide his feelings. He expressed what a good many of us—particularly
the whites—refrained from saying:
"The man is a mass murderer! A bloody-handed looter! A ma-
niac! Many of us have had relatives done to death by his minions!
Why, I have sworn that if I should ever have the opportunity, I
should kill him—with my bare hands I should kill him!"
The little President glanced at the floor in some embarrassment. "I
hope you will not be so tempted, Captain Caponi, when General
Hood is here as my guest. . . ."
"Your guest!" Caponi clapped his hand to his forehead. "Your
guest!" He broke into a stream of Sicilian oaths which I, for one, was
glad I did not understand—although the import of the language was
clear enough.
President Gandhi let him continue for a while and then interrupted
mildly: "Would it not be better, Capitano, to have this man as our
guest rather than as our conqueror? By meeting him, I hope to
influence him—to beg him to stop this senseless warfare, this vendetta
against the white race which can only lead to more violence, more
terror, more grief. . . "
Caponi spread his hands, his somewhat pudgy features displaying
an expression which was almost pitying. "You think he will listen,
my President? Such a man cannot be reasoned with! I know to my
sorrow how destructive a vendetta can be—but the Black Attila is a
madman, a wild beast, a ferocious and senseless killer, a torturer of
women and children. Oh, sir, you are too unworldly. . . ."
President Gandhi raised his eyebrows, biting his lip. He sighed. "I
hope I am not," he said. "I understand all the arguments and I know
how you must feel. But I must obey my conscience. I must make an
effort to reason with General Hood."
Captain Caponi turned away. "Very well—reason with him, and
see what good it does. Can you reason with a whirlwind? Can you
reason with a rogue rhino? Reason with him, President Gandhi—and
pray for the safety of your country!" And with that he walked rap-
idly from the room.
One or two of the other officers mumbled words which echoed
Caponi's. We all loved President Gandhi, but we all felt that he was
misguided in his hopes.
Finally, he said: "Well, gentlemen, I hope some of you will agree
to be present at the banquet I intend to hold for General Hood. If
your voices are added to mine, at least you will know, as I will know,
that you have done your best. . . ."

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He dismissed us, then, and we all left with heavy hearts, specu-
lating variously on what General Hood would be like to meet in the
flesh and how we should react when—or if—we saw him.
Personally I had mixed feelings. It was not every day, after all,
that one received the opportunity of dining with a legend, a world-
conquering tyrant whom history would rank with Genghis Khan or
Alexander the Great. I was determined to accept the President's invi-
tation. Besides, I had to admit that I was beginning to get a little
bored with my life in Bantustan. I was first and foremost a soldier, a
man of action, trained in a certain way of life and not, by nature,
contemplative or much of an intellectual. General Hood's visit
would, if nothing else, relieve that boredom for a while!
A week later there was a Black Fleet hanging in the skies of Cape
Town. Between twenty and thirty good-sized keels lay anchored to
specially built masts. They swayed slightly in the warm wind and
from the west, each of them displaying the insignia of the Black
Attila's so-called New Ashanti Empire: a black, rampant, snarling
African lion in a scarlet circle. Hood claimed as an ancestor the fa-
mous Quacoo Duah, King of Ashanti in the 1860s, and it was ini-
tially on the Gold Coast that he had begun to build his army—start-
ing with a handful of Ashanti and Fanti nationalists pledged to the
overthrow of the first native government of Ashantiland (as it had
been renamed after Independence). Although the Black Horde
consisted of members of all African peoples, as well as those from
beyond Africa, it had somehow retained the name of Ashanti, just as
the Roman Empire had kept its name even after it had few connec-
tions with Rome at all. Also the Ashanti people were well respected
throughout most of Africa, and since Hood claimed to be Quacoo
Duah's direct descendant, it suited him to keep the name.
Many of those who had sworn to have nothing whatsoever to do
with the whole affair were drawn reluctantly to the streets or their bal-
conies, to watch the descent of Cicero Hood and his retinue from the
flagship (diplomatically named the Chaka) which hung just above
the main formation. For the first time we saw Hood's famous Lion
Guard—huge, perfectly formed warriors with skins like polished
ebony and proud, handsome features, drawn from all the tribes of
Africa. On their heads were steel caps from which projected tall,
nodding ostrich plumes dyed scarlet and orange. From their shoul-
ders hung short cloaks made from the manes and skins of male lions.
They wore short, sleeveless jackets of midnight blue, similar to the

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239
jackets worn by French Zouaves, trimmed with gold and silver braid,
and tight cavalry-style britches to match. High boots of black gleam-
ing leather were on their feet, and each man carried two weapons,
symbolic of the Old and the New Africa—an up-to-date carbine on
the back and a long-shafted, broad-bladed spear in the right hand.
Standing in the open air-carriages, scarcely moving a muscle, their
faces expressionless, they were undoubtedly amongst the most im-
pressive soldiers in the world. Their carriages formed a perfect circle
around that of General Cicero Hood himself—a carriage painted in
splendid colours and flying the black and scarlet flag of the Black
Attila's Empire. From where I stood on the roof of my apartment
building (many of my colleagues were with me, including Kor-
zeniowski) I could see that there were two figures in the carriage, but
I was too far away to make out details of their features, though it
seemed to me that one of the occupants was white!
Upon landing, Hood and his Guard transferred to open electrical
broughams and began a long procession through the streets of Cape
Town that was received with surprising enthusiasm from many of the
citizens (admittedly most of them black), but I could see little of this
procession from my vantage point. I retired to the bar downstairs
where a number of other officers were coming back from the street,
where they had witnessed the scene. Not a few of the white and a
number of the black officers had looks of grudging admiration on
their faces, for there had been no doubt about the excellence of the
stage management involved in Hood's arrival. A man I knew slightly
who had been a land fleet commander in India before he had joined
the Army of Bantustan (his name, as I recall, was Laurence) or-
dered himself a stiff brandy and drained it in a single swallow before
turning to me and saying in a tone of awe: "I say, Bastable, the
chap's got a bally white woman in tow. Rum go, eh? His distaste for
us doesn't seem to extend to the female of the species, what?"
Another acquaintance called Horton, who had been an officer in
the Sierra Leone Navy before that nation was annexed by Hood, said
dryly: "To the victor the spoils, old man." There was a look of
amusement on his brown face and he winked at me, enjoying
Laurence's discomfort.
"Well, I mean to say . . ." began Laurence, realising his lack of
tact. "It's not that I feel. . ."
"It's just that you do." Horton laughed and turned to order
Laurence another drink. "You think Hood's taken a white concubine
as a sort of gesture. It could be that he finds her so attractive he

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
doesn't care what colour she is. I've heard of Europeans falling in
love with African women, haven't you?"
Laurence's next point was undeniably a good one. "But not Euro-
peans with a deep loathing of Negroes, Horton. I mean, it rather
shakes his case about us being such awful fiends, doesn't it?"
Horton grinned. "Maybe he prefers the devil he knows."
"I must admit," put in a lieutenant who had begun his career in
the Russian Navy and who was called something like Kuriyenko, "I
wouldn't mind knowing her myself. What a beauty! I think she's the
most ravishing creature I've ever seen. Good luck to Hood on that
score, say I!"
The conversation continued on these lines for a while until those
of us who had accepted invitations to attend the banquet had to leave
to get ready. Korzeniowski and I and a party of other "underwater
sailors" were going together. Dressed in the simple, white dress uni-
forms of the Bantustan Navy, we left for the palace in a large car-
riage rather like an electrically powered charabanc, were met at the
steps and escorted into the great hall which normally housed the
elected representatives of the people of Bantustan. Long tables had
been laid out and each place was adorned with gold and silver plate
and cutlery. We were privileged (if that is the word) to sit at the
President's table and would thus be afforded a good chance of ob-
serving the infamous General Hood at close range.
When we were all seated, President Gandhi, General Hood, and
the general's lady consort entered through a door in the back of the
hall and moved to take their places at the table.
I believe that I had by this time learned enough self-control not to
register my surprise upon recognising the woman whose hand was
now placed on the arm of the despot who had become master of
most of Africa and all of Europe. Our eyes met and she acknowl-
edged me with a ghost of a smile before turning her head to say
something to Hood. It was Una Persson! Now I knew why she had
wished to return to Africa so speedily and why she had been reluc-
tant to take me with her. Had she, even then, been keeping this asso-
ciation with the Black Attila?
General Hood was not what I expected. He was as tall as any
member of his Lion Guard, but fairly slender, moving with what I
can only describe as a sort of awkward grace. He wore perfectly cut
conventional evening dress which was entirely without decoration. I
had expected a fierce-eyed warlord, but this man was close to middle
age, with the distinguished air of a high-ranking diplomat. His hair

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241
and beard were greying a little and his large, dark eyes held a
mildness which could only be deceptive. I was reminded, against my
will, of a sort of black Abraham Lincoln!
President Gandhi was beaming. It seemed he had had a conver-
sation with General Hood which had proved satisfactory to him. The
little Indian was dressed, as always, in a light cotton suit of what we
used to term Bombay cut. They took their places, and we, who had
been standing, resumed ours. The meal began in a rather grim si-
lence, but slowly the atmosphere improved. General Hood chatted
amiably to President Gandhi, to the President's aides, and to Una
Persson. I heard a little of the conversation—enough to know that it
was the usual sort of polite small talk which goes on amongst politi-
cians on occasions like this one. From what might have been a mis-
taken sense of tact, I tried not to look at Miss Persson during the din-
ner and addressed myself primarily to the lady on my left who
seemed to be obsessed with the notion of trying to breed back, in
Africa, many of the species of birdlife which had been made all but
extinct during the wars in Europe.
The meal was an excellent compromise between European and
African dishes, and I think it is probably the best I have ever eaten,
but we were on the sweet course before I was saved from the conver-
sation of the amateur ornithologist on my left. Quite suddenly I
heard the deep, mellow tones of General Hood speaking my name
and I looked up in some embarrassment.
"You are Mr. Bastable, then?"
I stuttered a reply to the effect that his information was correct. I
was not even sure how one addressed a despotic conqueror who had
on his hands the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents.
"You have my gratitude, Mr. Bastable."
I was conscious of a decided lull in the conversation around me
and I think I might have been blushing a little. I noticed that Miss
Persson was smiling broadly at me, as was President Gandhi, and I
felt very foolish, for no particular reason.
"I have, sir?" was I think what I answered. It sounded insane to
my ears, and I tried to recover my equilibrium by reminding myself
that this man, in spite of appearances, was the sworn enemy of my
race. It was, however, difficult to maintain an attitude of disdain
while at the same time behaving in a way which suited the social situ-
ation. I had accepted the invitation to dine at the palace and there-
fore had a duty to President Gandhi not to offend his guests.
General Hood laughed a deep, full-throated laugh. "You saved the

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
life of someone I hold very dear." He patted Una Persson's hand.
"Surely you remember, Mr. Bastable?"
I said that it had been nothing, that anyone would have done the
same, and so on.
"You showed great courage, Miss Persson tells me."
I made no answer to this. Then General Hood added: "Indeed, if
it had not been for you, Mr. Bastable, it is unlikely that I should
have been able to continue with certain military ambitions I have
been entertaining. White though your skin is, I think you have the
heart of a black man."
A calculated irony, surely! He had managed to implicate me in his
crimes and I think relished my embarrassment. Next he added:
"If, at any time, you wish to leave the employment of Bantustan,
the Ashanti Empire could make use of your services. After all, you
have already proved your loyalty to our cause."
I saw the eyes of all the whites in the hall staring at me. It was too
much. Seized by anger, I blurted back: "I regret, sir, that my loyalty
is to the cause of peace and the rebuilding of a sane world. The cold-
blooded murder of the women and children of my own race is not
something to which I could easily lend myself!"
Now the silence in the hall was total, but General Hood soon
broke the atmosphere by leaning back in his chair, smiling and shak-
ing his head. "Mr. Bastable, I have no dislike of the white man. In
his place, he performs a large number of useful functions. I employ
white men in a good many capacities. Indeed, there are individuals
who show all the qualities I would value in an African. Such individ-
uals are given every opportunity to shine in the Ashanti Empire. You
have a poor impression of me, I fear—whereas I have nothing but re-
spect for you." He raised his glass to toast me. "Your health, Mr.
Bastable. I am sincere in my offer. President Gandhi and I have been
discussing exchanging emissaries. I shall put in a strong plea to him
that you be amongst those invited to New Kumasi. There you shall
see for yourself if I am the tyrant you have heard about."
I was far too angry by now to make any sort of reply. President
Gandhi tactfully drew General Hood into conversation, and a little
later Korzeniowski came up behind me and tapped me on the shoul-
der, leading me from the hall.
My emotions were, to put it mildly, mixed. I was torn between
boiling anger, social embarrassment, loyalty to President Gandhi and
his dream of peace, and my own responses to Hood himself. It was no
surprise, now that he had risen so swiftly to eminence in the world.

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243
Tyrant and murderer he might be, but it was undeniable that he had
a magnetic personality, that he had the power to charm even those
who hated him most. I had expected a swaggering barbarian and had
encountered, instead, a sophisticated politician, an American (I
learned later) who had been educated at Oxford and Heidelburg and
whose academic career had been an outstanding one before he put
down his books and took up the sword. I was shaking and close to
tears as Korzeniowski took me back to my quarters and devoted him-
self to calming me down. But it was hours before I finished my mind-
less ranting. I drank a good deal, too, and I think that it was a com-
bination of alcohol and emotional exhaustion which finally shut me
up. One moment I was raging at the insults of the Black Attila and
the next moment I had fallen face forward to the floor.
Korzeniowski must have put me to bed. In the morning I woke up
with the worst headache of my life, still in a filthy temper, but no
longer capable of expressing it. It was a knocking at the door which
had awakened me. My batman answered it and a short while later
brought me my breakfast tray. On the tray was an envelope bearing
the seal of the President himself. I pushed the tray aside and in-
spected the envelope, hardly daring to open it. Doubtless it contained
some kind of reproof for my behaviour of the previous evening, but I
was unrepentant.
I lay in bed, the envelope still in my hand, considering the answers
I should have given Hood if I had had my wits about me.
I was determined not to be charmed by him, to judge him only by
his actions, to remember how whole European cities had been de-
stroyed by him and their populations enslaved. I regretted that I had
mentioned none of this during our encounter. I have never believed
in violent solutions to political problems, but I felt if there was one
man who deserved to be assassinated it was Cicero Hood. The fact
that he had received an excellent education only made him more of a
villain in my eyes, for he had perverted that education in order to
pursue his racial jihad. He might blandly deny his policies of geno-
cide, but what he had done in the past few years spoke for itself. At
that moment, I felt I could, like Caponi, cheerfully kill him with my
bare hands.
It was Korzeniowski turning up that forced me to control myself.
He stood at the end of my bed, looking down at me with a kind of
sympathetic irony, asking me how I felt.
"Not too good," I told him. I showed him the letter. "I think I'm

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due for the sack. I'll be leaving Bantustan soon enough, I shouldn't
wonder."
"But you haven't opened the letter, old man."
I handed it up to him. "You open it. Tell me the worst."
Korzeniowski went to my desk and took a paper knife to slit the
top of the envelope. He removed the contents—a single sheet of
paper—and read it out in his precise, guttural English:
Dear Mr. Bastable. If you have the time today, I should
be grateful if you would visit me in my office. About five
would be convenient for me, if that would suit you. Yours
sincerely, Gandhi.
Korzeniowski handed me the letter. "Typical of him," he said ad-
miringly. "If you have time, Mr. Bastable. He is giving you the op-
tion. I shouldn't have thought that meant a carpeting, old chap,
would you?"
I read the letter for myself, frowning. "Then what on earth does it
mean?" I said.

CHAPTER EIGHT
A Decision in Cold Blood
Needless to say, although I hemmed and hawed a lot, I eventually
arrived, scrubbed and neat, at the presidential palace at five o'clock
sharp and was immediately escorted into President Gandhi's office.
The office was as plain and functional as all the rooms he used. He
sat behind his desk looking, for him, decidedly stern, and I guessed
that, after all, I was in for a wigging, that my resignation would be
demanded. So I stood smartly to attention and prepared myself to
take whatever the President was about to give me.
He got up, rubbing his balding head with the palm of his hand, his
spectacles gleaming in the sun which flooded through the open win-
dow. "Please sit down, Captain." It was rare for him to use a mili-
tary title. I did as I was ordered.
"I have had a long talk with General Hood today," Gandhi began.
"We have, as you know, been discussing ways of cementing good
relations between Bantustan and the New Ashanti Empire. On most
matters we have reached an amicable understanding, but there is one
detail which concerns you. You know that I believe in free will, that
it is not part of my beliefs to force a man to do something he does
not wish to do. So I will put the situation to you and you must make
up your own mind about it. General Hood was not joking last night
when he offered you employment. . . ."
"Not joking? I hope he was not, sir. I do not wish to be employed
as a mass murderer. . . ."
President Gandhi raised his hand. "Of course not. But General
Hood, it seems, has taken a liking to you. He admired the way in
which you answered him back last night."
"I thought it a poor performance. I meant to apologise, sir."
"No, no. I understand your position completely. You showed
great self-control. Perhaps that was what Hood was doing—testing

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you. He is genuinely grateful for the part you played, apparently, in
saving Miss Persson's life in England—and, I could be completely
wrong, but I have the feeling he wants to vindicate himself in your
eyes. Perhaps he sees you as representative of—in his terms—the bet-
ter sort of white man. Perhaps he is tired of killing and actually does
want to begin building a safer and saner world—though his present
military plans seem to contradict that. Whatever the reason, Basta-
ble, he has insisted that you be part of the diplomatic mission sent to
his capital at New Kumasi—indeed, he has made it a condition. You
will be the only, um, white member of the mission. Unless you go, he
refuses to continue with our negotiations."
"Well, sir, if those are not the actions of a madman, a despot, I do
not know what they are!" I replied.
"Certainly, they are not based on the kind of logic I recognise.
General Hood is used to having his way—particularly when it comes
to the fate of white men. I do not deny that. However, you know
how important these talks are to me. I hope to influence the general—
at least to temper his future policies towards those he conquers. Ev-
erything I have dreamed of is endangered—unless you consider that
you can accept his terms. You must look to your own conscience,
Mr. Bastable. I do not want to influence you, I have already gone
against my principles—I am aware that I am putting moral pressure
on you. You must forget what I want and do only what you think is
right."
It was then that I reached what was perhaps the most cold-
blooded decision of my life. If I accepted, then I should be in an ex-
cellent position to get close to Hood and, if necessary, put an end to
his ambitions for good and all. I had contemplated assassination—
now I was being given the opportunity to perform it. I decided that I
would, go to New Kumasi. I would observe the Black Attila's actions
for myself. I would be Hood's jury and his judge. And if I decided
that he was guilty—then I would take it upon myself to be his execu-
tioner!
Naturally, I said nothing of this to President Gandhi. Instead, I
frowned, pretending to consider what he had said to me.
I think I was a little mad, then. It seems so to me now. The strain
of finding myself in yet another version of history, of being in no way
in control of my own destiny, was probably what influenced me to
seek to alter events in this world. Still, I will not try to justify myself.
The fact remains that I had decided to become, if necessary, a mur-

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247
derer! I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide on what sort of
morality it is that justifies such a decision.
At last I looked up at President Gandhi and said: "When would I
have to leave, sir?"
Gandhi seemed relieved. "Within two weeks. I must select the
other members of the mission."
"Have you any idea, sir, what part Miss Persson has played in
this?"
"No," he admitted. "No clear idea. It could be quite a large one,
for all I know. She seems to have considerable influence with Gen-
eral Hood. She is an extremely enigmatic woman."
I was bound to agree with him.
It was with great regret that I said good-by to Captain Kor-
zeniowski and the other friends I had made in Cape Town. All felt
that I had been forced into this position and I wished that I might
confide in them my secret decision, but of course it was impossible.
To share a secret is to share a burden, and I had no intention of
placing any part of such a burden on the shoulders of anyone else.
President Gandhi was sending some of his best people to New
Kumasi—ten men, three women, and myself. The others were either
of Asian or African origin or of mixed blood. As the only white I did
not feel out of place in their company, for I had long since become
used to the easy terms on which the races mingled in Bantustan. In
his choice, President Gandhi had shown that he was a shrewd as well
as an idealistic politician, for two of the members of the mission were
military experts briefed to observe all they could of General Hood's
war-making capacity and discover as much intelligence as possible in
respect of his long-term military ambitions. All, with the possible ex-
ception of myself, believed heart and soul in Gandhi's ideals.
The day came when we were ferried up to the waiting aerial frig-
ate. Its hull was a gleaming white and it hung in the deep, blue sky
like some perfectly symmetrical cloud, with the plain, pale green flag
of Bantustan flying from its rigging.
Within moments of our going aboard, the ship dropped its anchor
cables and began to head northwest towards the shining waters of St.
Helena Bay.
I looked back at the slender spires of Cape Town and wondered if
I should ever see that city or my friends again. Then I put such
thoughts from my head and gave myself up to polite conversation
with my colleagues, all of whom were speculating on what they

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would find in New Kumasi and how we might expect to be treated if
relations between New Ashanti and Bantustan became strained.
None of us was used to dealing with despots who had absolute
powers of life and death over their subjects.
Twenty-four hours passed as we crossed the greater part of west-
ern Africa and hung, at last, in the air over General Cicero Hood's
capital.
It was very different from Cape Town. Those new buildings which
had been erected were of a distinctly African character and not, I
must admit, unpleasant to look upon. A preponderance of cylindrical
shapes topped by conical roofs reminded one somewhat of the kind
of huts found in a typical kraal in the old days—but these "huts"
were many storeys high and built of steel, glass, concrete, and mod-
ern alloys. The city was unusual, too, in that it seemed to be walled in
the mediaeval manner, and on the walls was evidence that New
Kumasi had been designed as a fortress—large guns could be seen, as
well as pillbox emplacements. The grandiose, barbaric lion flag of
the Ashanti Empire flew everywhere, and military airships cruised
around the perimeters like guardian birds of prey. Here there were
no monorails or moving pavements or any of the other public trans-
port amenities of Bantustan's cities, but it was a well-run metropolis,
as far as one could see—very much under the control of the Army.
Indeed, half the people I saw, after we had landed, were in uniform-
both men and women. There was no sign of poverty, but no sign, ei-
ther, of the bountiful wealth of Cape Town. The majority of the pop-
ulation were black, and the only whites I saw seemed to be doing
fairly menial tasks (one or two of the porters at the aerodrome were
European) but were not evidently ill-treated. There were very few
private vehicles in the streets, but a good many public omnibuses of,
for this world, a slightly old-fashioned sort running off wire-borne
electrical current. Other than these, there were a good many military
vehicles moving about. Huge land ironclads rolled up and down
the thoroughfares, evidently taking precedence over other vehicles.
These were chiefly of the globular pattern, mounted on a wheeled
frame but able, at a pinch, to release themselves from the frame and
roll under their own volition, their speed and course being checked
by telescopic legs which could be extended from most points on the
hull. I had heard of these machines, but never seen one at close quar-
ters. If released upon a town, or an enemy position, they were capa-
ble of flattening it in moments without firing a shot from their power-
ful steam-powered gatlings and electrical cannon. I could imagine the

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249
terror one might feel when such a monster came rolling towards one!
In contrast, the Guard of Honour which greeted us and escorted
us to General Hood's headquarters was mounted on tall white stal-
lions, and the carriages into which we climbed were much more fa-
miliar to me than to 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 see-
ing again.
The 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 sup-
ported 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 undenia-
bly African, showing hardly any evidence of European influence. I
was to learn later that it had been Cicero Hood's firm policy to en-
courage 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 de-
signs in buildings, as well as many other things, I welcomed this as-
pect 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 audi-
ence, 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 tradi-
tional African design but showing the events of the recent past in
terms of the heroic struggles and triumphs of the New Ashanti Em-
pire. Hood himself was recognisable as featuring in several scenes,
including the conquest of Scandinavia, and there were represen-
tations 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.

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At the opposite end of the hall to 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 an-
nounced, 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 nonalcoholic bever-
ages (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 re-
sponsibilities 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 publicised 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 an-
swered. "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 refer-

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
251
ring to the colour of my skin. Even a joke had the effect of emphasis-
ing 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 suf-
ficient to help you forget any stigma. . ."
"Stigma, Mr. Bastable?" His voice hardened. "I assure you that I
do not feel it as 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 is-
lands."
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 civilisation there. I know
that I am thought of as a senseless tyrant by many—embarked upon a

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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 spe-
cial 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 be-
cause 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 do that, I regret,
madam, is by war and bloodshed—by ferocious conquest."
"But violence will be met by violence," said Professor Hira, whose
university program 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. Tyran-
nies can last for centuries—have lasted for centuries—if the adminis-
tration remains firmly in control. If it cultivates in itself the Stoic vir-
tues. 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. But it left behind it a heritage of
philosophy alone which has continued to influence us all."
"But you saw 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 civilisation than that of the West."

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253
"You have no proof of this," I said.
"No. But a theory must be tested to be Approved, 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 in-
volved in abstractions. I subsided.
"You may see my ambitions in America as being motived 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 al-
ways 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 Indians—now they
plan to wipe out the blacks. 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 ex-
ample to the world, just as Bantustan now sets an example. That
spirit must be exorcised for good and all. When the whites are con-
quered 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 realises that—for he has had the ex-
perience during centuries of exploitation by the whites!"
It was a noble speech (even if I was sceptical 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 concen-
trate on building Africa into a single great nation? Forget your
hatred of the United States. Let it find its own solutions. The AJF 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

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
seems, since the outbreak of the war. He has been convinced that
Ashanti represents a further threat to the world. He has been work-
ing on plans for a new fleet for nearly two years. Already a score of
his ships have been built in the shipyards of Sydney and Melbourne
and are ready to sail. Unless we mobilise 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 mobilise," he said. "Oh, by all means—we mobilise. I
am going home, Miss Persson. I'm going home!"

Book Two
THE BATTLE FOR WASHINGTON

CHAPTER ONE
The Two Fleets Meet
Looking back, I suppose I should count myself fortunate not only in
having, by a strange set of circumstances, been a witness to Hood's
decision to risk everything he had gained by invading America, but in
experiencing the invasion (and its aftermath) itself. Not many young
officers are given such an opportunity.
My determination to take the law into my own hands if I judged
Hood "guilty" remained as strong, but I was already beginning to
realise that the Black Attila was a far subtler individual than I had at
first supposed. Moreover, I soon came to learn that his ferocity, his
reputation for putting to death or enslaving whole cities, was some-
thing of a myth which he encouraged. It was useful to him if his ene-
mies believed the myth, for it quite often resulted in all but bloodless
conquests! The defenders would prefer to parley rather than fight
and would often ask for terms quite inferior to those Hood was
prepared to grant! This meant that when he proposed terms which
were better than they had expected, he gained the reputation of
munificence which was quite undeserved, but encouraged the con-
quered to work willingly for him—out of a sense of relief as much as
any other consideration!
I saw little of either Hood or Una Persson in the following week.
They were far too involved in their plans for mobilisation. We of the
diplomatic mission could only gather what information was available
and relay it to Bantustan. We were allowed, in the first days, to com-
municate information of all kinds freely to our own country, but a
little later a certain censorship was imposed as General Hood be-
came nervous of news reaching Tokyo. I think he had heard that the
AJF fleet was making for the Atlantic. The largest part of the
Ashanti fleet had been based in Europe, where it was most useful,
and some ships had to be recalled, while others were ordered to as-

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
semble in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and other northern
European ports, preparatory to sailing for America.
I gathered that Hood was not merely relying on his vast land, air,
and sea fleets, but had some other counter to play. From something
Una Persson had said, I thought her trip to England had played a
part in Hood's "secret weapon" being developed, but I was to learn
more of this later.
My next surprise came a day or two before Hood was due to sail.
Una Persson visited me at the legation, where I was busy with some
sort of meaningless paper work. She apologised for disturbing me
and said that General Hood would like to see me for a few moments
during luncheon.
I went unwillingly. Privately I was sure that the powerful Austral-
asian-Japanese Federation would put a stop to his dreams of con-
quest forever and that I no longer had a part to play in the history of
this world. I was looking forward to returning to Bantustan when the
Ashanti Empire collapsed, as it was bound to do.
Hood had almost finished luncheon when I arrived at the palace.
He was sitting at the head of a long table surrounded by his chief
ministers and generals. There were charts spread amongst the re-
mains of a simple meal, and black faces were bent over them,
conversing in low, urgent tones. All looked up as I arrived, and
several frowned, making insulting remarks about their meal being
spoiled by the sight of a white man. I had become quite used to this
sort of thing from Hood's lieutenants (though, to be fair, not all were
so ill-mannered) and was able to ignore the comments, saying: "You
sent for me, General?"
Hood seemed surprised to see me. He looked vaguely at me for a
moment and then snapped his fingers as if remembering why he had
sent for me. "Ah yes, Mr. Bastable. Just to tell you to have a bag
packed by tomorrow morning and to present yourself to the captain
of the Dingiswayo. He is expecting you. I've exchanged com-
munications with President Gandhi and he is agreeable to the
scheme. You have been seconded to my staff. You're coming with us
to America, Mr. Bastable. Congratulations."
There was nothing I could say. I tried to think of some retort,
failed, and saluted. "Very well, sir." Whether there was some deeper
motive involved, or whether this was just another example of Hood's
quixotic and whimsical behaviour where my fate was concerned, I did
not know. It seems that by making my initial decision I was now
bound to follow it through all the way.

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259
And that was how I came to be the only white officer to accom-
pany the seaborne Black Horde when it sailed out over the Atlantic
bound for New York with the express intention of destroying forever
the power of the Caucasian race!
My life has been full of ironies since my first, ill-fated expedition
to Teku Benga, but I think that that remains the greatest irony of
them all.
Hood had thrown virtually everything he had into the invasion
fleet. Surface and underwater vessels, airships of every description,
came together at last just off the coast of Iceland—a fleet which filled
the sky and occupied the ocean for as far as the eye could see.
Aboard the ships were stored Hood's vast collection of land iron-
clads, and in the centre of all these there rose a gigantic hull, specially
built but utterly mysterious in its purpose, which could not progress
under its own power but which had to be towed by thirty other bat-
tleships. I guessed that this must surely be Hood's secret weapon, but
neither I nor any of the other officers aboard the Dingiswayo had any
inkling of its nature!
And all the while news was coming through of the Australasian-
Japanese fleet converging on our own.
Hood's hope was that we could run ahead of the AJF fleet and get
to the coast of North America before it caught up with us, but these
new ships of O'Bean's were much faster than ours (their firepower
was a completely unknown factor), and I knew that we had no
chance. There was a school of thought which said that we should dis-
perse our own fleet, but Hood was against this, feeling that we had a
better chance if we concentrated our forces. Also, as was evident, he
was prepared to risk almost everything to protect the vast hull we
towed (or, at least, the contents of the hull), and I had the impres-
sion that he might consider sacrificing everything else so long as that
hull arrived eventually in New York.
There was scarcely a ship in the fleet which would not have
dwarfed one of the ironclads of my own day. Equipped with long-
snouted naval guns which could put a stream of incredibly powerful
shells into the air in the time it took one of my world's ships to fire a
single shot, capable of cruising at speeds reaching ninety knots, of
manoeuvring with the speed and ease of the lightest cruiser, a couple
of them could have given our good old British Navy a pretty grim
time. Hood had a hundred of these alone in his fleet, as well as over
fifty underwater battleships and nearly seventy big aerial men-of-war
(which, in turn, were equipped with light fighting airboats capable of

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leaving the mother ship, striking rapidly at an enemy, and returning
to safety above the clouds). As well as this massive fighting strength,
there were dozens of smaller vessels, many cargo ships, carrying land
'clads and infantry, gunboats and torpedo boats—virtually all the
remaining fighting ships of the nations of the world which had taken
part in the war.
If I had believed in the cause of the Ashanti Empire, I am sure I
would have felt a surge of pride when I looked upon the splendour of
that fleet as it steamed away from Reykjavik in the early morning of
December 23, 1907—a mass of black and scarlet upon the grey field
of the wintry sea. Wisps of fog drifted from time to time across the
scene, and standing on the quarter deck of the Dingiswayo, listening
to the sound of ships' horns bellowing in the distance, I was over-
whelmed with a sense of awe. How, I wondered, could anything in
the world resist such might? And if there was a God, how could He
allow it to have been created in the first place?
It seemed to me, at that moment, that I had been torn from my
own world to witness a vision of Armageddon—and, oddly enough, I
felt privileged!
I think it was then that the notion first occurred to me that per-
haps I had been selected by providence to be involved in a countless
series of what might be called alternative versions of the Apocalypse
—that I was doomed to witness the end of the world over and over
again and doomed, too, to search for a world where man had learned
to control the impulses which led to such suicidal conflicts, perhaps
never to find it. I still do not quite understand my motives in record-
ing my experiences, but it could be that I hope that, if they are ever
read, they will serve as a lesson to a world which has so far managed
to avert its own destruction.
But, as I have said before, I am neither introspective nor morbid
by nature, and my thoughts soon returned to the more immediate as-
pects of my situation.
It was about 4 p.m. on Christmas Day 1907 that the Australasian-
Japanese fleet was sighted speeding rapidly from south-southwest out
of the twilight, firing as it came.
Night had fallen by the time we properly engaged, and the fighting
was confused. The air was full of fire and noise. Above us the air
fleets were locked in terrible conflict, while on every side huge guns
poured forth destruction seemingly at random, and when, at sudden
moments, there came a lull, when there was a second or two of si-
lence and blackness, I experienced a cold and impossible fear, cer-

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tain that it was all over, that the world itself had been destroyed and
that the sun would never rise again.
By means of wireless telegraphy, Hood was able to direct the bat-
tle from the Chaka which was riding somewhere above the clouds,
and it became evident to me that he was building up a defensive posi-
tion around the contents of that huge and mysterious hull at the
centre of our fleet. The Dingiswayo, also close to the centre, was not
therefore immediately engaged in battle, but impatiently awaiting or-
ders to have a crack at the enemy, firing occasionally, when so com-
manded, into the sky at one of the Australasian-Japanese airships,
which would return our shots with bombs and concentrate cannon
fire, none of which happily scored a direct hit and all of which failed
to pierce our super-strong steel armour.
At last we received an order to break formation and moved at full
speed to a position on the starboard flank of the main Australasian-
Japanese grouping, where our own ships were sustaining particularly
heavy losses.
We seemed at first to be moving away from the main battle—away
from the crimson and yellow flashes of the guns, the incessant boom-
ing, and into utter blackness. Then, suddenly, as if receiving warning
of our presence, two battleships turned their searchlights on us. Pow-
erful beams of white light struck us in the eyes and blinded us for the
moment. I was still on the quarterdeck, with precious little to do, not
being a regular officer of the ship. I heard the captain shouting from
the bridge, saw our long guns begin to swing into position, felt the
Dingiswayo roll as she turned at an acute angle, broadside to the
enemy, giving me my first clear view of two long lines of battleships,
some mere silhouettes in the darkness and others speckled with
reflected light from the gun flashes to port. Then the air was full of
the whine of shells, the chunky, throaty noise of those shells hitting
the water ahead and astern of us, but never, thankfully, scoring on
either our hull or superstructure. Then all our guns began to go off,
and the Dingiswayo shuddered from stem to stern so that I thought
she might well shake herself to pieces. Our shells left the muzzles of
the guns with a kind of high-pitched yell—almost an exultation—and
the enemy ships were grouped so tightly together that we could not
miss. The shells hit the battleships and exploded. Heavy smoke
drifted back to us, and we were all forced to don the special masks
designed for the purpose of protecting our lungs in just such circum-
stances.
The air had been cold, the temperature well below zero, but now it

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began to heat up, becoming tropical, as far as we were concerned.
We went about and sought the darkness again, knowing that we had
been lucky and that we could not expect to take on a dozen or more
battleships alone.
For a while the searchlights roamed across the sea, trying to pick
us out, but we skulked just out of their range, using their own lights
to try to get some idea of our best chance. A battleship had detached
itself from the main formation and was rushing blindly towards us,
apparently unaware of our presence in its path. It was a splendid op-
portunity for us. I heard the order given to release torpedoes but to
hold off firing. There was a faint sound, like the striking of a bell,
and the torpedoes sped silently towards their prey, darting from our
tubes while the enemy ship remained unaware that she was under at-
tack!
The torpedoes scored direct hits below the battleship's waterline.
She was holed in five places and was sinking even before she realised
it. I heard a confused shouting from her decks, and her searchlights
came on, but already she was keeling over, and the lights slowly
rose into the sky like the fingers of a clutching, imploring hand. She
went down without having fired a single shot. For a little while I saw
her electrics gleaming below the surface, winking out slowly as she
sank, and then the water was black again, dotted with a few bits of
wreckage and a handful of wailing sailors.
There was no time to pick up survivors, even if we had wished to
(and the Ashanti did not believe in showing much mercy to defeated
enemies). We had been sighted again, and two battleships were rush-
ing towards us at speeds which would have seemed incredible on
land and which were, to me, all but impossible on sea! We were ca-
pable of not much more than half their speed, but again we were suc-
cessful in finding covering darkness.
It seemed to me that we had moved quite a long way off from the
main conflict. At least a mile away now, the sea and the sky seemed
to be one vast mass of flame, lighting a wide area and revealing
wreck upon wreck. The entire sea was filled with broken remains—
both of ordinary battleships and of fallen airships—while beneath this
mass of torn metal and blazing oil and wood could sometimes be
seen the dark shapes of the underwater boats, like so many gigantic
killer whales, seeking out fresh prey.
Once I had a glimpse of two subaquatic destroyers locked in
conflict several fathoms below, searchlights piercing the gloom, guns
flashing in what was to me an eerie silence. Then one of the boats

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263
wheeled and dived deeper and the other followed it, still firing. I saw
something flicker down there and then suddenly the water above the
scene gushed up like a monstrous geyser, flinging fragments of metal
and corpses high into the air, and I knew it was all over for one of
the vessels.
Then my attention was brought back to the two battleships whose
searchlights had picked us up. Our decks were suddenly flooded with
light, and almost immediately the enemy guns began to go off. This
time we were not so lucky. An explosive shell hit us somewhere
amidships, and I was flung backwards by the force of the blast. A
fire-fighting team ran past me, paying out a hose behind it, and I saw
the fire flicker out in what must have been seconds. I pulled myself to
my feet and climbed the companionway to the bridge, where the cap-
tain, peering through a pair of night glasses, was rapping out orders
through an electrical loud-hailer which amplified his clicking, harshly
accented speech (it was an Ivory Coast dialect with which I was un-
familiar). Again the Dingiswayo went about, taking evasive action,
all her port guns firing at once and scoring at least two hits on the
vessel which had damaged us. We saw her lurch heavily over to one
side and settle in the water, part of her hull glowing red-hot and a
shower of sparks streaming into the air from a point near her af-
terbridge. We must have hit some vital part of her, for a moment
later there came an awesome explosion which flung me backwards
once again so that this time my spine struck the rail and winded me
horribly. Oily black smoke was borne on the wind of the explosion
and blinded us, and the Dingiswayo was buffeted as badly as if she
had been suddenly seized by a hurricane, but then the smoke cleared
and we saw little of the other ship, just something which might have
been her topmast standing out for a second above the waterline, and
then this, too, disappeared.
Her sister ship now commenced a heavy cannonade and again we
were hit, though not badly, and were able to fire back until the
enemy evidently thought better of continuing the engagement, turned
about and sped at its maximum rate of knots back into the darkness.
This cautious action on the part of the enemy skipper had a con-
siderable effect on our own morale, and a huge cheer went up from
our decks while our forward gun fired one last, contemptuous shot at
the stern of the retreating vessel.
It seemed to me (and I was later proved correct) that for all its
superiority of speed and firepower, the Australasian-Japanese Navy
had little stomach for fighting. They had had no direct experience of

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naval warfare, whereas the Ashanti had been fighting now for several
years and were used to risking death almost daily. Faced with the ter-
rible implications of actual battle, our enemy began to lose its nerve.
This was the pattern, also, above and below the waves.
But by dawn we were still fighting. For miles in all directions bat-
tleship met battleship, steering through a veritable Sargasso Sea of
wreckage (in many places it was virtually impossible to see the water
at all), and the air continued to be filled with the booming of the
guns, the whine of the shells, and, less audible but far more chilling
to my ears, the screams and the wails of the wounded, the drowning,
the abandoned of both sides. Parts of the water were on fire, sending
sooty smoke into the cold, grey sky, and now the cloud had come
down so low that it was rare to catch sight of an aerial ironclad as it
manoeuvred overhead, though we could hear the guns sounding like
thunder and see occasional flashes of light, like lightning, every so
often split those clouds. A couple of times I saw a blazing hull fall
suddenly from out of the grey, boiling canopy above us.
We were soon engaged again, with a ship called the Iwo Shima,
which had already seen some pretty fierce fighting, by the look of
her. Part of her bows, above the waterline, had been blown away,
and there was a great pile of miscellaneous junk in her starboard
scuppers which had been either washed or blown there by whatever
had damaged her bridge. But she was plucky and she still had a con-
siderable amount of firepower, as she proved. I think she felt that she
was doomed anyway, and was determined to take the Dingiswayo to
the bottom with her, for she showed no concern for her own safety,
steaming directly at us, apparently with the intention of ramming us
full on if her guns didn't sink us first.
In the distance there were a hundred ships of varying tonnage
locked in similar struggles, but I saw no sign of the great hull we had
been protecting, nor of the ships which had been assigned to tow her,
and it seemed to me then that she had gone down.
The Iwo Shima did not waver in her course, and we were forced to
do what we could to avoid her, giving her everything we had left
from our forward guns and, for the first time, using every machine
gun that we had behind armour in the fighting tops. This manoeuvre
brought us so close to the enemy that we almost touched, and neither
of us could use any of our big guns at such close range, nor risk
using torpedoes. I got a good view of the Japanese seamen, their
elaborate and somewhat unfunctional uniforms torn and dirty, their
faces begrimed with blood, soot, and sweat, watching us grimly as

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265
they sped past us, already beginning to turn in the hope of taking us
in our stern. But we were turning, too, and a few minutes later the
manoeuvre was all over. On our captain's orders, we released our
starboard torpedoes the instant we were broadside of the Iwo Shima,
at the same time pouring the last of our firepower into her, every
starboard gun firing at once. She was fast enough to escape most of
what we sent, but her speed told against her, for her retaliatory fire
went wide of us, scoring only one minor hit in our starboard bow.
We had managed to upset most of the big guns in her battery, but she
turned again, much slower now, for our torpedoes had damaged at
least one of her screws. By now the sea had begun to rise, making it
much more difficult to aim or, indeed, to see our enemy. Everywhere
I looked there were walls of water containing all varieties of flotsam
—metal, wood, and flesh jostling together in some ghastly minuet—
and then the sea would sink for a moment, revealing the Iwo Shima,
and we would fire hastily until, momentarily, she disappeared again.
Our own damage was not slight. From somewhere below, our
pumps were working full out to clear many of the compartments
which were flooded. In several places the superstructure of the ship
had fused into strange, jagged shapes, and corpses hung limply from
damaged positions in the fighting tops, where medical staff had been
unable to reach them. We had two big holes above the waterline and
a smaller one below, amidships, and we had lost at least thirty men.
In ordinary circumstances we might have retired with perfect honour,
but all of us knew that this battle was crucial, and there was nothing
for it but to fight on. We were closing on the Iwo Shima now, letting
the sea carry us broadside onto the enemy ironclad, going about so
that, with luck, we should be able to take her with our port battery,
which was in better condition and better equipped to deal with her.
We rose on the crest of a great wave and saw the Iwo Shima below
us. She had taken in more water than her pumps could cope with and
she was already beginning to list astern and to starboard. As the huge
wave carried us down, we commenced firing.
The Iwo Shima went down without letting go another shot. The
water foamed and hissed; we saw her bows jutting stubbornly out of
the green-grey ocean for a second or two, and then she was gone.
Immediately we went full astern, to avoid being dragged down by her
undertow, and there came a massive, grumbling series of explosions
from below, immediately followed by a roaring waterspout which
shot at least a hundred feet into the air and rained our decks with
tiny pieces of shrapnel.

