The Ka of Gifford Hillary

by Dennis Wheatley

  On entering the basement I saw that it was very like the lower regions of a battleship, and the humming of the air-conditioning plant added to the similarity. It consisted of a long, narrow corridor with a maze of shorter ones opening out of it. Along the ceiling and upper walls of them all ran innumerable white-painted pipes and wires. Every few feet a plywood door gave on to a room in most of which there were three or four desks, or, in the smaller ones, a single iron bed. On the doors of the latter were stencilled the names of the men who had occupied them: Sir Edward Bridges, Mr. Attlee, General Ismay, Mr. Brendan Bracken, Lord Beaver-brook, General Hollis, Sir John Anderson, Mr. Morrison, Sir Desmond Morton, and so on.

  Our elderly guide explained that while Cabinet meetings had normally continued to be held at 10 Downing Street in the day-time, at night the War Cabinet had met in a room down here to which he took us. The sleeping cabins had been used by the P.M.’s principal assistants permanantly, and occasionally by Ministers who preferred to remain there rather than go home on nights when there were severe air-raids.

  He showed us then the rooms of the Joint Planners, in each of which teams of three—sailor, soldier and airman—had worked together; the meeting room of the Chiefs of Staff; the map room, with its long range of different-coloured telephones, in which every conceivable piece of information available concerning our forces, their dispositions, and those of the enemy could be obtained at a glance; and finally Sir Winston Churchill’s quarters. These consisted of a bedroom, a work-room and a private dining-room just large enough to seat four people. On the worst nights of the blitz his staff had persuaded him to sleep there, and in any emergency he would only have had to walk downstairs from his flat to continue fighting the war from there uninterrupted.

  When we emerged from this intriguing tour I set about trying to find Johnny. As it was a Sunday few people were moving about in the long corridors and most of the first-floor rooms were deserted; moreover, as they had no maps on their walls it seemed probable that the men in them were Civil Servants. The second floor, perhaps because it is further removed from the noise and dust of the street, is the one in all Government offices where the bigwigs have their quarters. The rooms there were larger and much loftier; most of them containing big conference tables as well as handsome desks. I did not expect to find Johnny in these august surroundings, and had looked into a few of the rooms only out of curiosity, when I found myself in that of Sir Charles. He had evidently arrived only a few minutes ahead of me; and, as I gathered from his remarks to a young man for whom he had rung, had come in for an hour before lunch to sign some documents and look through the overnight Foreign Office telegrams.

  I wondered if he had yet learned of my death, and thought it probable that he had as, even if it had not got into the London Saturday evening papers, it was certain to have been in those of that morning.

  My own feelings apart, as I looked again at his tall, still youthful figure, thatch of white hair, and kind smile through the thick-lensed glasses, I felt sorry for him on account of it; for it had blown sky-high the plan on which he must have pinned considerable hopes.

  I thought that probably he would try to get someone else to play the role he had designed for me—if not on account of E-boats then in connection with some other now redundant type of Naval craft—but that would take time, and it might not be easy to find a ship-builder regularly receiving Government contracts who, like myself, happened also to be air-minded, so sufficiently unprejudiced to view the problems as I had, and would agree to sacrifice both his Company’s interests and, perhaps, the friendship of a number of die-hard sailors.

  It was certainly bad luck for Sir Charles that my death should have occurred just at that time, and in circumstances which had not the remotest connection with our secret talk. Somehow it would not have seemed quite so bad if I had been murdered by someone who had found out our intentions—perhaps a Russian agent who had orders to do his utmost to prevent Britain going over to a New Look armaments programme, or a crazy young Naval officer holding the fanatical belief that our country could be saved only by the maintenance of the Old Look with more and bigger aircraft-carriers.

  No doubt that is just the sort of way the events of which I am the central character would have developed had this been a Dennis Wheatley thriller; but, as far as Sir Charles’s plans were concerned, once I was dead, who had killed me and why could have no bearing on the situation. It was only a, perhaps silly, feeling on my part that had I been done in with the object of wrecking his plans I could at least have counted my life given, in a sense, for what I believed to be the good of my country; whereas I had lost it as a result of an absurd misunderstanding between my wife, who loved me, and her passion-crazed admirer whom she did not love. There could certainly have been few more futile reasons for having one’s life cut short, but I could only accept the fact that our existence while on earth, and its termination, does appear to be governed by just such pointless stupidities.

  Leaving Sir Charles to his Sunday morning chore I moved up to the third floor and there struck lucky. The first room I entered was a typists’ pool. Most of the machines had their covers on, but two young women were busily tapping away there. Beyond it was a range of rooms each containing three or four desks, about one in three of which were occupied by men either writing or reading papers. They were all in civilian clothes, but the maps on the walls of the rooms told me that these must be offices of the Joint Planning Staff. Johnny was not among them, but I ran him to earth a few minutes later on the opposite side of the corridor.

