But the Count hadn't got a hope. Bentner followed him with an accusation that the Count of Mountjoy, as usual, was opposing the interests of the workingmen. If the wine could be used as a rocket fuel, then this provided an additional market for the primary product of the Duchy and this would benefit the workers whose representative he was. There was nothing whatever to stop people from continuing to drink Pinot Grand Fenwick and he foresaw an even greater demand for it, for people needing ten gallons for their cars (he foresaw cars driven by rocket engines) would not neglect to also drink a glass themselves. No other gasoline embodied such an appeal, doing good for man and motor. Bentner sat down amidst thunderous applause and Mountjoy, realizing that he was defeated, accepted the situation and concentrated on ensuring that he got five million for his plumbing. A few days later he had wisely altered his stand, completely reversed his position "out of deference to the expressed ideas of the people" and was as firm a promoter of the rocket project as anyone in the Duchy.
"A great statesman is always at the service of the people," he told his son Vincent smoothly. "Particularly if to oppose the people is to forfeit his position. No figure is so pathetic as the discredited leader who had not the wisdom to swing with the tide. History has little place for him, and he becomes the subject of research by students desperate for a thesis with which to win a degree. And that, my boy, is the limbo of those whose lack of discretion costs them immortality."
Vincent punted. He had learned to accept these lessons in statesmanship from his father without comment. He had been put in charge of the actual construction of the rocket, subject to Dr. Kokintz, as the master architect, and although nothing was said immediately, it was understood that these would be the two who would man the rocket at its take-off.
Vincent's first job was to find a launching site. He considered for a while launching the rocket from a plain concrete pad in the open, and this could certainly have been done. But Grand Fenwick's weather was not a match for Florida's. Many days the rain and wind would hold up work and provide problems of deterioration of the metal casing of the rocket. It would be better to work under cover, and surveying the castle one day with his father (incidental to installing plumbing, which he had also agreed to do) he fell to examining the large tower on the northeast corner of the castle. It was called the Jericho Tower, since its base was adjacent to the Jericho room of the castle, so named because it contained a large stained-glass window depicting the fall of the Walls of Jericho.
"What's in that?" he asked of his father, the Count.
"The remnants of a spiral staircase—one of the largest in Europe," Mountjoy replied. "It has not been used since fifteen eighty-seven."
"Why?" asked Vincent, studying the tall, slim but strong lines of the tower.
"In that year the Spanish ambassador, coming down the stairs ahead of the English ambassador, fell, rolled to the bottom and was killed. The Spanish maintained that their ambassador had been pushed by the Englishman. Grand Fenwick arbitrated the matter, deciding that it was an accident, but Spain seized on the incident anyway and sent her Armada against England—with disastrous results. They would have been far better off to have taken our decision in the first place."
"I thought England's war with Spain resulted from England's raids on Spanish possessions in the New World," said Vincent absently, for he was still studying the tower.
"That is merely the English version," said the Count of Mountjoy. "The interpretation of history largely depends on the nationality of the nation in which it is published." The two went into the tower and Vincent inspected the masonry carefully. He found it in excellent shape. The circular staircase on the interior could be removed without impairing the structural strength.
"By golly, I think it is just what we need!" exclaimed Vincent.
"Need for what?" asked his father.
"Need for the rocket. We can assemble the rocket in the bottom of the town, which connects with the dungeons of the castle—providing an excellent sheltered working area—and launch the rocket through the top of the tower."
"From the Tower of Jericho?" demanded the Count.
"Certainly," said Vincent. "Why not?"
The Count thought it over for a moment "Why not indeed?" he said, smiling. "I think in view of the likely effect that it would be most appropriate."
And so, a building and launching site having been decided upon, the work went on and Grand Fenwick made no attempt to keep secret the building of its rocket. Yet the fact that the work had been put in hand was not credited for a moment by the United States, Russia or any other country. But that was not the Duchy's fault.
