by Nevil Shute
“I’m going to die of this thing,” he said practically. “They seem to think I’ve got about a year, and I shan’t be a lot of good after the first six months. Well, that’s all right; most of us don’t get so much notice. I’ve always said what I believed in, in the hangar, anywhere. And now I’ve started something. I don’t know if what I’ve started will endure or not, but if it does endure, I think it’s quite a useful thing to have done. So many people now, in so many countries, on so many aerodromes, are talking about what I’ve said quite casually at some time, and repeating it, and writing it all down. And sometimes it’s just hearsay—they’re putting down things that I never said at all. Well, that’s not right. If this thing’s going to die out with me, it doesn’t matter. But if it’s going to endure, I’d like it to be right.”
I smiled. “I see.”
“If I had a Proctor,” he said, “I could go round all these airfields and spend a day or two on each, just talking to the chaps. I want to do that. I want them to see me as a real man, not as a kind of God. I sweat like they do, eat like they do; I get tired and hungry and sleepy as they do. And ill, perhaps. When I tell them what I think about things, I want to tell them as a first class G.E., not as a bloody preacher. I want to go into each shop and hangar and tell them what I think of their routines and their inspection schedules, so that they’ll remember me as someone who was good at their own job. Then if they like to pay attention to the things that I believe in, they’ll be doing it on grounds of solid competence and fact, not just emotion.”
“If you’re going to go round all the airfields in the East where men are talking about you,” I said, “it’s going to take you all your time. There must be a hundred at least—more than that.”
“I want to go on till I’ve got to stop,” he said.
“Well, you can have the Proctor.” I thought for a minute. “You’d better have Yoke Uncle—the engine’s got about three hundred hours to go in that. That ought to see you through. If you want any more time, bring it in, and swap it for Nan Oboe. Who’s going to fly it for you?”
He said, “Arjan Singh has offered to do that. He’s coming in to see you in the morning. He wants you to give him leave without pay.”
I nodded slowly. I knew that Arjan was a believer in Shak Lin, and he was unmarried; he could probably work without pay for a time. He was a good man for the job, too, because Sikhs are known and somewhat feared all over India. Arjan Singh in his best clothes was both an imposing and a ferocious figure; it would be a bold Bengali or Madrassi who would try conclusions with him. With Arjan Singh to run the practical affairs of life, Connie would be in good hands.
There would be no trouble about maintenance of the Proctor; at every aerodrome willing hands would seek to gain merit by servicing the Teacher’s aircraft. “You’ll have to have some money, Connie,” I said at last. “I don’t think you need bother about insurance—it’s very little, and it can go on under the existing cover. Spares—we can fit you up with anything you’ll need from the stores. But you’ll have to pay for petrol and oil, or someone will.”
“There’s a chap called Noshirvan who lives in Bombay,” he said. “A Parsee. He’s a motor agent in a fairly big way. He came up to see me in Karachi. He wants to pay for the petrol and oil. I said I’d let him know if I could get the aircraft, and he’ll take out a Shell carnet.”
“We’d better get a cable off to him tonight,” I said.
Next day I took Yoke Uncle off the list of operational aircraft and allocated her to Connie. He started in at once to do the fifty-hour maintenance schedules on her, working with Tarik. Arjan Singh came to see me and I fixed him up with unpaid leave for as long as he liked; I told him I’d be glad to see him back in the business whenever he was able to come. He said he did not know when that would be; as long as the Teacher wanted a pilot, he said, he would like to serve him in that way. He said that he had no home ties that would prevent him from devoting his life to religion. He told me then a thing that I had not heard before in all the three years he had been with me, that as a young man he had been married, and that his wife and son had died of fever while he was in the Royal Indian Air Force. Since then he had been unmarried. It takes an Asiatic a long time to get around to talking of his private life to a European.
Arjan and Connie got their Proctor going a couple of days later, and flew it over to Baraka to see the old Sheikh, who now seldom left his bed. They came back on the following day, stayed the night, and left for Abadan.