  He was in a fair-sized room that had no desks in it but an oval table and a number of elbow chairs. On the table there were a score or more of folders which at first sight looked like those used to contain magazines in a club reading room, and this evidently was a reading room, but the material in it was of the highest secrecy.

  Each folder had its contents stencilled in large letters on its cover, and glancing at them I read some of the titles: ‘MINUTES OF MEETINGS AT S.H.A.P.E., MINUTES OF THE CHIEFS OF STAFF, FOREIGN OFFICE TELEGRAMS, MINUTES OF N.A.T.O. MEETINGS, JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, MINUTES OF DEPUTY CHIEFS OF STAFF, NORTH WESTERN ARMY GROUP INTELLIGENCE, MINUTES OF S.E.A.T.O. MEETINGS, EXTRACTS FROM CABINET MEETINGS, MINUTES OF U.N.O. MEETINGS, MINUTES OF DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE, MINUTES OF DEFENCE COMMITTEE.’

  In addition there were another score or so of stencilled papers without covers, and reports printed on light blue paper, some of which I saw, as they were picked up and scanned by Johnny and his companions, ran to fifty of more pages in length. These had such titles as: Project Saucepan. New Assessment of Persian Oil. Operation Teasing. Report of ex-Naval Attaché Moscow. Bases in Malaya. Exercise Showdown. Enemy Propaganda in India. The War Potential of Turkey. Relative values of Light and Heavy Armoured Vehicles. British Cargo Tonnage State. Treaty between U.S.S.R. and Afghanistan. Potential of Norway to Wage War. The Underground in Czechoslovakia. Finding from recent Thermo-Nuclear Tests in the U.S.A.’ and so on.

  I felt that had I been left there for a month with nothing else to do I could not have mastered this mass of fascinating secret information, let alone the fresh material with which it would be supplemented from day to day; but Johnny and the two chaps who were with him in the room picked up and scanned through a dozen papers apiece quite casually in the course of the next half hour.

  It occurred to me that in my present strange state I might make a marvellous spy if I could get to Moscow and locate some similar foom which must exist somewhere in the Kremlin. But on second thoughts I realised that such an idea was hopelessly impracticable. In the first place, with the restrictions which seemed to be imposed upon my movements it would take me quite a time to get there and back; in the second I could not read Russian; in the third, even if I could have done so, I was incapable of turning over pages for myself, so could read only such matter as was open to my gaze; and lastly I had no means of communicating to anybody anything that I might learn.

  Nevertheless, I
read over Johnny’s shoulder with great interest the minutes and papers through which he was glancing, and even in that short time I was struck by one thing. Again and again Members of Parliament and the press attack the Government for not doing this and that, but there is a logical explanation for their apparent remissness which they cannot give in their own defence for reasons of national security.

  In addition to the stimulating effect of these assessments of Britain’s problems which I was reading, being again in Johnny’s presence comforted me greatly. After my incredibly distressing morning it was unbelievably good to be with someone whom one had every reason to believe to be an inherently decent person. No doubt many of the people I had seen reading the Sunday papers in bed or getting their breakfasts were equally likeable, but I did not know them, whereas I did know Johnny.

  There was something most commendable about his acceptance with enthusiasm of this extraordinarily arduous job, which debarred him for two years from the flying that he loved and might easily make a hash of his service career if he failed to handle it competently; of his entire lack of bitterness that his wealthy grandfather should not even have mentioned him in his will, and of the unfailing good humour with which from his lazy blue eyes he regarded the doings of others. I don’t think he was quite brilliant enough ever to get right to the top, but he had brains, a pleasant wit and, above all, integrity. Just to be with him gave one a sense of well-being and security. I would to God that he had been my son.

  At about half past twelve Johnny left the reading room, went to his own office, collected from his desk a typescript which he locked into a brief-case, then descended to the ground floor in the old-fashioned lift. I accompanied him, and together we crossed Horse Guards Parade, passed beneath the arch of the ancient palace, and a few minutes later reached the Air Ministry in Whitehall Gardens. There we ascended in a swift modern elevator to the second floor and entered a room the door of which was labelled: ‘Air Commodore Benthorpe, C.B.E., D.S.O., Director of Plans.’

  A girl there greeted Johnny with a friendly smile, lifted one of the telephones on her desk and said: ‘Wing Commander Norton to see you, Sir,’ then laid it down and told Johnny: ‘Master will see you; go right in, Wing Commander.’

  In the adjacent room a small, thick-set, almost bald Air Commodore was sitting at a desk loaded with stacks of papers. Giving a swift nod he motioned Johnny to a chair and asked: ‘Well, what’s cooking over the way, Norton?’