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Again, cheering broke out all over the ship but was swiftly stifled
as a heavy black shape emerged from the clouds overhead. The Iwo
Shima must have signalled to one of her sister airships for help just
before she went down. We had hardly anything left with which to de-
fend ourselves. Machine-gunners in the fighting tops aimed their guns
upwards, pouring round after round into the hull of the flying iron-
clad. I could hear a steady ping-ping as our bullets struck metal, but
they had about as much effect as a cloud of midges on a charging
rhinoceros. It was our good fortune that this monster had evidently
dropped all her bombs and spent her heavy artillery, for she an-
swered us with a chatter of steam Gatlings, raking our decks where
our men were thickest and wreaking immediate havoc so that in one
moment where there had been proud, cheering individuals, citizens of
the Ashanti Empire, there was now a horrible mass of writhing,
bloody flesh.
I could read the name emblazoned on the airship's dark hull—the
R.A.A. Botany fiery—and made out her insignia. This gave me a pe-
culiar lurching sensation in the pit of my stomach, for she was flying
the good old Union Jack inset with the crimson chrysanthemum of
Imperial Japan! Half of me wanted to hail the ship as a friend, while
the other half shared the emotions of my fellows aboard the Dingis-
wayo as they fought desperately and hopelessly back. Only our stern
gun, a sort of latter-day Long Tom, was operational, and as the Bot-
any Bay went past, we managed to get off three or four shots at her,
holing her astern, just above her main propellers, but it was the best
we could do. Apparently careless of the damage we had done to her,
she made a graceful turn in the air and fell upon us again. This time
I barely managed to get down behind the shield of one of our useless
nine-inch guns before bullets hailed down across our decks.
When I next raised my head, I was fully expecting death, but saw
instead the black and white markings of one of our own aerial
cruisers, dropping down almost as if out of control, so swiftly did she
move, clouds of grey smoke puffing from the length of her slender
hull as she gave off a massive cannonade. Shell after shell struck the
top of the Botany Bay's armoured canopy, piercing it so that her
buoyancy tanks were thoroughly holed. She turned first on one side
and then on the other, and it was a horrifying as well as an awe-
inspiring sight to see such a huge beast rolling in the air almost
directly above our heads! I have witnessed the death agonies of more
than one airship, but I have never seen anything quite like the death
of the Botany Bay. She shuddered. She tried to right herself. She lost

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267
height and then shot into the air again, almost to the base of the
clouds, then her nose dipped, her convulsions ceased, and she
smashed down into the sea, disappearing beneath the waves and then
bobbing up again on her side, steam hissing from her ports, to he
upon the face of the ocean like a dying whale. Few inside her could
have survived that awful shaking, and we made no attempt to dis-
cover if there were survivors. Our own flying cruiser dipped her tail
to us by way of salute and climbed back into the clouds.
A few minutes later, as we moved amongst our wounded, trying to
save those we could, news came over the wireless apparatus, telling
us to rejoin the main fleet at a position which would put us only a
few miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The Battle of the Atlantic
was over, the enemy fleet having retired, but the Battle of America
had not yet begun.

CHAPTER TWO
The Land Leviathan
What remained of our fleet regrouped the next morning. For all
that we had defeated the Australasian-Japanese fleet, we had proba-
bly sustained greater losses. There were scarcely a dozen flying iron-
clads left, perhaps five underwater ships still operational, and of the
surface fleet half had been sunk while most of the fifty or so surviv-
ing craft had all sustained damage, some of it crippling. The Dingis-
wayo, pumps still working full out, was perhaps in better condition
than most of its sister craft, and the only ships to have received mini-
mal damage were those which, under cover of the darkness, had
towed the huge floating hull out of danger. I saw Hood's Chaka
flying overhead, inspecting us as we rose and fell on a moderately
heavy sea. A misty rain was falling, adding to the gloomy atmosphere
permeating the whole fleet. Somehow the proud black and scarlet
lion banners we flew did not look so splendid in the wintry North At-
lantic light as they had done under the blazing skies of Africa. Clad
in heavy jerseys and sea cloaks, our caps pulled well down to protect
us from the worst of the drizzle, we stood on our decks, shivering,
weary, and pessimistic. Messages of approval began to come down
from the Chaka, but could not break our mood. It was the first expe-
rience many of the Africans had had of real cold, the sort of cold
which cuts into the marrow and threatens to freeze the blood, and
liberal amounts of hot toddy seemed to have no effect at all against
the weather.
I was standing on the bridge, discussing the conditions with the
skipper, Captain Ombuto, who was dismayed to learn that tempera-
tures seemed to me to be somewhat high for the time of year, when a
message came through from the Chaka which directly concerned me.
He read the message, raising his eyebrows and handing it to me. A
decent sort, Captain Ombuto had shown me none of the prejudice I

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
269
had experienced from some of his brother officers. He spoke English
with a strong French accent (he had served for a while in the Ara-
bian Navy before the war). "The top brass seems concerned for your
safety, Bastable."
The message was unsigned, save with the name of the flagship, and
read: "Urgent you give details of officers killed and wounded. How
is Bastable. Report immediately." The message was in English, al-
though French was also used, pretty indiscriminately, as the lingua
franca of Ashanti.
Captain Ombuto waited until he had a full list of his dead and
wounded before relaying the details to the flagship, adding "Bastable
unharmed" at the end of his reply. A little later there came a second
message: "Please relay my sympathy to those who lost so many com-
rades. You fought well and honourably. Send Bastable to flagship.
Boat coming." It was signed simply "Hood." Ombuto read the mes-
sage aloud to me, shrugged, and removed his cap, scratching his
woolly head. "Until now Miss Persson has been the only member of
your race allowed aboard the flagship. You're going up in the world,
Bastable." He jerked his thumb in the air. "Quite literally, eh!"
A short while later an airboat landed on the crippled deck of the
Dingiswayo, and I climbed into it, returning the smart salute of the
shivering officer of the Lion Guard who commanded it. The poor
man looked wretched, and I reflected a little cynically that if Hood
intended to drive through America into the southern states, his men
could not have a better incentive than the promise of warmer
weather!
Twenty minutes later the airboat had entered the huge stern
hatches of the Chaka and come to rest in the specially modified han-
gar adapted from the two lowest decks. An electric lift bore us up-
wards into the depths of the massive ship, and soon I stood with my
feet in the soft, scarlet plush of the control room carpet. The control
room had windows all around it, but they did not look out from the
ship but into its interior. From the windows could be seen the main
battle deck, the big guns jutting through their portholes, the bomb
bays (mostly empty now) and the war-weary officers and men stand-
ing by their positions. General Hood had had, by the look of him,
even less sleep than had I, but Una Persson seemed extraordinarily
fresh. It was she who greeted me first.
"Good morning, Mr. Bastable. Congratulations on surviving the
battle!"
General Hood said half-proudly, "It was probably the fiercest and

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biggest sea battle in the history of the world. And we won it, Mr.
Bastable. What do you think of us now? Are we still nothing more
than barbarians who pick upon the weak and the innocent, the
wounded and the defenseless?"
"Your men and your ships acquitted themselves with great bravery
and considerable skill," I admitted. "And in this case I would say
they had everything to be proud of—for the Australasian-Japanese
fleet attacked us, without even bothering to parley."
"Us?" Hood was quick to pick up the word. "So you identify with
our cause, after all."
"I identified with my ship," I said, "for all that I had precious lit-
tle to do aboard her. Still, I gather I am here as an observer, not a
participant."
"That is up to you, Mr. Bastable," retorted Hood, running his
black hands through his greying hair. "I have merely given you the
opportunity to make your choice! We are about to have luncheon.
Won't you join us?"
I made a stiff little bow. "Thank you," I said.
"Then, come." He linked his arm in mine and ushered me from
the control room into his private quarters which were linked to the
bridge by a short companionway leading directly into his cabin. Here
lunch had already been laid out—an excellent selection of cold food
which I could not resist. A fine hock was served and I accepted a
glass readily.
"Conditions aboard airships seem rather better than those on ordi-
nary ships," I said. "It's freezing down there, almost impossible to
get warm unless you're actually in the boiler room. At least an old-
fashioned ironclad, powered by coal, heated up in almost any tem-
peratures!"
"Well, we'll be making landfall by tomorrow," said Hood dismis-
sively as he ate. "However, if you would be more comfortable
aboard the Chaka, I would be glad to have you as my guest."
I was about to reject his invitation when Una Persson, seated be-
side me and wearing a long, simple gown of brown velvet, put a hand
on my arm. "Please stay, Mr. Bastable. It will give you a better
chance to witness the invasion of New York."
"Does New York require invading? I had heard that there is
hardly anyone living there now."
"A few thousand," said Hood airily. "And about a third of those
will doubtless join with us when we arrive."
"How can you be sure of that?" I asked.

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271
"My agents have been active, Mr. Bastable. You forget that I have
retained contacts all over the United States—it is my home country,
after all. . .
If I had entertained any doubts concerning Hood's ability to attack
and take the city of New York, they were quickly dispersed upon our
arrival in what had been one of the largest and richest harbours in
the world. New York had sustained, if anything, a heavier bombard-
ment than London. She had been famous for her tall, metallic towers
which had gleamed with a thousand bright colours, but now only two
or three of those towers were left standing, stained by the elements,
ravaged by explosions, threatening to collapse into the rubble which
completely obscured any sign of where her broad avenues, her shady,
tree-lined streets, her many parks, had stood. A cold wind swept the
ruins as our ships came to anchor and our aircraft began to spread
out in formation, scouting for any signs of resistance. The Chaka
made several flights over New York, dropping sometimes to a height
of fifty feet. There were plenty of signs that these ruins were inhab-
ited. Large fires burned in the hollows formed by tumbled concrete
slabs, groups of ragged men and women ran for cover as the shadow
of our great craft touched them, while others merely stood and
gaped.
Elsewhere I had the impression that some form of order existed. I
thought I glimpsed dirty white uniforms—soldiers wearing what might
have been helmets which obscured their faces. No shots were fired at
us, however, by the small groups which hastily made for the shadows
whenever we approached.
The scene was made even more desolate by the presence of great
drifts of snow, much of it dirty and half melted, everywhere.
"I see hardly any point in bothering to take the place," I said to
General Hood.
He frowned at this. "It was a question of destroying the morale of
any defenders—here or in other parts of the country," he said. There
was an expression of almost fanatical intensity on his black features,
and his eyes never left the ruins. From time to time he would say,
with a mixture of nostalgia and satisfaction, that this was where he
had had his first flat in New York, there was where he had worked
for one summer as a student, that the heap of rusting girders and
shattered stone over which we flew was some famous museum or
office building. It was not pleasant to hear him speaking thus—a sort
of litany of gloating triumph. Slightly sickened, I turned away from

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
the observation window and saw Una Persson standing behind us, a
look of quizzical and yet tender melancholy on her face, as if she, in
her way, also regretted having to listen to Cicero Hood's morbidly
gleeful remarks.
"It will be nightfall in three hours," she said. "Perhaps it would be
best to wait until morning before making the landing?"
He turned, almost angry. "No! We land now. I'll give the com-
mand. Let them see my power!" He reached for a speaking tube,
barking orders into it. "Prepare for landing! Any resistance to be met
without mercy. Tonight the Ashanti celebrate. Let the men have
whatever spoils they can find. Contact our friends here. Bring the
leaders to me as soon as they have revealed themselves. Tomorrow
we continue towards Washington!"
It was with pity that I returned my attention to the ruins. "Could
you not spare them?" I asked him. "Have they not suffered too
much?"
"Not from me, Mr. Bastable." His voice was savage. "Not from
me!"
He refused to continue any sort of conversation, waving a dismis-
sive hand at both Miss Persson and myself. "If you cannot share my
pleasure, then pray do not try to spoil it for me! Go, both of you. I
want no whites here!"
Miss Persson was plainly hurt, but she did not remonstrate. She
left when I left, and we went together to another observation deck,
forward, where we probably had a better view of the landing.
First came the infantry, brought ashore in the boats and lining up
in orderly ranks on what remained of the quays. Next, huge ramps
were extended from the ships, and from out of their bowels began to
rumble the great armour-plated land ironclads. It hardly seemed pos-
sible that so many of the cumbersome machines could have been
contained even in that large fleet. Rolling over every obstacle, they
manoeuvred into wedge-shaped formations, all facing inland, their
top turrets swinging round to threaten New York with their long
guns, their lower turrets rotating slowly as their crews ran a series of
tests to make sure that they were in perfect working order. Although
the Ashanti had lost about half their force during the battle of the
Atlantic, they could still field a good-sized army, and it was doubtful
if the United States, crushed by the terrible war between the nations,
could find anything likely to withstand them. The U.S.A. must now
depend on the Australasian-Japanese Federation for support (and

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273
we all were sure that they would make some new attempts to stop
General Hood).
But now at last I was to see what had been hidden in that gigantic
hull which we had towed all the way from Africa. And Una Persson's
expression became eager as the hull was towed into position against
the dockside.
"This is the result of what I was able to find in England, Mr. Bas-
table," she said in an excited murmur. "An invention of O'Bean's
that was regarded as too terrible ever to put into production, even at
the height of the war. Watch!"
I watched as the dusk began to gather. From somewhere inside the
hull bolts were withdrawn, releasing the sides so that they fell back-
wards into the sea and forwards onto the dock. One by one the sec-
tions swung down until the contents of the hull were revealed. It was
a ziggurat of steel. Tier upon tier it rose, utterly dwarfing the as-
sembled machines which had already landed. From each tier there
jutted guns which put to shame anything we had had on the Dingis-
wayo. On the topmost turret (the smallest on this metal pyramid)
were mounted four long-snouted guns, on the second turret down
there were six such guns, on the third there were twelve, on the
fourth there were eighteen. On the fifth tier could be seen banks of
smaller guns, perhaps a third of the size of the others, for use in
close-range fire. There were about thirty of these. On the sixth tier
down were some fifty similar guns, while on the seventh and bot-
tommost tier were upwards of a hundred of the most modern steam
Gatlings, each capable of firing a hundred and fifty rounds a minute.
There were also slits in the armour plating all the way up, for
riflemen. There were grilled observation ports in every tier, and each
turret was capable of swivelling independently of the others, just as
each gun was capable of a wide range of movement within the turret.
The whole thing was mounted on massive wheels, the smallest of
these wheels being at least four times the height of a man, mounted
(I learned later) on separate chassis in groups of ten, which meant
that the vast machine could move forwards, backwards, or sideways
whenever it wished. Moreover, the size of the wheels and the weight
they carried could crush almost any obstacle.
This was General Hood's secret weapon. It must have taken half
the wealth of Africa and Europe combined to build it. There had
never been any moving thing of its size in the world before (and pre-
cious few nonmobile things!). With it, I felt sure, the Black Attila

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was invincible. No wonder he had been prepared to sacrifice the rest
of his invasion fleet in order to protect it!
This was truly a symbol of the final war, of Armageddon! A
leviathan released upon the land, a monster capable of destroying
anything in its path, a steel-clad, gargantuan dragon bringing roaring
death to all who resisted. Its gleaming blue-grey hull displayed on
four sides of each of its tiers the scarlet circle framing the black,
rampant lion of Ashanti, symbol of a powerful, vengeful Africa, of
an Africa which remembered the millions of black slaves who had
been crowded into stinking, disease-ridden hulks to serve the White
Dream, of an Africa which had waited for its moment to release this
invulnerable creature upon the offspring of those who had tortured
its people, insulted them, killed them, terrified them, and robbed
them over the centuries.
If justice it was, then it was to be a fearful and a spectacular jus-
tice indeed!
As I watched the Land Leviathan roll through concrete and steel
as easily as one might crush grass beneath one's feet, I thought not
merely of the fate which was about to befall America, but what
might happen to the rest of the world, particularly Bantustan, when
Hood had realised his plans here.
Having created such a beast, it seemed to me, he would have to go
on using it. Ultimately it must become the master, conquering the
conqueror, until nothing of the world survived at all!
Certainly that had been the logic of this world up to now, and I
saw nothing—save perhaps the ideal that was the country of Bantus-
tan—to deny that logic.
I felt then that it was my moral duty to do anything I could to stop
Hood's terrible pattern of conquest, but the assassination of one man
no longer seemed the answer. In a quandary I turned away from the
scene as night fell and the lights of the Land Leviathan pierced the
darkness like so many fearsome eyes.
Miss Persson said something to me, but I did not hear her. I stum-
bled from the observation deck, my mind in complete confusion, cer-
tain that she and I might well be, in a short while, the last surviving
members of our race.

CHAPTER THREE
The Deserter
It took five hours to crush New York. And "crush" is quite liter-
ally the proper description. Hood's monstrous machine rolled at will
through the ruins, pushing down the few towers which remained
standing, firing brief, totally destructive, barrages into the positions
of those who resisted. All the blacks in New York, who had been
fighting the whites well before we arrived, rallied at once to Hood's
black and scarlet banner, and by noon the few defenders who re-
mained alive were rounded up and interrogated for the information
they could supply concerning other pockets of resistance across the
country.
Hood invited me to be present at one of these questioning ses-
sions, and I accepted, hoping only that I could put in a plea for
mercy for the poor devils who had fallen into Ashanti hands.
Hood was now dressed in a splendid military uniform—also black
and scarlet, but with a considerable quantity of gold and silver braid
and a three-cornered hat sporting the same ostrich plumes as his
Lion Guard. Hood had confided to me that such braggadocio was
completely against his instincts, but that he was expected to affect the
proper style both by his enemies and by those who followed him. He
had a curved sword almost permanently in his right hand, and stuck
into his belt, unholstered, were two large, long-barrelled automatic
pistols, rather like Mausers. The prisoners were being questioned in
what remained of the cellar of a house which had stood on Washing-
ton Square. They were wounded, half starved, filthy, and frightened.
Their white hoods (there were some superstitions which had grown
up that these hoods protected them from the plague) had been torn
from their heads, and their uniforms, crudely fashioned from flour
sacks, were torn and blood-stained. I did not, I must admit, feel any
pride in these representatives of my own race. They would have been

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gutter rats no matter what conditions prevailed in New York, and
doubtless it was because they were gutter rats that they had managed
to survive, with the ferocity and tenacity of their kind. They were
spitting, snarling, shrieking at their Ashanti conquerors, and their
language was the foulest I have ever heard. Miss Persson stood
nearby, and I would have given anything in the world for her not to
have been subjected to that disgusting swearing.
The man who seemed to be the leader of the group (he had con-
ferred upon himself the title of governor!) had the surname of
Hoover, and his companions referred to him as Speed. He was a typ-
ical example of that breed of New York small-time crooks who are
ready to take up any form of crime so long as there is little chance of
being caught. It was written all over his mean, ugly, hate-filled face.
Doubtless, before he elected himself "governor," he had contented
himself with robbing the weak and the helpless, of frightening chil-
dren and old folk, and running errands for the larger, more success-
ful gang bosses of the city. Yet I felt a certain sympathy for him as
he continued to rant and rave, turning his attention at last upon me.
"As fer yer, ya nigger-lover, yore nuttin' but a dirty traitor!" was
the only repeatable statement of this kind that he made. He spat at
me, then turned on the mild-faced lieutenant (I think he was called
Azuma) who had been questioning him. "We knew you niggers wuz
comin'—we bin hearin' 'bout it fer months now—an' dey're gettin'
ready fer yer. Dey got plans—dey got a way o' stoppin' yer real
good!" He sniggered. "Yer got der artillery—but yer ain't got der
brains, see? Yer'll soon be t'rowin' in der sponge. It'll take more'n
what you got ter lick real white men!"
His threats, however, were all vague, and it soon became obvious
to Lieutenant Azuma that there was little point in continuing with his
questions.
I had not taken kindly to being called a traitor by this riffraff, yet
there was, I suppose, some truth in what he had said. I had not lifted
my voice, let alone a finger, to try to stop Hood so far.
Now I said: "I must ask you, General Hood, to spare these men's
lives. They are prisoners of war, after all."
Hood exchanged a look of cruel amusement with Lieutenant
Azuma. "But surely they are hardly worth sparing, Mr. Bastable," he
said. "What use would such as these be in any kind of society?"
"They have a right to their lives," I said.
"They would scarcely agree with you if you were speaking up for
me," said Cicero Hood coldly now. "You heard Hoover's remark

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277
about 'niggers.' If our situation were reversed, do you think your
pleas would be heard?"
"No," I said. "But if you are to prove yourself better than such as
Hoover, then you must set an example."
"That is your Western morality, again," said Hood. Then he
laughed, without much humour. "But we had no intention of killing
them. They will be left behind in the charge of our friends. They will
help in the rebuilding of New Benin, as the city is to be called hence-
forth."
With that, he strode from the cellar, still laughing that peculiar,
blood-chilling laugh.
And so Hood's land fleet rolled away from New York, and now I
was a passenger in one of the smaller fighting machines. Our next ob-
jective was Philadelphia, where again Hood was, in his terms, going
to the relief of the blacks there. The situation for blacks in the
America of this day was, I was forced to admit, a poor one. The
whites, in seeking a scapegoat for their plight, had fixed, once again,
upon the blacks. The other superstitious reason that so many of them
wore those strange hoods was because they had conceived the idea
that blacks were somehow "dirtier" than the whites and that they
had been responsible for spreading the plagues which had followed
the war, as they had followed it in England. In many parts of the
United States, members of the black race were being hunted like ani-
mals and burned alive when they were caught—the rationale for this
disgusting behaviour being that it was the only way to be sure that
the plague did not spread. For some reason blacks had not been so
vulnerable to the various germs contained in the bombs, and it had
been an easy step in the insane logic of whites to see the black peo-
ple, therefore, as carriers. For two years or more, black groups had
been organising themselves, under instructions from Hood's agents,
awaiting the day when the Ashanti invaded. Hood's claim that he
was "liberating" the blacks was admittedly not entirely unfounded in
truth.
Nonetheless I did not feel that any of this was sufficient to vin-
dicate Hood.
Headed by the Land Leviathan, the conquering army looted and
burned its way through the states of New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania, and wherever it paused it set up its black and scarlet
banners, leaving local bands of blacks behind to administer the con-
quered territories.

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It was during the battle in which Philadelphia was completely de-
stroyed and every white man, woman, and child slain by the pound-
ing guns of the Land Leviathan, that I found my opportunity to "de-
sert" the Black Horde, first falling back from the convoy of which
my armoured carriage was part, and then having the luck to capture
a stray horse.
My intention was to head for Washington and warn the defenders
there of what they might expect. Also, if possible, I wished to discuss
methods of crippling the Land Leviathan. My only plan was that the
monster should somehow be lured close to a cliff top and fall over,
smashing itself to pieces. How this could be achieved, I had not the
slightest idea!
My ride from Philadelphia to the city of Wilmington probably set
something of a record. Across the countryside groups of black "sol-
diers" were in conflict with whites. In my Ashanti uniform I was prey
to both sides and would doubtless have fared worst at the hands of
the whites who regarded me as a traitor than at the hands of the
blacks, if I had been caught. But, by good fortune, I avoided capture
until I rode into Wilmington, which had not suffered much bombing
and merely had the deserted, overgrown look of so many of
America's "ghost cities." On the outskirts I stripped off my black
tunic and threw it away—though the weather was still very cold—and
dressed only in my singlet and britches, dismounted from my horse
and searched for the local white leader.
They found me first. I was moving cautiously along one of the
main thoroughfares when they suddenly appeared on all sides, wear-
ing the sinister white hoods so reminiscent of those old knights of the
South, the Ku Klux Klan, whose fictional adventures had thrilled me
as a boy. They asked me who and what I was and what I wanted in
Wilmington. I told them that it was urgent I should meet their leader,
that I had crucial news of the Black Attila.
Shortly I found myself in a large civic building which a man
named Joe "Bomber" Kennedy was using as his headquarters. He
had got his nickname, I learned later, from his skill in manufacturing
explosive devices from a wide variety of materials. Kennedy had
heard about me and it was only with the greatest self-restraint that he
did not shoot me on the spot there and then—but he listened and he
listened attentively and eventually he seemed satisfied that I was tell-
ing the truth. He informed me that he had already planned to take
his small "army" to Washington, to add it to the growing strength of
the defenders. It would do no harm, he said, if I came with them, but

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
279
he warned me that if at any time it seemed that I was actually spying
for Hood, I would be killed in the same way that blacks were killed
in those parts. I never found out what he meant, and my only clue,
when I enquired, was in the phrase which a grinning member of Ken-
nedy's army quoted with relish. "Ever heard of 'burn or cut' in En-
gland, boy?" he asked me.
The whites had managed to build up the old railroad system, for
most of the lines had survived the war and the locomotives were still
functional, burning wood rather than coal these days. It was Ken-
nedy's plan to transport himself and his army by rail to Washington
(for there was a direct line), and the next day we climbed aboard the
big, old-fashioned train, with myself and Kennedy joining the driver
and fireman on the footplate for, as Kennedy told me, "I don't
wanna risk not keepin' you under my sight."
The train soon had a good head of steam and was rolling away
from Wilmington in no time, its first stop being Baltimore, where
Kennedy hoped to pick up a larger force of men.
As we rushed through the devastated countryside, Kennedy
confided in me something of his life. He claimed that he had once
been a very rich man, a millionaire, before the collapse. His family
had come from Ireland originally and he had no liking for the En-
glish, whom he was inclined to rate second only to "coons" as being
responsible for the world's ills. It struck me as ironic that Kennedy
should have a romantic attachment to one oppressed minority (as he
saw it) but feel nothing but loathing for another.
Kennedy also told me that they were already making plans in
Washington to resist the Black Attila. "They've got something up
their sleeves which'll stop him in his tracks," he said smugly, but he
would not amplify the statement, and I had the impression that he
was not altogether sure what the plan was.
Kennedy had also heard that there was a strong chance that the
Washington "army" would receive reinforcements from the Austral-
asian-Japanese fleet which, he had it on good authority, had already
anchored off Chesapeake Bay. I expressed the doubt that anything
could withstand the Black Attila's Land Leviathan, but Kennedy was
undaunted. He rubbed his nose and told me that there was "more
than one way of skinnin' a coon."
Twice the train had to stop to take on more wood, but we were
getting closer and closer to Baltimore and the city was little more
than an hour away when a squadron of land ironclads appeared
ahead of us, firing at the train. They flew the lion banner of Ashanti

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
and must have gone ahead of the main army (perhaps having re-
ceived intelligence that trains of white troops were on their way to
Washington). I saw the long guns in their main turrets puff red fire
and white smoke and a number of shells hit the ground close by. The
driver was for putting on the brakes and surrendering, feeling that we
did not have a chance, but Kennedy, for all that he might have been
a cruel, ignorant, and stupid man, was not a coward. He sent the
word back along the train to get whatever big guns they could work-
ing, then he told the engineer to give the old locomotive all the speed
she could take, and drove straight towards the lumbering war ma-
chines which were now on both sides of the track, positioned on the
steep banks so that they could fire down at us as we passed.
I was reminded of an old print I once saw—a poster, I think, for
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show-of Indians attacking a train. The land
ironclads were able to match our speed (for the train was carrying a
huge number of cars), and their turrets could swing rapidly to shoot
at us from any angle. Shell after shell began to smash into the train,
but still she kept going, making for the safety of a long tunnel ahead
of us, where the land 'clads could not follow.
We reached the tunnel with some relief and the engineer was for
slowing down and stopping in the middle in the hope that the enemy
machines would give up their chase, but Kennedy considered this a
foolish scheme.
"They'll come at us from both ends, man!" he said. "They'll bur-
row through from the roof—they've got those 'mole' things which can
bore through anything. We'll be like trapped rabbits down a hole if
we stay here." I think there was sense to what he said, though our
chances in the open were scarcely any better. Still, under his orders,
the train raced on, breaking through into daylight to find half a
dozen land ironclads waiting for it, their guns aimed at the mouth of
the tunnel. How the locomotive survived that fusillade I shall never
know, but survive it did, with part of the roof and a funnel shot away
and its tender of wood blazing from the effects of a direct hit by an
incendiary shell.
The rest of the train, however, was not so lucky.
A shell cut the coupling attaching us to the main part of the train,
and we lurched forward at a speed which threatened to hurl us from
the tracks. Without the burden of the rest of the train, we were soon
able to leave the ironclads behind. I looked back to see the stranded
"army" fighting it out with the armoured battleships of the land.
They were being pounded to pieces.

THE LAND LEVIATHAN	281
Then we had turned a bend and left the scene behind. Kennedy
looked crestfallen for a moment, and then he shrugged. There was
little that could be done.
"Ah well," he said. "We'll not be stopping in Baltimore now."

CHAPTER FOUR
The Triumphant Beast
Washington, surprisingly, had not sustained anything like the
damage done to cities like New York and London. The government
and all its departments had fled the capital before the war had got
into its stride and had retired to an underground retreat somewhere
in the Appalachians. It had survived the explosives, but not the
plagues. Having little strategic importance, therefore, Washington
had most of its famous buildings and monuments still standing.
These overblown mock-Grecian, mock-Georgian tributes to grandi-
ose bad taste could be seen in the distance as we steamed into the
outskirts of the city, to be stopped by recently constructed barriers.
These barriers had existed for only a week or so, but I was surprised
at their solidity. They were of brick, stone, and concrete, reinforced
by neatly piled sand bags, and, I gathered, they protected the whole
of the inner city. Kennedy's credentials were in order—he was recog-
nised by three of the guards and welcomed as something of a hero—
and we were allowed to continue through to the main railroad sta-
tion, where we handed our locomotive over to the authorities. We
were escorted through the wide, rather characterless streets (the fa-
mous trees had all been cut down in the making of the barriers and
for fuel to power the trains) to the White House, occupied now by
"President" Penfield, a man who had once been a distinguished dip-
lomat in the service of his country, but who had quickly profited
from the hysteria following the war—he was believed to have been
the first person to "don the white hood." Penfield was fat and his red
face bore all the earmarks of depravity. We were ushered into a
study full of fine old Colonial-style furniture which gave the impres-
sion that nothing had changed since the old days. The only difference
was in the smell and in the man sprawled in a large armchair at a
desk near the bay window. The smell would have been regarded as

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
283
offensive even in one of London's East End public houses—a mixture
of alcohol, tobacco smoke, and human perspiration. Dressed in the
full uniform of an American general, with the buttons straining to
keep his tunic in place over his huge paunch, President Penfield
waved a hand holding a cigar by way of greeting and gestured with
the other hand, which held a glass, for us to be seated. "I'm glad you
could make it, Joe," he said to Kennedy, who seemed to be a close
acquaintance. "Have a drink. Help yourself." He ignored me.
Kennedy went to a sideboard and poured himself a large glass of
Bourbon. "I'm sorry I couldn't bring you any men," he said. "You
heard, did you, Fred? We got hit by a big fleet of that nigger's land
'clads. We were lucky to get through at all."
"I heard." Penfield turned small, cold eyes on me. "And this is the
traitor, is it?"
"I had better tell you now," I said, though suddenly I was reluc-
tant to justify myself, "that I joined Cicero Hood's entourage with
the express purpose of trying to put a stop to his activities."
"And how did you intend to do that, Mr. Bastable?" said Penfield
leaning forward and winking at Kennedy.
"My original plan was to assassinate him," I said simply.
"But you didn't."
"After the Land Leviathan made its appearance I saw that killing
Hood would do no good. He is the only one who has any control at
all over the Black Horde. To kill him would have resulted in making
things worse for you and all the other Europeans."
Penfield sniffed sceptically and sipped his drink, adding: "And
what proof have we got of all this? What proof is there that you're
not still working for Hood, that you're not planning to kill me?"
"None," I said. "But I want to discuss ways of stopping the Land
Leviathan," I told him. "Those walls you're building will stop that
monster no more than would paper. If we can dig some kind of deep
trench—lay a trap like a gigantic animal trap—we might be able to
put it out of action for a while at least. . . ."
But President Penfield was smirking and shaking his head. "We're
ahead of you, Mr. Bastable. There's more than one kind of wall, you
know. You've only seen what you might call our first line of de-
fense."
"There isn't anything made strong enough to stop the Land Le-
viathan," I said emphatically.
"Oh, I don't know." Penfield gave Kennedy another of his secret

284
THE NOMAD OF TIME
looks. "Do you want to show him around, Joe? I think we can trust
him. He's one of us."
Kennedy was not so sure. "Well, if you think so . . ."
"Sure I do. I have my hunches. He's okay. A bit misguided, a bit
short on imagination-a bit English, eh? But a decent sort. Welcome
to Washington, Mr. Bastable. Now you'll see how that black scum is
to be stopped."
A while later we left the White House in a horse-drawn carriage
provided for us. Kennedy, with some pride, explained how the Capi-
tol had been turned into a well-defended arsenal and how every one
of those overblown neo-Grecian buildings contained virtually every
operational big gun left in the United States.
But it was not the architecture or the details of the defense system
which arrested my vision—it was what I saw in the streets as I passed.
Washington had always had a very large black population, and now
this population was being put to use by the whites. I saw gangs of
exhausted half-starved men, women, and children, shackled to one
another by chains about the neck, wrists, or ankles, hauling huge
loads of bricks and sand bags to the barricades. It was a scene from
the past—with sweating, dying black slaves being worked, quite liter-
ally, to death by brutal white overseers armed with long bullwhips
which they used liberally and with evident relish. It was a sight I had
never expected to witness in the twentieth century! I was horrified,
but did my best not to betray my emotion to Kennedy, who had not
appeared to notice what was going on!
More than once I winced and was sickened when I saw some poor,
near-naked woman fall and receive a torrent of abuse, kicking, and
whipping until she was forced to her feet again or helped to her feet
by her companions. Once I saw a half-grown boy collapse, and it was
quite plain that he was dead, but his fellow slaves were made to drag
his corpse with them by the chains which secured his wrists to theirs.
Trying to appear insouciant, I said as coolly as I could: "I see
now how you managed to raise the walls so quickly. You have rein-
troduced slavery."
"Well, you could call it that, couldn't you?" Kennedy grinned.
"The blacks are performing a public service, like the rest of us, help-
ing to build up the country again. Besides"—and his face became
serious—"it's what they know best. It's what most of 'em prefer. They
don't think and feel the same as us, Bastable. It's like your worker
bee—stop him from working and he becomes morbid and unhappy.
Eventually he dies. It's the same with the Negroes."

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
285
"Their ultimate fate would seem to be identical, however you look
at it," I commented.
"Sure, but this way they're doing some good."
I must have seen several thousand blacks as we travelled through
the streets of Washington. A few were evidently employed as individ-
ual servants and were in a somewhat better position than their fel-
lows, but most were chained together in gangs, sweating copiously
for all that the weather was chill. There was little hope on any of
their faces, and I was not proud of my own race when I looked at
them; also I could not help recalling the pride—arrogance, some
would call it—in the bearing of Hood's Ashanti troops.
I stifled the thought, at that moment, but it kept coming back to
me with greater and greater force. It was unjust to enslave other
human beings and cruel to treat them in such a manner, whichever
side committed the injustice. Yet it seemed to me that there was a
grain more justice in Hood's policies—for he was repaying a debt,
whereas men such as Penfield and Kennedy were acting from the
most brutal and cynical of motives.
Mildly, I said: "But isn't it poor economics to work them so hard?
They'll give you better value if they're treated a little better."
"That logic led to the Civil War, Mr. Bastable," said Kennedy, as
if speaking to a child. "You start thinking like that and sooner or
later they decide they deserve to be treated like white men and you
get the old social ills being repeated over again. Besides"—he grinned
broadly—"there's not a lot of point in worrying too much about the
life expectancy of our Washington niggers, as you'll see."
We were driving close to one of the main walls now. Here, as ev-
erywhere, huge gangs of blacks were being forced to work at inhu-
man speed. It was no longer any mystery how Washington had man-
aged to get its defenses up so rapidly. I tried to recall the stories of
what Hood had done to the whites in Scandinavia, but even the sto-
ries, exaggerated and encouraged by Hood himself to improve his
savage image, paled in comparison to the reality of what was hap-
pening in modern-day Washington!
As we passed the walls, I noticed that large cages, rather like the
cages used for transporting circus animals about the country, were
much in evidence on top of the walls. I pointed them out and asked
Kennedy what they were.
He smirked as he leaned back in the carriage and lit a cigar.
"They, Mr. Bastable, are our secret weapon."
I did not ask him to amplify this statement. I had become too sad-

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dened by the fate of the black slaves. I told Kennedy that I was tired
and would like to rest. The carriage was turned about, and I was
taken to a hotel quite close to the Capitol, where I was given a room
overlooking a stretch of parkland.
But even here I could look out through my windows and see evi-
dence of the brutality of the whites. Not a hundred yards away, a pit
of quicklime had been sunk, and into it, from time to time, carts
would dump the bodies of the dead and the dying.
I thought that I had witnessed hell in southern England, but now I
knew that I had only been standing on the outskirts. Here, where it
had once been declared an article of faith that all men were created
equal, where it had seemed possible for the eighteenth-century ideals
of reason and justice to be made reality, here was hell, indeed!
And it was a hell created in the name of my own race, whose sur-
vival I hoped to ensure with my resistance to Hood and his Black
Horde.
I slept badly at the hotel and the next morning sought an interview
with President Penfield at the White House. I received word that he
was too busy to see me. I wandered about the streets, but there was
too much there to turn my stomach. I began to feel angry. I felt frus-
trated. I wanted to remonstrate with Penfield, to beg him to show
mercy to the blacks, to set an example of tolerance and decency to
his white-hooded followers. Gandhi had been right. There was only
one way to behave, even if it seemed, in the short term, against one's
self-interest. Surely it was in one's self-interest in the long term to
exhibit generosity, humanity, kindness, and a sense of justice to one's
fellowmen. It was cynicism of Penfield's kind which had, after all, led
to the threatened extinction of the whole human race. There could be
no such thing as a "righteous" war, for war was by its very nature an
act of injustice against the individual, but there could be such a thing
as an "unrighteous" war—an evil war, a war begun by men who were
utterly corrupt, both morally and intellectually. I had begun to think
that it was a definition of those who would make war—that what-
ever motives they claimed, whatever ideals they promoted, whatever
"threat" they referred to, they could not be excused—because of their
actions they could only be of a degenerate and immoral character.
Gandhi had said that violence bred violence. Well, it seemed that I
was witnessing a living lesson in this creed! I realised how close I
had, myself, been on the brink of behaving brutally and cynically,
when I had contemplated the assassination of Hood.
Once again, at about the worst time possible, I found my loyalties

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287
divided, my mind in confusion, filled with a sense of the impossibility
of any action whatsoever on my own part.
I had wandered away from the main streets of Washington and
into a series of residential streets full of those fine terraced houses
reminiscent of England's Regency squares and crescents. The houses,
however, were much run-down. In most cases there was no glass in
the windows, and many doors showed signs of having been forced. I
guessed that there had been fighting here, not by an invading army,
but between black and white.
I was speculating, again, on the nature of the animal cages placed
along the walls of the city, when I turned a corner and was con-
fronted with a long line of black workers, chained ankle to ankle,
shuffling along the centre of the road and pulling a big, wheeled plat-
form on which had been piled a tottering mountain of sand bags.
There was hardly one of these people who was not bleeding from the
cuts of the long whips wielded by armed overseers. Many seemed
hardly capable of putting one foot in front of the other. They seemed
destined, very shortly, for the lime pits—and yet they were singing.
They were singing as the Christian martyrs had been said to sing on
their way to the Roman arena. They were singing a dirge of which it
was difficult to distinguish the words at first. The white men, clad in
heavy hoods, were yelling at them to stop. Their voices were muffled,
but their whips were eloquent. But still the black people sang, and
now I made out some of the words.
He will come—he will come
Out of Africa—he will come—
He will ride the Beast—he will come—
He will set us free—he will come—
He will bring us Pride—he will come-
There was no question, of course, that the song referred to Hood
and that it was being sung deliberately to incense the whites. The re-
frain was being sung by a tall, handsome young man who somehow
managed to lift his head and keep his shoulders straight no matter
how many savage blows fell upon him. His dignity and his courage
were so greatly in contrast to the hysterical and cowardly actions of
the whites that it was impossible to feel anything but admiration for
him.
But I think that the gang of slaves was doomed. They would not

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stop singing, and now, ominously, the hooded whites lowered their
whips and began to take their guns from their shoulders.
The procession stopped.
The voices stopped.
The first white ripped off his hood and revealed a hate-filled face
which could have seen no more than seventeen summers. He raised
his weapon to his shoulder, grinning.
"Okay—you wanna go on singing?"
The tall black man took a breath, knowing that it was probably his
last, and began the first words of the chant.
That was when, impulsively, I went for the boy, throwing my
whole weight against him so that his shot went into the air. I had
grabbed the gun even as I fell on top of him. I heard confused shouts
and then heard the sharp report of another rifle. I saw a bullet strike
the body of the boy and I used that body as cover, shooting back at
my fellow whites!
I should not have lasted long, of course, had not the tall black ut-
tered a bellow which was almost gleeful and led his companions
upon the whites, who had their backs to the blacks while they con-
centrated on me.
I saw white hoods bobbing for a moment in a sea of black, blis-
tered flesh. I heard a few shots fired and then it was over. The whites
lay dead upon the pavement and the blacks were using their guns to
shoot themselves free of the chains on their legs. I was not sure how
I would be received and I stood up cautiously, ready to rim if neces-
sary, for I knew that many blacks felt little sentimentality to whites,
even if those whites were not directly involved in harming them.
Then the black youth grinned at me. "Thanks, mister. Why ain't
you wearing your hood?"
"I have never worn one," I told him. "I'm British."
I suppose I must have sounded a little pompous, for the youth
laughed aloud at this, before saying: "We'd better get off the streets
fast."
He began to direct his people into the nearby houses, which
proved to be deserted. The wheeled platform and the corpses of the
whites, stripped of their guns and, for some mysterious reason, their
hoods, were left behind.
The youth led us through the backyards of the houses, darting
from building to building until he came to one he recognised. This he
entered, leading us into the cellars and there pausing for breath.
"We'll leave those who're too sick to go any farther here," he said.

