Prelude for War (2 page)

The Saint was in one of
his queer moments of vision.
He went on speaking, his
voice curiously low against the background clamour of brass and drums and
marching feet:

“Yes, it’s horrible;
but you ought to listen. We ought to remember what hangs over our peace… .
I’ve heard just
the same thing before—one night when I
was fiddling with
the radio and I caught some Nazi
anniversary jamboree
in Nuremberg… . This is
the noise of a world gone mad.
This is the climax of two
thousand years of progress. This
is why philosophers have
searched for wisdom, and poets
have revealed beauty, and
martyrs have died for freedom
-—so that whole nations
that call themselves intelligent human beings can exchange their brains for a
brass band,
and tax themselves to starvation to
buy bombs and battleships, and live in a mental slavery that no physical slave
in
the old days was ever condemned to. And be so carried
away by it that most of them really and honestly
believe
that they’re proud crusaders building a new and
glorious
world.
…
I know you can wipe out two thousand years
of
education with one generation of censorship and propaganda. But what is this
sickness that makes one nation after
another in Europe
want
to wipe them out?”

The bugles blared again and
the feet marched against
the tapping of the drums,
in mocking denial of an answer.
And then he touched the
switch and the noise ceased.

Peace came back into the
night with a strange softness,
as if on tiptoe, fearful
of a fresh intrusion. Once more
there was only the
murmuring hiss of the smooth-running
engine and the
rustle of the passing air, not even loud
enough
to blanket the hoot of an indignant owl scared from
its
perch on an overhanging bough; but it was a peace like
waking
from an ugly dream, with their ears still haunted
by
what they had heard before. It was some time before
Patricia spoke though
Simon knew she was wide awake now.

“What was it?”
she asked at last, in a voice too even
to
be wholly natural.

“That was the Sons of
France—Colonel Marteau’s blue-
shirt gang. You remember,
they grew out of the breakup
of the old
Croix de
Feu,
only about ten times worse. They’ve
been
holding a midnight jamboree outside Paris, with
torches
and bonfires and flags and bands and everything.
What
we cut in on must have been the grand finale—
Colonel
Marteau’s pep talk to the assembled cannon
fodder.”

He paused.

“First Russia, then
Italy, then Germany, then Spain,”
he
said soberly. “And now France is next. There, but for
the grace of God, goes the next tin-pot dictator, on his way
to make the world a little less fit to live in.
…
There
are
almost enough of them now—marching mobs of idiots
backwards
and forwards and building guns and armies
because
they can’t build anything else, and because it’s the
perfect
solution to all economic problems so long as it lasts.
How
can you have peace and progress when fighting is the
only
gospel they’ve got to preach ?
…
If you wanted to
be pessimistic, you could
feel that Nature had got the whole
idea of progress
licked from the start; because as soon as
even
the dumbest mass of people had just got educated.
to
the futility of modern warfare and the stupidity of
patriotism,
she could turn round and come back with some
strutting
monomaniac to sell the old stock all over again
under
a new trade mark and put the whole show back
where
it started from.”

“But
why?”

He shrugged.

“As far as the Sons
of France are concerned, you could
be pretty cynical if
you wanted to. The present French
socialist government
is rather unpopular with some of our
leading
bloodsuckers because it’s introducing a new set of
laws
on the same lines Roosevelt started in America, to
take
all the profit out of war by nationalizing all major
industries
directly it starts. The whole idea, of course, is
too
utterly communistic and disgusting for words. Hence
the
Sons of France. All this blood-and-fire business tonight
was probably part of the graft to get the Socialists chucked
out and leave honest businessmen safe to make their for
tunes out of murder. It’s a lovely idea.” “Are they going to
get away with it?”
“Who is to stop
it?” asked the Saint bitterly. And when he asked the question he could
imagine no
answer. But afterwards he would
remember it. This was,
as has been said, one of
his precarious interludes of peace.
Twice already in his
lawless career he had helped to snatch
away
the threat of war and destruction from over the heads
of
an unsuspecting world, but this time the chance that the
history of Europe could be altered by anything he did
seemed too remote to be given thought. But in the same
mood of grim clairvoyance into which the interruption had
thrown him he gazed sombrely down the track of the head
lights, still busy with his thoughts, and seeing the fulfilment
of his half-spoken prophecy. He saw the streets swarming with arrogant
strangely uniformed militia, the applauding
headlines
of a disciplined press, the new breed of sycophan
tic
spies, the beginnings of fear, men who had once been
free
learning to look over their shoulders before they spoke
their thoughts, neighbour betraying neighbour, the midnight arrests,
the third degree, the secret tribunals, the
fantastic
confessions, the farcical trials, the concentration
camps
and firing squads. He saw the hysterical ranting of
yet
another neurotic megalomaniac adding itself to the rising
clamour of the crazy discords of Europe, the coming gen
erations reared to believe in terrorism at home and war
abroad as the apotheosis of a heroic destiny, children
marching with toy guns as soon as they could walk, merging
easily into the long crawling lines of new legions more piti
less than Caesar’s. He saw the peaceful countryside before
him gouged into swamps and craters where torn flesh rotted
faster than the scavenging rats could eat; the long red
tongues of
the guns licking upwards into the dark as they
thundered their dreadful litany; the first rose-pink glow
of fire, deepening to crimson as it leaped up,
flickering, spreading its red aura fanwise across the sky until the black
silhouettes of trees could be seen clearly stamped
against
it
…
until
with an odd sense of shock, as if he were
coming out of another dream, the Saint realized that that
at least was no vision—that his eyes really were
seeing the scarlet reflection of swelling flame beyond the distant trees.