The Count of Mountjoy paid a special visit to the United States Ambassador in Switzerland (who handled American affairs in the Duchy but never visited it as being too small and inaccessible a place) to tell him that the Duchy was building a rocket to send to the moon. The Ambassador, who was, of course, aware of the loan the United States had made to Grand Fenwick for this purpose, nodded politely and asked from where the rocket would be launched.
"From the Tower of Jericho," replied the Count of Mountjoy, quite seriously, at which the Ambassador smiled and said he thought that highly appropriate. He made no official report on this visit but passed the story on through diplomatic circles so that it became a well-known anecdote, not given the slightest credence anywhere.
In selecting the Tower of Jericho at the castle as the launching silo, Grand Fenwick had taken an important but unwitting step toward keeping its rocket project a secret. Soon the story was so well known that any utterly implausible project was referred to as a "Tower of Jericho." After that it would have been extremely difficult, without a tremendous effort, to get anyone to believe seriously in the Grand Fenwick lunar rocket. Perhaps if matters had gone differently from the start, the world would not have remained for so long in ignorance. But circumstances conspired to prevent the story being believed—circumstances and the intensive propaganda of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, woking as hard as it could to offset the effect of America's gift of $50,000,000 as a practical step toward international cooperation in the conquest of the moon.
Had there been any analysis of the orders placed in the United States by Grand Fenwick, utilizing the $50,000.000 given the Duchy, a clue to what was going on in Grand Fenwick might have been discovered. But these orders went to the United States government purchasing agency which agreed to buy on behalf of Grand Fenwick and they were filled without any investigation whatever.
Copies of the orders went, of course, to the desk of Frederick Paxton Wendover in charge of the Central European Desk in the State Department for his routine information. He hardly had time to give them more than a glance. In any case, most of them seemed to deal with piping, beaten, bathtubs, shower stalls, shower heads, and other items connected with plumbing; and as he pointed out to the Secretary of State, his analysis of the situation had been correct that Grand Fenwick was really after was modern plumbing. He was surprised, however, one day to get a call from the government purchasing agency referring him to one order from Grand Fenwick requisitioning a discarded Saturn rocket casing.
"What the hell am I supposed to do about this?" asked the purchasing-agency man. "We don't sell used rockets to foreign powers. What do they want it for anyway?"
"Hanged if I know," said Wendover. "I'll call you back."
He turned to his copy of the order and read it over. The requisition asked for forty oversized bathtubs, a large quantity of turquoise glazed tiling, several thousand feet of copper piping in various sizes and then, "One used Saturn rocket, without engine or instrumentation." He was shocked and thought about it for a while and then smiled.
"Astute old fox," he said to himself, thinking of Mountjoy. "He is well aware of the Russian efforts to discredit the sincerity of our loan and hopes to help us out by ordering a Saturn rocket shell. Well, we ought to give him one. We can circulate the word that we are supplying it and that will put the Russians on the spot again. The
y can't continue with their present line that the money was just an empty gesture and is being spent on bathtubs. Mountjoy will probably convert it into a water heater, though. He'd need something of that size in that castle."
He called the National Space Agency and rather surprised them by asking if they had a used Saturn rocket available. It turned out they had several whose shells had failed metallurgical tests, being a few millimeters out of true—an important factor in avoiding heat buildup at tremendous speeds.
"Frankly we don't know what to do with them," said the man at the Space Agency. "They're an embarrassment to us. We can't throw them in a junkyard because there'd be a national outcry. If we start cutting them up there'd be hell to pay too. And we haven't got storage space for them. We offered them to a few cities around the nation for erection in parks as monuments or something, but no cities want to pay the cost of moving them and we haven't any funds for that purpose. So they're just racked up and we're beginning to run out of space."
"What are they worth?" asked Wendover.
"Worth? Well, they cost several million bucks apiece. That's what they cost. But they're not worth anything."