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289
"Also the kids." He grinned at me. "What about you, mister? You
can give us that rifle and go free, if you want to. There were no
witnesses. You'll be all right. They'll never know there was a white
man involved."
"I think that they should know," I found myself saying. "My
name's Bastable. I was until recently an observer attached to General
Hood's staff. Recently I deserted and came over to the white cause.
Now I have decided to serve only the cause of humanity. I am with
you, Mr.—"
"Call me Paul, Mr. Bastable. Well, that was a fine speech, sir, if,
might I say, a little on the prim side! But you've proved yourself to
me. You've got grit, and grit's what's needed in these troubled times.
Let's go."
He pulled back a couple of packing cases and revealed a hole in
the wall. Into this hole, which proved to give access to a passage con-
necting a whole series of houses, he led us, speaking to me over his
shoulder as we went. "Have they started filling the cages yet, do you
know?"
"I know nothing of the cages," I told him. "I was wondering what
function they were to serve. Somebody said they were Washington's
secret weapon against General Hood, but that mystified me even
more."
"Well, it might work," said Paul, "though I'm sure most of our
people would rather die."
"But what will they put in the cages? Wild beasts?"
Paul darted me an amused look. "Some would call them that,
mister. They're going to put us in them. If Hood starts to bombard
the walls, then he kills the people he intends to save. He can't liberate
Washington without killing every black man, woman, and child in
the city!"
If I had been disgusted with the whites up to now, I was stunned
completely by this information. It was reminiscent of the most bar-
baric practices I had read about in history. How could the whites
regard themselves as being superior to Hood when they were pre-
pared to use methods against him which even he had never contem-
plated, no matter how strong his hatred of the Caucasian race?
Washington was to be protected by a wall of living flesh!
"But all they can achieve by that is to stalemate Hood," I said.
"Unless they threaten to kill your people in the hope of forcing
Hood to withdraw."
"They'll do that, too, I suppose," Paul told me. We were squeez-

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
ing through a very narrow tunnel now, and I heard the distant sound
of rushing water. "But they've had news from the Austrajaps. If they
can hold Washington for twenty-four hours, there'll be a land fleet
coming to relieve them. Even those big ships of Hood's we've heard
about won't be able to fire without killing their own people. Hood
will have to make a decision—and either way he stands to lose some-
thing."
"They are fiends," I said. "It is impossible to regard them as
human beings at all."
"I was one of Hood's special agents before I was captured," Paul
said. "I was hoping to work out a way of helping him from inside,
but then they rounded up every black in the city. Our only chance
now is somehow to get into the main compound tonight, arm as
many people as possible, and try for a break."
"Do you think you'll be successful?" I asked.
Paul shook his head. "No, mister, I don't. But a lot of dead
niggers won't be much use to them when Hood does come, will
they?"
My nose was assailed by a sickening stench, and now I realised
where the sound of water had been coming from—the sewers. We
were forced to wade sometimes waist deep through foul water,
emerging at last in a large underground room already occupied by
about a score of blacks. These were all that remained of those who
had planned to rise in support of Hood when the moment came.
They had a fair-sized arsenal with them, but it was plain that there
was very little they could do now except die bravely.
Through that day we discussed our plans, and when evening came,
we crept up to the surface and moved through unfit streets to the
north side of the city, where the main slave compound was situated.
By the light of flares, many blacks were still working, and it was
obvious from what we heard that Hood's forces were almost here.
Our rifles on our shoulders, we marched openly along the broad
streets, heading north. Anyone who saw us would have taken us for a
detachment of soldiers, singularly well disciplined. And not once
were we stopped.
This had been the reason why the dead whites had been stripped
of their hoods earlier that day and why, now, every man and woman
in our party, with the exception of myself, wore a pair of gloves. The
morbid insanity of the whites was being used against them for the
first time. The hoods which they wore as a symbol of their fear and

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291
hatred of the black race were now helping members of that race to
march, unchallenged, under their very noses.
Behind us, wearing fetters which could easily be removed when
the moment came, was the rest of our party, dragging a big cart ap-
parently filled with bricks but actually containing the rest of our
guns.
More than once we felt we were near to discovery, but at last we
reached the gates of the compound. My own accent would have been
detected at once, so Paul spoke for us. He sounded most authori-
tative.
"Deliverin' these niggers an' pickin' up a new party," he said to
the guards.
The white-hooded guards were unsuspicious. Too many were com-
ing and going tonight, and there was more confusion than usual.
"Why are you all goin' in?" one asked as we walked through.
"Ain't you heard?" Paul told him. "There's been an outbreak. Ten
or twenty of our men killed by coons."
"I heard something," another guard agreed, but by now we were
inside the compound itself. It was unroofed—merely a large area in
which the black slaves slept in their chains until they were required
for work. A huge tub of swill in the centre of the compound was the
only food. Those strong enough to crawl to the tub ate, those who
were too weak either relied on their friends or starved. It did not
matter to the whites, for the blacks had almost fulfilled their func-
tion, now.
We moved into the darkest part of the compound, shouting orders
for the people to get to their feet and be inspected. Surreptitiously we
began to hand out the weapons.
But by now we had attracted the curiosity of two of the guards
who began, casually, to walk towards us.
For my sins, I must admit that I fired the first shot. I did it without
compunction, killing the guard instantly with a bullet to his heart.
The others began firing, running back towards the gate, but now our
luck had changed completely. Alerted by the shots, an old-fashioned
steam traction engine, crudely armoured and carrying a couple of
Gatlings, turned towards the compound and had filled the gate before
we could reach it.
There was a pause while the occupants of this primitive land 'clad
hesitated, seeing our white hoods, but the remaining guards shouted
up to them to open fire.
Soon we were diving for the shadows—our only cover—as a stream

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
of bullets raked the compound, killing with complete lack of discrim-
ination. Many of those who were still chained were cut down where
they lay, and we were forced to use their bodies for cover, shooting
desperately back while some of our party ran around the walls of the
compound, searching for a means of escape.
But the walls were high. They had been designed so as to be es-
cape-proof. We were trapped like rats, and all we could do now was
to go down fighting.
Slowly the traction engine rolled into the compound, firing as it
came. Our own bullets were useless against the armour, hastily made
as it was.
Paul, who lay next to me, put a hand on my arm. "Well, Mr. Bas-
table, you can console yourself that you picked the right side before
you died."
"It's not much comfort," I said.
Then the ground just in front of us suddenly heaved up, rippling
like the waves of the sea, and something metallic and familiar
emerged, its spiral snout spinning with an angry whine, directly in the
path of the traction engine. The sound of the Gatlings stopped and
was replaced by the dull boom-boom of an electric cannon.
Now two more metal "moles" broke the surface, also firing.
Within seconds the traction engine was reduced to a pile of twisted
wreckage and the "moles" moved forward, still firing, blasting great
holes in the walls of the compound.
I think we were cheering as we followed behind those strange ma-
chines. I am sure that O'Bean had never visualized such a use for
them! Every white hood we saw (we were no longer wearing our
own) was a target, and we shot at it.
I suppose it had been na'ive of me to think that so clever a strategist
as General Hood would not have taken the trouble to learn what the
defenders of Washington had planned—and taken steps to counter
their scheme. We spread out from the compound, heading for the
park spaces where there were still some bushes to give us cover.
And now I heard a distant noise, reminding me more than any-
thing else of the sound a carpet makes when it is being beaten. But I
knew what the noise signified.
Seconds later explosive shells began to whistle down upon Wash-
ington.
The Land Leviathan was coming.
We regrouped as best we could, using the armed digging machines
for cover, but keeping in the open as much as possible. Throughout

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293
the city now there were growing spots of light as buildings were fired
by the Land Leviathan's incendiary shells.
My own view of the Battle of Washington was an extremely par-
tial one, for I witnessed nothing of the strategy. Hood had heard that
AJF reinforcements were on their way and had moved his army
swiftly, planning to strike and overwhelm the city well before its al-
lies could arrive. Moreover he knew that he would not be expected to
attack at night, but it was immaterial to him at what hour he moved,
for the lights of the Land Leviathan could pick out a target at almost
any range.
As we fought our own little hit-and-run battle through the streets,
I saw the great beams from the monster's searchlights dart out from
the blackness, touch a building, marking it for destruction. Immedi-
ately would come that thunderous booming followed by a shrill
whine and then an explosion as the shells struck home.
Not that Washington was helpless. Her own guns, particularly
those in the Capitol itself, kept up a constant return fire, and I think
the ordinary land ironclads of the Black Horde would have had little
chance of taking the city on their own.
Somehow I became separated from the rest of my party when a
shell burst nearby and caused us to scatter. When the smoke cleared,
the steel "moles" had moved on, the little army of former slaves
going with them. I felt isolated and extremely vulnerable then and
began to search for my comrades, but twice had to change direction
as a party of white-hooded soldiers spotted me and began firing.
For an hour I kept low, sniping at the enemy when I saw him,
then darting away again. My instinct was to make for a building and
climb to the roof where I would be able to see the whites without
being seen myself, but I knew that it would be foolish to attempt
such a thing now, for buildings were being smashed to pieces all
around me, under the steady bombardment of the Land Leviathan's
many cannon.
I slowly made my way back towards the centre and found that
most of the enemy soldiers had been ordered to the walls. Suddenly
there was relative peace near the Capitol, save for the booming of
the guns situated inside the building. I sat down behind a bush to
collect my thoughts and get my bearings, when I heard the sound of
horses' hooves clattering towards me. They were coming very fast. I
peered from behind my bush and was astonished to see a large num-
ber of horsemen streaming hell-for-leather away from the walls, as if

294	THE NOMAD OF TIME
the devil himself was after them. The riders had removed their hoods
and their faces were grim and frightened and they shouted at their
mounts to give them more speed. Behind them, in a light, open car-
riage, came President Penfield, yelling wildly. Then came the running
men. Many had abandoned their weapons and had evidently pan-
icked. I lay in my cover, but need not have feared these soldiers.
They were far too terrified to stop and deal with me.
I next became aware of the ground trembling beneath me. Had
God finally made up His mind to act, to punish us all for what we
were doing? Had He sent an earthquake to destroy Washington?
A rumbling grew, louder and louder, and I peered ahead of me
into the darkness as I gradually began to realise what was happening.
Lights blazed from the night. Lights which had their source high
overhead, so that they might have been the lights of airships. But
they were not the lights of airships—all Hood's aerial battleships, it
later emerged, being concentrated on harassing the Australasian-
Japanese land fleet even now on its way to Washington. They were
the glaring "eyes" of the Land Leviathan itself.
On it came, breaking down everything which stood in its wake,
cutting a swath through buildings, gun emplacements, monuments.
The air was filled with a ghastly, grinding sound, the snorting of the
exhaust from its twelve huge engines, the peculiar sighing it gave out
whenever its wheels turned it in a slightly new direction.
This vast, moving ziggurat of destruction was what had panicked
Penfield and his men. It had first pounded the city with its guns and
then moved forward, breaking through the walls where they were
thought to be the strongest. Invincible, implacable, it rolled towards
the Capitol.
Now it was my turn to take to my heels, barely managing to fling
myself clear as it advanced, sighed again, and then stopped, looking
up at the Capitol in what seemed to me an attitude of challenge.
Almost hysterically, the Capitol's guns swung round and began
firing, and I had the impression, even as I risked death to watch, that
I witnessed two primitive beasts from the earth's remote past in
conflict.
The shells from the Capitol scored direct hit upon direct hit, but
they merely burst against the turrets of the Land Leviathan, which
did not at first reply.
Then the two top turrets began to turn until almost all her guns
were pointed directly at the great, white dome which even now re-
flected the flames of the buildings which burned all around it.

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
295
Twice the guns of the Land Leviathan spoke, in rapid succession.
The first barrage took the entire roof away. The second demolished
the walls, and the Capitol was silent. Again, the vast metal monster
began to lumber forward, its searchlights roaming this way and that
as if seeking out any others who might wish to challenge it.
At last the Land Leviathan rolled up and over the smoking, burn-
ing ruins while the air still resounded with the screams of those who
had not been killed outright, who had been crushed beneath its great
wheels or trapped somewhere under its belly. It rolled to the centre
of the ruins and stopped, squatting on the bones of its prey. Then,
one by one, its lights began to wink out as the dawn rose behind it.
Now, indeed, the Land Leviathan was a triumphant beast.

CHAPTER FIVE
A Matter of Loyalties
Ironically enough, it had been Miss Persson who had commanded
the group of metal "moles" which had saved us in the compound. As
I stood staring up at the Land Leviathan, oblivious of all else, I
heard a shout from behind me, and there she was, her body half out
of the forward hatch, waving to me.
"Good morning, Mr. Bastable. I thought we had lost you."
I turned towards her, feeling very tired now. "Is it over?"
"Very nearly. We've received wireless reports that the Austral-
asian-Japanese fleet has once again turned tail. It heard, over its own
apparatus, that Washington was ours. I think they will be willing to
negotiate the terms of a treaty with us now. Within the week we shall
be heading south. The month should see the whole United States lib-
erated."
For once I did not respond sardonically to that word. Having
witnessed the ferocity of the whites, I truly believed that the blacks
had been liberated.
"Thank you for saving my life," I said.
She smiled and made a little bow. "It was time I repaid you for
what you did for me." She looked up at a clear, cold sky. "Do you
think it will snow, Mr. Bastable?"
I shrugged and trudged towards the metal "mole." "Can you give
me a lift, Miss Persson?"
"Willingly, Mr. Bastable."
Well, Moorcock, that is pretty much the end of the tale I had for
you. I remained in Hood's service for the whole of the first year he
spent in the United States. There was some pretty bloody fighting,
particularly, as we had expected, in parts of the South (though there
were also some areas where we discovered whites and blacks living in
perfect harmony!), and not all of Hood's methods of warfare were

THE LAND LEVIATHAN
297
pleasant. On the other hand he was never unjust in his dealings with
the defeated and never matched the ferocity and brutality of those we
had encountered in Washington. Hood was not a kindly conqueror
and he had the blood of many on his hands, but he was, in his own
way, a just one. I was reminded, originally against my will, of Wil-
liam the Conqueror and the stern fair-mindedness with which he set
about the pacification of England in the eleventh century.
Among other things, I had witnessed the public hanging of Presi-
dent Penfield (discovered in the very sewers the blacks had used
when hiding from him!) and many of his senior supporters, including
Joe "Bomber" Kennedy. That had not been pretty, particularly since
Penfield and several of the others had died in a manner that was by
no means manly.
Yet no sooner had Hood established his power than he set his war
machines to peaceful purposes. Huge ploughs were adapted, to be
drawn by the ironclads, which could make a whole field ready for
planting in a matter of minutes. The airships carried supplies wher-
ever they were needed, and only the Land Leviathan was not used. It
remained where it had been since the morning after the battle, a sym-
bol of Hood's triumph. Later, the monster would be used when
required, but Hood thought it politic to leave it where it was for a
while, and I suppose he was right.
In the meantime, negotiations took place with the Australasian-
Japanese Federation, and a truce was agreed upon. Privately, Hood
thought that it might be a temporary truce and that, having once bro-
ken their policy of isolationism, the Australasian-Japanese might at-
tempt, at some future date, to invade. It was another reason why,
during the talks which took place in Washington, he left the Land
Leviathan in its position, glowering down upon us while we bar-
gained. My own feelings were not entirely in accord with his. I
thought it best to show them that we were no threat to their security,
for after all they still had O'Bean working for them, but Hood said
that it would be time enough in the future to show good faith—now
we must not let them believe they could strike again while we were
off guard. President Gandhi would not have approved, but eventually
I gave in to his logic.
I made one visit to Bantustan during the course of that year, to ar-
range for food and medical supplies to be sent out, for it would be
some time before America was entirely self-supporting. It was a pe-
culiar alliance, that between Gandhi the man of peace and Hood, the
Black Attila, the quintessential warlord, but it seemed to be an alii-

298
THE NOMAD OF TIME
ance which would work, for the two had great respect for each other.
During my leisure moments, I penned this "memoir"—mainly for
your eyes, Moorcock, because I feel that I owe you something. If you
can publish it—if you ever see it—well and good. Pretend that it is
fiction.
I spent a considerable amount of time in the company of Miss
Persson, but she continued to remain a mysterious figure. I attempted
to engage her in conversation about my previous adventures in a fu-
ture age, and she listened politely to me, but refused to be drawn.
However, rightly or wrongly, I conceived the impression that she,
like me, had also travelled through time and in various "alternate"
worlds. I also felt that she could so travel at will, and I desperately
hope that one day she will admit this and help me in returning to my
own world. As it is, I have given her this manuscript and told her
about you, the Valley of the Morning, and how important it is to me
that you should read it. The rest I have left to her. It is quite possible
that my convictions about her are wholly erroneous, but I think not.
I even wonder how much she was responsible for Hood's successes.
Black America is now a full partner in the Ashanti Empire. Her
wealth returns, and blacks are running the country. The remaining
whites are in menial positions, generally speaking, and will remain so
for some time. Hood told me that he intends "to punish one genera-
tion for the crimes of its forefathers." As the older generation dies
out, according to Hood's plan, he will gradually lift his heel from the
neck of the white race. I suppose that it is justice, of a sort, though I
cannot find it in my heart to approve wholly.
Myself and Una Persson, of course, are hated by the majority of
whites in America. We are regarded as traitors and worse. But Miss
Persson seems thoroughly unmoved by their opinion and I am only
embarrassed by it.
However, I am a creature of my own age, and a year was about
the most I could take of Hood's America. Many of his men were
good enough to tell me that they did not think of me as white, at
all, but got on with me as easily as any black man. I appreciated
what they meant, but it by no means made up for the thinly disguised
distaste with which I was regarded by many of the people with whom
I had to mix at Hood's "court." Thus, eventually, I begged the Black
Attila's permission to rejoin the service of Bantustan. Tomorrow I
shall board an airship which will take me back to Cape Town. Once
there I'll decide what to do.
You'll remember I speculated on my fate once—wondering if I was

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299
doomed to wander through a variety of different ages, of worlds
slightly different to my own, to experience the many ways in which
man can destroy himself or rebuild himself into something better.
Well, I still wonder that, but I have the feeling that I do not enjoy
the role. One day, I'll probably go back to Teku Benga and enter
that passage again, hoping that it will take me through to a world
where I am known, where my relatives will recognise me and I them,
where the good old British Empire continues on its placid, decent
course, and where the threat of a major war is very remote indeed.
It's not much to hope for, Moorcock, is it?
And yet, just as I feel a peculiar loyalty to you to try to get this
story to you somehow, so I am beginning to develop a loyalty not to
one man, like Hood or even Gandhi, not to one nation, one world or
even one period of history! My loyalty is at once to myself and to all
of mankind. It's hard for me to explain, for I'm not a thinking man,
and I suppose it looks pretty silly written down, but I hope you'll un-
derstand.
I don't suppose, Moorcock, that I shall ever see you again, but
you never know. I could turn up on your doorstep one day, with an-
other "tall tale" to tell you. But if I do turn up, then perhaps you
should start worrying, for it could mean another war!
Good luck, old man.
Yours, Oswald Bastable

EPILOGUE
It was getting on towards evening by the time I read the last few
pages of Bastable's manuscript, then picked up his note again,
plainly written some time later, when he had become more de-
pressed:
I am going to try my luck again. This time if I am not suc-
cessful, I doubt I shall have the courage to continue with
my life (if it is mine).
I sighed, turning the note over and over in my hand, baffled and
feeling that I must surely, this time, be dreaming.
Miss Persson had gone—vanished into nowhere with her bandits
and her guns of peculiar design and unbelievable efficiency (surely
proof of Bastable's own story and of his theories concerning her!).
All I had left was the horse which, if I was lucky, if I did not lose my
bearings, if I wasn't slaughtered by bandits, might get me back, say,
to Shanghai. I had lost most of my baggage, a fair amount of money,
and a good deal of time, and all I had to show for it was a mystifying
manuscript. Moreover, Miss Persson herself had become just as tan-
talising a mystery as Bastable. I was very little better ofE, as regards
my own peace of mind, than when I set out!
Eventually I rose, went to my own room, and fell immediately
asleep. In the morning I felt almost surprised when I saw the manu-
script still beside me, and as I peered from my window, the horse
placidly cropping at some sparse grass. I found a piece of paper and
scribbled a note to Miss (or was it Mrs.?) Persson, thanking her for
her hospitality and her manuscript. Then, by way of a joke that was
half serious, I scribbled my address in London and invited her to
drop in and see me "if you are ever in my part of the twentieth cen-
tury again."
A month later, thin and exhausted, I arrived in Shanghai. I spent
no more time in China than was necessary to get a passage home.

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301
And here, sitting at my desk in my little study with its window
overlooking the rolling, permanent hills of the West Riding, I read
through Bastable's manuscript and I try to understand the implica-
tions of his adventures, and I fail.
If anyone else ever reads this, perhaps he or she will be able to
make more of it than I.

EDITOR'S NOTE
Bastable was mystified, my grandfather was mystified, and
I must confess to being mystified myself—though such
speculations are supposed to be my stock in trade. I have
used, quite shamelessly, in novels of my own, some of the
ideas found in the book I've named The Warlord of the
Air, and, indeed, one or two of the characters (specifically
Una Persson who appears in The English Assassin) have
been "lifted." Perhaps Miss Persson will sometime come
across one of these books. If she does, I very much hope
she will pay me a visit—and possibly give me an answer to
the mystery of Oswald Bastable. I assure you that the mo-
ment she does, I shall pass the news on!
Michael Moorcock
Somewhere in the twentieth century

To my creditors,
who remain a permanent source
of inspiration

Introduction
The discovery and subsequent publication of two manuscripts left
in the possession of my grandfather has led to a considerable amount
of speculation as to their authenticity and authorship. The manu-
scripts consisted of one made in my grandfather's hand and taken
down from a man called Bastable whom he met on Rowe Island in
the early years of this century, and another, apparently written by
Bastable himself, which was left with my grandfather when he visited
China searching for the man who had become, he was told, "a nomad
of the time streams."
These very slightly edited texts were published by me as The
Warlord of the Air and The Land Leviathan and I was certain that
that was the last I should ever know of Bastable's adventures. When
I remarked in a concluding note to The Land Leviathan that I hoped
Una Persson would some day pay me a visit I was being ironic. I did
not believe that I should ever meet the famous chrononaut. However,
as luck would have it, I began to receive visits from her very shortly
after the publication of The Land Leviathan. For reasons of her own
she seemed glad to have me to talk to and gave me permission to use
much of what she told me about her experiences in our own and
others' time streams. On the matter of Oswald Bastable, however,
she was not very communicative and I learned very quickly not to
pump her on anything. Most of my references to him in other books
(for instance The Dancers at the End of Time) were highly specula-
tive.
However, in the late spring of 1979, shortly after I had finished a
novel and was resting from the consequent exhaustion, which had
left my private life in ruins and my judgment considerably weakened,
I had a visit from Mrs. Persson at my flat in London. I was in no
mood to see another human being, but she had heard from some-
where (or perhaps had already seen from the future) that I was in
distress and had come to see if there was anything she could do for
me. I said that there was nothing. Time and rest would deal with my
problems.

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INTRODUCTION
She acknowledged this and, with a small smile, added: "But even-
tually you will need to work."
I suppose I said something self-pitying about never being able to
work again (I share that in common with almost every creative per-
son I know) and she did not attempt to dissuade me from the notion.
"However," she said, "if you do ever happen to feel the urge, I'll be
in touch."
Curiosity caught me. "What are you talking about?"
"I have a story for you," she said.
"I have plenty of stories," I told her, "but no will to do anything
with them. Is it about Jherek Carnelian or the Duke of Queens?"
She shook her head. "Not this time."
"Everything seems pointless," I said.
She patted me on the arm. "You should go away for a bit.
Travel."
"Perhaps."
"And when you come back to London, I'll have the story wait-
ing," she promised.
I was touched by her kindness and her wish to be of use and I
thanked her. As it happened a friend fell ill in Los Angeles and I de-
cided to visit him. I stayed far longer in the United States than I had
originally planned and eventually, after a short stay in Paris, settled
in England again in the spring of 1980.
As Una Persson had predicted, I was, of course, ready to work.
And, as she had promised, she turned up one evening, dressed in her
usual slightly old-fashioned clothes of a military cut. We enjoyed a
drink and some general talk and I heard gossip from the End of
Time, a period which has always fascinated me. Mrs. Persson is a
seasoned time traveler and usually knows what and what not to tell,
for incautious words can have an enormous effect either on the time
streams themselves or on that rarity like herself, the chrononaut who
can travel through them more or less at will.
She has always told me that so long as people regard my stories as
fiction and as long as they are fashioned to read as fiction then nei-
ther of us should be victims of the Morphail Effect, which is Time's
sometimes radical method of readjusting herself and which manifests
itself most evidently in the fact that for most time travelers only "for-
ward" movement through time (i.e. into their own future) is possi-
ble. "Backward" movement (a return to their present or past) or
movement between the various alternative planes is impossible for
anyone save those few who make up the famous Guild of Temporal

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307
Adventurers. I knew that Bastable had become a member of this
Guild, but did not know how he had been recruited, unless it had
been in the Valley of the Dawn by Mrs. Persson herself.
"I have brought you something," she said. She settled herself in
her armchair and reached down for a black document case. "They
are not complete, but they are the best I can do. The rest you will
have to fill in from what I tell you and from your own perfectly good
imagination." It was a bundle of manuscript. I recognized the hand
at once. It was Bastable's.
"Good God!" I was astonished. "He's turning into a novelist!"
"Not exactly. These are fresh memoirs, that's all. He's read the
others and is perfectly satisfied with what you've done with them. He
was extremely fond of your grandfather and says that he would be
quite glad to continue the tradition with you. Particularly, he says,
since you've had rather better success in getting his stories pub-
lished!" She laughed.
The manuscript was a sizable one. I weighed it in my hand. "So he
was never able to find his own period again? Return to the life he so
desperately wished for?"
"That's not for me to say. You'll notice from the manuscript that
there's little explanation as to how he came to the particular alterna-
tive he describes. Suffice to say he returned to Teku Benga, crossed
into yet another time stream and found his way to the airship yards
at Benares. This time he was reconciled to what had happened and,
being an experienced airshipman, claimed slight amnesia and a loss
of papers and eventually got himself a mate's certificate, though it
was impossible for him, without impeccable credentials, to get a
berth with any of the major lines."
I smiled. "And he's still haunted by angst, I suppose?"
"To a degree. He has many lives on his conscience. He knows
only worlds at war. But we of the Guild know what a responsibility
we carry and I think membership has helped him."
"And I'll never meet him?"
"It's unlikely. This stream is likely to reject him, turn him into
that poor creature your grandfather described, flung this way and that
through Time, with no control whatsoever over his destiny."
"He has that in common with most of us," I remarked.
She was amused. "I see you're still not completely over your self-
pity, Moorcock."
I smiled and apologized. "I'm very excited by this." I held up the

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INTRODUCTION
manuscript. "Bastable presumably wants it published as soon as pos-
sible. Why?"
"Perhaps it's mere vanity. You know how people become once
they see their names in print."
"Poor?"
We both laughed at this.
"He trusts you, too," she continued. "He knows that you did not
tamper with his work and also that he has been of some use to you in
your researches."
"As have you, Mrs. Persson."
"I'm glad. We enjoy what you do."
"You find my speculations funny?" I said.
"That, too. We leave it to your rather strange imagination to pro-
duce the necessary obfuscations!"
I looked at the manuscript. I was surprised to notice a few pecu-
liar correspondences and coincidences when compared with my
grandfather's first manuscript. Yet Bastable appeared not to make
some of the connections the reader might make. I remarked on it to
Mrs. Persson.
"Our minds can only hold so much," she said. "As I've mentioned
before, sometimes we do suffer from genuine amnesia, or at least a
kind of blocking out of much of our memory. It is one of the ways in
which we are sometimes able to enter time streams not open to the
general run of chrononauts."
"Time makes you forget?" I said ironically.
"Exactly."
"As someone who affects anarchism," I said. "I'm curious about
the references here to Kerensky's Russia. Could it be that—?"
She stopped me. "I can't tell you any more until you have read the
manuscript."
"A world in which the Bolshevik Revolution did not take place.
He hints at it in the other story ..." I had often wondered what the
Russian Empire would have been like in such circumstances, for one
of my other abiding interests is in the Soviet Union and its literature,
which was so badly stifled under Stalin.
"You must read what Bastable has written, then ask me some
questions. I'll answer where I can. It is up to you, he says, how much
'shape' you give it, as a professional writer. But he trusts you to
preserve the basic spirit of the memoir."
"I shall do my best."

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309
And here, for better or worse, is Oswald Bastable's third memoir.
I have done as little work on it as possible and present it to the
reader pretty much as I received it. As to its authenticity, that is for
you to judge.
Michael Moorcock,
Yorkshire, England
June 1980

Part One
AN ENGLISH AIRSHIPMAN'S ADVENTURES
IN THE GREAT WAR OF 1941

CHAPTER ONE
The Manner of My Dying
It was, I think, my fifth day at sea when the revelation came. Just
as at some stage of his existence a man can reach a particular deci-
sion about how to lead his life, so can he come to a similar decision
about how to encounter death. He can face the grim simple truth of
his dying, or he can prefer to lose himself in some pleasant fantasy,
some dream of heaven or of salvation, and so die almost with plea-
sure.
On my sixth day at sea it was obvious that I was to die and it was
then that I chose to accept the illusion rather than the reality.
I had lain all morning at the bottom of the dugout. My face was
pressed against wet, steaming wood. The tropical sun throbbed down
on the back of my unprotected head and blistered my withered flesh.
The slow drumming of my heart filled my ears and counterpointed
the occasional slap of a wave against the side of the boat.
All I could think was that I had been spared one kind of death in
order to die alone out here on the ocean. And I was grateful for that.
It was much better than the death I had left behind.
Then I heard the cry of the seabird and I smiled a little to myself.
I knew that the illusion was beginning. There was no possibility that
I was in sight of land and therefore I could not really have heard a
bird. I had had many similar auditory hallucinations in recent days.
I began to sink into what I knew must be my final coma. But the
cry grew more insistent. I rolled over and blinked in the white glare
of the sun. I felt the boat rock crazily with the movement of my thin
body. Painfully I raised my head and peered through a shifting haze
of silver and blue and saw my latest vision. It was a very fine one:
more prosaic than some, but more detailed, too.
I had conjured up an island. An island rising at least a thousand
feet out of the water and about ten miles long and four miles wide: a

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
monstrous pile of volcanic basalt, limestone and coral, with deep
green patches of foliage on its flanks.
I sank back into the dugout, squeezing my eyes shut and congrat-
ulating myself on the power of my own imagination. The halluci-
nations improved as any hopes of surviving vanished. I know it was
time to give myself up to madness, to pretend that the island was real
and so die a pathetic rather than a dignified death.
I chuckled. The sound was a dry death rattle.
Again the seabird screamed.
Why rot slowly and painfully for perhaps another thirty hours
when I could die now in a comforting dream of having been saved at
the last moment?
With the remains of my strength I crawled to the stern and
grasped the starting cord of the outboard. Weakly I jerked at it.
Nothing happened. Doggedly, I tried again. And again. And all the
while I kept my eyes on the island, waiting to see if it would shimmer
and disappear before I could make use of it.
I had seen so many visions in the past few days. I had seen milk-
white angels with crystal cups of pure water drifting just out of my
reach. I had seen blood-red devils with fiery pitchforks piercing my
skin. I had seen enemy airships which popped like bubbles just as
they were about to release their bombs on me. I had seen orange-
sailed schooners as tall as the Empire State Building. I had seen
schools of tiny black whales. I had seen rose-colored coral atolls on
which lounged beautiful young women whose faces turned into the
faces of Japanese soldiers as I came closer and who then slid beneath
the waves where I was sure they were trying to capsize my boat. But
this mirage retained its clarity no matter how hard I stared and it was
so much more detailed than the others.
The engine fired after the tenth attempt to start it. There was
hardly any fuel left. The screw squealed, rasped and began to turn.
The water foamed. The boat moved reluctantly across a flat sea of
burnished steel, beneath a swollen and throbbing disc of fire which
was the sun, my enemy.
I straightened up, squatting like a desiccated old toad on the floor
of the boat, whimpering as I gripped the tiller, for its touch sent
shards of fire through my hand and into my body.
Still the hallucination did not waver; it even appeared to grow
larger as I approached it. I completely forgot my pain as I allowed
myself to be deceived by this splendid mirage.
I steered under brooding grey cliffs falling sheer into the sea. I

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315
came to the lower slopes of the island and saw palms, their trunks
bowed as if in prayer, swaying over sharp rocks washed by white
surf. There was even a brown crab scuttling across a rock; there was
weed and lichen of several varieties; seabirds diving in the shallows
and darting upward with shining fish in their long beaks. Perhaps the
island was real, after all... ?
But then I had rounded a coral outcrop and at once discovered the
final confirmation of my complete madness. For here was a high con-
crete wall: a harbor wall encrusted above the water line with barna-
cles and coral and tiny plants. It had been built to follow the natural
curve of a small bay. And over the top of the wall I saw the roofs
and upper stories of houses which might have belonged to a town on
any part of the English coast. And as a superb last touch there was
the flagpole at which flew a torn and weather-stained Union Jack!
My fantasy was complete. I had created an English fishing port in the
middle of the Indian Ocean.
I smiled again. The movement caused the blistered skin of my lips
to crack still more. I ignored the discomfort. Now all I had to do was
enter the harbor, step off onto what I believed to be dry land—and
drown. It was a fine way to die. I gave another hoarse, mad chuckle,
full of self-admiration, and I abandoned myself to the world of my
mind.
Guiding my boat round the wall I found the harbor mouth. It was
partly blocked by the wreck of a steamer. Rust-red funnels and masts
rose above the surface. The water was unclouded and as I passed I
could see the rest of the sunken ship leaning on the pink coral with
multicolored fish swimming in and out of its hatches and portholes.
The name was still visible on her side: Jeddah, Manila.
Now I saw the little town quite clearly.
The buildings were in that rather spare Victorian or Edwardian
neoclassical style and had a distinctly run-down look about them.
They seemed deserted and some were obviously boarded up. Could I
not perhaps create a few inhabitants before I died? Even a laskar or
two would be better than nothing, for I now realized that I had built
a typical Outpost of Empire. These were colonial buildings, not En-
glish ones, and there were square, largely undecorated native build-
ings mixed in with them.
On the quay stood various sheds and offices. The largest of these
bore the faded slogan Welland Rock Phosphate Company. A nice
touch of mine. Behind the town stood something resembling a small

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
and pitted version of the Eiffel Tower. A battered airship mooring
mast! Even better!
Out from the middle of the quay stretched a stone mole. It had
been built for engine-driven cargo ships, but there were only a few
rather seedy looking native fishing dhows moored there now. They
looked hardly seaworthy. I headed toward the mole, croaking out the
words of the song I had not sung for the past two days.
"Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Britons never, never
shall be—marr-I-ed to a mer-MI-ad at the bottom of the deep, blue
sea!"
As if invoked by my chant, Malays and Chinese materialized on
the quayside. Some of them began to run along the jetty, their brown
and yellow bodies gleaming in the sunshine, their thin arms gesticu-
lating. They wore loincloths or sarongs of various colors and their
faces were shaded by wide coolie hats of woven palm leaves. I even
heard their voices babbling in excitement as they approached.
I laughed as the boat bumped against the weed-grown jetty. I tried
to stand up to address these wonderful creatures of my imagination. I
felt godlike, I suppose. And to talk to them was the least, after all,
that I could do.
I opened my mouth. I spread my arms.
"My friends-"
And my starved body collapsed under me. I fell backward into the
dugout, striking my shoulder on the empty petrol can which had con-
tained my water.
There came a few words shouted in pidgin English and a brown
figure in patched white shorts jumped into the canoe which rocked
violently, jolting the last tatters of sense from my skull.
White teeth grinned. "You okay now, sar?"
"I can't be," I said.
"Jolly good, sar."
Red darkness came.
I had set off to sail over a thousand miles to Australia in an open
boat. I had barely managed to make two hundred, and most of that
in the wrong direction.
The date was May 3rd, 1941. I had been at sea for about a hun-
dred and fifty hours. It was three months since the Destruction of
Singapore by the Third Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Aerial Navy.