He pointed.

“Look.”

Patricia sat up.

“Anyone would say it
was a fire,” she said interestedly.

Simon Templar grinned.
His own reverie was swept away
as quickly as it had
begun—for that moment.

“I’ll bet it’s a
fire,” he said. “And in this neck of the
woods
the chances are that the nearest fire brigade is miles
away.
We’d better drift along and look it over.”

He would never forget that
fire. It was the beginning
of the adventure.

2

As his foot came down on
the accelerator his hand found
the lever that opened the
cutout, and the whisper of the
great car turned into a
deep-throated roar. They were
dragged against the back
of the seat as it surged forward
with a sudden terrific access of power, and the
susurration
of the tires on the roadway rose
to a shrill whine. It was
as if an
idly roaming tiger had suddenly been stung to
vicious life.

The Saint had begun to
drive.

He had no gift of second
sight to tell him what that fire
was to mean; but just as a
fire it was sufficient. It might
be fun. And he was going
there—in a hurry now. And in
his mercurial philosophy
that was enough. His eyes had
narrowed and come to life
with the zest of the moment, and a shadow of his last smile lingered half
remembered
on his lips… . Half a mile
further on a side road opened
sharply to the right,
leading in the direction of the red
glow. As he
approached it, the Saint shifted his foot from
the
accelerator to the brake and wrenched the wheel round;
the
rear wheels whipped round with a scream of skidding
rubber,
spun, bit at the road again, took hold, and cata
pulted the car forward
again at right angles to its previous
course
as the Saint’s toe returned to the accelerator.

“That’s how these racing blokes do
it,” he explained.

Patricia lighted two
cigarettes.

“What do they do
when they want to turn quickly?” she inquired tranquilly.

The way Simon slanted one
of the cigarettes between
his lips was its own
impudent answer. The vivid red stain
in the sky was
almost straight ahead of them now, growing
so
that it blotted out the stars, and they were rushing
towards
it down the narrow lane with the speed of a hurri
cane.
They squealed round another bend, and once more the
Saint
jammed on the brakes. On their left was a half-timbered lodge beside broad iron
gates that opened on to
a curving drive.

“This should be
it,” said the Saint; and again the great
car
seemed to pivot on its locked front wheels to make the
turn.

In another moment they had the acrid smell of
burning
wood sharp in their nostrils. They
swept round a semicircu
lar channel of trees, and in an instant they
were caught full
in the red glare as if
they had been picked up by quivering
floodlights. Simon let the Hirondel
coast to a breathless
standstill beside a
broad close-cropped lawn and hitched
himself
up to sit on the back of the seat for a better view.

“It
is
a
fire,” he decided, with profound satisfaction.

It was. The whole lawn was lit up by it like a
stage set,
and a curtain of black smoke hung
over it like a billowing curtain. The house was one of those old historic
mansions
whose lining of massive beams
and mellowed panelling
could be diagnosed at a glance, and it was going
up like a
pile of tinder. The fire seemed to
have started on the
ground floor, for
huge gusts of flame were spouting from
the
open windows along the terrace and climbing like wind-
ripped banners towards the roof, roaring with a
boisterous
glee that could be clearly heard even above the reduced
splutter of the Hirondel’s exhaust. The Saint drew
at his
cigarette and settled more
firmly into his conviction that,
judged
by any pyrotechnical standards, it was a beaut.

Figures in a grotesque
assortment of deshabille were
running across the lawn
with the erratic scurrying wildness
of flushed rabbits.

“At least they all
seem to have got out,” said the Saint.

He switched off the engine
and hitched his legs over the
side of the car. Some of
the scurrying figures, attracted per
haps like moths by
the new blaze of the headlights, had
started to run
towards them. The first to arrive was a
young
man who carried a girl over his shoulder. He was
large
and blond and impressively moustached, and he wore
blue-and-green
striped pajamas. He dumped the girl on the
ground
at the Saint’s feet, rather like a retriever bringing
in
a bird, and stood over her for a moment breathing
heavily.

“By Jove,” he
said. “Oh, by Jove! … Steady on, Val,
old
thing. It’s all right now. You’re quite safe.”