"Are you prepared to part with one if the customer will pay the cost of transport?" asked Wendover.
"Sure," said the Space Agency man. "Who's the customer, by the way?"
"The Duchy of Grand Fenwick."
"Oh yeah. The Tower of Jericho boys," and he chuckled and hung up.
Wendover called back the purchasing agency and told them where they could get a used Saturn rocket and told them to go ahead and supply it. He then informed the Secretary of State, who also thought that it was pretty nice of the Count of Mountjoy to back the United States up in this manner.
"And than people say we haven't any real friends in Europe," he said. "Well, they're wrong. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is solidly behind us."
He mentioned the incident to the President, who was touched by the loyalty and thoughtfulness of Grand Fenwick in ordering the used rocket. A statement was issued to the press regarding the purchase and the story was dutifully printed and broadcast. But the editors chuckled as they sent it through to the printers for setting and the readers chuckled when they read it in their newspapers because everybody knew that a country as small as Grand Fenwick couldn't be serious about sending a rocket to the moon.
Everybody, that is, but Grand Fenwick. There, under Vincent of Mountjoy's direction, they just went ahead building the rocket in the Tower of Jericho.
CHAPTER X
Amidst all the strenuous activity of preparing the Grand Fenwick rocket for launching, Dr. Kokintz still had time to keep up a vigorous correspondence with the Audubon Society and with bird lovers in many parts of the world on the subject of the two bobolinks which had taken up their residence in the forest of Grand Fenwick. He had sent to the society his pictures of the two birds, native to the northeastern coast of America, which had appeared in the Duchy; and the publication of these pictures in the journal of the society created a tremendous sensation.
A furore of speculation was immediately aroused over how the birds got to the Duchy, so far from their native habitat. It was well known to bird lovers that bobolinks migrate during the winter months to South America by way of the West Indies, but there was no case on record of a migration to Europe. A theory was advanced that a party of bobolinks, headed northward for New England and Southern Canada, had been swept off their course by a hurricane off the Florida coast, the survivors reaching Europe, and the Grand Fenwick bobolinks were of this party.
A hunt among bird watchers for other bobolinks in Europe was immediately instigated, but without conclusive results. One was reported in Sicily and three in the South of France, but no photographs were available. Then a rumor started that the whole thing was a hoax and that the Kokintz photographs had been taken not in Grand Fenwick but in the woodlands of Connecticut.
Kokintz was horrified by this suggestion. He was a simple man, almost childish; used to believing others and to being believed himself. He protested strongly against the hoax story and invited anyone who was interested to come to Grand Fenwick and see the bobolinks for themselves.
One day he received a letter from Berne, Switzerland, from a certain Mr. Maurice Spender. Mr. Spender said that he was an Englishman and a keen ornithologist and that he was prepared to produce letters from the highest authorities attesting to his lifelong interest in birds. He asked whether he might be permitted to come to Grand Fenwick and see the two bobolinks for himself, and take photographs of them.
"Why all the fuss about letters of recommendation?" asked Tully when Kokintz showed him this letter. "Anyone who wants is welcome to come here and see the bobolinks."
Kokintz shrugged. "It is the British," he said. "They are a very formal people. They have a horror of pretenders and like to have everything certified and authenticated. England is the only country in the world where it is a serious offense to wear the wrong tie, because it puts you in the position of masquerading as something you are not."
Tully nodded. "Write and tell him to come by all means," he said. "We can put him up at the castle. If he were coming a couple of months from now, we could even give him a hot bath. He might like to see the rocket while he is here."
Dr. Kokintz did not think so. "A real bird lover," he said, "would not be interested in things like rockets." He produced a small clipping from a newspaper which had been enclosed with Mr. Spender's letter. It was a communication to the editor of The Times in London and read:
Sir:
At 6:15 this morning, I distinctly heard the notes of a cuckoo in a small spinney near my house. The call was repeated for four minutes and then ceased. Is this the first cuckoo to be heard in Hampshire this year?