CHAPTER TWO
The Destruction of Singapore
It had been a Utopia of sorts which the Japanese destroyed.
Designed as a model for other great settlements which would in
the future spring up throughout the East, Singapore's white grace-
ful skyscrapers, her systems of shining monorails, her complex of
smoothly run airparks, had been lovingly laid out as an example to
our Empire's duskier citizens of the benefits which British rule would
eventually bring them.
And Singapore was burning. I am probably the last European to
have witnessed her destruction.
After serving on the Portuguese aerial freighter Palmerin for a cou-
ple of months, I took several berths for single voyages, usually filling
in for sick men, or men on leave, until I found myself in Rangoon
without any chance of a job. I ran out of money in Rangoon and was
willing to begin any kind of employment, even considered enlisting as
a private in the army, when I was told by one of my bar acquain-
tances of a mate's position which had become vacant the night be-
fore.
"Chap was killed in a fight in Shari's house," he said, nodding
down the street. "The skipper started the fight. He's not offering
good money, but it could get you somewhere better than Rangoon,
eh?"
"Indeed."
"He's just over there. Want to meet him?"
I agreed. And that was how I came, eventually, to Singapore,
though not in the ship on which I had signed.
A greasy Greek merchant, the Andreas Papadakis, from some dis-
gusting Cypriot port, trading in any marginally lucrative cargo which
more fastidious captains would reject, had originally been bound for
Bangkok when her engines had given out during an electrical storm

318
THE NOMAD OF TIME
which also affected our wireless telephone. We had drifted for two
days, trying to make repairs aloft and losing two of our crew in the
process, by the time the old windbag began to sag badly in the mid-
dle and drift toward the ground.
The Papadakis was not much suited to rough weather of any kind
and could not be relied upon in even a minor crisis. The gondola ca-
bles and our steering cables both were badly in need of repair and we
should have waited our moment and come down over water if we
hoped for any chance of landing without serious damage, but by now
the captain was drunk on retsina and refused to listen to my advice,
while the rest of the crew, a mixed bunch of cutthroats from most
parts of the Adriatic, were in a panic. I did my best to persuade the
captain to let go our remaining gas, but he told me he knew best. The
result was that we had begun to drop rapidly as we neared the coast
of the Malay Peninsula, the Andreas Papadakis groaning and com-
plaining the whole time and threatening to come apart at the seams.
She shivered and trembled in every section as the captain stared
blearily through the forward ports and began, it seemed to me, to
argue in Greek with the powers of Fate, on whom he blamed the en-
tire disaster. It was as if he thought he could talk or soothe his way
out of the inevitable fact. I kept my hands on the wheel, praying to
sight a lake or at least a river, but we were heading over dense jun-
gle. I remember a mass of waving green branches, an appalling
screech of metal and wood as they met, a blow to my ribs which
knocked me backward into the arms of the captain who must have
died muttering some wretched Cypriot remonstration.
He saved my life, as it happened, by cushioning my own fall and
breaking his back. I came to once or twice while I was being pulled
from the wreckage, but only really regained my senses when I woke
up in St. Mary's Hospital, Changi, Singapore. I had a few broken
bones, which were mending, some minor internal injuries, which had
been tended to, and I would soon be recovered, thanks to the Air-
shipmen's Distress Fund which had paid for my medical treatment
and the period during which I would recuperate.
I had been lucky. There were only two other survivors. Five more
had died in one of the native hospitals to which they had been taken.
While I rested, somewhat relieved not to be worrying about work
and glad to be in Singapore, where there was every chance of finding
decent employment, I began to read about the tensions growing be-
tween several of the Great Powers. Japan was disputing territory
with Russia. The Russians, for all they were now a republic, had

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319
quite as much imperial determination as the Japs. However, we knew
nothing of the war until the night of February 22nd, 1941: the night
of the attack by Japan's Third Fleet: The night when a British dream
of Utopia was destroyed perhaps forever.
We were trying to escape what was left of the colony. An ambu-
lance ship was moored to an improvised mast and the vessel all but
filled the blackened, ruined grounds of St. Mary's: a huge airship sil-
houetted against a sky which was ruby red with the flames of a thou-
sand fires. The scene was surreal. I think of it today as the flight from
Sodom and Gomorrah, but in Noah's Ark! Tiny figures of patients
and staff rushed, panic-stricken, into the vessel's swollen belly while
everywhere overhead moved monstrous, implacable Japanese flying
ironclads. They had come suddenly, mindless beasts of the upper re-
gions, to seed Singapore with their incendiary spawn.
Our resistance had been impotent. Far away a few searchlight
beams wandered about the sky, sometimes showing a dense cloud of
smoke from which could be glimpsed a section of one of the vast aer-
ial men-of-war. Then the three remaining anti-aircraft guns would
boom and send up shells which either missed or exploded harmlessly
against the side of the attacking craft. There were several of our
monoplanes still buzzing through the blackness at speeds of over four
hundred miles an hour, firing uselessly into hulls stronger than steel.
They were picked off by tracer bullets shrieking from armored gun-
gondolas. I saw a hovergyro whirl like a frightened hummingbird out
of the flames, then it, too, was struck by magnesium bullets and went
spinning into the flaming chaos below.
Our ship was not the latest type. Few hospital ships ever were.
The cigar-shaped hull protecting the gasbags was of strong boron-
fiberglass, but the two-tiered gondola below was more vulnerable.
This gondola contained crew and passenger accommodation, engines,
fuel and ballast tanks, and into it we were packing as many human
beings as we could. I, of course, almost fully recovered, was helping
the doctors and medical staff.
Without much hope of the ship's being able to get away, I helped
carry stretchers up one of the two folding staircases lowered from the
bowels of the ship. This in itself was a hard enough task, for the ves-
sel was insecurely anchored and it swayed and strained at the dozen
or so steel cables holding it to the ground.
The last terrified patient was packed in and the last nurses, carry-
ing bundles of blankets and medical supplies, hurried aboard while

320
THE NOMAD OF TIME
airmen unpegged the gangways so they could be folded back into the
ship. The stairs began to bounce like a cakewalk at a fair as, with the
riggers, I managed to climb into the ship, losing my footing several
times, shaken so much I felt my body would fall to pieces.
Suddenly several incendiary bombs struck the hospital at once.
The darkness exploded with shouting flame. More bombs burst in the
grounds, but incredibly none hit the airship direct. For a moment I
was blinded by brilliant silver light and a wave of intense heat struck
my face and hands.
From somewhere above I heard the captain shout, "Let slip!"
even before the gangway was fully raised. I clutched and found a
handrail, dropped the box I had been carrying and desperately tried
to grope my way up the few final rungs before I would be crushed by
the automatically closing steps. My vision returned quickly and I saw
the cables lashing as if in fury at having to release their grip on the
ship. And then I stood on the embarkation platform itself and my
immediate danger was past.
The overloaded vessel went up with a juddering lurch. As we
blundered into the sky I was convinced the whole contraption was
about to plummet back to the ground, but somehow we continued
rising. Steadying myself as best I could, I glimpsed the fiery ground
falling slowly away before the gangways folded together and cut off
the sight. Then I started to climb toward the lower deck.
The ship was listing slightly and was stern heavy so that all fittings
sloped upward and to one side. Every so often we would shudder as
some attempt was made to correct her trim. And still we were going
up.
I had seen two worlds at war. I had flown with General Shaw and
seen considerable havoc wrought by air fleets. I had witnessed the fe-
rocity of the Black Attila, who had conquered America, but I had
never looked upon such awful destruction. I knew now that it was
my destiny to pass from world to world, perhaps in the hope that I
would be able, at some stage, to make sense of my life, to set to
rights my own terrible responsibility; yet it seemed that I was always
somehow impotent. No matter how idyllic the world seemed, it al-
ways knew conflict in the end, and I was powerless to be anything
but an observer.
Because of my experience, I had been made liaison officer between
air crew and medical staff. I staggered through a narrow companion-
way alongside the crew's quarters, making for Number One Ward
which was on the lowest of the two tiers. When the ship shook too

THE STEEL TSAR
321
much or altered her trim too drastically, I would grip some handhold
and pause to stare incredulously down through one of the small ob-
servation ports set in this section of the hull.
The whole island was breaking into fragments and each fragment
was consumed by flame. I saw the steel curves of the main monorail
writhe and snap like the coils of an overwound watch-spring as the
bombs blasted its pillars. I saw slender towers topple and collapse
into the inferno as if they were no more than the icing decorations of
a Christmas cake thrown onto a fire. I saw the great oil reservoirs
send orange flames and curling black smoke two hundred feet into
the darkness. The deafening thump of exploding munitions dumps
made my eardrums ache and the ship became so battered by the con-
cussion that I fell again and again, bruising myself several times be-
fore I finally burst through the safety doors into the ward.
Here, too, was frightful confusion. Patients were howling and
shrieking. Several were threshing about hysterically, fighting off the
nurses and doctors who tried to help them. Those who could walk or
stand were clinging to safety rails, staring through the observation
windows, horrified by the last moments of the island which a few
hours before had been Britain's "impregnable" fortress.
Three-tiered bunks had been crammed into the ward and stood
four rows across, running the best part of the length of the ship. On
the other deck above us there were two wards of approximately half
our length and similarly crowded. Technically, the other two wards
were supposed to contain the wounded while this ward had the regu-
lar hospital patients, chiefly victims of disease, but so hurriedly had
we crammed them aboard that Number One Ward also had its share
of burned and bleeding wounded. It was packed with sick humanity—
so crowded that I had to force my way through a wailing mass of leg-
less or armless Malays and Chinese of both sexes before I could
find someone who could tell me how the ward was being organized.
The hellish chaos outside was mirrored by the chaos in the ward.
Our lighting had been switched off as a safety precaution. Therefore
the only illumination came from the blazing colony below and it
seemed at times that the ward itself was on fire. In some parts of it
the light was bright, in other parts there were dense black shadows
from which came the moans and screams of terrified women and
children. I had an impression of a thousand waving legs and arms, a
thousand mouths opened in shouts of misery and through the red
glare of the destruction moved doctors, nurses, orderlies, all doing
their best to restore calm. But their own strained, pale faces belied

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
their soothing words. The stink of sweat, of anesthetic, of blood,
made me nauseous.
I singled out a child whose whole body was a red rawness of burns
and wounds and began to tend to it as best I could.
Our overburdened ship soon reached maximum possible height. Its
engines groaning, it began to move toward the sea. We were heading
for Sarawak, our nearest surviving colony. I remember listening in
hopeless grief as the child's voice cried in Cantonese for a mother
whose body was burning somewhere in the wreckage below. A nurse
gave it a sedative and I placed it in a bunk on which three other chil-
dren had already been packed.
Then there came another lurch, another cacophony of wails and
screams.
The ship was in trouble—had been from the beginning. I could tell
by the feel of her. I think at least one of the stern tailplanes had been
partly damaged, because she was steering so erratically. I tried to
forget all this as I went on to the next patient, a woman whose arm
had been blown off.
My brain could not accept that human beings would knowingly
commit such atrocities on others of their kind. Did the Japanese re-
ally understand what they were doing? The image of insensate beasts
of the sky was paramount. The ships must be remote-controlled, I
thought, or even out of control altogether. But that was a foolish no-
tion. It was plain now that the Japanese's sole intention in coming to
the colony was to wipe Singapore off the face of the Earth and to
spare no one. I now know that their airmen had been told that the
British had begun this policy with a deed of similar ferocity. Nobody,
of course, believed this. But there was no doubt that, as Russia's
main ally, we were automatically at war with Japan.
Though I remember the scene so clearly, I can still hardly find
words for the mood of stunned despair which overwhelmed me as I
tried to help the patients. The ship was still shuddering and rolling;
threatening to throw us all straight through the observation windows.
I recall that I held the hand of an old woman, murmuring something
foolish in answer to her plaintive questions, as I stared fixedly out at
a scene which had no equal in the most detailed visionary paintings
of the horrors of Hell.
Then something like the blow from a giant fist smashed into our
ship's stern and she slewed round in the air. An enemy shell had
struck us! I tensed myself, expecting to feel the sudden drop begin,

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323
but the ship held her altitude. Her eight big back-to-back diesels, sit-
uated toward the stern, coughed and stopped. A chilling silence fell
as we all listened. Then a bell clanged.
I got up to see what was happening outside, but smoke still ob-
scured everything. The ship corrected her trim but her engines re-
mained dead. I heard airshipmen shouting and saw members of the
crew appear in the forward doorways and begin to push their way
down the aisles toward the stern. Riggers, engineers and officers went
past cursing. I was nearly bowled over by the bosun dashing back
toward the control cabin which was forward. There were more
shouts and the engines slowly started up again, but it seemed to me
they were laboring more than ever. I went back to the old woman's
bunk. She was sleeping. A nurse had given her a sedative. I could not
find the doctor in charge. I made a decision. I told the nurse to
sedate everyone. The patients had nothing to gain now from remain-
ing mobile. If we went down, they were as good as dead. I was about
to face my second airship crash in a matter of months, but this would
be far bigger and far more tragic than anything that had happened to
the old Papadakis.
Quite unexpectedly, and without any sign of pursuit from the aer-
ial battleships of the Sons of Heaven, we emerged out of the smoke
and saw the moonlit ocean below. We were about four hundred feet
above water as we drifted through the night toward the sanctuary of
Sarawak, muffled sounds of explosions and gunfire still very near. It
was to be more than an hour before the red stain vanished com-
pletely from the sky. As soon as the captain considered it safe to do
so, we were allowed to work by the violet glow of the emergency
lighting. I gave whatever assistance I could to the doctors and nurses,
for I had basic medical training, of course.
A terrible calm prevailed in the ship now and what sounds there
were, save the droning of the engines, were small and melancholy.
We were in a state of stunned shock. The war itself—still un-
declared—had only just begun and naturally we had already specu-
lated that the Japs would make some attempt to take the highly stra-
tegic base of Singapore. But what we had not expected was the full
weight of the Japanese Air Fleet, nor the terrible anger with which
they attacked, offering no terms of surrender as, it emerged later,
they had to Hong Kong, Taiwan or the Philippines. And we had
thought that we had more time. Logically, Borneo would have been
next in the plan of conquest. Most of our own air fleet had flown

324
THE NOMAD OF TIME
recently to defend Borneo's eastern seaboard and, I learned much
later, was to engage and inflict heavy damage on the Emperor's ships
three days after the razing of Singapore.
What had happened to us that night was so incredible that it was
as if Time had become muddled and the savage days of Genghis
Khan had returned to the Orient, only with greater ferocity. The
shocked, exhausted silence in the wards became more intense as we
moved slowly on, still losing a few feet every hour until soon, it
seemed to me, we would be sailing on the sea like an old-fashioned
oceangoing liner.
The engines stopped again. Complete silence fell for a moment
until the earlier scene was repeated and crewmen began to run
toward the stern. An airshipman caught me by the arm as I
straightened up from checking as best I could the respiration of one
of several tubercular patients. He asked if I was a doctor (I was not
in uniform). I told him to go up and look in the top ward where he
might find Dr. Lingard, the chief of medical staff. I noticed that the
airshipman's young face was covered in a mixture of sweat and fuel
oil and that his eyes were bloodshot. I asked him what was wrong.
He told me that the fuel tanks had been hit as we were escaping
and that consequently it looked as if we had lost most of our oil. He
hurried for the entrance of the lift which would take him to the upper
deck.
Apart from a few muffled shouts and the thumping from the stern,
the silence prevailed until an orderly arrived and told me that all se-
nior staff were to assemble in Dr. Lingard's office amidships. The
chief doctor had something to tell us that was important.
I left my work, put on my blood-stained jacket, and went to join
the others. Lingard was in his tiny office with the other doctors and
matrons. He nodded to me as I entered. I had been the last to arrive.
I closed the door. Lingard was an aging career-doctor. I knew him
slightly from St. Mary's. His normally smooth features were tired and
strained.
He told us that the captain had recently spoken to him. The vessel
had no fuel left and we were drifting toward Java. There was no
hope at all of reaching Borneo. The radar was dead and they were
having difficulty with the computer system. Almost everything was
being operated manually. They had sent a wireless message to Sara-
wak and Sarawak thought they could get a relief aircraft out to us if
we made a deliberate crash landing somewhere. The danger was that
we should go on drifting over the Indian Ocean and would be picked

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325
off by the Japanese ships known to be cruising in the area. Alterna-
tively, the wind might change and blow us back toward the Philip-
pines where we would be finished by the Japs who were certainly still
in evidence.
Lingard said that the captain estimated we should shortly be over
Surabaya, which was still in neutral Dutch hands, although the Dutch
were themselves having trouble from Japanese-armed guerrillas. The
captain had been in wireless contact with the Surabayan authorities
and they would be expecting us. The crew would start valving out
gas as soon as the city was sighted. With luck and good judgment
they would set down in the sea close to the harbor where we would
float long enough for the boats to take us off.
It was about our only chance of surviving, of saving the majority
of our charges. We were told to have patients ready for instant
disembarkation. We must inflate all the stretchers we could find and
don life jackets ourselves. The inflated stretchers should be placed in
the bunks under the patients in order to help cushion the impact
when the ship struck the water. We had a couple of hours in which to
get everything ready.
I went back to the ward, pulled on my orange life jacket and stood
by the safety rail, looking through the observation windows, smoking
a cigarette as the dawn came up and showed the sea less than three
hundred feet below us. I turned. The pale light revealed bunk after
bunk packed with sick humanity and weary nurses moving slowly
from patient to patient while the orderlies and airshipmen lifted the
bodies and got the small life rafts under them. There came a series of
sharp hisses as the rafts were inflated. Bleakly I returned my attention
to the sea and watched the sun rise into a sky full of watery shades of
yellow, red and blue. The ship, coasting on the wind, hardly seemed
to be in motion at all. I felt for a moment that we must be the last
living entities in a dead and ruined world.

CHAPTER THREE
The Crash
Not much later I sighted the large conglomeration of tightly
crowded together buildings which was the port of Surabaya. A busy
city of mixed European and Malayan architecture, it was one of the
few big ports to survive the decline of conventional shipping in favor
of the air-going cargo vessels. Its harbor was still crammed with
steamers and the whole place looked unnaturally peaceful in the
early morning light. I felt an irrational surge of jealousy, a desire that
Surabaya too might one day experience what Singapore had experi-
enced. What right had this dirty, ugly port to survive when a mighty
monument to a humane and idealistic Empire had perished in
flames?
I pushed these dreadful ideas from my head. In a few more mo-
ments we would be crashing into the sea. Without power of any kind,
the ship was going to have great difficulty in landing short of the har-
bor itself.
The whole vessel suddenly shuddered and I called for the staff to
stand by as some patients began to moan questions or whimper in
fear. The ship turned and began to drift in a clumsy, barely con-
trolled maneuver and I lost sight of the town altogether. I saw only a
steam launch surging over the waves and turning to follow us, leav-
ing a white scar in the sea. There came a peculiar creaking and
groaning from overhead as if some unusual strain had been placed on
the gasbags and the hull containing them.
We began to drop.
A wailing went up from the patients then and we did our best to
reassure them that everything was in order and that soon they would
be in safe hospital beds in Surabaya.
I saw the sea shoot up to meet us and then retreat again. We
began to move in a series of shuddering leaps as if riding a gigantic

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327
switchback. Somewhere a whole collection of crockery smashed to
the deck and it was all I could do to hold myself upright by the
safety rail.
And then, to my horror, I saw the roofs of the city below. Our
gondola was almost scraping the highest of the buildings as we sped
over them. We had missed the sea altogether and were traveling rap-
idly inland! The captain had left his decision until it was too late.
I heard the intercom buzz and then came the first officer's strained
tones. A sudden strong following wind had blown up just as we were
about to descend and this had completely thrown off everyone's cal-
culations. The captain intended to try to take the ship right across
the island and land in the sea near Djogjakarta, which was the
nearest town we were likely to reach, considering the present direc-
tion of the wind. However, a lot of gas had already been valved out
and we might not be able to gain enough height. In that event we
must be prepared for a crash-landing on the ground.
I well knew what that would mean. The ship was considerably
overburdened. If she fell from the sky to the land there was every
chance we would all be killed.
A patient, wakened from sedation by the first officer's voice,
screamed in alarm. A nurse hurried to soothe him.
The ship shivered and her nose came up sharply so that the deck
tilted at a steep angle. Then the nose dipped and a few objects not
secured began to slide down toward the bow. I jammed my foot
against the rail. Through the ports I saw a Dutch flying boat follow
us as if trying to make out the reason for our change of plan. Then,
perhaps despairing of us, it turned back toward the sea.
Surabaya was behind us. Below us now lay a wide expanse of neat
rice paddies, rows of tamerind trees and fields of tall sugar cane. We
were so low that I could make out the heads of peasants looking up
at us as our shadow moved across their fields. Then I was thrown
against the rail as a fresh gust of wind caught the ship and slewed
round again, revealing the kapok plantations on the slopes of Java's
grim volcanic hillsides.
I thought we were bound to crash into the hills, for they were ris-
ing steeply and were beginning to turn into the grey flanks of moun-
tains. From some of these drifted wisps of yellowish white smoke. In-
stinctively I braced myself, but we just managed to cross the first line
of mountains. And ahead I could see denser clouds of pale grey
smoke, coiling and boiling like a tangle of lazy serpents.
The ship jerked her nose up again and we ascended a few feet.

328
THE NOMAD OF TIME
The damaged tailplanes caused us to make a crazy zigzag over the
landscape and I could see our elongated shadow moving erratically
below. Then our motion steadied, but it seemed inevitable to me that
we must soon crash into one of the many semi-active volcanoes
which dominated Java's interior.
I was unprepared for the next lurch and I lost my grip on the rail
as we started to go up rapidly. Clambering to my feet, I saw that the
ship had released her water ballast. It sprayed like a sudden rain-
storm over the dusty slopes of the mountains. Perhaps, after all, we
would make the sea on the other side.
But a few moments later the captain's voice came through the
loudspeakers. It was calm enough under the circumstances. It told us
that we were going to have to lighten the ship as much as possible.
We were to ready all nonessential materials and the crew would
collect them from us in a couple of minutes.
Frantically we stumbled about the ward gathering up everything
which could be thrown overboard. Eventually we had handed to the
airshipmen a great pile of books, food, medical supplies, clothing,
bedding, oxygen cylinders and more. All went overboard.
And the ship rose barely enough to clear the next range of moun-
tains.
I wondered if the captain would ask for volunteers to jump from
the ship next. We were by this time flying over a bleak and barren
wasteland of cold lava ridges, with not so much as a clump of palms
to break our descent should we crash. The tension in the wards had
increased again and those patients not still asleep were talking in
high, panicky voices.
Some of the questions were difficult to answer. Among the "non-
essential" materials taken from us had been the bodies of those who
had died in transit.
But even this act of desperate callousness had bought us very little
time.
The intercom crackled again. The first officer began to speak.
"Please ready yourselves for—oh, God!"
The next moment I saw the grey mountainside rushing toward us
and before we fully realized it, we were engulfed in clouds of grey-
white smoke and our keel was making a frightful screaming sound as
it scraped the sides of the cliff.
The screams of the patients joined the scream of the ship itself. I
heard a monstrous creaking noise and then I was flung away from the
rail and felt myself sliding toward the bunks.

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329
The vessel bounced and juddered, seemed to gain height for a mo-
ment and then came down with a horrifying crack which sent the
bunks crashing loose from their moorings. I had the impression of
waving arms and legs, of terrified faces. I heard trays of instruments
clattering and saw bodies flying about like rag dolls. A great wail
filled my ears and then the ship rolled, went up again and came down
for the last time. In a flailing mass of bodies I was flung toward the
starboard side. I saw my head rushing toward a fiberglass strut near
the observation ports. I tried to put out my hands to stop the impact,
but they were trapped by the bodies and objects on top of me. There
came the final crash of impact and I remember being filled with an
almost cheerful sense of relief that I had been killed and the ordeal
was over at last

CHAPTER FOUR
Prisoners
I think I must have awakened briefly once and heard peculiar
squeaky voices babbling from somewhere far away and I realized
that the hydrogen was escaping and thus causing the speakers to talk
in high-pitched tones. Deciding that I was alive and sure to be res-
cued, I fell back into unconsciousness.
When I next awoke I tried to move but could not. I thought that
perhaps my back was broken, for there was little sensation save for
the impression that something heavy was pressing down on me. Be-
cause of this pressure I found it very difficult to breathe in deeply
enough to shout for the help that I was sure must be near, for I could
hear people moving about quite close by.
The voices were no longer squeaky but they were not familiar ei-
ther. I listened carefully. The voices were shouting some variant of
Malay difficult for me to understand. I thought at first that the local
peasantry, the sulphur gatherers who work the volcanoes, had come
to rescue us. I could smell the acrid smoke and it made breathing
even harder. My next attempt to cry out failed. Then I heard more
shouts.
And the shouts were followed by sharp reports which I did recog-
nize. Gun shots.
With a feeling of terrible impotence I tried to move my head to see
what was happening.
The shouting stopped. There was a stillness. Then a thin, hysteri-
cal scream. Another shot. Silence. A Malay voice giving rapid, sav-
age commands.
Painfully, at last, I managed to turn my head and peer out of a
jumble of twisted struts and wreckage. I saw bodies impaled on jag-
ged shards of fiberglass and beyond them a pall of smoke through
which dim figures moved. As the smoke cleared I saw bright flashes

THE STEEL TSAR
331
of green, red and yellow silk. These Malays were not sulphur-
gatherers, that was certain.
Then I saw them clearly. They were clad in the familiar style of
Malay bandits and pirates from Koto Raja to Timor. They wore
richly colored sarongs and embroidered jackets. On their heads were
pitjis, turbans or wide coolie hats. There were sandals of painted
leather on their brown feet and their bodies were crossed with ban-
doliers of cartridges. At their belts hung holstered revolvers, knives
and parangs and they had rifles in their hands. I saw one come to-
ward me, a look of cruel hatred frozen on his features. I dropped my
head and shut my eyes, hearing him poke about in the wreckage
above me. I heard a shot close to my face and thought he had fired at
me, but the bullet landed in a corpse lying on top of me. He moved
away.
I looked up again.
The bandits were herding the survivors down the mountain.
Through the smoke I could see nurses in smudged, torn white uni-
forms, doctors still dressed in medical overalls or in shirtsleeves,
airshipmen in sky blue, staggering ahead of their captors. But there
were no patients among them. I watched in dazed despair until the
smoke swallowed them up.
Then slowly, as it dawned on me what had happened to my com-
panions, pain began to flood through my body. I strained to twist
myself around and see what pinned me in the wreckage.
One of the relatively light bunks had fallen on top of me and in
the bunk was the body of a child. Its dead face, the eyes wide open,
stared into mine. I shuddered and tried to lift the bunk clear. It
moved slightly. The child's head rolled. I turned, reaching out with
bleeding hands and grasped a broken strut in front of me, pulling
myself desperately from under the bunk until I was free and my
breathing was easier. But my legs were still numb and I could not
stand. I leaned forward and got a hold on another strut, using that to
pull my body a few more inches over the wreckage, then I think I
fainted for a few minutes.
It took me a long time to pull myself over the struts and the bro-
ken slabs of hull and the corpses until I lay on the outer areas of the
wreckage on hard stone.
For all I was bruised and bleeding, I had no bones broken. The
bodies of those who had died had saved me from the worst of the im-
pact. Gradually the feeling came back to my legs and I was able to
stand, gritting my teeth against the pain. I looked around me.

332
THE NOMAD OF TIME
I was standing by the main wreckage of the ship on a mountain
coated with streamers of yellow sulphur dust. Everywhere were
bodies—crumpled, broken bodies of men, women and children, of pa-
tients in nightgowns and pajamas, of wounded soldiers in tattered
uniforms, of airship officers and crewmen, of nurses, orderlies and
doctors. Nearly two thousand bodies and not one of them stirred as
the wind moved the slow smoke over them, and the yellow dust
swirled, and shreds of fabric fluttered among the crumpled ruins of
the giant airship. Without hope I wandered through the piles of dead.
Two thousand human beings who had sought to escape death in the
fires of Singapore, only to find it on the barren, wind-swept rocks of
an unknown Javanese hillside. I sighed and sat down, picking up a
crushed packet of cigarettes I had seen. I opened the packet and took
out one of the flattened cigarettes, lighting it and trying to think. But
it was no good, my brain refused to function.
I looked about me. Jagged holes gaped in the airship's hull. Most
of the gasbags within had been ripped open and the helium lost. The
wreckage covered a vast area of the mountainside. There was no-
where I looked which was not littered with it. And over it all moved
thick ribbons of smoke from the volcano. The smoke stroked the
broken bones of the ship, the smashed gondola, the ruined engine
nacelles, like the phantoms of the dead welcoming others into their
ranks.
I got up and put out the cigarette with a stained, scratched boot. I
coughed on the fumes and I shivered with reaction and with cold.
The slope was probably a thousand feet above sea level. It was not
surprising that the overloaded ship had crashed. Numbly I continued
my search for survivors but at the end of two hours I had found only
corpses. What was still more horrifying was that many had actually
survived the crash. As I searched I found little girls and boys who
had been shot through the head or had their throats cut, young and
old women butchered by parangs, men who had been decapitated.
The bandits had been through the survivors systematically, killing all
those who for one reason or another had been unable or unwilling to
walk. As the horror increased I was suddenly seized by nausea and
stood with one hand leaning on a rock while I vomited again and
again until all that came out of me were dry, retching coughs. Then I
walked back to the main wreckage and found a blanket and a plastic
container of water. I stripped off my useless life jacket and wrapped
myself in the blanket, stumbling up the mountainside until I was
clear of the corpses. Then I slept.

THE STEEL TSAR
333
I awoke before dawn and I was shivering. From somewhere below
came a chilling howl which at first I mistook for that of a human
being. Then I realized that the howl came from a wild dog hunting in
the forest at the foot of the mountain. As dawn broke I went back to
the wreck.
By now I had worked out roughly what had happened. Plainly the
crash had been witnessed by one of the many rebel gangs who nor-
mally occupied these heights and, from time to time, would raid the
Dutch towns and farmsteads below. Inspired by the support of both
the Japanese and their more sophisticated nationalist countrymen,
these rebels had recently grown bolder and had come to offer a seri-
ous threat to the colonists. Whether they called themselves bandits,
pirates or "nationalists," all hated the whites in general and the
Dutch in particular. They had captured the survivors probably as
hostages or possibly to deliver to their Japanese friends in return for
more guns or supplies. Possibly they might just want to take pleasure
in killing them slowly. I couldn't be sure. But I did know that if they
found me I should suffer the same fate and none of the prospects
were pleasant.
There had been few weapons aboard the hospital ship and for all
I was inclined to arm myself I did not bother to hunt among the dead
for a gun. The rebels would probably have found any there were. In-
stead I rescued another plastic container of water, a box of rather
stale sandwiches, discovered a kitbag of medical supplies which I
shouldered and then, thoughtfully, for I knew I might sooner or later
find myself in thick jungle, tugged a parang from the body of one of
the very nurses who had restored me to health at Changi.
I stumbled away from the broken hulk of the aircraft, going down
the mountain. My eyes stung and my throat felt clogged with sul-
phur.
I was still moving as if in a trance—moving, as it were, from one
dream and into another. Nothing had seemed completely real since
the first ships of the Japanese Air Fleet had been sighted in the skies
over Singapore.
Yet for all that I went warily through the drifting smoke. I had no
wish to be plunged into the nightmare of capture by the Malay ban-
dits.
At last I emerged into hot sunshine, saw blue, calm sky above me
and the rich, variegated greens of a forest below. I looked about for
signs of the bandits and their captives but I could see nothing.
Beyond the forest was a faint line in the sky. It was the horizon of

334
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the sea. The airship had almost succeeded in crossing the island and
would have done if the wind had not driven it against what I now
saw was the highest mountain in the region. I would try for the ship's
destination of Djogjakarta and pray that the city was still in Dutch
hands. My best bet would be to cross the intervening land to the sea
and then follow the beach more or less westward until I got to the
town or, with luck, could find a road on which I could get a lift.
There was no point in trying to do anything for the captured survi-
vors myself. Once in Djogjakarta I could tell the authorities what
had happened and hope that Dutch hovergyros would go out with
soldiers and save the people.
And so I began my journey to the sea.
It took three days, first through the thick jungle and out onto the
plains until I came to the paddy fields which I had to wade through,
making wide detours around villages in case the local peasants were,
as was often the case, in league with the bandits.
It was an exhausting trip and I was half-starved by the time I saw
the beach ahead, not an hour's march away. In some relief I began to
wade through the last paddy, my ruined boots dragged at by the
clinging mud and then I stopped, hearing a familiar sound in the dis-
tance.
It was the drone of an airship's engines. I looked up and located
the source. A silver flash in the sky.
Tears came into my eyes and my shoulders slumped as I realized
my struggle was over. I was delivered. I started to yell and wave,
though it was unlikely that the crew could even see me at that height,
let alone distinguish me for a shipwrecked Englishman!
But the ship was coming down. It did seem to be looking for me.
Perhaps a rescue ship from Surabaya? I cursed myself for not staying
near the wreck where I might have been seen earlier. Up to my waist
in water, surrounded by the neat rows of rice plants, I waved my
parang and yelled still louder.
Then I saw the motif on the ship's hull and instantly I plunged up
to my neck among the plants, pulling them over my head.
The ship bore the red disc of the sun blazoned on its flanks. It was
a vessel of the Imperial Japanese Air Fleet.
For a few moments the ship circled the area and then flew off to-
ward the mountains. I waited until it had disappeared before daring
to emerge from the water. I had become a timid creature in the past
twenty-four hours.
More warily than ever I crept to the seashore until at last I lay

THE STEEL TSAR
335
exhausted in the shadow of the rock on a warm beach of black, vol-
canic sand against which beat the heavy white surf of the Indian
Ocean.
The presence of the scout ship over Java was ominous. It meant
that Japan felt strong enough to ignore Dutch neutrality. It could
even mean that Japan, or the bandits who served her, had taken the
island.
I wondered if there was now any point in my trying to reach
Djogjakarta. I knew that the Japanese were not kind to their cap-
tives.
The sound of the surf seemed to grow louder and louder and more
and more restful until soon the questions ceased to plague me as I
stretched out on the soft sand and let my weary brain and body sink
into sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE
The Price of Fishing Boats
At noon on the next day I saw the fishing village. It was a some-
what ramshackle collection of log and wattle huts of various sizes.
All the huts were thatched with palm leaves and some had been
raised on stilts. The dugouts, moored to rickety wooden jetties built
out into the shallows, were primitive and hardly looked seaworthy.
The huts were shaded by tall palms whose curving trunks and wide
leaves appeared to offer greater shelter than the houses themselves.
I shrank back behind a hillock and deliberated for a few moments.
There was a chance that the villagers were in league with either the
Japanese or the bandits or both. Yet, for all I was desperate to get
to safety, I was tired of hiding, I was dreadfully hungry, and had
reached a point where I did not much care who those villagers were,
or to whom they felt loyalty—just as long as they fed me something
and let me lie down out of the glare of the sun.
I made my decision and plodded forward. I thought I knew the
kind of white man these people would be most prepared to tolerate
and feed.
I had reached the center of the village before they began to
emerge, first the adult men, then the women, then the children. They
glowered at me. I smiled back, holding up my pack. "Medicine," I
said, desperately trying to recall my vocabulary. They all looked to
me as if they could use what I had to offer.
A few villagers emerged from the general crowd. These all carried
old guns, parangs and knives which, in spite of their age, looked
pretty serviceable.
"Medicine," I said again.
There was a stirring from the back of the crowd. I heard words in
an unfamiliar dialect. I prayed that some of them spoke Malay and
that they would give me a chance to talk to them before they killed
me. There was no question that my presence was resented.

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337
An older man pushed his way through the armed villagers. He had
bright, cunning eyes, and a calculating frown. He looked at my bag
and uttered a couple of words in his dialect. I replied in Malay. This
had to be the headman, for he was far better dressed than his fellows
in a yellow and red silk sarong. There were sandals on his feet.
"Belanda?" he said. "Dutch?"
I shook my head. "Inggeris." I was not sure if he saw any
difference between a Dutchman and an Englishman. But his brow
cleared a little. He nodded.
"I have medicine." Carefully I enunciated the Malay words, for
his dialect was not one with which I was familiar. "I can help your
sick."
"Why do you come like this, without a boat or a car or a flying
machine?"
"I was on a ship." I pointed out to sea. "It caught fire. I swam
here. I wish to go to—to Bah. If you want me to cure your sick, you
must pay me."
A slow smile crossed his lips. This made sense to him. I had come
to bargain. Now he looked at me almost in relief.
"We have little money," he said. "The Dutch do not pay us for
our fish now that the Orang Djepang war against them." He pointed
up the coast toward Djogjakarta. "They fight."
I disguised my despair. So now there was no point in trying to
reach the town. I would have to think of another plan.
"We have rice," said the headman. "We have fish. But no money."
I decided to continue with my original idea. If it worked I would
be a little better off. "I want a boat. I will cure what sickness I can,
but you must give me one of the boats with the engines."
The headman's eyes narrowed. The boats were their most valuable
possessions. He sniffed and he frowned and he pursed his hps. Then
he nodded. "You will stay with us until ten men fall ill and are cured
and five women and five male children," he said, lowering his eyes.
I guessed that he was trying to hide any hint in his eyes that he
might be getting the best of the bargain.
"Five men," I said.
"Ten men."
I spread my hands. "I agree."
And that was how I came to spend more weeks than I had
planned in a remote and faintly hostile little Javanese fishing village,
for the headman, of course, had tricked me.

338
THE NOMAD OF TIME
The men proved disappointingly healthy and the women and chil-
dren seemed constantly sick of minor complaints so that, with my
limited medical knowledge, I treated many more people than had
been called for in the original bargain, but I never seemed in sight of
making up the male quota. The headman had realized at once that he
was on to a good thing and it was soon evident that even when the
men did fall sick they did not report to me but stuck to their usual
methods of cure. At least two died while I was there. They were
prepared to forgo any attention from me so that I should continue
treating the women and children.
For all that, I was scarcely angry. The routine was an anodyne to
my weary brain and I lost myself in it. My awareness of any reality
beyond the confines of the village grew steadily more vague. Chaos
had come again to the outside world, but the day-to-day life of the
village was the model of simple order and I might have lived my life
there if the outside world had not, at last, intruded.
Looking back, I understand that it was inevitable, but I was sur-
prised when it happened.
One morning I saw a cloud of dust in the distance. It seemed that
the sand of the beach was being disturbed, but I could not distinguish
the cause of the disturbance.
Then as the dust cloud came closer I realized what it meant and I
ran to hide in the doorway of a hut.
The dust was thrown up by the tires of military cars—big, square
utilitarian things with heavy-duty steam turbines driving their mas-
sive wheels. And the military cars were crammed with Japanese sol-
diers. Almost certainly they had conquered the whole island by now
and, as certainly, had heard some rumor of my presence in the vil-
lage. They were coming to investigate.
It was at this point that I decided to sail for Australia. There was
nowhere else to go.
Although I had failed to fulfill my original bargain with the head-
man, I still had the moral right to do what I did, for I had dealt fairly
enough with the villagers. And I would leave what there was of my
medical kit behind for them.
Taking only a petrol can of water, I crept down to the shore, using
a jetty as cover. Then I waded to one of the outboards and began to
untie it. All the villagers were watching the oncoming cars and it was
my only chance to escape. I started to push the boat slowly toward

THE STEEL TSAR
339
the open sea while the villagers ran about in excitement at the arrival
of their new masters.
I was lucky. A current soon caught the dugout and carried it more
rapidly away from the shore. At last the villagers saw me, realized
what was happening just as the Japanese cars drew up in the village
square. I was now some distance out and having trouble trying to
climb into the dugout without upsetting it.
The villagers began to gesticulate and point toward me. With a
heave I managed to get into the wildly rocking boat and tried to get
the battered outboard going.
It fired after only three false starts. I adjusted the tiller and headed
for the open sea, noticing with satisfaction that there were two spare
cans of fuel stowed amidships.
I heard pistol shots, then rifle shots.
Then a machine gun started up and bullets buzzed about my ears
and struck the water all around me. I kept changing course and at
one point did a complete circle and headed in the opposite direction
of Darwin, my proposed destination, hoping that this would confuse
them when they came to radio their headquarters and instruct them
to send out airships and patrol boats to look for me.
The gunfire stopped for a moment. I looked back and saw the tiny
figures of the villagers. They seemed to be kneeling before the Japa-
nese.
Then the machine gun started up again, but this time it did not fire
out to sea.
A few hours later I began to think that the chances of pursuit had
disappeared. I had sighted only one airship in the distance and soon
it would be night. I had been lucky.
As I chugged out over the smooth and blazing mirror of the ocean,
congratulating myself and with my thoughts increasingly turning to
abstractions, I did not realize that the Japanese patrols must have
been searching waters where I might logically be. It seems that I had
already lost my bearings, in more senses than one.
As the burning days and the cold nights passed, I began to realize
that I had no chance at all of reaching Australia, and I started to in-
dulge in debates with my starving, thirsty self on the nature of life,
the nature of death and the nature of what seemed to me a continu-
ing struggle between Chaos and Order, with the former tending to
come off rather better in the long run.

340
THE NOMAD OF TIME
And it was this babbling and foolish wretch—once a practical and
pragmatic soldier in a more orderly world—who eventually sighted
Rowe Island and decided, reasonably, that it was nothing more than
a splendidly detailed illusion.

CHAPTER SIX
The Mysterious Dempsey
Rowe Island was discovered in 1615 by the British explorer Rich-
ard Rowe.
In 1887 it was found to contain formations of almost pure calcium
and in 1888 the island was annexed by Great Britain. That year the
first settlers arrived and by 1897 they had obtained a concession
from the mother country to work the phosphate deposits. From being
uninhabited before 1888, it had by the first third of this century
achieved a population of more than two thousand, mainly Malay and
Chinese miners who had come there to work for the Welland Rock
Phosphate Company which was the island's sole industrial con-
cern.
Rowe Island lies—or lay—in the Indian Ocean, 224 miles S., 8° E.
of Java Head and 259 miles N., 79° E. of the Keeling Islands. It is
815 miles from the ruins of Singapore and 1,630 miles from what is
left of Fremantle, Western Australia. Its European population used
to number a hundred or so: the Official Representative and his staff;
the manager and administrative staff of the Welland Rock Phosphate
Company; various private residents there for their health (Rowe Is-
land was a very healthy place); a young lieutenant commanding the
small garrison of Ghoorkas; some restaurant, shop and hotel
keepers; various missionaries and the airpark and dock officials.
When I arrived most of these, of course, had already gone and nei-
ther airships nor steamers came to collect the island's only export.
The settlement had a mosque, a Buddhist temple, a Catholic
church, a Methodist chapel and a mission hospital run by the Church
of England. The hospital was started by a group of young Pakistani
nursing nuns under the direction of a layman, Dr. Hira, a Sinhalese.
The hospital's missionary and his wife had departed for Australia
soon after the Destruction of Singapore.

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
It was in this hospital that I woke up and slowly realized Rowe Is-
land was not, after all, an hallucination.
I was sore and my body stung all over, but I no longer felt thirsty,
merely hungry. I lay between the rather rough linen sheets of what
was evidently a white hospital bed. The walls were white and there
was an ivory crucifix on the wall, a few tropical flowers stuck in a pot
on the ledge by the partially opened window. I felt the urge to
scratch, but discovered both hands were bandaged. I moved and my
joints throbbed. I tried to sit upright, but fell back wearily. It was
still hard to believe I was safe, after all. I had survived.
A little while later the door opened and in came a shy, beautiful
Pakistani girl in a cream-colored nun's habit. She nodded and smiled
gravely at me, standing aside to admit a very tall, very thin Sinhalese
whose gangling frame was draped in an elegant white suit. Around
his neck was a stethoscope on which the fingers of his right hand
seemed to be playing a tune. His long, handsome face stared rather
sardonically at me. He glanced at the watch on his bony wrist. "Not
bad. Almost exactly on time."
My first attempt at speaking was not very successful. My second
was better. "You," I said, "or me?"
"Both of us." He took a silver case from his pocket and opened it,
offering the cigarettes to me. I showed him my bandaged hands. He
smiled apologetically. "The nurse will light it for you if you want
one."
"Not now. Thanks."
He lit a cigarette for himself. "Well, you're on the mend I'm glad
to say. We put you in this room because your shouting kept the other
patients awake. You're an airshipman, are you?"
"I am," I said. "I was on an airship which crashed." I told him my
name and what had happened to me. I asked where I was.
"I'm Dr. Hira. This is St. Charles's Hospital, Rowe Island." He
smiled ironically. "I can see you've never heard of Rowe Island. Few
have. Perhaps that's why the war hasn't touched us directly. Nobody
passes this way either by air or by sea. In a few more months I
wouldn't be surprised if we're the last outpost of civilization on the
globe." He drew heavily on his cigarette and glanced out of the win-
dow at the harbor. The Pakistani nurse got extra pillows and helped
me sit up.
"If you can call this civilization," said Hira. "Are you hungry?"
"Very."

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343
"Good." Hira patted the shy nun on the shoulder. "Fetch the pa-
tient some soup, my dear."
When the nurse had gone, closing the door behind her, I gestured
with my bandaged hands. "I thought this whole bloody place was a
mirage, at first."
Hira shrugged. "Maybe it is. A pretty run-down dream, though.
You survived Singapore, eh?"
"It's hard to believe it really happened," I said.
"It happened. We heard."
"So there's some communication with the outside world?"
"The mine people took all the decent equipment when they left. It
was the news of Singapore that caused the evacuation. A needless
panic as it turned out."
"I see. So there's no way of contacting say Darwin?"
"We've a radio which occasionally works. Hand-cranked thing."
"And those dhows are the only means of leaving the island. No
ships of any kind?"
"Not any more, Mr. Bastable. The mine people scuttled our only
steamer with some idea of stopping the island being used as a base
for enemy shipping." Hira pointed out of the window to the harbor
where the rusting superstructure of the wreck could still be seen.
"So I'm stuck here unless the radio can be made to work. You
said it was 'hand-cranked.' Haven't you any proper power?"
"No more fuel. We use oil lamps for lighting now."
"When is there a chance of my getting a message to Darwin?"
"That depends on the state of the radio and the state of Shaw-
cross, the operator. I'll ask someone to go up to the airpark tomor-
row and see if Shawcross is sober enough to work the radio. That's
about the best I can do. Eager to get back into the fray, eh?"
I looked suspiciously at him, trying to detect irony in a face which
now regarded me blandly.
"I've a duty," I said. "They'll need experienced airmen, after all."
"I'm sure they will. I must be off on my rounds now. See you
soon, Mr. Bastable."
Hira raised the stethoscope in a kind of salute and left the room.
I sank back into the bed and sighed. An old radio and a drunken
operator. I was pessimistic about my immediate chances of leaving
Rowe Island.
A week went by and every day I grew stronger. I was making
splendid recovery from what had been a very serious case of expo-

344
THE NOMAD OF TIME
sure. But I also grew more and more impatient and plagued Doctor
Hira with questions about the radio and the condition of the opera-
tor. The news initially brought back to the hospital had been bad.
Shortly after I'd arrived Shawcross had gone up on the mountain
somewhere. He had taken a Chinese girl and a case of gin with him
and he couldn't be found.
About ten days after I had awakened from my coma I stood by
the window wearing a rather ridiculous hospital dressing gown which
was too short for me, talking to Hira who had come in to give me the
latest lack of news about Shawcross. In the harbor there was a lot of
confusion and noise. Since dawn groups of half-starved Malays had
been moving along the jetty, packing their possessions into one of the
fishing dhows. Apparently my appearance on Rowe Island had
started something. They had realized that the mining company would
not be back for a long while and they had decided to try to make it
to Java, in spite of their having been warned of atrocities committed
on their countrymen by the Japanese. I felt sorry for those Malays.
The boat would probably sink before they got more than a few miles
out. Miserably I looked back into the room at Hira.
"The government should be helping these people—flying in sup-
plies or something. I wish that damned operator would turn up."
"I think the government has a lot of problems at the moment."
Hira was sitting on my bed, fiddling with his stethoscope. He spoke
almost with satisfaction. "I don't know when we'll see Shawcross. He
often goes to earth like this. He's probably hiding out in one of the
mines."
"I could have a try at working the radio myself," I said. "It would
be better than this. I'm well enough to go out now. If you could find
me a suit, perhaps. . .
"I think we can discover something in your size. But Shawcross
has locked his office up. Always does. He likes to be indispensable. It
keeps his credit good at the hotel."
"Which hotel?"
"Olmeijer's. The Royal Airpark Hotel on the edge of the airpark.
It used to be the biggest. Now it's the only one. Olmeijer carries on
running it from sentiment, I think."
"I'll take a stroll out there, anyway." I was curious to have a look
at the island.
"Why not?" said Hira. "Get to know the place. After all, you
could be here for some time." He seemed amused.