Nadezna and I stood in the shade of the hangar watching the thin line of the Proctor wing as it vanished into the haze to the north. Most of the other staff stood there with us, watching till it was out of sight.
“I’m glad you let Arjan go, Tom,” she said as we turned back to the office. “I think he’s about the best man to look after Connie. He’s so very practical.”
I nodded. “I told him to let me know at once by cable if he gets seriously ill.”
She smiled. “I did that, too.”
Nothing much happened after that for a couple of months. When Connie and Arjan had been gone for about a fortnight, they appeared again from the north and stayed one night; they had been to Abadan, Baghdad, Mosul, Teheran, Basra, and Kuwait, and now they were on their way eastwards to Pakistan and India. Connie was tired, but not more than one would have expected from such a strenuous journey. They went on to spend a night at Sharjah, and from there to Jiwani and Karachi.
About six weeks after they had gone through, Wazir Hussein came to my office in the maroon Hudson one afternoon. I got up to meet him and ordered coffee, and presently he came to the point.
“My master feels that he is near his end,” he said. “Before he dies, he wishes to speak to the Majlis. He has sent me to invite you to be present, and the Sister, and Captain Morrison. He has matters of importance to tell you.”
It was a very unusual summons, but everything about my relations with the Sheikh of Khulal was a bit unusual. “Of course,” I said. “I should be very glad to come. When does your master wish to summon the Majlis?”
“If it is possible, tomorrow,” he said. “I have seen Captain Morrison, and he is able to come tomorrow. He said that perhaps you would fly him over, with the Sister.”
I fixed that up, and fixed the time that we would take off in the morning, and rang up Morrison to let him know. Hussein would come with us, and as there were to be four people I took one of the Airtrucks. The Wazir did not say what it was all about and I didn’t care to question him. Nadezna had no idea, but thought it had to do with Connie. As we were getting into the machine next morning I drew Morrison aside and asked if he knew anything.
“It’s his will,” he said. “He’s calling the full Majlis. Can’t be anything else.”
We landed at Baraka an hour later, and drove to the palace in the Packard that came to the airstrip. Here we were shown into the same bare anteroom with the hard gilt chairs that I had been in before; this room was full of well-dressed Arabs, minor sheikhs and people of that sort, some of whom I knew from having met them in the desert or their villages in the course of various flights. There must have been about twenty of them. We waited with them in silence for a quarter of an hour, and then we were all led upstairs to the Sheikh’s bedchamber.
This was a big, well-proportioned room, with little furniture in it except the one great bed. The old man lay propped up on this; he was much smaller and frailer than when I had seen him last. Dr. Khaled was at his side. Huddled in a corner were several women, all heavily veiled in black burqas so that nothing was visible of them except their hands. We all grouped ourselves standing in a circle round the bed, and Wazir Hussein went forward and said in Arabic that everything was ready and that everyone was there.
The old man’s voice was worse than ever, and I could only follow about half of what he said. Morrison gave it me in full that evening. First, he said his salaam to the Sister of the Teacher, who was the only woman in the place unveiled. He then gave his sal
aam to me, and to the various sheikhs assembled in the room, mentioning them all by name, and lastly to Morrison. He seemed tired then, and rested, and the doctor gave him something from a medicine glass to drink, pale pink in colour.
The old Sheikh revived after a few minutes and began to speak again. He said that his eldest son Fahad would inherit the sheikhdom and would rule in his place after his death, and he would inherit all the incomes of the sheikhdom including the oil royalties. All the old man’s personal possessions, including his flocks and his herds and one half of all his monies in the various banks, were to be divided between his wives and his children in accordance with the teaching of the Koran, and in this division was to be reckoned the sums owed by his debtors, but these debtors were not to be pressed to repay more quickly than had been agreed.