Maurice Spender
Alston,
Hampshire,
March 3, 1966
"Note the date on that," said Dr. Kokintz."
"What about the date?" asked Tully.
"Well, just the day before, the world was staggered by the announcement that the United States had managed to put a satellite in orbit around the planet Venus. But Mr. Spender did not care about the satellite. He was out listening for the first cuckoo of spring. That is a bird watcher for you." Dr. Kokintz seemed immensely pleased with Mr. Spender.
The doctor indeed looked forward eagerly to the arrival of Mr. Spender, and met him personally at the Swiss frontier of Grand Fenwick, where Mr. Spender got off the bus a week later. He had with him not one camera but several, all of expensive makes and all of them new. He also had a fishing rod and a double-barreled shotgun and several pieces of luggage. He was dressed in very hairy tweeds, the trousers seeming somewhat large for him. The tweeds were of a rust-red and beneath the jacket he had a pullover of bright yellow.
"Dr. Kokintz?" he said, extending his hand vigorously. "Jolly nice of you to meet me. Been looking forward to this immensely. Can't wait until I see your bobobinks."
"Bobolinks," said Kokintz.
"Of course, bobolinks," said Spender. "Silly slip of the tongue. Ride on that bus upset me. You haven't got a car, I see. Can we get a taxi?"
Kokintz explained that there were no automobiles at all in Grand Fenwick, but they could leave Mr. Spender's luggage where it was by the side of the road and send a cart for it from the castle. But Mr. Spender was not prepared to have his gear unguarded. He said it contained many things of value and he would be very distressed if anything were missing.
"Nobody will touch it," Kokintz assured him. "It will be perfectly safe here. Nobody steals anything in Grand Fenwick." But Mr. Spender was not to be persuaded and Dr. Kokintz had to go off for a cart himself. When he returned, Mr. Spender was not to be found immediately. He was located, looking rather sheepish, in the top branches of a large sycamore, from which vantage point he seemed to have been taking pictures of Fenwick castle with a telescopic lens.
"Wonderful view of the castle from up there," he said, climbing down from the tree.
"The
re's a much better view around the corner of the road," said Dr. Kokintz.
"I wanted to frame it in the top branches of the tree," said Mr. Spender. "Something different, you know." But the explanation, in view of the work involved in climbing to the top of the tree and down again, sounded lame.
"He's a real Englishman," Dr. Kokintz said to himself. "Eccentric like they all are." He recalled that during his student days a fellow student from England had tried to cure himself of influenza by sleeping out in subzero weather. His theory was that influenza germs could not survive severe cold. He caught double pneumonia and died.
Mr. Spender found a welcoming committee waiting for him at the Castle of Grand Fenwick. On hand were Gloriana, Tully, the Count of Mountjoy, his son Vincent and, of count, David Bentner representing the workingman.
They all went off to breakfast, whose preparation the Duchess herself had supervised out of fondness for Dr. Kokintz. It was a very English breakfast, bacon, eggs, kidneys and cold toast. Gloriana had wanted the toast hot, but Tully, who was much more traveled than she, said the English always ate cold toast for breakfast and, to ensure that it was cold, put it in a thing called a toast rack where it had maximum exposure to the air and so could lose all its heat before being eaten. The talk during the breakfast was rather awkward. Spender was not much of a conversationalist, or perhaps the bus ride from Bern had deprived him of the use of his wits. Mountjoy remarked that he had brought a rod with him, and Spender said briskly that he hoped to get in a little fishing.
"What had you in mind?" asked Mountjoy.
"Trout," said Spender.
"Trout?" cried Mountjoy. "But the May fly aren't on the river yet."
"Actually I'm not much of a fisherman," said Mr. Spender. "I only bought the rod the other day. Thought it might be nice to do a little fishing while bird watching."
The Mouse On The Moon: eBook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 2) Page 9