THE STEEL TSAR
345
As I dressed in my borrowed suit, Hira took my place by the win-
dow. From the harbor came a babble of voices as the Malays readied
the ship for the sea. He shook his head. "They'll drown themselves
for certain."
"Won't anybody stop them?" I pulled on my jacket. The linen suit
was a surprisingly good fit, as was the white shirt Hira had lent
me. "Isn't there some sort of governor here? You mentioned some-
one. . . ."
"Brigadier L. G. A. Nesbit is the Official Representative and has
been since 1920." Hira shrugged. "He's eighty-seven and has been
senile for at least ten years. I think that's why he decided to stay
when the big exodus was on. His staff now consists of a valet as old
as himself and a Bengali secretary who spends his whole time making
endless inventories and who hasn't, apparently, left his office since
the war began. There is, of course, young Lieutenant Allsop, who
commands our local military. I don't think Allsop will be sorry to see
a few of his troubles going."
"The Malays are a problem, eh?" I tried on one of the Panama
hats lying on the bed. It was a good fit, too.
Hira gestured wearily. "There are a thousand Malays and Chinese
here at least. The Malays are in the main Moslems and the Chinese
are chiefly Buddhists or Christians. They are, when they have noth-
ing better to do, highly critical of each other's ways of life. And they
have nothing better to do—their work went when the mine closed and
now they're living off the land and sea as best they can."
"Poor bastards," I said.
Hira gave a peculiar smile. "I wonder if you'll say that when they
turn on the whites. They will, you know, quite soon. Now they hate
each other more than they hate Europeans, but it will take just one
excuse for them to begin a general massacre. We'll all go, then.
Technically, you see, the sisters and myself are regarded as Euro-
peans."
"And you're prepared to stay until that happens?"
"Should I go back to Ceylon and care for our Japanese con-
querors?"
"You could go to Australia or even England. There must be need
of doctors everywhere."
"I should have made it plain." Hira opened the door for me. "I
have a couple of principles. One of them is that I refuse to work for
Europeans. It's the reason I came to Rowe Island in the first place.

346
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Until the evacuation this hospital was for colored people only, Mr.
Bastable."
As I left the hospital I adjusted my hat and paused to watch the
dhow easing its way past the wreck of the steamer. Every inch of its
deck was covered with brown-skinned men, women and children. It
brought back the terrible image of the doomed hospital ship and I
could hardly bear to think what would become of them all. Slowly I
started to walk along the weed-grown quay, beside deserted hotels,
offices and warehouses outside which were parked the useless cars,
lorries and buses.
A few disconsolate Malays were dragging their buddies back down
the jetty, having failed to squeeze themselves aboard the boat. The
lucky ones, I thought.
I reached a corner and turned into a narrow, silent sidestreet lined
with grey and brown featureless workers' houses and a few boarded-
up shops. The street rose quite steeply and I realized how weak I still
was, for I had to labor the last few paces until I reached a small
square dominated by a battered statue of Edward VIII which some-
what incongruously decorated a dried-up ornamental fountain. The
concrete bowl of the fountain was full of empty bottles, torn newspa-
per and other, less savory, refuse. There were a few Chinese children
playing around it while their mothers sat blank-faced in their door-
ways, staring into space. Gratefully, I sat on the edge of the foun-
tain's bowl, ignoring the smell which came from it and smiling at the
undernourished children. They at once stopped playing and looked
warily up at me.
"Tso sun," I said gravely, using Cantonese. "Good morning."
Not one of them replied, A bit nonplussed, I wished I had some-
thing to offer them. Some sweets, perhaps, for money was worthless
on Rowe Island.
I removed my hat and wiped my forehead. It was growing very hot
and I had become wary of the sun. I had better get on to the hotel
while I could.
Then I heard the sound of hoofbeats and turned in astonishment
to see a rider enter the square. He looked distinctly out of place as
he sat stiff-backed and arrogant in the saddle of his well-groomed
cob. A tall, fair-haired Englishman of about thirty, he wore a gleam-
ing white coat and jhodpurs with his military insignia on the jacket.
His boots, belt, shoulder strap and holster were as highly polished as
the badge on his solar topee. He saw me at once, but pretended that

THE STEEL TSAR
347
he hadn't. He stroked his blond moustache with his baton and
brought his horse to a halt on the other side of the square.
I looked around at the empty, silent windows, wondering what he
could be doing here.
"Get these children out of the way, sergeant!" His voice was
sharp, commanding.
At this order six crisply turned out little Ghoorkas led by a ser-
geant emerged from another sidestreet and waved the children back
with their rifles. Their bayonets were fixed. They wore dark green
uniforms with scarlet facings and they had their long, curved knives
at their belts. The women needed no warnings but dragged the chil-
dren inside and slammed their doors. Now I was the only civilian in
the square.
"What's going on here, lieutenant?" I asked.
The lieutenant turned cold, blue eyes on me. "I would suggest, sir,
that you get away from here at once. It's a police matter. There
could be trouble."
There seemed little point in arguing. I humored him instead.
"Thank you, lieutenant." I walked across the square but remained in
the shadows of a sidestreet, peering curiously at what was going on.
Now the young officer dismounted and ordered his sergeant to
enter one of the houses. The Ghoorkas rushed in and the lieutenant
followed behind.
I watched in puzzlement, not knowing what to make of the scene
at all. There was dead silence in the square for a little while, then a
horrible babble of screams and yells issued from the house. I heard a
woman shouting in Cantonese. There were a couple of shots and
then the raised voice of the officer giving a series of orders. Another
scream—a man's this time—then out into the street poured a score of
coolies. They were staggering and screwing their eyes up against the
sunlight. Every one of them was dazed and scared stiff.
There came another shot from inside the house and then more
shouting. The coolies outside began to scatter, some rushing into
nearby doorways, others running off down toward the harbor. A fur-
ther series of commands came from the officer and then a terrible
wailing, the sound of flesh being struck, presumably with rifle butts.
Appalled, I was about to step forward when a panic-stricken coolie
burst from the house, hesitated, glanced around wildly holding a
bleeding hand, then ran in my direction. I stepped aside to let him
pass and he fled around a corner and vanished. But I had seen his

348
THE NOMAD OF TIME
pupils. The man had been drugged. Now I understood. The soldiers
were raiding some sort of local opium den.
Hearing a moan, I re-entered the square and saw that one of the
opium smokers had fallen to the flagstones. He had been stabbed
badly with a bayonet in his shoulder. I knelt beside him, tore back
his shirt and did my best to stop the flow of blood while he stared at
me in terror, small moans escaping his hps.
Boots tramped from the house.
"Good God, man, what are you doing?"
I looked up to see the lieutenant striding from the house. He
looked pretty pleased with himself.
"This chap's been stabbed by one of your soldiers," I said harshly.
"I'm trying to help him. Was there any need to—"
The lieutenant glanced contemptuously at the coolie. "Doubtless
he tried to kill someone. Crazed by opium—they all are. His own
people will look after him. We're trying to teach them a lesson, after
all."
With strips of the man's shirt I bandaged up the wound as best I
could. He tried to speak and then fainted. Helplessly, I tried to lift
him, but it was impossible.
Now the Ghoorkas emerged holding three terrified Chinese in
black and red smocks: two men and a woman, all badly bruised and
probably the proprietors of the den.
The lieutenant's baton stabbed in their direction. He raised his
head and spoke to the empty windows and doors. "Now no more
opium! You savvy! Opium bad! These people bad! Go to prison. We
lock up long time! Savvy?"
Angrily he tapped his riding boot with his baton. He glared at me
and opened his mouth to speak.
"I'm going to try to get this chap to the hospital," I said. "Can
somebody give me a hand?"
The officer took the reins of his horse and looked from me to his
soldiers who held their miserable prisoners much more firmly than
was necessary.
"One of your men—" I began.
The lieutenant remounted. "I told you, sir. His own people will
look after him. You obviously don't understand the conditions of this
island. There's a dreadful opium problem. It's increasing daily. They
grow the poppies rather than food. I. . . ."
"What else have the bastards got to live for, Allsop?" A tired

THE STEEL TSAR
349
drawl came from the shadowy doorway of the raided house. An En-
glish voice.
Lt. Allsop turned in his saddle and shook his baton at the unseen
speaker. "You stay out of this. You're lucky we didn't arrest you
too."
A figure emerged into the sunlight. Dressed in a dirty, faded Euro-
pean suit and a frayed native shirt, he was barefoot, unshaven, ema-
ciated and plainly under the influence of opium. I knew the signs well
enough, for I had once been slave to the drug's consolations. I could
not make out his age, but the voice was of quite a young man from
the upper middle class.
"I'd have thought you'd be ashamed. . . ." Allsop's face was full
of disgust.
"Who are you to deny them their only pleasure, Allsop?" drawled
the newcomer reasonably. "Let them alone, for God's sake."
Lt. Allsop wheeled his trim cob about and shouted an order to his
men. "All right, quick march." He trotted away without answering
the decrepit Englishman.
I watched them go, the Ghoorkas dragging their frightened pris-
oners back the way they had come.
The Englishman shrugged and turned to re-enter the house.
"Just a minute," I called. "I must try to get this chap to the hospi-
tal. He's half dead. Could you give me a hand?"
The man leaned wearily against the door frame. "He'd be better off
with his ancestors, believe me."
"A moment ago you were defending these people."
"Not defending them, old boy. I'm a fatalist, you see. I told Allsop
to let them alone. And I tell you the same. What's the point? He'll
die soon enough."
But he left the doorway and shuffled into the square, blinking in
the sunshine. "Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm an airshipman. I got here a week or so ago."
"Ah, the shipwrecked mariner. They were talking about you up at
the hotel. All right, I'll help you with him, for what it's worth."
The opium-drunk Englishman was no stronger than I was, but
together we managed to carry the coolie down the street and along
the quay until we reached the hospital.
After a couple of nuns had been called and had taken the
wounded man away, I stood panting in the lobby, staring curiously at
my helper. "Thanks."
He smiled slowly. "Think nothing of it. Nothing at all. Cheerio."

350
THE NOMAD OF TIME
He raised his hand in a sort of ironic salute and then went out. He
had gone before Dr. Hira came down the stairs into the lobby.
"Who was that chap?" I asked Hira, describing the wretched
Englishman.
Hira recognized the description. He fiddled with his stethoscope.
"A castaway, like yourself. He arrived in the airship which came to
take off the mine people. He chose to stay on Rowe Island. I don't
know why. It meant they could take one more passenger, so they
didn't argue. They call him The Captain sometimes, up at the hotel.
Supposed to have been the commander of a merchant airship which
crashed in China before the war. A bit of a mystery."
"Allsop doesn't like him."
Hira laughed softly. "No, Allsop wouldn't. Captain Dempsey lets
the side down, eh? Allsop's for the Europeans keeping up appear-
ances at all costs."
"Allsop certainly works hard." I wiped a spot of blood off my
sleeve.
"I don't think he ever sleeps. His wife left with the mine people,
you know. . . ." Hira glanced at his watch. "Well, it's almost lunch
time. Fish and rice, as usual, but I've managed to get a couple of
bottles of beer, if you'd. . . ."
"No thanks," I said. "I think I'll head up to the hotel again."

CHAPTER SEVEN
Dead. Man
The port where I was staying was the only real town on the is-
land. It was called New Birmingham. Its buildings were clustered
close together near the waterfront and were several stories high. As
they wandered up the slopes they drew apart as if squeamish of each
other's squalor and grew smaller until the houses near the top were
little more than isolated shanties erected in shallow hollows in the
hillside.
Above the shanty district the hill leveled out for a while and be-
came a small plateau on which the airpark had been built. Olmeijer's
hotel stood on the edge of the airpark which was now overgrown and
desolate. I wondered if young Lt, Allsop would have approved of
the hotel, for it had certainly made an attempt to "keep up appear-
ances." Its big gilt sign was brightly polished and its splendid wooden
Gothic exterior had recently been given a fresh coat of white paint. It
looked out of place in its surroundings.
The airpark was dominated by the rusting airship mast erected in
its center. To one side of the park was a single airship hangar, its
grey paint peeling, and beside it a pole at which drooped a torn and
filthy windsock. Near the pole stood, like the skeletons of large,
unearthly insects, the remains of two hovergyros which had been
stripped of most of their essential parts. On the other side of the han-
gar was the shell of a light monoplane, probably the property of some
long gone sportsman, which had been similarly dismembered. The is-
land seemed to be populated by a variety of wrecks, I thought. It
seemed to be feeding off corpses, including, as in Allsop's case, the
corpses of dead ideas.
After a glance toward the abandoned administration and control
buildings to assure myself that they were uninhabited, I made for the
hotel.

352
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Pushing open a pair of well oiled double doors, I walked into the
lobby. It was clean, scrubbed, polished and cool. A Malay houseboy
was operating the cords of a big punka attached to the ceiling. It
fanned air into my face as I entered. I was grateful for this after the
heat outside but amused by this fresh incongruity. I nodded to the
Malay who didn't seem to notice me and, seeing no one at the desk,
strolled into the adjacent bar.
In the shady gloom were two men. One sat in his shirtsleeves
behind the bar reading a book while the other sat drinking a gin fizz
in the far corner near French windows opening onto a veranda. Be-
yond the windows I could see the airpark and beyond the airpark the
slopes of the mountain, covered in thick forest.
As I seated myself on a stool by the bar the man behind it put
down his book and looked at me in some surprise. He was very fat
and his big, red face was beaded with sweat. His rolled-up sleeves
revealed a variety of tattoos of the more restrained kind. There were
several gold rings on his thick fingers. He spoke in a deep, guttural
accent.
"What can I do for you?"
I began apologetically. "I'm afraid I brought no money,
so. . .
The fat man's face broke into a broad smile. "Ja! No money!
That's too bad!" He shook with laughter for a moment. "Now, what
will you drink? I'll put it on the slate, eh?"
"Very good of you. I'll have a brandy." I introduced myself. "Are
you the hotel's proprietor?"
"Ja. I am Olmeijer, certainly." He seemed inordinately proud of
the fact. He took a large ledger from under the counter, selected a
fresh page and entered my name at the top. "Your account," he said.
"When things are better, you can pay me." He turned to take down a
bottle of cognac.
"You've a chap called Shawcross staying here, I believe?" I said.
"Shawcross, certainly." He put a large brandy on the bar.
"Twenty cents. On the slate." He made an entry in the ledger and re-
placed it out of sight.
It was good brandy. Perhaps it tasted even better for being the first
drink I had had since Singapore. I savored it.
"But Shawcross," said Olmeijer with a wink and a jerk of his
thumb, "has gone up the mountain."
"And you've no idea when he'll be back."
I heard one of the wicker chairs scrape on the polished floor, then

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353
footsteps approached me. I turned. It was the man who had been sit-
ting near the window. He held his empty glass in his hand.
"Shawcross will be back when the gin he borrowed from Mr. Ol-
meijer rims out."
He was a thin, heavily tanned man in his fifties, wearing a khaki
bush shirt and white shorts. He had a small, greying moustache and
his blue eyes seemed to have a permanent hint of ironic humor in
them. "My name's Greaves," he said as he joined me at the bar.
"You must be the airship chap they found in the dugout. Singapore,
eh? Must have been awful."
Greaves told me he'd been left behind to protect the interests of
the Welland Rock Phosphate Company while the rest of the white
employees went back to England or Australia. He was keen to hear
about the attack on Singapore. Briefly, for the memory was still hard
to bear, I told him what had happened.
"I still can't believe it," I concluded. "There was a peace treaty."
He smiled bitterly and sipped his drink. "Everyone had a peace
treaty, didn't they? We'd abolished war, hadn't we? But human na-
ture being what it is. . . ." He looked up at the rows of bottles in
front of him. "Bloody Japs. I knew they'd start something sooner or
later. Greedy bastards!"
"The Japanese would not have blown up their own—" began Ol-
meijer. Greaves interrupted him with a sharp laugh.
"I don't know how that city got blown up, but it was the excuse
everybody needed to start scrapping." He tilted his glass to his lips.
"I suppose we'll never know how it happened or who did it. But
that's not the point. They'd have been fighting by now even if it
hadn't happened."
"I wish you were right!"
I recognized the new voice and turned to see Dempsey walking
wearily into the bar. He nodded to me and Greaves and placed a
dirty hand on the counter. "Large scotch please, Olmeijer."
The Dutchman didn't seem pleased to see his latest customer, but
he poured the drink and carefully wrote the cost down in his ledger.
There was an embarrassed pause. For all he had interrupted our
conversation, Dempsey apparently wasn't prepared to amplify his
remark.
"Afternoon, Dempsey," I said.
He smiled faintly and rubbed at his unshaven chin. "Hello, Basta-
ble. Moving in?"

354
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"I was looking for Shawcross."
He took a long pull at his drink. "There's a lot of people looking
for Shawcross," he said mysteriously.
"What do you mean?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
"Another drink, Bastable?" said Greaves. "Have this one on me."
And then, as if with a slight effort, "You, Dempsey?"
"Thanks." Dempsey finished his drink and put his glass back on
the bar. Olmeijer poured another gin, another brandy, another
scotch.
Greaves took a case of cheroots from his shirt pocket and offered
them round. Olmeijer and Dempsey accepted, but I refused. "What
did you mean just then?" Greaves asked Dempsey. "You don't care
about all this, surely? I thought you were the chap so full of oriental
fatalism."
Dempsey turned away. For a moment his dead eyes had seemed to
burn with a terrible misery. He took his glass to a nearby table and
sat down. "That's me," he said.
But Greaves wouldn't let it go. "You weren't in Japan when the
bombing started, were you?"
Dempsey shook his head. "No, China." I noticed that his hands
were shaking as he lifted his glass to his mouth and he seemed to be
muttering something under his breath. I thought I heard the words
"God forgive me." He finished the drink quickly, got up and sham-
bled toward the door. "Thanks, Greaves. See you later."
His wasted body disappeared through the doors and I saw him
begin to climb the flight of wooden stairs which led up from the
lobby.
Greaves raised his eyebrows in a quizzical look. He shrugged. "I
think Dempsey has become what we used to call an 'island case.' We
had a few of them going native, in the old days, or taking up opium,
like him. The stuff's killing him, of course, and he knows it. He'll be
dead within six months, I shouldn't wonder."
"I'd have given him longer than that," I said feelingly. "I've
known opium smokers who live to a ripe old age."
Greaves drew on his cheroot. "It's not just the opium, doctor, is
it? I mean, there's such a thing as a will to die. You know that as
well as I do."
I nodded soberly. I had encountered my own share of such desires.
"I wonder what did it," Greaves mused. "A woman, perhaps. He

THE STEEL TSAR
355
was an airsMpman, you know. Perhaps he lost his ship, or deserted
her or something?"
Olmeijer granted and looked up from his book. "He's just a weak
man. Just weak, that's all."
"Could be." I got up. "I think I'll head back now. Mind if I come
up tomorrow? I'd like to be here when Shawcross returns."
"See you tomorrow." Greaves lifted his hand in a salute. "I wish
you the best of luck, Bastable."
That night I dined on fish and fruit with Hira. I told him about my
conversation at the hotel and my second encounter with Dempsey.
His earlier remark had aroused my curiosity and I asked Hira if he
knew anything at all of Dempsey's reasons for coming to the island.
Hira could add little about the opium eater. "All I know is that he
was in better condition when he arrived than he is now. I don't have
much to do with the European community, as you may have no-
ticed." He looked sardonically at me. "Englishmen often start acting
strangely when they've been out East a few years. Maybe they feel
guilty about exploiting us, eh?"
I refused to rise to this and we completed our meal in relative si-
lence.
After dinner we sat back in our chairs and smoked, discussing the
health of the coolie I had found. Hira told me he was recovering
reasonably quickly. I was just about to go up to bed when the door
opened suddenly and a nun rushed into Hira's room. "Doctor-
quickly—it is Shawcross!" Her face was full of anxiety. "He has been
attacked. I think he is dying."
We hurried downstairs to the little entrance hall of the hospital. In
the light from the oil lamp I saw Olmeijer and Greaves standing
there. Their faces were pale and tense and they were staring help-
lessly down at something which lay on an improvised stretcher they
had placed on the floor. They must have carried it all the way from
the hotel.
Hira crouched down and inspected the man on the stretcher. "My
God!" he said.
Greaves addressed me. "He was dumped on the steps of the hotel
about an hour ago. I think some Chinaman objected to his wife or
maybe his daughter running off with Shawcross. I don't know."
Grimly he wiped his face with his handkerchief. "This couldn't have
happened before the bloody war. , . ."

356
THE NOMAD OF TIME
I gagged as I got a good look at the battered mess of flesh on the
stretcher. "Poor devil!"
Hira straightened up and looked significantly at me. There was no
hope for Shawcross. He turned to Greaves and Olmeijer. "Can you
take the stretcher up to the ward, please?"
I followed as the two men picked up the stretcher and staggered as
they climbed the short flight of steps to the ward. With the nurses, I
helped get him onto the bed, but it was plain that virtually every
bone in his body had been broken. He was scarcely recognizable as a
human being. They had taken their time in beating him up and it was
obvious he couldn't last long.
Hira began to fill a hypodermic. The beaten man's eyes opened
and he saw us. His lips moved.
I bent to listen.
"Bloody Chinks . . . bloody woman . . . done for me. Found us
in the mine . . . The sheets . . . Oh, God . . . The bloody
clubs. . . ."
Hira gave him a hefty injection. "Cocaine," he said to me. "It's
about all we have now."
I looked at the next bed and saw the coolie I had rescued staring
at Shawcross with an expression of quiet satisfaction.
"This couldn't be some sort of retaliation, could it?" I asked Hira.
"Who knows?" Hira looked down at the Australian as the man's
eyes glazed and closed again.
Greaves put his fist to his lips and cleared his throat. "I wonder if
somebody ought to tell Nesbit. . . ." He looked at Shawcross and
pursed his lips. "There'll be hell to pay when Allsop hears about
this."
Hira seemed almost amused. "It could mean the end."
Thoughtfully, Olmeijer rubbed at his neck. "Need Allsop be
told?"
"The man has been attacked," I said. "A couple of hours or so
and it will be murder. He can't last the night."
"If Allsop goes on the rampage, old boy, we all stand a chance of
being murdered," Greaves pointed out. "Allsop will anger the
Malays and Chinese so much they're bound to turn on us. These
aren't the old days. What do you think a dozen bloody Ghoorkas can
do against a thousand coolies?"
There was a glint of malice in Hira's eyes. "So you don't want me
to report this to the Official Representative, gentlemen?"

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357
"Better not," said Greaves. "We'll all keep mum, eh?"
I watched the nurse cleaning the blood from Shawcross's body.
The cocaine had knocked him out completely. I walked to the door
of the ward and lit a cigarette, watching the mosquitoes and the
moths fluttering around the oil lamp in the lobby. From beyond the
open door came the sound of the sea striking the stones of the quay.
It no longer seemed peaceful. Instead the silence had become omi-
nous. As the other three men joined me I inclined my head.
"Very well," I said. "I'll say nothing."
Next morning New Birmingham was deathly quiet. I walked
through empty streets. I felt I was watched by a thousand pairs of
eyes as I made my way up to the airpark.
I did not call in at the hotel. There was no point now in hoping to
see Shawcross there. He had died in the night at the hospital. I
carried on past it and stood by one of the ruined hovergyros, kicking
at a broken rotor which lay on the weed-grown concrete beside the
machine. From the forest behind me came the sounds of dawn. At
this hour some of the nocturnal animals were still about and the
diurnal inhabitants were beginning to wake. Hornbills, cockatoos,
fairy bluebirds and doves fluttered among the trees, filling the air
with song and with color. They seemed to be celebrating something,
perhaps the end of the human occupation of the island. The air was
rich with the stink of the forest, of animal spoor and rotting tree-
trunks. I heard the chatter of gibbons and saw tiny shrews skipping
along branches heavy with dew. On the wall of the hangar the beady
eyes of lizards regarded me coldly as if I had no business to be there.
I turned toward what had been the main control building where
the murdered man had locked up his wireless apparatus before going
off on what was to prove his final orgy.
The whole building had been sealed before the airship personnel
had left. The windows on all three stories had been covered by steel
shutters and it would take special tools and a lot of hard work to get
even one of them down. All the doors were locked and barred and I
could see where various attempts to open them had failed.
I walked round and round the concrete building, pushing uselessly
at the shutters and rattling the handles of the doors. The chirring
sounds from the forest seemed to mock my helplessness and at length
I stopped by a door which had evidently seen recent use, tried the
handle once more, then leaned against the frame, looking back
across the deserted park, with its broken bones of flying machines

358
THE NOMAD OF TIME
and its rusting mast, at the spruce hotel beyond. The sun glinted on
Olmeijer's gilded sign: royal airpark hotel, it said, the island's
best.
A little later someone came out through the French windows
leading from the bar and stood on the veranda. Then he saw me
and began to walk slowly through the tall grass toward me.
I recognized the figure and I frowned. What could he want?

CHAPTER EIGHT
The Message
It was Dempsey, of course. He had shaved and put on a suit
slightly cleaner than the one he had worn on the previous day, but he
wore the same tattered native shirt underneath it. By the pupils of his
eyes I saw he had not yet had his first pipe of opium.
He shuffled toward me, coughing on the comparatively cold air of
the early morning. "I heard about Shawcross," he said. He crossed
the cracked concrete and stood looking at me.
I offered him a cigarette which he accepted, fumbling it from my
case and trembling slightly as I fit it for him.
"You knew the Chinese were after Shawcross, didn't you?" I said.
"That's what you meant yesterday when you said a lot of people
were looking for him."
"Yesterday? I don't remember." He puffed on the cigarette, draw-
ing the smoke deep into his lungs.
"You might have saved him, Dempsey, if you'd warned someone
at the time."
He straightened up a little and he seemed amused as he glanced
toward the forest. "On the other hand I might have done everyone
else more harm. It's a bit of a luxury, a social conscience, isn't it,
Bastable?" He felt in his pocket. "I came to give you this. I found it
on the steps." He held out a Yale key. "Must have fallen from
Shawcross's pocket when they dumped him."
I hesitated before accepting the key. Then I turned and tried it in
the lock. The wards clicked back and the door swung open. The inte-
rior smelled of stale liquor and burnt rubber.
"All that's left of Shawcross is his stink," said Dempsey. "Now
you're going to try to wireless for help, I suppose."
"I'll try," I said. "If I can get through to Darwin I'll ask them to

360
THE NOMAD OF TIME
reroute the first available airship to pick me up—and anyone else who
wants to leave the island."
"Better tell them it's an emergency." Dempsey waved his hand in
the general direction of the town. "Make no bones about it. There
are half a dozen excuses for an uprising now. Allsop finding out
about Shawcross will be just one more. The Chinese are in a mood to
slaughter all the Malays, and if the whites interfere, they'll probably
get together and kill us first. It's true." A ghost of a smile appeared
on his lips. "I know. I'm in rather closer touch with the natives than
most, after all. Shawcross was just a beginning."
I nodded. "All right. I'll tell Darwin."
"You know how to work the wireless?"
"I've had some training . . ."
Dempsey followed me into the gloomy interior of the office. It was
a filthy litter of empty beer cans, bottles and bits of broken wireless
equipment. He pulled back the shutters and light came through the
dusty windows. I saw what could only be the wireless set in one
corner and I picked my way across the floor toward it.
Dempsey showed me the pedals underneath the bench. I sat down
and put my feet on them. They turned slowly at first and then more
easily.
Dempsey inspected the set. "Seems to be warming up," he said.
He began to fiddle with the dials. There was a faint crackle from the
phones. He picked them up and listened, shaking his head. "Valve
trouble, probably. You'd better let me have a go."
I rose and Dempsey sat down in the chair. After a while he found
a screwdriver and took part of the casing off the set. "It's the valves,
all right," he said. "There should be a box of spares behind you on
the other bench. Could you bring it over?"
I found the box and placed it beside him as he continued to work.
"Did you learn about radios on airships?" I asked him.
He tightened his mouth and went on with the job.
"How did you happen to turn up here?" I said, my curiosity over-
coming my tact.
"None of your bloody business, Bastable. There, that should do
it." He screwed in the last valve and began pedaling, but then he fell
back in the chair coughing. "Too bloody weak," he said. "You'd bet-
ter do the pumping, if you wouldn't mind . . ." He lapsed into an-
other fit of coughing as he got up and I replaced him.
While I pedaled, he twisted the dials again until we heard a faint
voice coming through the earphones. Dempsey settled the headset

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361
over his ears and adjusted the microphone. "Hello Darwin. This is
Rowe Island. Over." He turned a knob.
He flipped a toggle switch and spoke impatiently into the mike.
"No, I'm sorry, I don't know our bloody call-sign. Our operator's
been killed, as a matter of fact. No, we're not a military base. This is
Rowe Island in the Indian Ocean and the civilian population is in
danger."
While I continued to pedal the generator, Dempsey told Darwin
our situation. There was some confusion, a wait of nearly twenty
minutes while the operator checked with his superiors, some more
confusion over the location of the island and then at last Dempsey
leaned back and sighed. "Thank you, Darwin."
As he stripped off the headset he glanced down at me. "You're
lucky. They'll have one of their patrol ships over here in a day or
two—if it hasn't been shot down. You'd better tell the others to pack
their bags and be ready."
"I'm very grateful, Dempsey," I said. "I don't think I'd have had a
chance of getting through if it hadn't been for you."
The problems with the wireless had exhausted him. He got up and
began to rummage around in the office until he found an almost full
bottle of rum. He opened it, took a long drink, then offered it to me.
I accepted the bottle and sipped the rum, gasping. It was raw stuff.
I handed it back and watched with a certain amount of respect as he
finished it.
We left the office and began to walk across the airpark. As we
approached the mast he paused and looked up through the girders.
The passenger lift was at the top of the mast, presumably left there
by the last hasty group to go aboard the ship when it had taken
the bulk of the Europeans off the island. "This won't be any
good," he said. "Nobody to work it, even if it was in decent condi-
tion. The ship will have to come right down. It's going to be a prob-
lem. Everybody will have to muck in."
"Will you help me?"
"If I'm conscious."
"I heard you commanded an airship once," I said.
Then I regretted my curiosity for a peculiar look of pained amuse-
ment came over his face. "Yes. Yes, I did. For a very short time."
I dropped it. "Let me get you a drink," I said.
Olmeijer was in his usual spot at the bar, reading his book.
Greaves was not there. The Dutchman looked up and nodded to us.

362
THE NOMAD OF TIME
He made no mention of the previous night's business and I didn't
bring it up. I told him that we had managed to get through to Darwin
and that they were sending an airship. He seemed unimpressed. I
think he enjoyed his role as the last hotelier on the island. He would
rather have customers who couldn't pay than no customers at all.
Dempsey and I took our drinks to one of the tables near the window.
"You've been a great help, Dempsey," I said.
Cynically, he stared at me over the rim of his glass. "Am I help-
ing? I may be doing you a disservice. Do you really want to go back
to all that?"
"I think it's my duty."
"Duty? To support the last vestiges of a discredited imperialism?"
It was the first time I had heard him utter anything like a political
opinion. I was surprised. He sounded like a bit of a Red, I thought. I
could think of no answer which wouldn't have been impolite.
He downed the rest of his scotch and stared out over the airpark,
speaking as if to himself. "It's all a question of power and rarely a
question of justice." He looked sharply at me. "Don't patronize me,
Bastable. I don't need your kindness, thanks. If you knew . . ." He
broke off. "Another?"
I watched Dempsey walk unsteadily to the bar and then get fresh
drinks. He brought them back almost reluctantly.
"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just—well, you seem to have a lot on your
mind. I thought a sympathetic ear. . . ."
There was a very strange look in his eyes now. "Sympathetic? I
wonder how sympathetic you would stay if I told you what was re-
ally on my mind. There's a war on, Bastable. I heard you speculating
yesterday about how it started. I know how the war started. I know
who started it, too. It was a bloody accident."
I restrained my exclamation of astonishment and waited to hear
more, but Dempsey leaned back in the wicker chair and closed his
eyes, his lips moving as he spoke to himself.
I went to get him another drink, but he was already asleep when I
returned. I let him sleep and joined Olmeijer at the bar.
Shortly afterward Greaves came in. He looked tired, as if he had
not been to bed since I had seen him.
"Give me a triple gin, Olmeijer, quick. Morning, Bastable. I don't
advise you to go back through the town alone. There's a lot of trou-
ble. Big gangs of Malays and Chinese fighting each other. Arson,
rape and bloody murder all over the place."
"Has Allsop found out about. . . ?"

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363
"Not yet, but pretty well everyone else knows. He'll hear soon.
The Chinese managed to steal a Malay boat last night and buggered
off with it—probably poor Shawcross's murderers making their geta-
way. The Malays roughed up some Chinese families. The Chinese re-
taliated. I think we're in very hot water this time."
I told him about the wireless message to Darwin and the proba-
bility of a ship coming. He looked more than relieved. "You'd better
send one of your chaps into New Brum, Olmeijer. Tell him to let ev-
eryone know—to get up here as fast as possible."
Grumbling, Olmeijer rolled off to find a servant.
Greaves walked round to the other side of the bar. "I think an-
other drink is called for—on the house. Bastable?" I nodded. "Demp-
sey?"
I saw that Dempsey had woken up and was making for the door.
He shook his head and said with a tight, crooked smile, "I've some
business in town. Cheerio."
"It's dangerous," I said.
"I'll be all right. Hope to see you later, Bastable."
We watched him leave.
"Poor bastard," said Greaves. He shuddered and downed his gin.

CHAPTER NINE
Hopes of Salvation
Allsop came up to the hotel in the afternoon and asked suspi-
ciously after Shawcross. We said that we had heard he'd had some
sort of accident. He didn't believe us, of course, but he had his hands
full in the town and couldn't wait to question us further. He'd es-
corted some clergymen to the hotel and some Chinese nuns from the
Catholic mission. They sat huddled in the far corner of the bar and
didn't talk much to us. Nesbit's secretary, a round-faced, anxious
Bengali, had come with Allsop and he remained almost constantly by
the window, looking out as if he expected the airship to arrive at any
minute. I asked Allsop about Dempsey and the soldier glowered at
me, muttering that Dempsey had been seen with some of the Chinese
"rebels" and might find himself in real trouble with the authorities if
he wasn't careful. I also learned that Hira had decided to stay on at
the hospital along with most of bis nuns.
By that evening a few more people had drifted up, including two
Irish priests who joined the others in the corner. Olmeijer seemed
delighted to have so many new guests and rushed around seeing that
rooms were prepared for them. Even I received a room on the sec-
ond floor.
Allsop returned looking tired and angry. His normally neat uni-
form was dusty and he had a bruise over his right eye. He seemed to
be blaming Greaves and me for his problems and wouldn't speak to
us at all on this second visit. He had brought us three of his twelve-
man army for protection. The rest were remaining in the town to
"keep order," though from the noise below there was precious little
of that, and to protect the Official Representative's residence, for
Brigadier Nesbit, it emerged, had elected to stay, along with his valet.
Allsop rode back a little later. He was alone and as stiff-backed as
ever as he guided his horse down the hill and disappeared into the

THE STEEL TSAR
365
darkness and the cacophony below. I don't believe he was seen alive
again.
By midnight the ladies and gentlemen of the cloth had all gone to
bed and Greaves, Olmeijer and myself were in our usual places at the
bar while the little Bengali paced back and forth beside the windows.
Even Greaves seemed a trifle nervous and once he expressed the
belief that we "might not quite last out." Then he, too, went to bed
and the Bengali followed him. Olmeijer had his big account book
open on the bar and for a while seemed cheerfully engrossed in his
arithmetic before closing the book with a crash, nodding good night
to me, and heaving his huge bulk away to his own quarters.
Now, save for the Ghoorkas on guard outside, I was the only one
up. I felt exhausted but not particularly sleepy. I decided to go out-
side and see if I could make out any activity in the town.
As I entered the lobby I heard voices by the main entrance. I
peered out, but the oil lamp wasn't bright enough to show me any-
thing. I opened the door. One of the Ghoorka guards was shouting at
a man I could dimly see in the moonlight. The Ghoorka gestured
with his bayonetted rifle and the man turned away. For a moment I
saw his face in the faint glow from the lamp in the lobby. I pushed
past the soldier and hurried outside.
"Dempsey? Is that you?"
He looked back. His shoulders were bowed and his jacket had
been ripped. His face was deathly pale, his eyelids almost closed.
"Hello, Bastable." The speech was slurred—the voice of a cretin.
"Thought this was my hotel."
"It is." I went toward him and took a limp arm. "Come inside."
The Ghoorka made no attempt to stop us as I took Dempsey into
Olmeijer's. The man was staggering and shivering. A dry retching
noise came from his throat. He was gripping something tightly in his
right hand. There was no point in questioning him and I did my best
to get him up the stairs and along the passage to his room.
The door was unlocked. I half-carried Dempsey in, let him sit on
the bed while I lit the oil lamp.
The light revealed a room which was surprisingly neat. The bed
was made up and there was no Utter. In fact the room was com-
pletely impersonal. I got Dempsey onto the bed and he stretched out
with a sigh. The shivering came in brief spasms now. He blinked and
looked up at me as I took his pulse. "Thank you very much, Basta-
ble," he said. "I thought I might have a word with you."
"You're in bad shape," I said. "Better sleep if you can."

366
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"They're looting down there," he said. "Killing each other. Per-
haps it's something in the air. . . ." He coughed and then started to
choke. I got him upright and tried to prise the packet he held from
his fingers, but he reacted angrily, with surprising strength. He pulled
his hand away. "I can look after myself now, old man." There were
tears in his eyes as he sank back onto the pillow. "I'm just tired. Sick
and tired."
"Dempsey, you're killing yourself. Let me—"
"I hope you're right, Bastable. It's taking too bloody long, though.
I wish I'd had the guts to do it properly."
I stood up, telling him that I would call back later to see how he
was. He closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
I had that feeling of impotence common to many who have them-
selves experienced the relief of drug addiction. I knew only too well
that there was little I could do for the poor, tormented wretch. He
could only help himself. And Dempsey seemed genuinely haunted,
perhaps by a special insight into things as they really were, perhaps
by something in himself, some aspect of his own character which he
could not reconcile with his moral outlook. For it was becoming in-
creasingly clear that Dempsey, in spite of his denials, had a very de-
cided moral outlook and that he didn't think much of himself.
I went to my own room along the passage and took off my jacket
and trousers. I lay down on the bed in the darkness, listening to the
insects hurling themselves against the woven wire of the window
screens. Moonlight flooded the room. Soon I fell into a light sleep.
I woke up suddenly.
My door was creaking as it slowly opened and I looked around for
a weapon, thinking that the coolies had attacked the hotel while I
slept.
Then, with a sigh of relief, I saw that it was Dempsey. He was
leaning almost nonchalantly on the door handle. His face was as pale
as ever but he seemed to have recovered his strength.
"Sorry to disturb you, Bastable."
"Do you need help?" I got up and pulled on my trousers.
"Perhaps I do. There isn't a lot of time now." He smiled. "Not
'practical' help, though." His eyes were glazed and dreamy and I re-
alized that he had taken some kind of stimulant to offset the effects
of the opium. I hated to think what was happening both to his mind
and his body. He sat down heavily on my bed.

THE STEEL TSAR
367
"I'm fine." He spoke as if to reassure himself. "I just thought I'd
drop in for a chat. You wanted a chat, eh? Earlier."
I sat down in the wicker armchair beside the bed. "Why not?" I
said as cheerfully as I could.
"I told you there's no need to patronize me. I've come to make a
sort of confession. I don't know why it should be you, Bastable. Pos-
sibly it's just because, well, you're one of the victims. Singapore and
everything. . . ."
"It's over," I said. "And it certainly couldn't have been anything to
do with you. 'The war is ceaseless. The most we can hope for are oc-
casional moments of tranquility in the midst of the conflict.' I quote
Lobkowitz."
His drugged eyes shone for a second with an ironic light. "You
read him, too. I didn't think you were another Red, Bastable."
"I'm not. Neither, for that matter, is Lobkowitz."
"It's a matter of opinion."
"Besides, I speak from a great deal of experience."
"As a soldier?"
"I have been a soldier. But I have come to the conclusion that the
human race is constantly in a state of tension, that those tensions
make us what we are and that they will often lead to wars. The
greater our ingenuity at inventing weapons, the worse the wars be-
come."
"Oh, indeed, I agree with that last statement." He sighed. "But
don't you believe it's possible for people to acknowledge the tensions
and yet make harmony from those tensions, just as music is made?"
"My experience would have it otherwise. My hope, of course, is
another thing. But I see little point in such a debate when the world
is currently in such an appalling state. This frightful Armageddon
will probably not be over until the last aerial man-of-war falls from
the skies."
"You really see it as Armageddon?"
I could not tell him what I knew: That I had already passed
through three alternative versions of our world and in each seen the
most hideous destruction of civilization; that I myself felt respon-
sibility for at least one of those great wars. I merely shrugged. "Per-
haps not. Perhaps there will be peace. The Russians and the Japa-
nese have always been at loggerheads. What I can't understand is
how Britain failed to stop it and why the Japs turned on us with such
ferocity."