He rested again then for a minute or two, and then he went on. He said that it was fitting when a wealthy man died that he should provide for his family against all possible chance of want. Any money that there might be over should not be spent in idle luxuries, but should be given to further the work of God. He had given much thought to this matter, and had talked about it to the Imam many times. They were agreed that the stranger, Shak Lin el Amin, had done more than anyone in recent years to draw men back to God. In these modern times of machinery and inventions men who served such things, and more men served them every year, were tempted to abandon God, to their own utter destruction. El Amin, brought up to machinery himself and honoured in his calling, had shown them the folly of these ways, and had shown that only by turning back to God can men attain to Heaven. His teaching was a firm rock to which men could cling in a changing world, because it was the teaching of God. It did not seem to him important that El Amin shared his teaching with men of other creeds, with Buddhists and with Hindus and with Sikhs. His teaching was of God, and God knew best.
He therefore directed that the second half of all his monies in the banks should be given to El Amin absolutely, since it would be used to bring men back to God through all the temptations of the new world of machinery. This was a legacy for a religious purpose in accordance with the fourth Surah, and must not be disputed. He called everybody to witness that he was sane in mind and not subject to the influence of anybody in this bequest, which was made after due consideration for the furtherance of the works of God.
He was obviously very, very tired after all that. He rested again, and after a time he said, “God go with you,” and we all trooped out.
There was nothing then to stay for, and no more to be learned. We flew back to Bahrein at once, and went down to Morrison’s house for a talk about it, Nadezna and I. He said it was a perfectly valid will, and it was quite unlikely that anybody would attempt to upset it. If the Foreign Office should question it, he would have to testify that it was made strictly in accordance with Moslem law.
I asked him. “How much do you think is involved?”
“I simply haven’t an idea,” he said. “I’d only be guessing if I told you a figure. But it’s a very large sum of money.”
Nadezna said, “But Connie won’t live to use it. It’s given for his religious work. And he’s a dying man.”
Morrison bit his lip. “I know,” he said. “That’s just the hell of it. It’s going to pass practically straight into other hands.”
There was nothing to be done about it, and we went on with our work as usual. We heard of Connie from time to time as he ranged through the East, never staying longer than two days in any place. We heard once that he was in Patiala in the north of India, and three weeks later he was at Ratmalana airport at Colombo, and again, he was at Hyderabad, and again, at Chittagong. He went to Chiengmai and to Songkhla in Siam, and down to Singapore where he spent several days.
It went on like that for about six weeks longer, and still the old Sheikh lingered on in his palace at Baraka. He must have been very tough. But then one day the inevitable happened, and Morrison rang me up to say that the old man had died during the night.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He said, “Well, the burial will be today and then there’s three days of official mourning usually. I imagine we shall hear something from Wazir Hussein about the end of the week.”
He didn’t but I did. The Hudson came to my office a few days later while I was dictating to Nadezna; we packed that up and I went out to meet them. The Wazir had a youngish man with him, richly dressed in Arab clothes and speaking perfect English; this was Fahad the eldest son, the new Sheikh, who had been educated at Shrewsbury and Balliol. He was then a man of about thirty, I should say.
I ordered coffee for them, but Fahad was of the new school and did not wait till we had sipped our coffee before starting on the business that had brought him to my office.
“I am sure you know what we are here for, Mr. Cutter,” he said. “My father, who died recently, left a bequest to Shak Lin, as of course you know. It is now a matter of implementing his wishes.”
I nodded. “I was very sorry indeed to hear of your father’s death,” I said. “He was a great man, and a very good one.” He bowed, and I went on, “The sister of Shak Lin is in the next room. Do you wish her to come in?”
He said, “If you please.”
I went and called Nadezna, and she left her typewriter, and the two Arab noblemen got up and bowed to her, unusual in the East. I told her briefly what had happened, and gave her a chair. Then Fahad said,
“Where is El Amin now, Mr. Cutter?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I replied. “He’s travelling from aerodrome to aerodrome, staying no more than two days in each place. He has been in Malaya and in Siam, but when we last heard about ten days ago he was making his way back through Burma and East Pakistan to India again. I expect we could find out quite quickly where he is by the radio and air traffic control.”