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"I know why," he said.
I patted his arm. "Do you know? Or is it the opium telling you?
I've been fond of opium in my time, Dempsey. My appearance was
once not too far different from yours. Can you believe that?"
"I thought there was something. But why—?"
"I took part in a crime," I said. "A very wicked crime. And
then. . ."I paused. "Then I became lost."
"But you're not lost now?"
"I'm lost now, but I've decided to make the best of things. I've be-
come a good airshipman. I love airships. There is nothing like being
at the helm of one."
"I know," he said. "Of course I know. But I'll never go aloft
again."
"Something happened? An accident?"
A small, wretched laugh came out of his throat. "You could call it
that." He fumbled in his pocket and took something out, placing it
on the bed beside him. It was a syringe. "This stuff makes you want
to talk, unlike the opium." From his other pocket he took a handful
of ampules and placed them neatly beside the syringe.
I got up. "I can't let you—"
His eyes were full of pain. "Can't you?" The words had intense
significance. They silenced me. I sat down again with a shrug.
He put his hand over the syringe and the ampules and stared at me
grimly. "You've no choice. I've no choice. Our choices are all gone,
Bastable. For my own part, one way or another, I'm going to kill my-
self. You can take that for granted. And I'd rather you let me do it
this way."
"I know the state of mind you're in, old man. I was in it once.
And, without wishing to make a stupid comparison, I feel I've had as
much reason as anyone on Earth to want to do it. But you see me
alive. I've gone beyond suicide."
"Well, I haven't." Yet he hesitated. "I wanted to talk to you, Bas-
table."
"Then talk."
"I can't without this stuff."
Once again, I shrugged. But I knew what it was to have an un-
bearable weight on one's conscience. "Take a little, then," I
suggested. "Just a little. And talk. But don't try to kill yourself, at
least until you have confided in me."
He shuddered. "Confided! What a word. You sound like a priest."

THE STEEL TSAR
369
"Just a fellow-sufferer."
"You're a bit of a prig, Bastable."
I smiled. "So I've been told by others."
"Yet you're a decent sort. And you don't judge people much. Only
yourself. Am I right?"
"I'm afraid you probably are."
"You don't hold with socialism, do you? With my brand, at any
rate."
"What's your brand?"
"Well, Kropotkin called it anarchism. But the word's come to
mean something very different in the public mind."
"You don't blow things up, then?"
Again he began to shake. He tried to speak, but no words came. I
had, accidentally, struck a nerve. I moved toward him. "I'm sorry,
old man. I didn't mean. . . ."
He drew away from me. "Get out," he said. "For God's sake leave
me alone."
I felt very foolish. "Dempsey. Believe me. I meant nothing serious.
I was being facetious."
"Get out!" It was almost a shout, a plea. "Get out, Bastable! The
ship's coming. Save yourself, if you can."
"I'm not going to let you kill yourself." I grabbed up some of the
ampules. "I want to listen, Dempsey."
He fell back on the bed. His head hit the wall. He groaned. Then
his body fell sideways. He had passed out.
I checked his pulse and his breathing, then I went to look for help.
I recalled that there was a missionary doctor now in the hotel.
As I reached the ground floor and headed to the bar where I
would find Olmeijer, I heard people near the windows begin to mut-
ter, then to talk excitedly. The darkness outside was suddenly broken
by a beam of bright light.
Olmeijer saw it. He seemed disappointed. When I reached him he
muttered: "It's the ship. It's coming in." He was going to lose all his
customers.
I told him to send someone to look after Dempsey, and then I ran
from the hotel, toward the park. My intention was to guide the ship to
her mast.
To my astonishment there were already uniformed men on the
ground. I rushed toward one. They must have parachuted from the
ship.

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"Thank God you've come," I said.
The nearest figure turned. I looked into the expressionless face of
a captain in the Imperial Japanese Army. "Go back inside," he said.
"Tell them that if anyone attempts to leave the building it will be
bombed to rubble."

CHAPTER TEN
Prisoners
We were never to discover how the Japanese had found us. Ei-
ther they had traced our wireless messages or they had trailed and
destroyed the rescue ship. The fact was, there was nothing we could
do against them.
Soon Olmeijer's place was full of small soldiers in ofE-white uni-
forms, their politeness to their prisoners contrasting with the long
bayonets fixed on their rifles. The officer had a grim, self-controlled
manner, but occasionally, it seemed to me, an expression of
straightforward hatred crossed his face when he looked at us. We
stood with our baggage (if we had any) in the middle of the floor.
The women were sent aboard first. The Japs had managed to get the
mast working and had winched the ship to ground level.
It was a large, modern ship. I was surprised that they had felt they
could spare it, merely to pick up a few civilians, but I guessed that it
had already been patrolling the area when its captain had been
alerted to our presence.
Greaves was closer to the windows than I. He turned to me. "My
God, they've fired the town!" He pointed, addressing the officer.
"You damned barbarians! Why did you have to do that?"
"Barbarians?" The Japanese captain smiled sardonically. "I am
amused you should think that of us, Englishman, after what you did
to us."
"We did nothing! Whatever happened was a mistake. It suits you
to blame us."
The captain dismissed this. "However, we have not set fire to the
buildings. It's your own workers. A riot of some kind. I gather
they're on their way, en masse."
It was credible. Thinking that they might get free of the island

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aboard a ship, the coolies could have persuaded themselves that it
was possible to capture the vessel and sail it to freedom.
"Don't worry," continued the Jap, "we intend to protect you as
well as ourselves." His voice, pleasant and yet sharp, had a degree of
contempt in it. I saw that Greaves was upset by the exchange.
Greaves blustered a little, but he could not argue with the man's
logic. We had far more to fear from the coolies, immediately at any
rate, than from the Japanese.
It was possible to smell the smoke from where we stood; and
traces of red firelight were reflected in the windows and mirrors of 01-
meijer's. The Dutchman had given up his despair and was now offer-
ing to serve drinks to his new customers (as he saw them). I think he
had half a hope that Rowe Island was to be occupied and that he
would be allowed to continue (as a neutral) to run the hotel. The
soldiers motioned him to join us at the center of the floor. He sat
down on one of his own tables. I thought he might be going to cry.
"I am Dutch," he told the officer. "I am a private hotelier. A civilian.
You cannot just remove me from the place I have spent most of my
life building."
"We have orders to arrest all Europeans," said the Japanese.
"And you are most definitely European, sir. We have nothing against
the Dutch. However, if you were to be realistic you would understand
that your country is an ally of Britain and that it is only a matter of
days before you are involved in this war."
"But we are not involved today!"
"Not as far as I know. Essentially our mission is to evacuate you
from the island."
"And what will happen to us?" asked Greaves, still in an aggres-
sive mood.
"You will be interned for the duration of hostilities."
"We're not spies!"
"Neither were those you interned in your South African war,
you'll recall."
"That was entirely different. The reasons were complex. . .
"Our reasons are also complex. You are foreign belligerents, po-
tentially dangerous to our War Effort."
"My God! And you infer that we are hypocritical!"
"You will not deny, sir, that this is effectively a military base."
"It's a mining concern!"
"But very useful as a fueling station. We shall be leaving troops

THE STEEL TSAR
373
behind. A garrison. This is conquered territory. When you go outside
you will see that the Japanese flag now flies over the airfield."
"Then why remove us? Is it usual practice?"
"It has become so. You will be interned at the European civilian
prisoner-of-war camp on Rishiri."
"Where the hell is Rishiri?"
"It's a small island off the coast of Hokkaido," said one of the
Irish priests. Hokkaido was the large island north of Honshu, Japan's
main island. "Quite a pretty place, as I recollect. We did some mis-
sionary work there a few years ago."
The Japanese captain smiled. "You'll have to concentrate on Eu-
ropeans now, Father. But you will have plenty of time to make con-
verts, I'm sure."
Greaves fell silent. He finished the last of his gin fizz with the air
of a man who was not likely to see another again for many years.
With the women gone, the older men were next to be taken from
the room. The Japanese were by no means cruel to us. Those who
were too weak to move easily were helped by soldiers, who even
carried bundles and suitcases for their prisoners, shouldering their
rifles in order to do so. There was no point in trying to resist them,
and they knew it. The ship's guns could have destroyed Olmeijer's in
seconds, and we had so many other people to consider.
A few minutes later the Japanese captain went outside and then
returned to issue commands to his men. The rifles were unshoul-
dered and they ran into the night, leaving only one man to guard us.
We heard shouts, then shots; a terrible scream which rose and fell,
then rose again: the scream of a mob.
"The coolies!" Olmeijer waddled toward the window. We all fol-
lowed him. The guard did not attempt to stop us. He stood by the
door, looking back in some trepidation.
The red firelight silhouetted the Malays and Chinese now trying to
rush the airship, which was defended by a line of well-disciplined
Japanese soldiers. The coolies were badly armed, though one or two
had rifles and pistols. For the most part the best weapons they had
been able to muster were parangs and large picks and hammers.
Panic, anger and hatred drove them against the rifle fire. Not a bullet
was wasted. They continued to fall until the corpses of the dead and
wounded hampered the advance of those who still lived.
They appeared to have some sort of rough organization, however,
because they now fell back. Their efforts were being directed by a
figure in a crumpled European suit armed with a pistol.

374
THE NOMAD OF TIME
I recognized him as he disappeared with the surviving coolies into
the darkness.
How Dempsey had managed to leave the hotel in the condition in
which I'd last seen him I don't know. But there he was, capering like
a maniac, trying to help the coolies in their desperate attack.
They came in from two sides now, trying to divide the Japanese
fire. This time two or three soldiers were hit. They retreated in order
until they were closer to the ship.
Greaves whispered to me: "This would be our chance to get out
of here. Rush the guard and get into the bush, eh?"
I considered this. "Between the Japs and the surviving coolies
we'd have no chance," I said. "There isn't any food to speak of, ei-
ther."
"You've no guts, Bastable."
"Perhaps. But I've a great deal of experience," I told him.
"There's quite likely to be an exchange of civilian prisoners of war.
We could all be in England in a matter of weeks."
"But what if we're not?"
"My view is that we'll be better off with the Japs for the moment.
If we're going to escape, let's escape from somewhere closer to Rus-
sian territory."
Greaves was disgusted. "You're not exactly impetuous, are you,
Bastable?"
"I suppose not." I had seen too much of warfare and destruction
in three worlds to place much value on romantic, impulsive schemes.
I preferred to bide my time. I let Greaves think what he liked and
noticed that, without my agreement, he made no attempt to get out
of Olmeijer's.
The firing outside continued but was more spasmodic. Below, in
the town, the flames were rising higher. Firelight was reflected on the
white hull of the Japanese ship as it swayed slowly at its mast.
Dempsey must have made full use of his stimulants. From time to
time I saw him, sometimes with a pistol, sometimes with a parang,
leaping here and there among the shrubs and trees surrounding the
airpark. He was demented. For what obscure, perhaps sentimental,
reasons he had leagued himself with the coolies I could not fathom.
Perhaps he saw hope in turning them against the Japanese and saving
the Europeans, but I doubted it. In his ragged jacket and trousers he
was distinguished from the rabble largely by the fact that he was
evidently in control. He had been trained in the navy and his old in-
stincts for leadership were coming out.

THE STEEL TSAR
375
The Japanese had also identified him and their fire was concen-
trated against him. He was courting their bullets. To me, it seemed
he wanted them to kill him. He had been talking of suicide and per-
haps this was in his eyes a more positive way of dying. Nonetheless
he showed courage and I could only admire the way he harried the
Japs, sending in coolies from every direction, sometimes at once,
sometimes from a single angle.
His eyes glittered, filled with flames. There was a strange, cold grin
on his lips. And for a moment I was filled with an enormous sense of
comradeship for him. It was as if I looked at some other incarnation
of myself, in those dreadful days before I had learned to live with the
guilt, the pain and the hopelessness of my own situation.
Then Dempsey rushed for the ship, all the remaining coolies at his
back. He hacked down two soldiers before they could defend them-
selves. He fenced with the parang, warding off bayonets and bullets.
He took another two of the Japanese and had actually reached the
gangway into the gondola when, both arms lifted as if to some blood-
greedy battle-god, he dropped.
I saw his body lying spread-eagle on the gangway. It twitched for a
moment or two. I didn't know if a bullet had struck him or if the
stimulants had caused a stroke. The captain, sword in hand, ran up
to the body and turned it over, instructing two of his men to drag it
inside.
I heard one of the soldiers utter his name: "Dempsey." And I
wondered how on earth they could know him.
With Dempsey down, the coolies were quickly scattered. The cap-
tain returned to Olmeijer's and ordered the rest of us aboard the
ship. I asked him: "How's the white man? Is he shot? Did he col-
lapse?" But the captain refused to answer.
Greaves said: "Look here, Captain. You could tell us if Demp-
sey's alive or dead!"
The Japanese drew in his breath and looked hard at Greaves.
"You have certain rights as a civilian prisoner of war. Captain
Dempsey also has certain rights. However, I am not obliged to an-
swer inquiries as to the fate of another prisoner."
"You inhuman devil. It's not a question of rights, but simple de-
cency!"
The Japanese captain gestured with his sword and gave a com-
mand in his own tongue. The guards began to march us out.
As we left, I heard him say: "If we were not a civilized people

376
THE NOMAD OF TIME
none of you would be alive now. And Captain Dempsey would have
been torn to pieces by my men."
The captain seemed mad. Perhaps he did not enjoy his trade.
Many soldiers did not, when real warfare developed.
I wondered what crime Dempsey had committed to make him so
loathed by those who believed him guilty of it. It was almost certain,
anyway, that he had paid the price of the crime with his life. I regret-
ted very much that he had not had time to tell me his own story.
An hour later we were aloft, leaving the remnants of Rowe Island
and its population behind. Through a small porthole I could see the
flames spreading through the town. They had even caught some of
the foliage. Small figures ran about in the inferno. It was still possible
to hear shots as the Japanese continued to defend their newly con-
quered territory.
Our quarters were crowded, but not intolerable. Dempsey was not
among us. Everyone assumed he had been killed.
It was dawn by the time we had gained our cruising altitude. Most
of us were silent, dozing to the steady drumming of the engines. I
suppose we were all wondering what would become of us once we
reached the civilian camp on Rishiri. If the war continued as I had
known other wars to continue, then it might be years before we were
free.
I realized, with no particular dismay, that I might even die of old
age before this particular conflict was resolved.
I was almost relieved that in no way was my fate any longer in my
own hands.

Part Two
"NEITHER MASTER NOR SLAVE!"

CHAPTER ONE
The Camp on Rishiri
The civilian prisoner-of-war camp was well-organized and clean.
The food was simple and adequate and our treatment was by no
means harsh. There was a permanent Red Cross supervisor and a
representative of the Swiss Government who had elected at the invi-
tation of the Japanese to act as a sort of umpire. There were civilians
of most nationalities here and those belonging to neutral countries
(no longer the Dutch) were efficiently repatriated, so long as they
could prove their identity and place of origin. There were a good
many angry Poles, Bohemians and Latvians there, for instance.
Technically they were Russian citizens, but vociferously denied their
loyalty to any land save their own. Since Poles and Czechs were
fighting in Russian armies there was not a great deal of weight to
their protestations.
I found the mixture of races fascinating and made the most of my
imprisonment to learn as much as I could about the world in which I
had found myself. Here was a future in which O'Bean had not
existed, yet it contained many of the inventions familiar to me in that
future where I had originally encountered General O. T. Shaw.* It
seemed that whether they were the work of an individual genius or a
variety of hard-working scientist, the airships and the subaquatic
boats, the electrical wonders, the wireless telegraph and so on, would
nonetheless come into existence at some time. In this world Britain's
Empire was even larger than in my own. Certain mainland territories
in South and Central America were hers, as were some parts of what I
had known as the Southern United States. These had been regained,
it appeared, during the American Civil War, when Britain had lent
positive support to the Confederacy in return for control over coastal
regions. With the victory of the Confederacy it had suited everyone, I
* See The Warlord of the Air

380
THE NOMAD OF TIME
learned, to retain this contact. The lands had been leased from the
CSA for a period of a hundred years. This meant that in thirty years'
time, the Confederacy would reclaim them. I was curious as to
whether slavery continued to flourish and learned to my surprise that
not only did it not, but that economically it had suited everyone to see
a strong black middle class emerging. In America there was greater
racial equality than in my own day! North and South were virtually
autonomous and these smaller units seemed to have produced
greater coherence rather than less. Although America was not quite
so rich in industry, not quite so powerful a military nation, she
seemed in many other ways to have benefited from the truce which
had followed the Civil War and allowed both sides to recover and
begin to trade.
France, on the other hand, was no longer a Great Power. She had
never recovered from the Franco-Prussian Wars. Germany now con-
trolled much of the old French Empire and the French themselves
seemed content enough in the main, without the responsibilities of
their colonies. Germany had become a close ally of Britain, although
not bound to join in the current conflict. She formed part of an alli-
ance with the Scandinavian countries—a very powerful trading pact
which suited everyone. Austria-Hungary moldered on, a romantic
decaying empire, constantly in debt, constantly being helped out by
richer nations. The only new Great Power of any significance was the
Ottoman Empire, which had expanded significantly into Africa and
the Middle East to form a strong Islamic union. Greece, I learned,
was all but nonexistent. Most of her people were now Moslems and
to all intents and purposes Turkish. The Japanese Empire controlled
large areas of what had been China and her inroads along borders of
the Russian Empire had been the chief reason for the present strug-
gle. I learned why the Japanese attacked British targets with far
greater ferocity than they attacked others. They believed that Britain
had deliberately started the War, with a raid on Hiroshima. I was
reminded of my own part—my own guilt—in a similar raid, when I had
sailed aboard the flagship of General Shaw.
If I had known only one world I might have thought that history
was repeating itself, but I knew that it was human nature which lay
at the root of history and that no matter where I found myself I was
bound to discover superficial similarities expressing and exemplifying
that nature. It was human idealism and human impatience and
human despair which continued to produce these terrible wars.
Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created

THE STEEL TSAR
381
what we call "history." Yet I could see no way in which the vi-
cious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We
were all victims of our own imagination. This I had realized in all my
strange journeyings across what Mrs. Persson calls "the multiverse."
The very thing which makes us human, which produces the best, is
also the thing which will make us behave worse than the maddest
wild beast could ever behave. We live through example and emula-
tion, which can turn into envy if circumstances create for us misfor-
tunes. That is all I have come to believe, and I am not entirely sure I
believe that. But I am reconciled to human nature, if not to human
folly, and that is what my own particular misfortunes have achieved
for me.
Olmeijer was soon in his element once again. He somehow man-
aged to get himself put in charge of the camp shop and ran it with all
the grandeur of a chef de la maison at the Ritz.
Greaves joined a group of English and Australian merchant sea-
men who had been captured at the fall of Shanghai. They spent most
of their time choosing sides for Rugby football games and talking
about Home. I supposed that this was how they managed to avoid
thinking too much about the truth of their situation, but I could only
stand half-an-hour or so of their schoolboy stuff. I knew very well
that not long before my first visit to Teku Benga I might well have
joined in with some enthusiasm. I had changed beyond redemption.
I would never be quite the same as that idealistic and naive young
army officer who had first led his men into the mountains in search of
the bandit, Sharan Kang. I felt, indeed, like a cross between Rip van
Winkle and the Flying Dutchman, with a touch of the Wandering
Jew besides. I sometimes felt that I had lived for as long as the
human race had existed.
Quite soon after arriving at the camp I myself fell in with a mixed
bag of civilian airshipmen, the survivors of a variety of wrecks. Some
had been accidentally shot down, others had been rescued by Japa-
nese patrols. Some had simply been lost in the general chaos and
wandered into Japanese hands. I learned that all merchant airships
now moved in convoys these days, protected by military vessels.
It was about a week later that Harry Birchington attached himself
to me. He was a thin-faced, angular man, with an awkward, unspon-
taneous way of moving, a flat forehead and cheekbones and a reddish
discoloration under the eyes of the sort I often identify with a certain
mental imbalance. He approached me as I came out of Olmeijer's
hut. He regarded me, he said, as a fellow intellectual; someone who

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had "a bit more education than most of these riff-raff." Since there
were a number of clergymen and academics among the prisoners in
our compound alone, as well as a couple of journalists, I did not find
his remarks particularly flattering. He wore a khaki shirt and a
striped tie, grey flannel trousers and, no matter what the temperature,
would often have on a tweed sports jacket with leather patches on
the elbows. He was a bore. He was, in fact, the camp bore. Every
army unit has one, every airship crew has one, every office and fac-
tory in the world doubtless has one. However, Birchington was, I'll
admit, a bit above the average.
He drew me across the compound to the wire fence corner. Lean-
ing against one of the struts of the fence was a short, moody Slav in a
dirty peasant shirt. I had seen him before. His name was Makhno
and he was from the Ukraine. For bizarre idealistic reasons of his
own he had elected to make his way to Tokyo in the cause of inter-
national brotherhood. He was an anarchist, I gathered, of the old
Kropotkin school and, I thought then, like most anarchists, would
rather talk than anything else. He was a likable enough fellow who,
having failed to convert the camp, kept his own counsel. Birchington
introduced us. "This chap's not too good with the English," he said.
"I talk a spot of Rooshian, but I'm having trouble getting through to
him. We were talking about money."
"You're trying to buy something?" I asked.
"No, no. Money. International finance and that."
"Aha." I exchanged glances with the Ukrainian, who raised a sar-
donic eyebrow.
"Now I'm a socialist, right?" continued Birchington. "Have been
all my life. You might ask what we mean by the word socialism, and
you'd be correct in doing so, because socialism can mean many
different things to many different people. . . ." He went on in this
vein, doubtless word for word repeating himself for the nth time.
There are some people who never appear to realize to what degree
they have this habit. I have come to believe that it has the effect on
them of a soothing lullaby sung to themselves. It has a completely
opposite effect, of course, on anyone attempting (or forced) to listen
to them.
The anarchist, Makhno, was not bothering to listen. It was obvi-
ous that he could understand many of the words but that he had in-
stinctively recognized Birchington's type.
"Now this chap," Birchington stabbed an unhealthy finger in
Makhno's direction, "would also call himself a socialist. I suppose

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383
the term would be 'anarcho-socialist.' That is to say, he believes in
the brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working classes of
the world and so on and so forth. He comes, after all, from a so-
called socialist country, though what it's doing with an emperor still
there, for all he's got no real power, I don't know. And he's against
his own government."
"The Russian Government," said Makhno. "I am against all gov-
ernments. Including the so-called Ukrainian Rada, which is only a
puppet of the Central Government in Petersburg."
"Just so," said Birchington, dismissing this. "So you're a socialist
and you're against socialists. Am I right or wrong?"
"Kerensky's Duma is socialist in name only," said Makhno in
deep, Slavic tones. "In name only."
"Exactly my own point. Not proper socialists. Just Tories under
another name, right?"
"Politicians," said Makhno laconically.
"That's where you're wrong, old chap. Just because they're not real
socialists doesn't mean that real socialists can't make good poli-
ticians."
I was already trying to extricate myself from this, but Birchington
held on to my arm. "Hang on a minute, old man. I want you to um-
pire this one. Now, what do we mean by this word 'politics' of ours?
See, I'm an engineer by profession, and I like to think a pretty good
one, and to me politics is just a matter of getting the engineering
right. If you have a machine which functions properly without much
attention, then it's obviously a good machine. That's what politics
should be about. And if the machine has simple working parts which
any layman can understand, then it's, as it were, your democratic
machine. Am I right or am I wrong?"
"Crazy," said Makhno, and scratched his nose.
"What?"
"You're not right or wrong. You're crazy."
I was amused by this and Makhno could tell, but Birchington was
baffled.
"Sane, I'd say," he said. "Very sane indeed. Like a good machine.
That's sane, isn't it? What's more sane than a properly functioning
steam turbine, for instance?"
"Rationalist nonsense," pronounced Makhno, and rolled the r in
that ironic way only Slavs have.
"And what about your own romantic twaddle?" Birchington
wanted to know. "Blow everything up and start again, eh?"

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"No worse a solution than yours. But that is not what I argued."
"It's what it comes down to, old chap. That's your anarchism for
you. Boom!" And he laughed as one who had never known humor.
Although I felt sorry for Makhno (while having little sympathy
with his politics) I had had quite enough of this. With a murmur of
vague apology I began to move away to where some of my acquain-
tances were standing, smoking their pipes and talking airship talk,
which at that moment was preferable to anything Birchington had to
offer.
Birchington stopped me. "Hang on just a sec, old man. What I
want you to tell me is this: Without government, who makes the de-
cisions?"
"The individual," said Makhno.
I shrugged. "Given the hypothesis as it's put," I said, "our Ukrai-
nian friend is absolutely right. Who else could make a decision?"
"Just for himself?"
"By consensus," said Makhno.
"Ha!" Birchington was triumphant. "Ha! And what's that but
democratic socialism. Which is exactly what I believe in."
"I thought you believed in machines." I couldn't resist this jab.
Birchington missed my small irony as he had missed all Makhno's.
"A democratic—socialist—machine," he said, as if to a child.
"That is not anarchism," said Makhno stubbornly. But he was not
trying to convince Birchington. If anything, he was trying to drive
him away.
"I can see some of my pals want a word," I said to Birchington. I
winked at Makhno and made off. But Birchington pursued me.
"You're an airshipman by all accounts, as are these fellows. Don't
you believe in using the best machinery, the engines least likely to
let you down, the control systems which will work as simply as pos-
sible. . . ?"
"Airships aren't countries," I said. Unfortunately an unsuspecting
second officer from the destroyed Duchess of Salford heard me with-
out noticing Birchington.
"They can be," he said. "Like small countries. I mean, everyone
has to learn to get on together. . ."
I left him to Birchington. When he realized what he had let him-
self in for a look of patent dismay crossed his young face. I waved at
him behind Birchington's back and sauntered off.
It was to be one of my easier escapes from the Bore of Rishiri.
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385
fret a great deal, was bad enough. It was purgatory. But Birchington
was making it hell. I am still surprised that nobody murdered him.
He became impossible to avoid.
At first we tried joshing him to get rid of him and then laughing at
him, then downright rudeness, but it was impossible to insult him or
alter him in his course. We would sometimes offend him, but he
would either laugh it off or, if hurt, return in a few minutes. And I
had everyone's sympathy because he continued, no matter what I
said or did, to claim me as his closest friend.
I think that must be why, when Greaves approached me with his
half-baked escape plan, I agreed to join in against all common sense.
He and his fellow Rugger enthusiasts meant to go under the wire at
night and try to capture one of the two Japanese motor-torpedo-
boats which had recently anchored in Rishiri's tiny harbor. From
there Greaves and Co. intended to try for the Russian mainland
which had not fallen to the Japs.
There had been a number of attempted escapes, of course, but all
of them had been unsuccessful. Our guards were vigilant; there were
two small scouting airships keeping the tiny island under surveil-
lance, there were searchlights, dogs, the whole paraphernalia of a
prison. Moreover the island was used as a fueling station for raids
against Russia (which is why we were there—to stop the base from
being bombed) so it usually had several large airships at mast near
the harbor.
It was true, as Greaves argued, that no military aerial vessels were
in evidence at that moment, but I was not sure that, as he put it, this
was "the best chance of getting clear we'll ever have."
I did believe that there was a small chance of escape as well as a
fair chance of being killed or wounded. But I argued to myself that
even if I were wounded I should spend time in the hospital away
from Birchington.
"Very well, Greaves," I said. "You can count me in."
"Good man." He patted my shoulder.
That night we assembled in twos and threes at Olmeijer's shop. The
Dutchman was not in evidence. He would have been too portly to
have squeezed himself into the tunnel Greaves and his Rugger chums
had been digging. It was usual to meet in the hut in the evening, to
play table tennis or the variety of board games supplied by the Red
Cross. We had only occasional trouble from the guards, who were in-
clined to look in on us at random. Because they did not check our
numbers, we stood a fair chance of all getting down the tunnel before

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they suspected anything. A few of the airshipmen had elected to stay
behind to cover us.
Greaves was to go first and I was to go last. One by one the men
disappeared into the earth. And it was as I was about to follow them
that I realized Fate was almost certainly singling me out for unusual
punishment. Birchington walked through the door of the hut.
I was halfway down. I think I remember smiling at him weakly.
"My lord, old man! What are you up to?" he asked. Then he
brightened. "An escape, eh? Good show. A secret is it? Shan't
breathe a word. I take it anyone can join in."
"Urn," I said. "Actually Greaves. . . ."
"My pal Greaves, eh? His idea. Jolly good. That's all right with
me, old man. I trust Greaves implicitly. And he'd want me along."
One of the airshipmen near the window hissed that a couple of
guards were on their way.
I ducked into the tunnel and began to wriggle along it. There was
no time to argue with Birchington. I heard his voice behind me:
"Make way for a little 'un."
I knew that he had joined me in the tunnel before the light
vanished as the airshipmen above replaced the floor boards.
I seemed to crawl for eternity, with Birchington muttering and
apologizing, constantly bumping into my feet, criticizing what he
called the "poor engineering job" of the tunnel. He wondered why
they hadn't thought of asking him for his expert help.
We emerged into sweet-smelling darkness. Behind us was the wire
and the fights of the camp. We were close to the earth road which
wound down to the harbor. Greaves and the merchant seamen were
whispering and gesticulating in the darkness, just as if they were still
choosing sides for a game.
Birchington said in a voice which seemed unnaturally loud, even
for him: "What's the problem? Need a volunteer?"
Greaves came up to me urgently. "Good God, man. Why did you
tell him?"
"I didn't. He found out just as the guards were on their way."
"I thought you could do with an extra chap," said Birchington.
"So I volunteered. Don't forget I'm an expert engineer."
I heard somebody curse and murmur: "Shoot the blighter."
Birchington, of course, was oblivious.
Greaves sighed. "We'd better start getting down to the harbor. If
we're separated—"

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387
He was interrupted by the unmistakable sounds of airship engines
high overhead. "Damn! That complicates things."
The sound of the engines grew louder and louder and it was evi-
dent that the ships were coming in lower. We began to duck and
weave through the shrubs and trees at the side of the road, heading
for the harbor.
Then, suddenly, there was light behind us, and gunfire, the steady
pounding of artillery. A dying scream as a bomb descended some
distance from the camp. Up the road came several trucks full of sol-
diers, as well as a couple of armored cars and some motor-bicycles.
The firing continued until I realized that the ships were attacking.
Something whizzed past me, just above my head. It felt like a one-
man glider. These ingenious devices were far more manageable than
parachutes in landing troops. It seemed there was a raid on and we
had become caught in the middle of it.
Greaves and his lads decided not to vary from their plan. "We'll
use the confusion," he said.
Birchington called: "I say, steady on. Perhaps we should wait and
see what—"
"No time!" shouted Greaves. "We don't know what this is all
about. Let's get to that boat."
"But suppose—"
"Shut up, Birchington," I said. I was prepared to follow Greaves's
lead. I felt I had little choice now.
"Wait!" cried the engineer. "Let's just stop and think for a minute.
If we keep our heads—"
"You're about to lose yours to a samurai sword," called Greaves.
"Now for God's sake shut up, Birchington. Either stay where you are
or come with us quietly."
"Quietly? I wonder what you mean to say when you say—"
His droning voice was a greater source of fear than any bombs or
bullets. We all put on an excellent burst of speed. By now machine-
guns were going, both from the ground and from the rear. I have
never prayed before for another human being's death, but I prayed
that night that somebody would take Birchington directly between
the eyes and save us.
The Japanese were all making for the camp. As a result we were
lucky. They weren't looking for escaped prisoners just yet. Even
when we were spotted, we were taken for enemy soldiers. We were
shot at, but we were not pursued.

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We reached the outskirts of the town. Getting through the streets
unobserved was going to be the difficult part.
Again we were lucky in that whatever was going on behind us was
diverting all troops, all attention. It was Birchington crying: "I say,
you fellows, wait for me!" that brought us the greatest danger. A
small detachment of Japanese infantry heard his voice and immedi-
ately began to fire along the alley we had entered. Greaves went
down, together with a couple of others.
I kneeled beside Greaves. I tested his pulse. He had been shot in
the back of the head and was quite dead. Another chap was dead,
also, but the survivor was only slightly wounded. He got his arm over
my shoulder and we continued to make for the harbor. By this time
we were fairly hysterical and were yelling wildly at Birchington as
Japanese soldiers opened fire again behind us. "Shut up, you damned
fool! Greaves is dead!"
"Dead? He should have been more careful. . . ."
"Shut up, Birchington!"
We got to the quayside and went straight into the water, as
planned, swimming for the nearest boat, a white and red blur in the
misty electric light from the harbor. I heard Birchington behind me.
"I say, you chaps. I say! Didn't you realize I couldn't swim?"
This intelligence seemed to lend me greater energy. Supporting
the wounded man, I swam slowly toward the MTB. Some of the
seamen were already climbing its sides. I was relieved to hear no fur-
ther gunshots. Perhaps we had managed to surprise them, after all.
By the time I eventually got to the MTB a rope ladder had been
thrown down for me. I lifted the wounded man on to it, holding it
while he ascended. I think I could still hear Birchington's dreadful
cries from the harbor:
"I say, chaps. Hang on a minute. Can somebody send a boat to
fetch me?"
I hardened my heart. At that moment I must admit I didn't give a
fig for Birchington's life.
By the time I reached the deck I was gasping with exhaustion. I
looked around me, expecting to see captured Japanese sailors. In-
stead I saw the white uniforms of Russian Navy personnel. A young
lieutenant, his cap on the side of his head, his tunic unbuttoned, a re-
volver and a saber in his hands, saluted me with his sword. "Wel-
come aboard, sir," he said in perfect English. He grinned at me with
that wild, careless grin which only Russians have. "We both appear to
have had the same idea," he said. "I am Lieutenant Pyatnitski, at

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389
your service. We took this boat only twenty minutes before you ar-
rived."
"And the airships back there?"
"Russian. We are rescuing the prisoners, I hope, at this very mo-
ment."
"You're using an awful lot of stuff for a few prisoners," I said.
"While the prisoners are on the island," said Pyatnitski pragmat-
ically, "we cannot bomb the fueling station."
One of the English seamen said, "Poor bloody Greaves. He died
for absolutely nothing."
I leaned on the rail. From the quayside I could still hear Birching-
ton's awful voice, pleading and desperate: the wailing of a frightened
child.

CHAPTER TWO
Back in Service
If someone had told me, before I ever entered the Temple of Teku
Benga, that I would one day be glad to join the Russian Service, I
would not only have laughed at them I would, if they had persisted,
probably have punched them on the nose. In those days Russia
was the greatest menace to our frontiers in India. There was often
the threat of open war, for it was well-known that they had
territorial ambitions in Afghanistan, if nowhere else. The fact that
the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire had clashed over
which parts of Southeast Asia and China came under their control
was probably fortunate for the British. The war might well have
taken a different turn, with Japan and Britain as allies, if Russian
ambitions had not, in this world, been diverted toward the crum-
bling remains of the Chinese Empire. A great deal of the reason
for this, of course, was Kerensky himself. The old President of Rus-
sia (and the chief power in the so-called Union of Slavic Republics—
fundamentally the countries conquered by Imperial Russia before the
socialist Revolution) was anxious to keep the friendship of Europe
and America and this meant that he had become extremely cautious
about offending us. Russia needed to import a great many manufac-
tured goods even now, and she needed markets for her agricultural
produce. Moreover she required as much foreign investment as she
could get and was especially interested in attracting British and
American capital. She had taken huge steps forward since the
successful—and almost bloodless—Revolution of 1905 which had oc-
curred at a time when another war between Russia and Japan was
brewing. Her brand of humanist socialism had produced almost uni-
versal literacy and her medical facilities were among the best in the
world. She had produced a thriving and liberal middle class and it
was very rare, these days, to encounter the kind of poverty for which

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391
Russia, when I was a boy, was famous. All in all, even among the
most conservative people, there was no doubt that Russia and her
dominions were much improved for Kerensky and his socialists.
Whatever the historical reasons, there was nothing dishonorable in
joining the Russians against our common enemy. When we were
taken, by subaquatic liner, first to Vladivostok and then, by airship,
to Khabarovsk, I wondered how long it would be before I could
begin doing something again. The imprisonment alone had left me
frustrated. When news came through that any British citizens with
airship experience were needed for the aerial arm of the Russian
Volunteer Fleet and that Whitehall was actively encouraging us to
join up, I put my name down immediately, as did most of the chaps I
was with. Those few of us, like myself, with military experience were
given the choice of serving on armed merchantmen, flying in con-
voys, or on the escorting aerial frigates and cruisers themselves. I
elected to join the frigates. I had no particular urge to kill my fellow
men but something in me felt it wanted to take something less than a
passive role through the rest of this particular war. I have learned
from my experiences that hatred and racial antagonism can be manu-
factured by the politicians of any one country against any other, so I
was no longer the patriot I had been. Personally, however, and I
know now that this was an infantile impulse, I felt that I had been
put to a great deal of trouble by the Japanese and I might as well
fight them as anyone else. I also, I must admit, rather hoped there
would not be too much conflict. I wanted to fly good, fast ships. And
here, at last, was my chance.
We had a two-week training program in and around Samara, in
which we learned the specifics of the Russian ships, which were
mainly built and equipped according to the designs of the great engi-
neer Sikorski and at that time were among the most modern in the
world; then we were assigned to various ships to get general experi-
ence. I joined the aerial cruiser Vassarion Belinsky. She was a fine,
easily handled ship, sailing out of the great Lermontov Airpark a
few miles to the north of Odessa, that marvelous cosmopolitan sea-
port from which have come so many fine Russian-speaking poets,
novelists, painters and intellectuals. I had a few days' leave in Odessa
before we sailed and I enjoyed those days to the full. Being on the
Black Sea the port was relatively untouched by the war and there
was more merchant shipping in her harbors than there was naval.
Her streets were crowded with people of every color and nation. She
smelled of spices, of the food of five continents, and there was a

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merry, carefree quality about her, even in wartime, which seemed to
me to exemplify the very best of the Slavic soul.
Odessa has a large Jewish population (for it is, of course, the cap-
ital of Russian Jewry beyond the Pale, even though the Pale itself,
together with all anti-Semitic laws, has been abolished in Kerensky's
Russia) and so is full of music, intelligent commercial enterprise—
and Romance. I fell in love with her immediately. I know of no other
city quite like her and often wish that I could have spent longer ex-
ploring her winding streets, her avenues and promenades, her resorts
and watering places. She is not, strictly speaking, a Russian city. She
is Ukrainian, and the Ukrainians will insist very firmly that the
"goat-beards" (their word for Great Russians) are interlopers, that
Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, is the true center of Slavic culture, that
the Muscovites are upstarts, parvenus, johnny-come-latelies, tyrants,
imperialists, thieves, carpetbaggers and almost anything else of the
kind you care to think of. It is true that the Central Government of
Moscow has most power over the Ukraine, but there is a spirit of
freedom about Odessa which, I think, denies any of its denizens' alle-
gations.
In Odessa I also learned a great deal about the progress of the
war. On land the Japanese had made many early gains but were now
being beaten back by Russian and British infantry—indeed they held
less territory than before the war. They were still pretty powerful in
the air and at sea, and were masters of strategy, but all in all we were
pretty optimistic about the way the conflict was turning, for the
Dutch and Portuguese were also on our side and although their navies
were not large they were extremely capable.
It is certain that the war would have been as good as over if it
had not been for Russia's domestic problems. These tended, among
Odessa's population, to be a more important topic than the war it-
self. Perhaps because of the war, there was a threat of revolution in
several parts of the USR. Indeed whole parts of the Ukraine were
currently in the hands of large armies calling themselves Free Cos-
sacks—many of them deserters from various cavalry regiments. I gath-
ered that they were intense Slavophiles, opposed to Kerensky's
"Europeanization" of their lands, were "nationalists" in that they
argued for the independence of all territories currently making up the
Russian Empire—Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Finland, Latvia, Es-
tonia, Bulgaria and so on. Their policies and demands seemed vague,
though socialistic in terminology, even when I heard them discussed
from all aspects, but if it was possible to argue forever about the in-

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393
terpretation of their ideology, all agreed to a degree of fascination
with the leading personality among the revolutionists, the mysterious
man known popularly as The Steel Tsar. He was believed to have
come originally from Georgia and his real name was thought to be
Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, an ex-priest with a record of mes-
sianism. He was known as The Steel Tsar because he tended to wear
an ancient metal helmet covering most of his face. There were many
explanations for this: some thought him disfigured in battle, others
thought that his features had been hideously deformed since birth.
He was supposed to have a withered arm, be a hunchback, have
artificial metal legs, and to be not a human being at all, but some sort
of automaton.
Because of the atmosphere surrouding Djugashvili, I myself be-
came quite as curious about him as the natives. I followed the news
of the Free Cossacks as eagerly as I followed news of the British air-
ship battles in the skies of the Pacific.
In Odessa I met one of the chaps with whom I had been impris-
oned. He was about to join a British merchantman. He told me that
Birchington, too, was working for the Russians, but he wasn't sure
where. "Some sort of engineering job, I gather." Olmeijer was in
Yalta, managing a State-owned hotel. The worst news, however, con-
cerned Dempsey. "I heard he'd jumped for it before we ever got to
Japan. Seemed so scared of what they'd do to him that, wounded as
he was, he preferred to dive out. God knows why they hated him so.
Do you have any idea, Bastable?"
I shook my head. But again I experienced that peculiar frisson; a
sort of recognition, as if somewhere within me I actually knew what
Dempsey had done.
My experience of Odessa was as intense as it was brief and I
missed it, when I left for the airpark on the train, as if I had lived
there for years.
The Vassarion Belinsky was a joy. She used liquid ballast which
could, like her gas, be heated or cooled to alter her weight and her
ascent acceleration was, if we needed it, rocketlike in its speed. She
had a top-speed of 200 mph but could be pushed quite a bit faster
than that with a good wind behind her. She could turn and dive like a
porpoise and there was almost nothing you couldn't do with her. All
the crew, except me, were Russian. Captain L. V. Leonov was a thor-
oughly experienced airshipman with an excellent grasp of English.
My own Russian was, naturally, limited, but enough to receive and
convey the appropriate orders. England had for many years main-

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
tained herself as successfully in the air as she had on the sea, so that
most airshipmen tended to use English as their first language while
aloft.
As we left Lermontov Airpark on a cool, sunny dawn, gaining
height through a slow, gentle curve which revealed more and more of
the steppe through our observation ports, Captain Leonov broke
open his orders on the control deck and, standing with his back to
our helmsman, informed his officers of the Belinsky's mission.
I was not the only one both surprised and disappointed. It seemed
that we were victims of a typical piece of Muscovite bureaucratic
muddle, and there I was (since I had signed up for a minimum of a
year) with absolutely nothing I could do about it.
Leonov's heavy Russian face was sober and his voice sonorous as
he began to read the orders. With typical Russian courtesy, he spoke
English for my benefit.
"We are to proceed at all fastest speed to Yekaterinaslav which is
currently sustaining heavy attack from rebel forces. We are to join
other ships under the command of Air Admiral Krassnov." He
pinched his eyebrows together. It was obvious that he had no taste
for the commission which would involve him in giving orders which
would inevitably lead to the death of other Russians.
Everyone was agitated by the news. They had been expecting to
defend their country against the Japanese. Instead they were assigned
to domestic policing duties of a kind which all the officers found
distasteful and demeaning. I did not really mind missing a scrap with
the Japanese, but I was bitterly sorry that I was unlikely to see any
real aerial action. I had joined the Service out of a mixture of desper-
ation and boredom. I appeared to be doomed to a continuation of
those circumstances. Moreover I should sooner or later have blood
on my hands, and it would be the blood of people I had absolutely
nothing against. I had no idea of the issues. Socialists are always
quarreling among themselves, because of the strong element of mes-
sianism in their creeds, and I could see little difference between
Kerensky's brand or Djugashvili's. My only consolation was that at
least I might have the opportunity of observing The Steel Tsar (or at
any rate his works) at first hand.
Pilniak, a 2nd Lieutenant of about my own age, with huge brown
eyes and a rather girlish face (though he was in no way effeminate)
grasped my uniformed shoulder (like him I wore the pale blue of the
Russian Volunteer Airforce) and laughed.
"Well, Mr. Bastable, you're going to see some Cossacks, eh? A bit

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395
of the reality most Europeans miss." He dropped his voice and be-
came sympathetic. "Does that bother you? The Steel Tsar rather
than the Mikado?"
"Not a bit," I said. After all, I thought wickedly, I had originally
been trained to fight Russians. But I have never been able to find
consolation in cynicism for long and this lasted a few seconds. "Per-
haps we'll find out if he's human or not."
Pilniak became serious. "He's human. And he's cruel. This whole
thing is essentially medieval in its overtones, for all they claim to be
socialists and nationalists. They want to put the clock back to the
days of Ivan the Terrible. They could destroy Russia and everything
our Revolution achieved. There have even been instances of pogroms
in one or two of the towns they've taken, and God alone knows
what's going on in the rural districts. They should be stopped as
quickly as possible. But they're gaining popular support all the time.
War brings out these basic feelings. They are not always controllable.
Our newspapers beat the drum of Slavophilia, of nationalism, in an
effort to stir up patriotic feeling against the Japanese—and this hap-
pens."
"You seem to speak as if this uprising was inevitable."
"I think it was. Kerensky promised us Heaven on Earth many
years ago. And now we find that not only have we not made Heaven,
but we are threatened with Hell, in the form of invasion. This war
will leave many scars, Mr. Bastable. Our country will not be the
same when it is over."
"The Steel Tsar is a genuine threat?"
"What he represents, Mr. Bastable, is a genuine threat."