Wazir Hussein asked, “Does he know that my late master gave a legacy into his care for the work of God?”
“I haven’t told him.” I turned to Nadezna. She shook her head, and said, “I thought it better not to.”
“I think that probably he knows nothing about it,” I said. “I have told nobody. I don’t suppose Captain Morrison talked about it either.”
Fahad said, “It seems probable that he knows nothing about it, then.” The coffee came at that point, and he waited till Dunu had put it on the table and gone out, and shut the door behind him. And then he said, “In that case, I should like to go to see him, with Wazir Hussein, to tell him that this thing is done because it was my father’s wish, and mine also, that he should have this money to be used for God. Can you provide an aeroplane for us to travel to him in?”
“Of course,” I said. “I can fix up that. How many will there be?”
He said. “If possible, I think the Sister should be present.”
Nadezna said, “I should be glad to come, Sheikh.”
I said, “Would you like me to come? That’s just as you wish. I can send Gujar Singh to pilot the machine, or, if you wish, I’ll pilot it myself. Just as you like.”
Fahad said, “If you can spare the time, I should like you to come too, Mr. Cutter. The sum involved is a large one, and it would be well that witnesses to the Majlis of my father should be present. And you are a completely independent witness, which perhaps was why my father asked for you.”
I said, “I can come.” And then I said, “How much money is involved in this legacy? I don’t want to ask impertinent questions, but if it is a very large sum it may need some thought. Because, as you know, Shak Lin is a sick man.”
Fahad said, “I know that, Mr. Cutter. That has been in our minds, too, but my father’s will must first be carried out before we think of anything else. As regards the sum, it seems to be about five hundred and twenty lakhs.”
“Five hundred and twenty lakhs?” I repeated. A lakh of rupees is a hundred thousand rupees. I calculated quickly in my head—fifty-two million rupees. “You mean, about four million pounds?”
“Pro
bably a little less,” said Fahad. “Just under four million pounds, I think.”
It may have been tactless before Moslems, but I said “Christ!” It’s always a bit of a shock when the fairy tale comes true, and though I had heard for years that the old Sheikh had an income from the oil royalties that was a good deal more than half a million pounds a year, I had never believed it. I knew, of course, that he was wealthy, but sums such as that are bordering on fantasy and one assumes instinctively that there is gross exaggeration somewhere. However, here it was, and it was true. The old man had just under eight million pounds in his various bank accounts, all in current accounts because of his hatred of usury. And by his will, one half of that sum was now due to Connie.
Fahad and Hussein were quite phlegmatic about parting with this vast sum, as well they might be, because the half that the family retained was free of any sort of tax or death duty. The income from the oil royalties was so vastly in excess of the requirements of their modest and ascetic way of life that the accumulated savings represented nothing but a burden and a responsibility. The old Sheikh had no idea of using money in the modern way; it was beyond his mental power to visualize the construction of roads, schools, hospitals, or sewage schemes as free gifts to his people; he would have thought that pampering them and leading them away from God into a life of sinful ease. Fahad, of course, had plenty of modern ideas, but he was new to the sheikhdom and had much prejudice to contend with. It would be many years before he could spend even the annual income from the royalties. I really think that they were happy and relieved that the old man had discovered a means of letting down the pressure in the Treasury for the service of God through El Amin.
We talked about this for a time, and then it became imperative to organize the journey to see Connie. There was a tendency for the party to grow on the Arab side; a cook was necessary to free the Sheikh from worries over eating unclean food, a servant or two were very desirable, and so on. I decided to take the Carrier as being bigger and more suitable than one of the little old Airtrucks, still doing yeoman service, and I warned Gujar Singh that I should want him to come with me on the flight, starting the day after tomorrow.