CHAPTER THREE
Cossack Revolutionists
Yekaterinaslav was soon below us and it was obvious that the
city was undergoing attack. We could see smoke and flames every-
where, little groups of figures running hither and yon in the suburbs,
the occasional boom of cannon fire or the tiny snapping, noises of
rifle shots. Yekaterinaslav was an old Russian-style city, with many of
its buildings made of wood. Tall houses with elaborately carved dec-
oration; the familiar onion domes of churches; spires, steeples, sev-
eral brick-built apartment blocks and shops near the center. On the
nearby Dnieper river most of the boats were burning or had been
sunk. Occasionally a ship, its paddles foaming the water, would go
by the city and sometimes it would loose off a shell or two. Evidently
these were naval ships commandeered by the revolutionists.
Pilniak knew Yekaterinaslav pretty well. He stood beside me,
naming streets and squares. Some distance from the city, among
demolished farmhouses and ruined fields, we saw the main Cossack
camp: a mixture of all kinds of tents and temporary shacks, includ-
ing more than one railway carriage, for the main railway line ran to
Yekaterinaslav and much of its stock had been captured.
"That's it," said Pilniak in some excitement. "The Free Cossack
Host. Impressive, you must admit." He raised binoculars to his eyes.
"Most of their heavy artillery is farther down the line, along with
their armored vehicles. They're saving up the cavalry for the final
charge. There must be ten thousand horses down there."
"Not much good against airships," I said. "They look a pretty un-
ruly mob to me."
"Wait until you see them fight. Then you'll know what cavalry tac-
tics are all about."
As a matter of fact it did my heart good to hear someone talking

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397
in those terms. The last time I had heard people discussing cavalry
tactics had been in the mess in my own world of 1902.
"You talk as if you're on their side," I said.
He paused, lowering his glasses, then he said seriously: "Every-
thing free in the Russian heart is represented by our Cossacks. Every
yearning we have is symbolized by their way of life. They are cruel,
they are often illiterate and they are certainly unsophisticated by
Petersburg standards, but they are—they are the Cossacks. The Cen-
tral Government should never have imposed conscription. They
would have volunteered in time, but they wanted to show that they
were making their own decisions, not Petersburg's."
"This rebellion came about as the result of conscription?" I had
not heard this mentioned in Odessa.
"It is one reason. There are many. Traditionally, the Cossacks
have enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy. When the Tsars tried to
take it away they always found themselves in trouble. They have
large communities—we call them Hosts—which elect their own
officers, their own leader—the ataman—and are very touchy, Mr. Bas-
table, about these things."
"Apparently," I said. "So in destroying this rebellion, you feel you
are in some way destroying your own sense of freedom, of romance."
"I think so," said Pilniak. He shrugged. "But we have our orders,
huh?"
I sighed. I did not envy him his dilemma.
The ship had been sighted by the Cossacks. There was some spo-
radic artillery fire from the ground, a few rifleshots, but luckily they
had little or no anti-aircraft weaponry. The poor devils would be sit-
ting ducks for our bombs.
The ship was turning slowly, heading for the airpark on the south-
ern side of the city. Here we were to rendezvous with the other ships
of the Volunteer Fleet.
Pilniak continued to peer through his binoculars. "Looks as if
they're massing," he said. "They know they haven't much time now."
"They're going to try to take the city entirely with cavalry?"
"It's not the first time they've done it. But they have covering fire
to some extent, and some armored battlecars."
"Who's defending Yekaterinaslav?" I asked.
"I think we dropped some infantry a couple of days ago, and
there's some artillery, too, as you can see. They were only sent to
hold out until we arrived, if I'm not mistaken." Now we could see the
airpark. There were already half-a-dozen good-sized ships tethered at

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THE NOMAD OF TIME
mast. "Those are troop-carriers," he said, pointing to the largest.
"By the way they're sitting in the air I'd say they still had most of
their chaps on board."
Even as he spoke the captain came on deck behind us and saluted
us. "Gentlemen, we have our wireless orders."
We approached him. He was mopping his brow with a large brown
handkerchief. He seemed to be barely in control of his own agitation.
"We are to proceed in squadron with three other ships, led by the
Afanasi Turchaninov, and there we shall release our bombs on the
rebel camp before they can move their horses out." He was plainly
sickened by the statement. Whatever the Cossacks had done, how-
ever cruel they were, however insane in their ambitions, they did not
deserve to die in such a manner.
His announcement was greeted with silence throughout the control
deck.
The captain cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, we are at war. Those
soldiers down there are just as much enemies of Russia as the Japa-
nese. They could be said to be a worse enemy, for they are traitors,
turning against their country in her hour of greatest need."
He spoke with no real authority. It would not have mattered a
great deal if the horsemen were Japanese, it still seemed appallingly
unsporting to do what we were about to do. I felt that Fate had once
again trapped me in a moral situation over which I had no control.
Some of my fellow officers were beginning to murmur and scowl.
Pilniak saluted Captain Leonov. "Sir, are we to place bombs directly
on the Cossacks?"
"Those are our orders."
"Could we not simply bomb around them, sir?" said another
young officer. "Give them a fright."
"Those are not our orders, Kostomarov."
"But sir, we are airshipmen. We. . . !"
"We are servants of the State," insisted the captain, "and the State
demands we bomb the Cossacks." He turned his back on us. "Drop
to two hundred feet, height coxswain."
"Two hundred feet, sir."
The grumbling continued until the captain whirled round, his face
red with anger. "To your posts, gentlemen. Bombardiers: look to
your levers."
Grimly we did as we were instructed. From the masts, which were
now behind us, there floated up three other ships. Two positioned
themselves on our port and starboard, while the leader went ahead of

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399
us. There was a funereal atmosphere about the whole operation. As
he gave his orders, the captain's voice was low and bleak.
The wireless began to buzz. Our operator lifted his instrument.
"It's the flagship, sir," he told the captain. The captain came to the
equipment and began to listen. He nodded once or twice and then
gave fresh orders to the helmsman. He seemed almost cheerful.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the Cossacks are already charging. Our job
will now be to try to break them up."
The task was hardly congenial, but anything had begun to seem
better than bombing a camp. At least it would be a moving target.

CHAPTER FOUR
The Black Ships
I very much doubt, Moorcock, that you will ever know the experi-
ence of confronting a Cossack battle charge, or, indeed, that you will
ever witness it from the control deck of a sophisticated aerial cruiser!
Led by Admiral Krassnov's flagship, we raced lower and lower to
the ground, to give specific accuracy to our aerial torpedoes. As we
approached we were barely fifty feet up and ahead of us was a moun-
tain of black dust in which were silhouetted the massed forms of men
and horses. This, at least, felt more like a fair fight.
Standing on the bridge, peering forward, Captain Leonov issued
the command:
"Let go Volley Number One."
Levers were depressed and, from their tubes in the bow of the
gondola, aerial torpedoes buzzed toward the yelling Cossack Host.
The torpedoes made a high-pitched noise as the air was sliced by
their stubby wings and then a deep-throated boom sounded as they
entered the Cossack ranks. Yet for all they were inevitably deadly
the torpedoes hardly seemed to make a scrap of difference to the
momentum of the charge.
Next, as the riders passed below us, we released our bombs, lifting
to about a hundred and fifty feet as we did so and then dipping down
again to fire off another volley of torpedoes. The ship creaked to the
helmsman's rapid turning and returning of the wheel, to the height
coxswain's sure hand on his valve-controls. I've never flown in a
tighter ship and as we did our bloody work I prayed for the chance
of a real engagement with ships of equal maneuverability.
The Cossacks split ranks as we came down on them again and at
first it seemed they were in panic. Then I realized they were tactical
breaks to move out of our direct line of fire. They showed enor-
mously disciplined horsemanship. Now I understood what Pilniak

THE STEEL TSAR
401
had been talking about. And, admiring such courage and skill, I felt
even less pleased with myself for what I was involved in.
On a wireless order from the flagship we released the last of our
bombs and went rapidly aloft. Now we could see the results of our
attack. Dead and dying men and horses were strewn everywhere. The
ground was pitted with craters, scattered with red flesh and broken
bones. It was sickening.
Pilniak had tears in his eyes. "I blame that staretz for this—the
mad priest Djugashvili. He's not a socialist. He's a lunatic nihilist,
throwing away those poor lads' lives!"
It's common enough to transfer one's own guilt onto an easy vil-
lain, but I was bound to agree with him about the so-called Steel
Tsar.
Not for the first time, however, I wished that the airship had never
been conceived. Its capacity for destruction was horrifying.
On the bridge Captain Leonov was pale and silent. He gave his or-
ders in quiet, tense Russian. Whenever my eyes met those of one of
my fellow airshipmen it seemed we shared the same thoughts. This
could be the beginning of civil war. There is no kind more distress-
ing, no kind which so readily describes the pointlessness of human
killing human. I have been fated, for a reason I cannot comprehend
or for no reason at all, to witness the worst examples of insane war-
fare (and all warfare, it seems to me now, is insane) and to listen to
the most ridiculous explanations as to its "necessity" from otherwise
perfectly rational people, that I have long-since become weary,
Moorcock, of the debate. If I appear to you to be in a more recon-
ciled mood than when your grandfather first met me it is because I
have learned that no individual is responsible for war—that we are
all, at the same time, individually responsible for the ills of the
human condition. In learning this—and I am about to tell you how I
learned it—I learned a certain tolerance for myself and for others
which I had never previously possessed.
We had not managed to halt the Cossack charge, even though we
had weakened it. As we returned to the airpark I saw the second
stage of our strategy. On the outskirts of the city the larger troop-car-
riers were releasing their "cargo."
Each soldier fell from the great gondolas on his own thin wings.
In rough formation, the airborne infantry began to glide toward
the earth, guiding themselves on pairs of silken sails to the ground
where they re-formed, folded their wings into their packs and

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marched toward the trenches already prepared for them. Next, on
large parachutes, artillery pieces were landed and moved efficiently
to their positions. As the Cossack Host approached the suburbs, it
was met by a sudden burst of fire. I heard rifles and machine-guns,
the boom of howitzers and field-guns.
Pilniak said to me: "I wish I was down there with them."
I merely wished that I was nowhere near Yekaterinaslav. "Does
The Steel Tsar lead his own charges?" I asked. Perhaps I was hoping
that the man had at least died for his folly.
"They say he does." Pilniak grimaced. "But who can be sure?
He's quite an old man, I gather."
"I wonder how a Georgian priest became a Cossack ataman," I
said. "Doesn't that seem strange to you?"
"He's been in this part of the world for years. A Cossack is a kind
of person, not a member of a race, as such. They elect their leaders,
as I told you. He must have courage and he must have a powerful
personality. Also, I suspect, he has the knack of appealing to peo-
ple's pride. The Central Government has humiliated the Cossacks
who know that if they had not supported the Revolution it would
have collapsed. The Revolution started where our old uprisings al-
ways used to start, here in the south, on the 'borderlands' (that is
what U-kraine means). It could have degenerated into pogroms and
civil slaughter, but the Cossacks had been mistreated by the Tsar,
used badly in the war against Japan, so they sided with the socialists
and helped establish the first effective parliament, our Duma, which
in turn caused Tsar Nicholas to abdicate. It was Cossacks who seated
Kerensky in the Presidential Chair. It was Cossacks who put Ms pic-
ture in place of the Tsar's."
"You and your ikons—" I began, but Pilniak was in full, impas-
sioned stride.
"Naturally the Cossacks feel humiliated by Kerensky. They gave
him the power in return for their own autonomy. They see him as be-
traying them, as attacking their freedoms. On that day in October
1905 when he stood before the Duma and the representatives of all
the Cossack Hosts, he spoke of 'eternal liberty' for the Cossacks.
Now he appears to be making exactly the same mistakes Tsar Nicho-
las made—and is paying the price."
"You seem confused in your loyalties," I said.
"I'm loyal to our socialist ideals. Kerensky is old. Perhaps he
takes poor advice, I don't know."
I looked back at the carnage, astomshed that those wild atavistic

THE STEEL TSAR
403
horsemen could have so much influence on the course of modern his-
tory. If it was true that they had only demanded their own freedom,
rather than political power as such, then it was not surprising that
they felt betrayed by those they had supported. There were many
peoples who had shared their experience throughout history.
"Djugashvili promises them their old liberties back," said Pilniak
bitterly, "and the only freedom he actually brings is the freedom of
death. He's still a peasant priest at heart. Russia is cursed by them.
They have something which the Russian people find hard to resist."
"Hope?" I said dryly.
"Once, yes. But now? Our country has almost universal literacy, a
free medical service which is the envy of the world, our living stan-
dards are higher than most. We are prosperous. Why should they
need a staretz?"
"They expected Heaven. You said so yourself. Your Socialist
Duma appears to have provided them only with Earth—a familiar re-
ality, however improved."
Pilniak nodded. "We Slavs have always hoped for more. But until
Kerensky we achieved far less. What could The Steel Tsar do for
us?"
"Remove personal responsibility," I said.
Pilniak laughed. "We have never been fond of that. You Anglo-
Saxons have the lion's share, eh?"
I failed to take his point. Seeing this, Pilniak added kindly: "We
are still ruled, in some ways, by our Church. We are a people more
cursed by religion and its manifestations and assumptions than any
other. The Steel Tsar, with his messianic socialism, offers us religion
again, perhaps. You English have never had quite the same need for
God. We have known despair and conquest too often to ignore Him
altogether." He shrugged. "Old habits, Mr. Bastable. Religion is the
panacea for defeat. We have a great tendency to rationalize our de-
spair in mystical and Utopian terms."
I began to understand him. "And your Cossacks are prepared to
kill to achieve that dream, rather than accept Kerensky's philosophy
of compromise?"
"They are, to be fair, also prepared to die for the dream," he said.
"They are children. They are Old Believers, in that sense. Not long
ago, all Russians were children. If Djugashvili has his way, they'll be-
come children again. Kerensky's mistake has always been that he
has refused to become a patriarch—or, as you said, an ikon." He
smiled. "Though he's come close in his time. Petersburg socialism

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seems cold to the likes of our Cossacks, who would rather worship
personalities than embrace ideas."
I shared his irony. "You make them sound like Americans."
"We all have it in us, Mr. Bastable, particularly in times of stress."
The cruisers were nearing the masts now and making ready to
anchor. Captain Leonov reminded us of our duties and we returned
to our posts on the bridge.
We were never to dock.
As the sun began to sink over the steppe, filling the landscape with
that soft Russian twilight, Pilniak pointed with alarm to the east.
"Ships, sir!" he shouted to the captain. "About ten of them!"
They were moving in rapidly—medium-sized warships, black from
crown to gondola, without insignia or markings of any kind, and as
they flew they fired.
We had only our light guns and no bombs or torpedoes left. Be-
fore attacking us, these ships had evidently waited until we had spent
our main firepower.
One of the other cruisers received a terrific bombardment, so
heavy that it was knocked sideways in the air the moment before its
mooring cables linked with the mast. It made an attempt to come up,
nose-first, but explosive shells struck hull and gondola with enor-
mous force. One or two of its guns went off and were answered by an
even fiercer barrage. They must have hit fuel supplies, for fire burst
out in the starboard stern of her gondola. She was holed, too, and
jerking like a harpooned whale as she dropped toward the buildings
of the airpark, fell against a mast, scraped down it and collapsed
uselessly on the ground. Ground crew ran rapidly toward her, pre-
paring to fight the fire and save her complement if they could.
Hastily Captain Leonov ordered our gunners to their various posi-
tions about the gondola.
"Whose ships are they?" I shouted to Pilniak.
He shook his head. "I don't know, but they're evidently not Jap-
anese. They're fighting for the Cossacks."
Captain Leonov was at the wireless equipment, conferring with
Krassnov's flagship, which, we could see, was receiving a heavy bom-
bardment. The black ships appeared to single out one of our ves-
sels at a time. He spoke rapidly in Russian. "Da—da—ya pani-
mayu. . . ."
Then: "Two thousand feet, height coxswain. Full speed, minimum
margin." This meant we were going to have to hang on to our heads
and stomachs as the ship began to shoot upward.

THE STEEL TSAR
405
We clung to the handrails. As we climbed we also turned to bring
our larger recoilless thirty-pounders to bear on the black ships
below. It was a beautiful piece of airmanship and it was rewarded al-
most immediately as we scored two good hits on one of the leading
enemy craft. Though my head was swimming, I was elated. This was
what I had joined the Service for!
Two enemy ships split away from the fleet and began to come up
toward us, but without the speed, the efficiency or the sheer skill of
the Vissarion Belinsky. We had little else, at that point, but our supe-
rior airmanship, for we were outgunned and outnumbered. We con-
tinued to rise, but at a slower rate, still firing down on the two black
ships which swam upward, implacable and deadly, like sharks mov-
ing in for the kill.
We reached the clouds.
"Forward at half-speed," Captain Leonov instructed the helmsman.
He was very calm now and there was a peculiar little smile on his
face. Evidently he preferred this kind of fighting, no matter how dan-
gerous, to the sort we had first been forced to take part in.
"Cut engines," ordered the captain. We were now drifting, par-
tially hidden by the clouds, inaudible to our enemies.
"Are we going to engage them, sir?" Pilniak wanted to know.
Leonov pursed his lips. "I think we might have to, Lieutenant Pil-
niak. But I want to get us as much advantage as possible. Turn the
main vanes two points to port, helmsman."
The ship began to come about slowly.
"Another two points," said the captain. His eyes were cold and
hard as he peered into the cloud.
"Another point." We had almost made a complete turn.
"Engines active!" said Leonov. "Full speed ahead."
Our diesels shrieked into life as we plunged into the open sky
again. It was a grey limbo, with clouds below us and the darkening
heavens above. We might well find ourselves fighting at night, using
our searchlights to seek our antagonists. It would be a game of hide-
and-seek which could last until dawn or even longer. Captain Leonov
was plainly preparing for this, attempting to buy time. By now our
surviving sister ships would have attempted the same tactics. We had
little choice, for we were all but helpless in any kind of direct en-
gagement.
"Cut engines." Again we were drifting, waiting for a sight of the
black ships. A wind was striking our outer cables, making them sing.
Stars had begun to appear overhead.

406
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Pilniak shivered. "It's as if the world's ceased to exist," he mur-
mured.
Then we spotted them, below and about half-a-mile ahead.
They had seen us, as well, and were coming up rapidly.
"Engines! Full!"
Again our diesels screamed.
"Three points starboard, hard, helmsman."
We swung so that we faced the black ships side-on.
"Fire all guns!"
We offered them a broadside which was, in my view, a masterpiece
of gunnery, sending a stream of shells in a vector toward both ships,
which were sailing virtually side by side.
We hit one badly, evidently damaging its engines, because it began
to turn in the wind, virtually out of control. We had no explosive
shells and the enemy hulls could resist everything but a close-range
total hit from our guns, so we were concentrating on their engines
and their control vanes. It was the best we could do.
The second ship began to go to cover in the lower clouds and now
we could see that it was in wireless-telephone contact with its com-
panions, for as the wounded ship withdrew, two more started to as-
cend. We could see nothing of our own sister ships and had to as-
sume that they had taken evasive action or had been brought down.
The gondola shook violently and I nearly lost my footing as our
hull received at least one direct hit.
"Rapid descent, height coxswain," ordered our captain.
We fell through the skies like a stone until we were actually below
the enemy craft, slowing, it seemed to me, just before we struck the
ground.
"Full speed astern."
We raced backward over a deserted steppe. The city and the Cos-
sacks were nowhere to be seen. Captain Leonov had chosen his own
area of battle.
The black ships were in hot pursuit, attempting to imitate our tac-
tics.
One of the ships did not pull up in time. She hit the ground with a
massive thump. Her gondola and all aboard her must have been
smashed to fragments. She began to bump upward again and we
could see that she had left a great deal of debris behind. She was
nothing but a drifting hulk.
Leonov seized his chance. "We'll use her for cover. Get behind

THE STEEL TSAR
407
her if you can, helmsman. Forward, half-speed. One point to port."
Just as we swam in beside the ruined ship, her companions' guns
began to go off. They hit the hulk and shells burst all over her, but
we received only minor concussion. We moved up over her, all our
cannon going at once and again we managed to damage vanes and en-
gines on the nearest warship.
It was getting dark. Searchlights suddenly came on, blinding us as
we stood on the bridge. Captain Leonov gave the order to switch on
our own electrics. It would make us visible to the enemy, but at least
we would not be entirely blinded.
"Give them another broadside," said Captain Leonov quietly.
Our guns sought the source of the searchlights and we saw the last
black ship begin to retreat upward, perhaps trying to lure us into
pursuit.
Captain Leonov smiled a grim, experienced smile and shook his
head. "Half-speed ascent, engines slow astern."
We climbed away from our enemy, into the clouds again. I was
mightily impressed by our captain's superb tactics.
Pilniak was elated, in spite of himself. "That's showing them what
real airfighting's all about," he said. He clapped me on the shoulder.
"What do you think, Mr. Bastable?"
I was not naturally capable of the same display of emotion as the
Russian, but I turned, grinning, and shook him by the hand. "I've
never seen anything like it," I said.
The black ship had extinguished her searchlights and had
vanished.
"We must wait until morning now, I think," said Captain Leonov.
"Thank you, gentlemen. You are an excellent crew."
The half-moon was now visible, seemingly huge in the sky. Again
the captain gave the order to stop all engines. The Russians were
cheering and hugging one another, absolutely delighted by what
could only be considered a victory against almost impossible odds.
It was an hour or two later, as we rested and debated the morn-
ing's moves, as our operator attempted to get wireless instructions
from Yekaterinaslav and then, when that failed, from Kharkov, that
the ship was suddenly shaken by an almighty thump.
At first we thought we had been hit, but the ship was moving
strangely in the air and had not descended a fraction. If anything, we
had gained a little height.
We were asking ourselves what had happened when Captain

408
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Leonov came racing from his cabin, glaring upward. It was as if he,
alone, knew what had happened.
"I'd never have believed it," he said. "They're better than I
guessed."
"What is it, sir?" I asked.
"An old tactic, Mr. Bastable. They've been following us all along,
using nothing but their steering gear to keep track of us, drifting as
we've drifted."
"But what's happened, sir?"
"Grappling clamps, Mr. Bastable. They're sitting on our crown.
Their gondola to our hull. Like a huge, damned parasite."
"We're captured?"
He grimaced. "I think it's more in the nature of a forced marriage,
Mr. Bastable."
He shook his head, his fingers stroking his mouth. "My fault. It's
the one tactic I didn't anticipate. If they get through our inspection
hatches. . . ." He began to issue more commands in Russian. Rifles
and pistols were broken out of our tiny arsenal and a gun put into
every hand. "Everyone to the inspection hatches!" cried Pilniak.
"Prepare to repel boarders."
I had never heard that phrase used before.
Above us the enemy ship's engines were shrilling now as we were
borne forward.
"All engines full astern," said the captain. He turned to me. "It
could rip us and them apart. But we have no choice, I fear."
The ship began to shake as if it were undergoing a gigantic fit.
Through the quivering companionways we raced for the inspec-
tion hatches, listening carefully, through the general row, and hearing
noises from inside the hull which could only be men climbing slowly
down toward us. To fire upward into the inspection tunnels risked a
gas-escape and the possibility of being incapacitated by the fumes.
Fewer than half our riggers were issued with breathing equipment,
for the Vassarion Belinsky had never expected to be captured by
boarders.
"We're going to have to shoot when they emerge," said Pilniak.
"It will be our only chance."
I held my revolver at my side, four or five armed riggers with rifles
standing immediately behind me in the narrow passage as the ship
shuddered and wailed in her efforts to free herself from our captors.
Pilniak said: "It was a daring move of theirs. Who could have
guessed they'd try it?"

THE STEEL TSAR	409
"They're as likely to destroy their own ship as they are ours," I
said.
Pilniak offered me one of his wild, Russian grins. "Exactly," he
said.
The hatch cover had begun to open.
We readied our firearms.

CHAPTER FIVE
A Question of Attitudes
In the dim moonlight entering from the overhead ports, it was im-
possible to identify the figures that first broke through. In Russian,
Pilniak ordered them to throw down their arms or we would open
fire. Then we noticed that they were waving a piece of bedsheet on a
stick. A white flag. They wished to parley.
Pilniak was disconcerted. He told the invaders to hold their posi-
tion while he sent for orders. One of the riggers ran back along the
passage toward the control deck.
The men in the hatches appeared to be amused and made some
cryptic jokes which I failed to understand and which Pilniak, it
seemed to me, refused to hear. It was pretty obvious to me, however,
that none of us wanted to fight in those close confines. Few could
survive.
I think Captain Leonov had realized this, for he returned with the
rigger. Pilniak told him what was going on. He nodded, then
addressed the man holding the white flag.
"You know that this is an impossible situation for both of us. Is
your leader among you?"
A small, stocky man pushed forward and gave Captain Leonov a
mock military salute. "I represent these people," he said.
"You are the leader?"
"We have 110 leaders."
"You are their spokesman, then?"
"I think so."
"I am Captain Leonov, commander of this vessel."
"I am Nestor Makhno, speaking for the anarchist cause."
I was astonished. Before I could check myself I uttered his name:
"Makhno!" It was the man with whom I had been imprisoned in

THE STEEL TSAR
411
Japan. I had never expected to see him again. I had no idea that he
knew anything at all about airships.
He recognized me and smiled. "Good evening, Mr. Bastable. You
are once more a prisoner, it seems."
"You are not much less of one," I remarked.
He smiled. It was a quiet, sardonic smile, almost gentle.
He wore an old, elaborate Cossack coat, with a great deal of green
and gold frogging, an astrakhan hat pulled onto the side of his head,
a peasant shirt, belted at the waist, baggy trousers and high riding
boots. He looked the picture of the romantic Cossack of fiction and I
had half an idea that he deliberately cultivated this appearance. There
was even a Cossack sword at his side and one hand toyed with the
butt of an automatic pistol stuck into his silver-studded belt.
"You serve the rebel Djugashvili, I take it," said our captain. "Are
you trying to talk peace terms?"
"I've given that up," said Makhno. "It doesn't appear to work.
You mention peace and everyone tries to shoot you or jail you. I do
not, as it happens, serve anyone, save those who elect me. But we
have agreed to give Djugashvili our help during this campaign. We
do not support his ideology, only the spirit of the revolution, the
spirit of the true Cossack. We are anarchists. We refuse to acknowl-
edge government or despots of any description."
"You'd not agree The Steel Tsar was a despot?" I said.
Makhno acknowledged my remark with a short bow. "I would
agree absolutely. We believe neither in masters nor in slaves, Mr.
Bastable."
"Merely in chaos!" said Pilniak with a sneer.
"Anarchy means 'no government,' not disorder." Makhno dis-
missed Pilniak's remarks as those of a naive child. "And it has
nothing whatsoever to do with Djugashvili's idiot so-called socialism.
We do not support him, as I told you. We support the spirit of the
uprising."
Captain Leonov was confused by this information. "Then how do
we negotiate? What do you want?"
Makhno said: "You are our prisoners. We want no bloodshed. We
would rather have your ship in one piece."
Captain Leonov became stern. "I will not surrender my ship."
"You have little choice," said Makhno. He looked to the outer
ports.
We all followed his gaze. On flexible steel ladders dangling from

412
THE NOMAD OF TIME
the black ship, armed men were clambering down toward our engine
nacelles.
"In a few moments your engines will be out of action, Captain."
Even as he spoke one of our screws stopped turning. One by one
the other engines stopped. From outside, in the chill wind, came the
sound of cheering.
The captain put his hands in his pockets and spread his legs.
"What now?" he asked stoically.
"You will admit that you are now completely in our power."
"I will admit that you are an expert pirate."
"Come now, Captain. This is not piracy. We are at war. And we
have won this particular engagement."
"You are a bandit and you have seized a vessel representing the
government of the Union of Slavic Republics. That is an act of
piracy, of rebellion, of treason. We are indeed at war, Captain
Makhno. You will recall the enemy, I think. It is Japan."
"A war between authoritarian governments, not a war between
peoples," insisted Makhno. "What sort of socialist are you, Cap-
tain?"
Leonov scowled. "I am not a socialist at all. I am a loyal Rus-
sian."
"Well, I am not a 'loyal Russian.' I am an anarchist and, as my
birthplace seems important to you, a Ukrainian. We oppose all gov-
ernments and in particular the Central Government of Petersburg. In
the name of the people, Captain Leonov, we demand that you sur-
render your ship."
Leonov was in a dreadful position. He did not wish to waste the
lives of his crew and he could not, in conscience, hand over his com-
mand.
"You are a democrat, I take it?" said Makhno.
"Of course."
"Then put it to your men," said the anarchist simply. "Do they
wish to live or die?"
"Very well," said Leonov, "I will ask them." He turned to us.
"Gentlemen? Airshipmen?"
"We'll fight," said Pilniak. "If they win, let them scrub our blood
from the decks."
Not one of us protested.
Makhno accepted this. Indeed, he seemed to have expected noth-
ing else. "I will give you a chance to debate your position," he said.
He began to move back toward the hatches. "You cannot escape

THE STEEL TSAR
413
now. We are already carrying you to our headquarters. If any of
you wishes to join our cause, we shall be happy to accept you as
brothers."
Captain Leonov did not order us to fire. We watched as the anar-
chists retreated, pulling the hatches closed behind them. It was then
that I realized we had been subject to a diversion. While we had
parleyed, we had not given attention to what had been going on out-
side the ship. I think Leonov understood this, too. It was obvious, as
we returned to the control deck, that he did not hold a very good
opinion of himself at that moment. As an aerial tactician he had no
equal. As a negotiator he was by no means as successful. It seemed
that Makhno (as I learned was his wont) had achieved checkmate
without losing a single life on either side.
Helplessly, we watched the stars and the clouds go by around us
as, with engines straining, the anarchist airship bore us steadily to-
ward its base.
On the control deck, Captain Leonov was sending a wireless mes-
sage through to Kharkov, attempting to receive instructions and to
give some idea of our position. Eventually, after several attempts, the
operator turned to him. They have cut our antennae, sir. We can nei-
ther send nor receive."
Leonov nodded. He looked at Pilniak and myself. "Well, gentle-
men, have you any suggestions?"
"Makhno has us completely in his power," I said. "Unless we at-
tempt to reach his ship through our inspection hatches, we have no
way of stopping him."
Leonov bent his head, as if in thought. When he looked up he was
in control of himself. "I think we can all get some sleep," he said. "I
regret that I did not anticipate this particular problem, gentlemen,
and that we have no orders to cover it. I think I had better say here
and now that I release you from my command."
It was a strange, almost oriental thing to say. Again it gave me a
better insight into the Russian temperament than I had had a few
months before. I respected Captain Leonov's attitude, however. He
was a man of honor who believed that he had failed in his duty. He
was now giving us carte blanche to act individually as we thought
best.
In a sense I had been extraordinarily impressed by the exchange
between Makhno and Leonov. Both appeared, for all that they
seemed to be in conflict, to have at root the same sense of duty to
those they led. Once Leonov had been proven, in his own eyes, in-

414
THE NOMAD OF TIME
competent, he no longer felt that he had any right to command at all.
I had the feeling that Makhno, and perhaps many of the Cossack
hetmans took the same view. Unlike so many politicians or military
leaders they made no attempt to justify their mistakes, to cling to
power. For them power held enormous responsibility and was merely
invested in them temporarily. I was learning, I think, one or two
things about the fundamental issues surrounding Russian politics-
something which was not normally put into words by any side, by
any observer. These issues were at once simpler and more complex
than I had once supposed.
Pilniak was saluting. "Thank you, sir," he said. I had no choice
but to salute as well. Leonov returned the salute and then went
slowly back to his cabin.
A notion suddenly came into my head. "Good God, Pilniak, he
doesn't intend to shoot himself, I hope."
Pilniak watched the departing captain. "I doubt it, Mr. Bastable.
That, too, would be cowardly. He will resume command should we
ask him. When there is something to command. In the meanwhile he
releases us so that we may take whatever actions we think will help
us best, as individuals, to survive. We are a primitive people, Mr.
Bastable, in some ways. Rather like red Indians, eh? In a way? If our
war leaders fail us, they resign immediately, unless we insist they
continue. That is true democratic socialism, isn't it?"
"I'm no politician," I told him. "I don't really understand the
difference between one 'ism' and another. I'm a simple soldier, as
I've said more than once."
I returned with Pilniak to our tiny cabin with its two bunks, one
on top of the other. We slept fitfully, both of us, having merely re-
moved our jackets and trousers. By dawn we were up, taking coffee
in the mess. Captain Leonov was absent.
A few minutes later, he joined us. "You will be interested to
learn," he said, "that we appear to have reached the bandits' camp."
We all rushed out of the mess and up to the observation ports.
The ship was dropping close to the ground. Trailing mooring ropes
had been dropped from the hull. Even as we watched we saw a mass
of Cossack horsemen racing toward the ropes. One by one they were
seized by at least half-a-dozen riders.
In triumph, the Cossacks dragged our ship back to their head-
quarters, while Makhno's black battle cruiser let go its grapples and
drifted some yards off, to fly beside us. We saw anarchists waving to
us from their own gondola. I was almost tempted to wave back.

THE STEEL TSAR
415
There was no mistaking Makhno's feat. He was a very clever man,
and plainly no fiery charlatan. I could make no sense of his politics,
but I continued to keep a high opinion of his intelligence.
Slowly, ignominiously, our ship was hauled to the ground by the
whooping Cossacks. These were evidently not the same men who had
attacked Yekaterinaslav, but it was equally evident that they knew
what we had done during the Cossack charge. I got a better look at
them now. In the main they were small men, swarthy, heavily
bearded, dressed in a mixture of clothing, much of it fairly ragged.
All were festooned with weapons, with bandoliers, with daggers and
swords; all rode wonderfully. They were plainly rogues but were not
by any means mere bandits.
Soon our keel was bumping along the ground as the ship was tied
to wooden stakes set for that purpose into the ground on the out-
skirts of a small, one-street town which seemed to have been taken
over piecemeal by the rebels.
We stood there looking out at the Cossacks while they grinned and
gesticulated at us. They did not seem to be threatening our lives.
They were overjoyed with the capture of a Central Government ship
and seemed to bear us very little malice. I mentioned this to Pilniak.
"I agree," he said. "It's true they don't hate us. But that's the last
thing which will stop a Cossack from killing you, if he so feels like
it"
I realized that we were in somewhat greater danger than I had
originally thought. The Cossacks did not accept the usual conven-
tions concerning a captured enemy and it was questionable now
whether or not we should experience the next day's dawn.
Captain Leonov remained in his cabin. As we stared out at our
captors the tension in the gondola began to grow. Overhead we could
hear men climbing over our hull, laughing and exchanging jokes with
the Cossacks on the ground.
Eventually Pilniak looked at me and the other officers and he
said: "Let's get this over with, shall we?"
We all agreed.
Pilniak gave the order to lower our gangways and, as the side of
the gondola opened out, we marched in good order down the steps
toward the Cossacks.
We had expected everything but the cheer which went up. The
Cossacks are the first to acknowledge nerve when it is displayed as
we displayed it. Perhaps Pilniak had known this.

416
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Only Captain Leonov refused to leave the ship and we accepted
his decision.
Pilniak and I were in the forefront. As we left the gangway he
approached the nearest Cossack and saluted. "Lieutenant L. I. Pil-
niak of the Volunteer Airfieet."
The Cossack said something in a dialect which defeated my imper-
fect Russian. He pushed his military cap back on his forehead, by
way of returning the salute. Then he made his horse walk backward;
in order to clear a space for us, waving us on toward the village.
Still rather nervous of what the Cossacks might decide, on a whim,
to do, we began to walk in double file toward the rebel headquarters.
Pilniak was smiling as he spoke and I returned the smile. "Chin up,
old man! Is this what the British call 'showing the flag'?"
"I'm not quite sure," I said. "It's been a long while since I had oc-
casion to do it."
The Cossacks, some mounted, some on foot, were crowding in on
us. They were pretty filthy and many of them were evidently drunk.
I've never smelled so much vodka. Some of them appeared to have
doused themselves in the stuff. They offered us catcalls and insults as
we walked between their lines and we were almost at the first build-
ings of the village when the press became so tight that we could no
longer move.
It was then that one of our riggers, near the rear, must have struck
out at a Cossack and a fight between the two began. Our carefully
maintained front threatened to crack.
I think we probably would have been torn to pieces if, from our
right, a horse-drawn machine-gun cart had not suddenly parted the
ranks. One man drove the little cart while another discharged a re-
volver into the air, shouting to the Cossacks to desist.
The man with the revolver was Nestor Makhno.
"Back, lads," he cried to his men. "We've no grudge against those
who misguidedly serve the State, only against the State itself."
He smiled down at me. "Good morning, Captain Bastable. So you
decided to join us, eh?"
I made no reply to this. "We were heading for your camp," I said.
"We accept that we are your prisoners."
"Where's the commander?"
"In his cabin."
"Sulking, no doubt." Makhno shouted something in dialect to the
Cossacks and once more the ranks fell back, enabling us to continue
on through the street until Makhno's cart stopped in front of a large

THE STEEL TSAR
417
schoolhouse which flew the rebel flag: a yellow cross on a red field.
He invited Pilniak and myself to join him and told the rest of our
chaps that they could get food and rest at a nearby church.
We were reluctant to part from the crew and fellow officers, but
we had little choice.
Makhno jumped from the cart and, limping slightly, escorted us
into the schoolhouse. Here, in the main classroom, several Cossack
chiefs awaited us. They were dressed far more extravagantly than
their men, in elaborately embroidered shirts and caftans, with a great
deal of silver and gold about their persons and decorating their
weapons.
The strangest sight, however, was the man who sat at the top of
the classroom, where the teacher would normally be. He lounged for-
ward on the desk, his face completely covered by a helmet which had
been forged to represent a fierce, moustachioed human face. Only the
eyes were alive and these seemed to me to be both mad and malevo-
lent. The man was not tall, but he was bulky, wearing a simple grey
moujik shirt, grey baggy trousers tucked into black boots. He had no
weapons, no insignia on his costume, and one of his arms seemed
thinner than the other. I knew that we must be confronting The Steel
Tsar himself; the rebel leader Djugashvili.
The voice was muffled and metallic from within the helm. "The
English renegade, Bastable. We've heard of you." The tones were
coarse, aggressive. The man seemed to me to be both insane and
drunk. "Is it good sport, then? Killing honest Cossacks?"
"I am an officer in the Volunteer Air Service," I told him.
The metal mask lifted to offer me a direct stare. "What are you,
then? Some sort of mercenary?"
I refused to explain my position.
He leaned back in his chair, heavy with his own sense of power.
"You joined to fight the Japs, is that it?"
"More or less," I said.
"Well you'll be pleased to learn that the Japs are almost beaten."
"I am pleased. I'd be glad to see an end to the war. To all wars."
"You're a pacifist!" Djugashvili began to laugh from within the
helm. It was a hideous sound. "For a pacifist, my friend, you've a lot
of blood on your hands. Two thousand of my lads died at Yeka-
terinaslav. But we took the city. And destroyed the air fleet you sent
against us. What d'you say to that?"
"If the war with Japan is almost over," I said, "then your triumph
will be short-lived. You must know that."

418
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"I know nothing of the sort." He signaled to one of his men, who
went to a side door, opened it and called through. Moments later I
saw Harry Birchington emerge. The Bore of Rishiri Camp back
again as large as life.
"Hello, Bastable, old man," he said. "I knew there must be some
decent socialists in Russia. And I've found the best."
"You're working with these people?"
"Certainly. Very glad to put my talents at their disposal."
The familiar self-congratulatory drone was already beginning to
grate, after seconds.
"Mr. Birchington keeps our airships running," said The Steel Tsar.
"And he's been very helpful in other areas."
"Nice of you to say so, sir." Birchington gave a peculiar twisted
smile, half pride, half embarrassment.
"Good morning, Mr. Bastable." I recognized the warm, ironic
voice immediately. I looked toward the door to see Mrs. Una Pers-
son standing there. She had crossed bandoliers of bullets over her
black military coat, a Smith and Wesson revolver on her hip, a fur
hat pulled to one side of her face. She was as beautiful as ever, with
her oval face and clear, grey eyes.
I bowed. "Mrs. Persson."
I had not seen her for some time, since together we had inhabited
the world of the Black Attila.* Her eyes held that look of special rec-
ognition with which one traveler between the planes reserves for an-
other.
"You've come to join our army, I take it," she said significantly.
I trusted her completely and took her hint at once. Much to Pil-
niak's astonishment, I nodded. "My intention all along," I said.
Djugashvili seemed unsurprised. "We have many well-wishers
abroad. People who know how much we have suffered under
Kerensky. But what of your companion?"
Pilniak drew himself up and brought his heels together with a
click. "I should like to join my fellow prisoners," he said.
The Steel Tsar shrugged. The metal glinted and seemed to be
reflected in his eyes. "Very well." He signed to one of his men.
"Dispose of him with—"
Makhno suddenly interjected, "Dispose? What are you suggesting,
comrade?"
* See The Land Leviathan

THE STEEL TSAR
419
Djugashvili waved his hand. "We have too many mouths to feed
as it is, comrade. If we let these survive—"
"They are prisoners of war, captured fairly. Send them back to
Kharkov. All I wanted was their ship. Let them go!"
Pilniak looked from one to the other. He had never expected to be
the subject of a moral argument between two bandits.
"I am responsible for all decisions," said Djugashvili. "I will
choose whether—"
"I captured them." Makhno was cold and angry. His voice
dropped, but as the tone lowered it carried increased authority. "And
I will not agree to their murder!"
"It is not murder. We are sweeping up the rubbish of history."
"You are planning to kill honest men."
"They attack socialism."
"We must live by example and offer example to others," said
Makhno. "It is the only way."
"You are a fool!" Djugashvili rose and brought his sound hand
down on the desk. "Why feed them? Why send them back so they
can fight against us again?"
"Some will fight against us—but others will understand the nature
of our cause and tell their comrades." Makhno folded his arms
across his chest. "It is always so. If we are brutal, then it gives them
a further excuse for brutality. By God, Djugashvili, these are simple
enough arguments. What do you want? Blood sacrifices? How can
you claim to represent enlightenment and liberty? You have already
been responsible for the slaughter of Jews, the destruction of peasant
villages, the torturing of innocent farmers. I agreed to bring my ships
to you because you promised that these things were accidental, that
they had stopped. They have not stopped. You are proving to me as
you stand there that they will never stop. You are a fraud, an au-
thoritarian hypocrite!"
The voice within the helm grew louder and louder as Makhno's
became quieter.
"I'll have you shot, Makhno. Your anarchist notions are a mere
fantasy. People are cruel, greedy, ruthless. They must be educated to
holiness. And they must be punished if they fail!" He was breathing
heavily. "It is all Russians understand! It is what Cossacks under-
stand."
"You have no claim as a Cossack," said Makhno with a faint
sneer. "I withdraw my help. I shall inform the people I represent and
ask them if they wish to withdraw also." He began to turn away.

420
THE NOMAD OF TIME
The Steel Tsar became placatory. "Nonsense, Makhno. We share
the same cause. Send the prisoners to Kharkov if you wish. What do
you think, Mrs. Persson?"
Una Persson said: "I think it would show the Central Government
that the Cossacks have mercy, that they are not bandits, that their
grievances are justified. It would be a good thing to do."
She seemed to have considerable influence over him, for he nod-
ded and agreed with her.
Makhno did not seem completely satisfied, but he was evidently
thinking of the safety of Pilniak and the rest. He drew a deep breath
and inclined his head. "I shall assume charge of the prisoners," he
said.
As he left with Makhno, Pilniak called back over his shoulder: "I
wish you luck with your new masters, Bastable."
I only knew that my loyalty was to Mrs. Persson and that I had
faith in her judgment.
When Makhno had disappeared, Djugashvili began to laugh.
"What a silly, childish business. Was it worth an argument over the
lives of a few goat-beards?"
Mrs. Persson and I exchanged glances. In the meanwhile Harry
Birchington echoed The Steel Tsar's laughter. Neither seemed pos-
sessed of what I would have called a natural sense of humor.
"Is it true the Japanese are almost beaten?" I asked Mrs. Persson.
"Certainly," she said. "A matter of days. They have already begun
to talk armistice terms."
"Then these people are doomed," I said. "There is no way that
the Cossacks can resist the whole might of the Russian Aerial Navy!"
Birchington had heard me. "That's where you're wrong, old man,"
he said. "That's where you're very wrong indeed!"
I thought I heard Mrs. Persson sigh.

CHAPTER SIX
Secret Weapons
Later, when the Cossack hetmans had returned to their men, The
Steel Tsar stretched and suggested that we all dine in the rooms up-
stairs. I had not had a chance to speak privately to Mrs. Persson and,
indeed, had been cornered by Birchington who had told me how he
had been picked up during the raid on Rishiri and "dumped" (as he
put it) in Kharkov because he had "made the mistake" of telling
people he was an engineer and they had needed engineers in the rail-
way works at Kharkov. He had left the city soon afterward and had
been on a train which had been captured by rebels. The rebels had
brought him to Djugashvili and the revolutionist had taken a liking to
him.
"He's got real imagination, old man. Unlike the imbeciles in Lon-
don and Shanghai who wouldn't give me a chance. All I needed was
a bit of faith and some financial support. You wouldn't believe the
inventions I've got in my brain, old man. Big ideas! Important ideas!
Ideas, old man, which will shake the world!"
I found myself nodding, almost asleep.
"The Steel Tsar, old man, is giving me an enormous opportunity
to build stuff for him which will help him win the revolution. And
then we'll have real socialism. Everything properly managed, like a
well-oiled machine. Everyone will be a happy cog. You'll see. And
all it will take is Birchington. I'm the key factor, old man. I'm going
to be remembered in history. The Chief says so."
"The Chief?"
He indicated Djugashvili.
We followed The Steel Tsar upstairs. He had Mrs. Persson on his
arm and was walking rather heavily, as if drunk. He turned back to
me. "I had not realized you were friends. You will be able to help
Birchington in his work, I hope."

422
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Certainly he will," said Mrs. Persson. "Won't you, Mr. Bas-
table?"
"Of course." I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible, but the
prospect of even another five minutes in Birchington's company was
more, at that moment, than I could contemplate.
The room above was fairly bare, but a long table had been laid
with wholesome Ukrainian food, including a bowl of red borscht at
every place. Djugashvili seated himself at the top of the table, with
Mrs. Persson on his right and Birchington on his left. I sat next to
Mrs. Persson. A few moments later Nestor Makhno stepped into the
room. It was obvious that he was a reluctant guest. He had another
man with him whom I recognized. I began to wonder if Mrs. Persson
had not arranged all of this.
The other man was Dempsey, whom I had thought killed on his
way to a Japanese prison. He was pale and thin and seemed ill. Pos-
sibly the drugs had begun to poison his system. When he saw me he
gave a crooked smile and came forward, lurching a trifle, though he
was not obviously drunk. "Hello, Bastable. Very good to see you.
Come along for the final battle, eh?"
"What?"
"Armageddon, Bastable. Haven't they told you?"
The Steel Tsar began to laugh that strange laugh of his. "Non-
sense. You exaggerate, Captain Dempsey. Professor Marek assures
us that everything is much safer now. After all, you took part in an
experiment."
Dempsey sat down and began to stare at his borscht. He made no
attempt at all to eat it. Nestor Makhno seated himself across from
me. He seemed puzzled by me, perhaps surprised by the alacrity with
which I had joined "the other side."
"It's a prisoners' reunion, eh?" he said. "Did you know, Comrade
Djugashvili, that four of the people at this table have been prisoners
of the Japanese?"
"So I gather." The Steel Tsar was opening a small plate on his
helmet, to expose a mouth pitted with pockmarks.
Now I was prepared to believe the rumor that it was vanity which
caused him to wear the ferocious mask. He began to feed himself
with small, careful movements.
He looked up at Makhno. "Did you deliver the prisoners to
Kharkov?"
"Not personally. They are on their way."
"In padded railway carriages lined with silk, no doubt."

THE STEEL TSAR
423
"They were sent in a cattle-train we requisitioned." Makhno knew
The Steel Tsar was baiting him. He stroked his neat moustache and
kept his eyes on his plate.
"For so cunning a tactician, you are lily-livered as a warrior,"
continued Djugashvili. "It would seem to me, comrade, that there is
even a chance you are weakening our endeavors."
"We are fighting against the Central Government," said Makhno
obstinately. "We are not fighting 'for' you, comrade. I made that
plain when we brought in our ships."
"You brought your ships because you know you are not strong
enough to fight alone. Your ridiculous notions of 'honor' are inap-
propriate at this time."
"Our notions are never inappropriate," said Makhno. "We simply
refuse to rationalize murder. If we have to kill, we kill, in self-
defense. And we continue to name it for what it is. We don't dress it
up with fancy pseudo-scientific words."
"The people like those words. It makes them feel secure," said
Mrs. Persson sardonically, as if to an intimate friend.
I wondered if she knew Makhno. It was even possible that he was
a colleague. There was something out of the ordinary about the
anarchist. Although the logic of his politics was beyond me, I was
impressed by his recognition of fundamental principles which so
many idealists seem to forget as soon as their ideals are rationalized
in the language of political creeds. He carried within him a sort of
self-control which did not deny passion and which, I thought, was al-
most wholly conscious, in contrast to Djugashvili, who relied on doc-
trine and masks for his authority.
Djugashvili continued to dig at Makhno:
"Your kind of individualism is an arrogant crime against society,"
he said. "But worse than that—it never succeeds. What good is revo-
lution when it fails?"
Makhno rose from the table. "It is proving impossible to enjoy my
food," he said. He bowed to the rest of us and apologized. "I'll re-
turn to my ship."
There was a light of triumph in The Steel Tsar's eyes, as if he had
deliberately engineered Makhno's departure, goading him until he
had no choice but to leave.
Makhno looked inquiringly at Dempsey, who shook his head
slightly and reached for the vodka.
The anarchist left the room. Djugashvili seemed to be smiling
behind his mask.

424
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Dempsey was frowning slightly to himself as Makhno went out.
Birchington began to babble about "rational socialism" or some such
thing and for once he broke a sense of tension which nonetheless
remained in the air.
A few moments later there came the sound of several pistol shots
from outside. There were footfalls on the stairs, then Makhno reap-
peared. His left arm was wounded. In his right hand was his revolver.
He waved it at Djugashvili, but he was not threatening.
"Assassination, eh? You'll find at least two of your men shot. I
know your methods, Djugashvili." He paused, reholstering his empty
pistol. "The black ships leave their moorings tonight."
Then he was gone.
Djugashvili had half-risen from his place, the light from the oil
lamps making it seem that his metal mask constantly changed expres-
sion. The cold eyes were full of unpleasant passion. "We don't need
him. He was attacking our cause from within. We have science on
our side now. Tomorrow I intend to display Birchington's first inven-
tion to our men."
Birchington seemed taken by surprise. "Well, Chief, I think you
might find it's not quite—"
"It will be ready in the morning," said "the Chief."
Dempsey had taken an interest in this aspect of the conversation,
though he had hardly moved when Makhno had reappeared and
made his declaration. Una Persson merely looked thoughtfully from
face to face.
Djugashvili walked toward the door and called down the stairs.
"Bring the professor up."
Mrs. Persson and Dempsey both appeared to know what was
going on, but I was completely at sea.
Djugashvili waited by the door until a small man with greying hair
and round spectacles arrived. He seemed almost as unhealthy as
Dempsey. There seemed to be something wrong with his skin and his
eyes were watering terribly, so that he dabbed at them constantly
with a red handkerchief.
"Professor Marek. You already know Captain Dempsey. You
have met Mr. Birchington. Una Persson? Captain Bastable."
The professor blinked in our general direction and waved his
handkerchief by way of greeting.
"Your bombs are ready, eh? And Birchington's invention is pre-
pared." Djugashvili was swaggering back to his place. "Sit down,
professor. Have some vodka. It's very good. Polish."

THE STEEL TSAR
425
Professor Marek rubbed at his cheek with the handkerchief. It ap-
peared to me that some of his skin flaked away.
"What sort of bombs are these?" I asked the professor, more from
politeness than anything.
"The same as I dropped on Hiroshima," said Dempsey with sud-
den vehemence. "Aren't they, Professor Marek?"
"The bombs which are supposed to have started the war?" I said
in surprise.
"One bomb." Dempsey lifted a finger. Mrs. Persson put a gentle
hand on his arm. "One bomb. Wasn't it, Mrs. Persson?"
"You shouldn't-"
"That was experimental," said Professor Marek. "We could not
have predicted—"
Suddenly I was overcome by that same frisson, that same terrify-
ing resonance I had already experienced, to a slighter degree, in
Dempsey's company. I felt that I stared into a distorting mirror
which reflected my own guilt.
In a small voice I asked the professor: "What sort of bomb was it
that you caused to be dropped on Hiroshima?"
Marek sniffed and dabbed at his eyes. He spoke almost casually.
"A nuclear fission bomb, of course," he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN
A Mechanical Man
For several hours thereafter, as I sat in stunned silence, we
were forced to listen to Djugashvili's boastings and diatribes. He
made us drink with him. He poured glass after glass of vodka into
that little aperture which revealed his lips and he spoke of conquest.
He planned to conquer Russia, the whole of the Slav world, both
East and West would eventually succumb "to the justice of world
revolution." That revolution appeared to be little more than Dju-
gashvili's attempts to control as much of the globe as possible.
Like so many fanatics, he drew a picture of the world which was far
different to the one most of us saw, at once simplified and changed
into something which reflected his own needs, his own fears. We
were probably bored and terrified together—all of us save Birching-
ton, who hung on The Steel Tsar's every word, and Professor Marek,
who scarcely understood anything.
Both Captain Dempsey and Mrs. Persson seemed to be waiting
something out, as if they knew all this, as if they had anticipated the
evening.
I kept looking across at Dempsey, who scarcely lifted his eyes
from the table but continued steadily to down vodka after vodka.
"How many bombs are ready, Professor?" I heard Djugashvili
ask. I gave him more attention.
"Four," said Marek. "All of about the same strength. I have their
measure now."
"And you are able to produce more?"
"Of course. With Mr. Birchington's help. The Yekaterinaslav lab-
oratories had everything we needed, as I told you they would."
"We were lucky to find the stuff."
Una Persson said: "I thought Yekaterinaslav was retaken."
Djugashvili dismissed this. "So it was. But we got what we wanted.
The whole attack was in order to supply Professor Marek with cer-

THE STEEL TSAR
427
tain materials he needed. At Yekaterinaslav they were working along
similar lines to the professor's."
I felt sick and I felt weary. I wanted to leap from my chair and
beg them to stop talking so easily about those hell-bombs. I, of all
people, knew what sort of effect they could have. They could destroy
entire cities as if they had hardly existed. But, because of a look from
Mrs. Persson, I held my peace.
Dempsey said drunkenly: "You'd better hurry up and use 'em,
Djugashvili, or the Central Government will be here to claim its ma-
terials back. There's a huge force on its way, as you know."
"Certainly I shall use them soon. It only needs one ship, after all.
That's why I could dispense with Makhno so readily. We have a
ship. Your ship, Captain Bastable."
"The Vassarion Belinsky?"
"That's her name, yes."
"Captain Leonov is still aboard."
"He was aboard. Since he refused to leave, we were forced to
dispose of him. He has been liquidated."
"You killed him?"
Djugashvili shrugged. "If you like."
Again it was all but impossible for me not to display my feelings,
but I knew it was important to Mrs. Persson that I seemed to be in
agreement with The Steel Tsar, so I held my tongue.
"You will command the Belinsky," Djugashvili told me. "You
have been promoted to commander. Congratulations."
I ignored this. Before I could speak, Dempsey was on his feet,
leaning heavily upon the table. "I demand that privilege," he said. "I
am the more experienced airshipman. After all, I dropped the first
bomb!" He spoke urgently. "Bastable can help me."
"You've developed a taste for mass-murder?" I asked in a quiet
voice.
"Oh, yes." He seemed completely mad at that moment and his
eyes were merry with a demon's light. "Oh, yes, Bastable. Quite a
taste for it. Quite a taste."
Djugashvili said: "We must demonstrate our power to the Central
Government. The first bomb will be dropped on Makhno's camp."
"What a splendid idea," said Mrs. Persson.
It was much later when Djugashvili decided to go to bed, having
ordered us to be at headquarters the next morning. We watched him
lumber from the room, all unchecked ego and ruthless power.
Dempsey had collapsed over the table. Birchington and Professor

428
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Marek were still deep in conversation about some technical point or
other. Mrs. Persson asked me to give her a hand getting Dempsey
back to the house we were to share. He was very drunk and mum-
bling to himself. When I took him under the shoulders I was sur-
prised at how light he was. He laughed at some bitter joke he had
made. He was very close to madness. I said as much to Mrs. Persson
after we had put Dempsey to bed and sat together drinking coffee in
the tiny parlor. It was a pleasant house. I wondered what well-to-do
peasants had been killed or evicted in order to provide us with so
much comparative luxury.
"Poor Dempsey is as good as mad," she agreed. "His judgment
has been destroyed and he has managed to keep himself going on a
mixture of guilt and cynicism. It's a familiar enough combination. I
think he feels he must pay some kind of price for what he did. What
do you think?"
"Think?" I was very tired. "I'm pretty much beyond rational
thought myself! I'm beginning to suspect you of engineering this
whole affair—especially the meeting with Dempsey. How is it possi-
ble? He carries the identical burden to the one I carry. Under what
circumstances could he have dropped a nuclear fission bomb on
Hiroshima?"
"Similar circumstances to your own. He's a socialist. He became
idealistically involved with Chinese nationalists trying to get for-
eigners out of their country. At that time Professor Marek was also
working for the Chinese socialists. They were the only people desper-
ate enough to believe that he could develop such a bomb. Other
countries are working on the idea, of course, including the refining of
uranium. That's what was going on at Yekaterinaslav. Like you, they
had no idea of the power of the crude bomb they made. They in-
tended only to drop it on the airship yards—"
"This is too much!" I held my head in my hands. "It is madness!
It isn't possible!"
"They dropped it and destroyed the entire city. Dempsey's vessel
was his own, with a London registration. It was all the Japanese
needed. If there had not been a delay in the detonation, of course,
nothing of the ship would have survived. As it was they found the
wreckage. Dempsey had been picked up before that. Most of the
crew was dead. But the Japanese took a couple of prisoners. They
knew it was a private ship, but it was British. It was their excuse. Ev-
eryone was preparing for war, anyway. The Japanese decided that
the British Government had committed an act of war. . . ."

THE STEEL TSAR
429
"And so struck first. It explains everything, including their fe-
rocity."
"Exactly."
"Millions of people killed!" I groaned. "Both Dempsey and I have
that on our conscience. No wonder the poor man is the way he is!"
"You were both catalysts—no more than that. Do you still not re-
alize what you are seeing? No individual can claim so much personal
guilt. We are all guilty of supporting the circumstances, the self-
deceptions, the misconceptions, which lead to war. Every he we tell
ourselves makes something like the destruction of Hiroshima all the
more likely. Hiroshima has been destroyed in more than one world,
by more than one man, over and over again. The circumstances are
often different, but the people die just the same, and some men (or
women) feel that they carry the whole weight of responsibility. We
are all victims, Mr. Bastable, just as, in other ways, we are all aggres-
sors. At root we are victims of the comforting lies we tell ourselves,
of our willingness to have leaders, religions, of our wish to shift re-
sponsibility onto others, whether it be politicians, Gods or creatures
from other planets."
"You sound like Makhno," I said.
"I have much in common with Nestor Makhno."
"You're an anarchist?"
"I don't believe in governments or religions, if that's what you
mean."
Somehow Mrs. Persson's revelations had relieved me. I had clar-
ity, when I had up to now been confused. I no longer felt a victim of
Fate, though in a sense, of course, I remained one—as much a victim,
if not more of one, as Captain Dempsey.
"We should get some sleep," said Mrs. Persson. "We have to wit-
ness Birchington's display tomorrow."
"Why are you going along with all this?" I asked her.
She put a finger to her lips. "Trust me," she said.
"I do." I was smiling. "But I want no more innocent blood on my
hands."
She finished her coffee. "Captain Bastable, if all goes well, we
should have completed our task here by tomorrow, then you and I
shall leave."
"Leave? Where?"
"To a base. You are being invited to join the League of Temporal
Adventurers."*
* See The Dancers at the End of Time. Volume Three: The End of All Songs.

430
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Mrs. Persson, I am trying to get home. Back to my own time, my
own world."
"Captain Bastable, you must reconcile yourself to the fact that
you will never know that particular form of security again. Once you
have experienced what you have experienced, your own time will
simply not allow you to remain. But be assured that the League
offers some sort of substitute. You will be somewhat more in control
of your own fate than hitherto."
"That would also mean a great deal to me," I said.
"In the meanwhile," she told me, "please continue to follow my
lead. This is a very complicated business indeed, Captain Bastable. A
circle must be completed. A job must be done."
In the morning we assembled outside the school, in a large quad-
rangle at the back. Cossacks were coming and going everywhere. The
entire camp was busy with the noise of horses and soldiers, guns and
armored vehicles. In the distance, an armored train went by, loaded
with men and armaments. Everyone knew that Yekaterinaslav had
been recaptured, that the Japanese were suing for peace and that
Central Government troops were on their way to the Cossack head-
quarters.
Djugashvili reassured his hetmans. "This attack will be easily
resisted. And very shortly now Moscow will be at our mercy."
One hetman, splendid in black and silver, tugged at his huge, grey
beard and grumbled, "The airships will destroy us. They are cow-
ards. We can't get at them. Cossack courage is useless against them."
"We shall use our own science—a far better science—to deal with
the threat of airships," Djugashvili reassured him. The steel mask
glinted as he raised his eyes toward the sun. "You will see. Within a
week we shall be riding through the streets of Petersburg. If Peters-
burg still exists."
The hetman became nervous. "By God, ataman, I hope you use
no Devil's magic. I am a good Christian. . . ."
"We fight for God and Socialism," said Djugashvili, changing his
tack. "And for the Freedom of the Cossack Host. God has put an in-
strument into our hands which will ensure that freedom for all time
and which will enable us, as good socialists, to do His work."
Again I was forced to make sure that my incredulity did not ap-
pear in my features. I had to avoid Mrs. Persson's sardonic eye.
"For God and Socialism," she said, "we will destroy all who stand
against us."

THE STEEL TSAR
431
The Cossack was mollified and went back to get his pony. He rode
away to join his men.
Mrs. Persson murmured to me in English: "It is in the nature of
any good despot that he will say to those he needs anything they wish
to hear. Only when he does not need them does he say what he really
thinks. And sometimes, even then, he doesn't bother. The secret of
becoming a great tyrant lies in an early ability to be all things to all
men."
"You sound as if you'd trained him yourself," I said.
She made no reply to this.
Djugashvili had heard her speaking and turned his intense stare on
her. "Where is Dempsey?" he asked. "Is he fit to take command of
the ship?"
"Of course."
I had seen Dempsey that morning. I was pretty certain that he was
sustaining himself on drugs. He had, however, been absolutely deter-
mined to captain the Vassarion Belinsky. He had asked us to go
ahead of him, saying he would join us shortly.
Djugashvili turned his back on us, rubbing at his steel helmet as if
it were a real face. I wondered if he had slept in it. "He had better be
in control of himself," he said threateningly. "Ah, Mr. Birchington."
Birchington had appeared, walking ahead of several Cossacks who
were carrying something on their shoulders. It was wrapped in a mix-
ture of canvas and sacking and was about twice as long as a tall man.
Birchington seemed ill-at-ease. "Good morning, Chief. I hope—"
"So do I, Mr. Birchington. Is it ready?"
"Oh, there are no major problems—"
"Good. This will do our morale a lot of good. Have you heard the
news? Enemy scouts have already been sighted in the air to the south
and west."
"But-"
"Believe me, Mr. Birchington. I know what impresses Cossacks."
Birchington ordered the men to lower the thing to the ground.
They planted it upright. It looked like a huge corpse, swathed in un-
sanitary winding clothes.
"Let Captain Bastable and Mrs. Persson see it. I can tell they're
curious." Djugashvili's joviality was sinister.
Birchington began to tug at the canvas and sacking. The thing was
made of metal, that was obvious. As he stripped away the coverings
we saw that it was a gigantic figure of a man in Cossack costume,
cast in steel.

432
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"There is a Steel Tsar to strike terror into the hearts of our ene-
mies!" cried Djugashvili. "What do you think?"
Neither Mrs. Persson nor I spoke.
The face was the identical face to the one on Djugashvili's own
mask. Birchington had produced a model of the Cossack ataman
more than double life-size. The whole scene seemed increasingly bi-
zarre to me.
"What do you think?"
"It's splendid," said Mrs. Persson.
I nodded enthusiastically. It was the best I could muster.
"We'll show him to our troops in a moment," said Djugashvili.
"He will lead them into battle. And while our Cossacks fight the
Central Government, you will fly the ship to Makhno's camp and
drop the first bomb."
Birchington seemed unusually silent and not nearly as full of him-
self as usual. He ordered the men to pick up the metal statue and
carry it toward the main Cossack camp.
Djugashvili was elated. "Come along," he said to us.
Dempsey arrived. He had had a shave and was wearing an airship-
man's uniform. The clothes seemed far too big for him. He was hag-
gard, but he walked steadily and seemed to have lost the attitude of
despair I had begun to identify with him. He even winked at me.
"Morning, Bastable. Ready for going aloft?"
"We're all ready," said Mrs. Persson.
Professor Marek now joined the party, as we walked along behind
"the Chief." Marek was shaking his head. "Too soon," he mumbled.
"Far too soon."
None of us had any idea what he meant. He seemed half-mad and
still very ill. We ignored him.
We reached the outskirts of the town. The Cossack Host was as-
sembling, rank upon rank of horsemen, stretching almost as far as
the eye could see. Armored vehicles and field guns were also drawn
up. A platform had been erected in front of them and beside that a
dais. Djugashvili mounted the dais and saluted his troops.
Birchington supervised the men as they pushed the heavy metal
figure to its feet.
"Free Cossacks!" cried Djugashvili. "Your blood has been spilled
in the holy cause of liberty and socialism. The Central Government
has sent its might against us and all the power of its science has been
brought to bear on us. Yet we are not defeated. Now we have our
own science—our own miracles. Behold!" He made a grandiose ges-

THE STEEL TSAR
433
ture with his arm in the direction of the metal man. "Here is a Tsar
made truly of steel. An impregnable battle leader worthy of the Free
Cossacks." He murmured to Birchington. "Set him in motion."
Birchington reached up to the figure's waist and depressed a lever.
Suddenly the steel creature came to life. With awkward, spastic
movements it reached to its belt and began to draw the huge saber
which had evidently been designed as a match for the mechanical
man's size. With a screech the saber cleared its scabbard.
The Cossacks were impressed. Djugashvili evidently knew them
well. As the mechanical man raised the saber over its head, the Cos-
sacks began to cheer. They drew their own swords and waved them;
they made their horses rear. The noise of their approval was deaf-
ening.
Slowly, the mechanical monster turned its head, as if listening. It
inclined its gaze to stare down on Birchington. It lifted its head.
Evidently all these movements had been previously designed by
Birchington. It walked forward a few paces, toward the huge gather-
ing of horsemen. It stopped, the saber still raised. Again they
cheered.
Mrs. Persson put her lips close to my ear. "They love ikons. They
would rather have statues than real people. It has been their undoing
over the centuries."
Dempsey had begun to laugh and only grew silent when Mrs. Pers-
son signed to him to stop. I, for my part, found the whole scene
nightmarish.
The mechanical Steel Tsar began to wave its saber over its head,
as if in imitation of the Cossacks. It moved forward again.
Then one knee bent. I think Birchington had meant this series of
movements to show the mechanical creature's supplication to its
master, Djugashvili. But the motion was halted. The knee jerked a
couple of times. There was a squeak and a clash of metal. It began to
turn, but the leg dragged. It swayed.
Djugashvili maintained his posture but he was angry. "Set the
thing to rights, Birchington, or you're finished."
Birchington ran toward his mechanical man, reaching up for the
lever at the waist.
The thing seemed to sense him and completed its turn. Swiftly the
sword-arm began to descend.
Birchington shouted: "Oh, no. This isn't supposed to happen!"
Then the saber sliced him from crown to breastbone. Blood flew ev-
erywhere.

434
THE NOMAD OF TIME
Suddenly the Cossacks were silent.
Birchington's body fell to the black earth. With a grinding of cogs
and wheels, the mechanical man began to topple. It crashed onto its
creator's corpse.
I heard Professor Marek behind me. "I said it was too soon. He
didn't give himself enough time. .
I could hear the wind, sighing over the steppe.
And then came the dry, dreadful sound of Djugashvili's laughter.
"Well, well, Mr. Birchington. How neat." He addressed the bewil-
dered Cossack Host. "The traitor Birchington is the first to die be-
neath the vengeful sword of The Steel Tsar! This spy for the Central
Government was trying to sabotage our War Effort. We are re-
venged, brothers! Freedom!"
"Poor Birchington," said Mrs. Persson. "What a dreadful lesson."
"What a final one," said Dempsey. He moved away.
Djugashvili spoke to us. "Professor Marek. Revive the mechanical
man, if you can. Get it back to the laboratories."
"Too soon," said Marek. He signed to the soldiers to lift the crea-
ture onto their shoulders once again.
"Captain Dempsey. Are the bombs aboard?"
"They're aboard," said Dempsey.
"Then get to your first target. Be quick, Captain Dempsey. I want
to witness no more disloyalty."
I looked up at the sky. I pointed.
"You had better concern yourself with immediate problems," I
said.
There were troop ships on their way. Even as we stared, the first
gliding infantry began to leave the craft and drift toward us, firing as
they came.

CHAPTER EIGHT
A Kind of Revolution
Professor Marek hurried aboard just as we were about to go
aloft. On the familiar control deck of the Vassarion Belinsky I stood
between Captain Dempsey and Mrs. Persson, staring through the ob-
servation ports as the ship rose swiftly into the air. We had a ram-
shackle crew of half-trained Cossacks, some of whom were deserters
from the Volunteer Airfleet. As Dempsey had said to me: "They're
good enough for this work, Bastable, never fear."
Through the ports we could witness the first battles between Cos-
sacks and Central Government troops. The expert riflemen of the
steppe were picking off the gliding infantry even as they left their
ships. They fell like stricken butterflies.
"We'd better let them get on with it," said Dempsey carelessly.
"All right, height coxswain—put us up to five thousand feet: moder-
ate ascent. Helmsman—north by northwest, if you please. Half-speed,
Mr. Bastable."
All at once he had become a capable airship commander—every-
thing he had been before he had helped in an appalling crime of
mass murder, in the name of an idealistic principle. But why had he
agreed to bomb Makhno's camp? Had cynicism, like a cancer, cor-
roded him completely?
Dempsey's hands were hardly shaking at all as he stood on the
bridge, his arms folded across his chest, watching the ground fall
away. Our ship still flew Russian colors, so we were not attacked. In-
deed, Dempsey made the wireless operator send a message offering
to join the battle. We were told to return to Odessa for fresh arma-
ment and to report on our condition.
The last thing I saw were the first aerial torpedoes buzzing down
upon the Cossack riders. I turned away from the observation ports.

436
THE NOMAD OF TIME
"Dempsey," I said. "Are you really going to drop another of those
hell-bombs. Are you going to kill Makhno and all his people?"
Dempsey turned his sad, self-mocking eyes on me. "Of course."
"But-"
"Of course he is," said a voice behind me.
It was Djugashvili, flanked by a couple of well-armed Cossacks.
He had not trusted any of us.
The Steel Tsar laughed within his mask. "I want to see Makhno's
end for myself."
"But your men," I said. "They are leaderless! It seems that the en-
tire Volunteer Fleet is going against them,"
"They have Birchington's giant. It's down there somewhere, giving
them strength, giving them hope."
"It's a useless ikon!"
"They need nothing else. Besides, Captain Bastable, those chaps
have pretty much served their turn. They are an anachronism—their
attitudes hamper the course of scientific socialism."
I could feel the blood drain from my features. "You are sacrificing
those men. They trusted you absolutely. You gave them the rhetoric
and the goals to make them fight. They will not surrender. They
could all be killed. For what?"
"For History," he said. He seemed impatient with me, as if I were
asking childishly naive questions. "For the Future."
Mrs. Persson interrupted us. "The idea of the Future," she said,
"will gradually come to replace the idea of God. The two concep-
tions, however, will be all but identical in the manner in which they
are self-contradictory and therefore confusing to their worshipers. By
remaining confused, and therefore weakened, the worshipers are
more easily manipulated by their priests, or whatever those priests
call themselves. Since the priests are often as confused as those they
pretend to lead, they will become angry if their rationales are in any
way questioned. They will kill the questioners. In the meantime—"
She was speaking rapidly in English. Djugashvili strode up to the
bridge and stood beside Dempsey, raising his withered arm to silence
her. "You'll be our first admiral, Captain Dempsey. You will be a
Hero of Socialism. Never fear. There are hundreds, thousands of
disaffected people in Moscow and Petersburg alone. They'll rise up
to join us, after our demonstration of what scientific socialism can
achieve."
Dempsey leaned forward, checking various instruments. "Three-
quarter speed, Mr. Bastable."

THE STEEL TSAR
437
"Three-quarter speed." I conveyed the order to the engineers.
"You will lead our airships to Petersburg," Djugashvili continued.
"You are a brave, fine man, Captain Dempsey. You will be rewarded
with every honor. . ."
We all knew that this was his method of cajoling what he needed
from people. We also knew that as soon as Dempsey had served his
turn he, too, could be "liquidated" in the name of the Future.
"Thank you, sir," said Dempsey. He looked toward Professor
Marek, who sat jotting down calculations on a pad of paper.
Djugashvili clapped Dempsey on the back. "I know how to show
my gratitude, Captain."
"Oh, indeed, sir." Dempsey gave a further instruction to the
helmsman.
The skies were grey today, and vast. A little rain began to spot the
observation ports. We heard it drumming on our hull. Grey fight
filled the bridge, increasing Dempsey's pallor and emphasizing the
unhealthy, peeling skin of Professor Marek. The ship seemed like a
ship of the dead already, to me.
Dempsey detected a change in the forward starboard engine. He
cocked his head to one side. Like any good airship captain he was
listening all the time. An airship's running depends as much on the
ears as on the eyes. "Something wrong, Mr. Bastable. Could you go
and check the nacelle?"
"Very good."
I left the control cabin and, to my surprise, found that I had been
followed by Mrs. Persson.
"How much farther to Makhno's camp?" I asked her, as we
walked along the companionway. There was cloud all around us
now.
"About half-an-hour. We have to disarm those bombs, Captain
Bastable."
"What?"
"It's the whole point of this. We disarm them, they're dropped,
they prove useless. It is why we've been going along with Djugashvili
up to now. However, we hadn't expected him to join us aboard the
ship."
I was enlightened. "I know very little about bombs," I said, "espe-
cially this kind."
"I know a great deal about them. Come. We'll go to the bomb bay
this way. It isn't guarded." She opened a hatch door and led me into
semi-darkness. We descended a steel ladder. I could hear the familiar

438
THE NOMAD OF TIME
creaking of the bomb racks and at last saw four crudely made cases
of roughly standard size, lettered in Old Slavonic and decorated with
peculiar designs of the kind I had seen on Cossack weapons. Were
these the bombs which could threaten the destruction of the entire
world?
Mrs. Persson said: "The detonating devices are in the noses. We
have to unscrew them." With her legs straddling the bomb flaps, she
reached for a large wrench. "Use this," she said.
Below I could see a little daylight from time to time, as the flaps
gave slightly. I had the feeling that we could as easily fall through the
flaps as the bombs and began to tread very carefully as I strove to
remove the nose of the first bomb.
We had not been working more than five minutes before we heard
voices from the gallery above us.
"There's no need for that." It was Dempsey, sounding like the
Wrath of God. "There's no need for that, at all. Leave my bombs
alone."
"Dempsey!" Una Persson became agitated. "Are you really crazy?
This was what we agreed we should do—"
"It was your plan, Mrs. Persson. Not mine."
"You surely aren't going to help Djugashvili!"
Dempsey was pointing a large revolver at us. "Move away," he
said.
"Dempsey!" I had never seen Mrs. Persson so obviously fright-
ened. "You can't. Makhno—"
"Those bombs must be detonated," said Dempsey. "Nothing else
will do."
"But we intend to prove they can't work. . ."
"It will prove nothing!"
Mrs. Persson continued to persevere with the nose of the bomb.
Dempsey ordered his men toward us. Mrs. Persson seemed almost to
be crying as she struggled. I must admit that I gave up. Quietly, I
handed my wrench to the first Cossack to approach me. He put. a
pack into my hands, as if in exchange. I did not know what it was.
The bomb bays were full of Cossacks now, completely surround-
ing us.
"You're interfering with my plan," said Dempsey coldly. "And I
have the right, not you, to decide what to do with these."
"You have no right. No more than anyone. You assume too much
guilt, Captain Dempsey." Mrs. Persson struggled as the Cossack held
her, forcing her to drop the spanner.

THE STEEL TSAR
439
"And you assume too much responsibility," he said. "I have the
right."
"And what about you, Captain Bastable?" she said. "Haven't you
an equal right?"
"Not here," I said. I looked up at Dempsey. I didn't know what he
planned to do, but I now respected his judgment completely. "And I
agree with Captain Dempsey, Mrs. Persson. He has the right, to-
gether with Professor Marek."
Dempsey bowed slightly. My words seemed to cheer him. He
raised an eyebrow. "Mrs. Persson?"
She shrugged. "Very well, Captain Dempsey. But if you kill
Makhno. . . ."
"That will be my responsibility, I think."
"And mine, if I haven't attempted to stop you."
I interrupted. "Is this the moment for moral discussions?" I asked.
"Those packs contain gliding apparatus," said Dempsey. He
rubbed at his sunken eyes. His voice became suddenly weary.
"You'll use them to escape."
"Where is The Steel Tsar?" asked Mrs. Persson. "He has the real
power on this ship. . . ."
"Not any longer," said Dempsey.
"Where is he?"
"Safe." Dempsey turned away. "I'll say good-bye to you both. It's
unlikely we'll ever meet again."
"Good-bye, Dempsey," I said. And I added: "And good luck."
He was laughing as he climbed back up the steel ladder, toward
his control deck. "Thank you, Bastable. Thank you very much."
The gliding apparatus was strapped onto us and we were pushed
roughly through the bomb flaps. Seconds later the wings opened out
and we were drifting slowly down toward the barren steppe. There
was no sign of human life anywhere below us. We looked back.
The airship was making good speed away from us, heading north-
east.
We landed rather bumpily on coarse turf. I hurt my ankle slightly,
but had no serious injury.
As I was helping Mrs. Persson remove her apparatus I was sud-
denly bathed in brilliant light, as if the sun had emerged, unex-
pectedly, from behind the clouds. Mrs. Persson flung herself down
and I followed suit, without quite understanding why.
Moments later the ground began to shake as a huge, echoing boom
sounded throughout the world.

440
THE NOMAD OF TIME
We both recognized it for what it was, of course. Dempsey had ex-
ploded the bombs in the air over the steppe. We saw a massive col-
umn of smoke, just as ash began to fall like rain across the land-
scape.
Mrs. Persson said: "The fool. I knew he'd try it. I thought I'd con-
vinced him. But he out-guessed me, after all. His guilt was too great.
But it was completely unnecessary."
"I understand why he wanted to do it this way," I said.
She was impatient. "Understand? So do I. But what's that got to
do with it? This is another loss."
I still do not know what she meant. She was crying.
I made some attempt to comfort her, but Una Persson is not an
easy woman to comfort. She recovered herself as she began to walk
stolidly across the steppe, her back to the bomb-cloud. The wind
blew against our faces. She said: "The bomb, its inventor, the despot
prepared to use it and the despot's servants are all gone now. But
while that syndrome continues to exist so will that particular circle
continue. I'd hoped to break it. To make a different circle."
"Can that circle ever be broken?" I asked her.
"It's what I'm trying to find out," she said.
A day and a half later we were discovered by some of Nestor
Makhno's horsemen. We were weary and depressed, and the news
that Makhno had gained concessions from the Central Government,
of territory in which to conduct his "anarchist experiment" only
slightly cheered us.
That evening, during an open-air celebration, beneath the masts of
Makhno's black cruisers, I became quite drunk and asked Mrs. Pers-
son:
"Did Dempsey really die for nothing?"
"I suppose not. But what good is a martyr, Captain Bastable?
While people believe in the magic power of personalities, rather than
the human fallibility of individuals, they will never be free."
"But Dempsey wished only to make amends. He said it was his
right: and it was his right."
Nestor Makhno leaned forward. He was even drunker, I think,
than I was. "We are all guilty. We are all innocent. Only when we
accept responsibility for our own actions are we free—and only then
will the world be safe for us all. Dempsey had an old-fashioned sense
of honor. He destroyed himself because of it. He saved many lives, it
is true, but Mrs. Persson's plan might have saved more. While we

THE STEEL TSAR
441
compete with ourselves in that way, while we compete with each
other, blame one another for our misfortunes, there will always be
the chance of conflicts such as the one which is now over."
Makhno's words meant something to me. But then so had Demp-
sey's actions. At last I was relieved of that terrible lack of faith in
myself, of that awful bewilderment and, as Mrs. Persson told me
later, was ready to become a conscious traveler between the worlds,
to join that strange body of people known as the League of Tempo-
ral Adventurers. I felt that what had begun in the Temple of Teku
Benga was now finished. A new phase in my life was beginning—
perhaps a more positive phase.
Time, as they say, will tell, Moorcock.
I have learned only one thing in all my adventures: that despots
are all pretty much the same, but there are many different kinds of
victims.
I hope this manuscript reaches you and that you will be able to
publish it. I have a feeling it is the last you will ever receive from me.
The time for reviewing my past is over. Now I look forward, if that's
the appropriate word, to life in the eternal present.
—Captain Oswald Bastable,
Airshipman,
Somewhere in the
Lower Devonian.

EDITOR'S AFTERWORD
And that, as best I can present it, is the final story of Os-
wald Bastable. As many readers will already know "The
Steel Tsar" Djugashvili sounds remarkably like "The Man
of Steel," that well-known ex-priest, the Georgian who
chose for himself the name of Josef "Stalin." But then it is
not uncommon, in all the worlds of the multiverse, for the
same kind of personalities to emerge in roughly similar
roles. What is usually more interesting is when, through al-
tered circumstances, they appear in very different roles.
Although I expect further visits from Mrs. Persson, I
gather that there will be no more special news of Bastable
now that he has joined the famous League. I am glad,
however, to learn that he has found himself at last, found
some sort of direction, and is reconciled both to his
"crime" and his loss of home.
Michael Moorcock,
Yorkshire,
June 1980