  ‘Nothing much, Sir,’ Johnny replied. ‘The Yugoslavian situation is not developing too well for us, and President Nehru is letting down the side again by encouraging the Afghans to accept neutrality. I came over only to give you this paper on atomic bases in the Arctic, and to ask for forty-eight hours’ special leave from tomorrow morning owing to the death of my uncle, Sir Gifford Hillary. It is not only to attend his funeral but I may have quite a bit to do as one of his executors.’

  The D of Plans nodded. ‘Yes, I saw about his death in this morning’s paper. I’m sorry, Norton. I gather that he was in the R.A.F. during the war, and a good chap. It’s a sad business that his private affairs should have got into such a tangle. Fill in a form and I’ll see to it that your leave is all right. There is one thing, though. We can’t let that paper on air support for S.E.A.T.O. stand over for another week, and I understand that the G. Ones have not yet had your draft of it.’

  ‘I have a luncheon date, Sir, which will go on for most of the afternoon,’ Johnny replied, ‘but I thought I would come in and finish it off this evening, if that’s all right by you?’

  ‘Certainly; by all means do that,’ the Air Commodore nodded again. ‘As long as it’s in the hands of the G. Ones by tomorrow morning; then they should be able to let me have it by Tuesday. I’m sorry about your uncle. If you need an extra few days to get on with sorting out his affairs I don’t doubt we shall be able to manage for that long without you.’

  Having thanked him, Johnny left the Air Ministry, walked back to Whitehall, turned down it and halted at the bus stop on the corner of Parliament Square. My hour in his familiar company had done a lot to cheer me up; but now that he was evidently going to his luncheon appointment I felt that watching people eat, drink, and talk without being able to join in might bring about a return of my depression; so I decided against accompanying him. Yet, when he had jumped on to a bus, I was inclined to regret my decision, as I was at a complete loss what to do with myself.

  That very fact suddenly struck me as interesting. The previous evening I had been taken all unsuspecting to see my family and early that morning impelled to witness the horrors of the slums. Since then my movements had been governed more and more by my own free will, and now I no longer had an urge to go anywhere. Was it possible that I had passed through two stages; the first to compel me to realise the evils that my selfishness had contributed to bringing about, and the second to show me the futility of interesting myself further in the doings of the still living? If so, I was now presumably in the clear and ready to leave earth.

  The trouble was, though, that I still had not the faintest idea how to set about it and, apart from having no physical body, I felt as much one of the living as ever.

  Poised as I was at the bottom of Whitehall, I found my gaze fixed on Westminster Abbey. It occurred to me then that it might be the portal through which I could receive my release. Whether one believed in the rituals of the Church or not, one could not deny the goodness of Christ, and His original teachings upon which the Church had been founded. Again, such Temples erected in His name had long been hallowed by the prayers of countless men and women of high principles and upright life. Surely if there were anywhere in which a lost soul like myself could hope to be rested it must be in such a place.

  Crossing the square I passed into the twilight depths of the lofty building. As it was the lunch hour the morning services were over and comparatively few sightseers were doing the rounds of the famous monuments. Advancing to the front row of chairs before the high altar, I lowered myself to the level of a kneeling position and began to pray.

  For a long time I prayed with all the earnestness I could muster, beseeching forgiveness for the ill that I had done to others, and begging for release. But nothing happened; not even the faintest whisper of counsel to me.

  No doubt because I had been roused before four o’clock that morning by Christobel returning home, I felt a great weariness stealing over me. Then I fell into the equivalent of sleep.

  * * * *

  When I woke nothing had changed, except that there were more people making the tour of the ancient edifice. For a time I remained where I was contemplating, a little bitterly I fear, the complete failure of my latest experiment. Apparently, for me at all events, there was nothing to hope for from the Christian God. Later I modified that view a little as it seemed at least possible that He intended me to expiate my sins by remaining for a considerable while longer in Purgatory before He would accept my repentance as sincere.

  On that assumption there was a chance that I might hasten matters if I faced the music; so I tried to think of people that I had sinned against with the idea of seeking them out and deliberately harrowing myself by contemplating the injury I had done them.

  But in that I came up against a brick wall. Like most people, I had undoubtedly been guilty of many small unkindnesses but they had been of such a minor nature that they had passed out of my mind. I had committed no serious crime and had been cursed neither with a malicious nature nor violent temper. I had, of course, indulged my natural appetites pretty freely, but I had never considered that to be a sin; as, regarded logically, if the Power that had created man had not intended that he should enjoy himself when he had the chance, by eating, drinking and making merry with the opposite sex, it would not have given him such desires. Search my conscience as I would, therefore, I could find nothing other than my neglect of my family, and having had more than my share of the good things of life while others were starving, with which to reproach myself. />
  More than ever puzzled at my state, and filled with angry frustration, I left the Abbey. Big Ben showed the time to be half-past five and it was a pleasant sunny afternoon with just a touch of approaching autumn in the air. Once more I was beset by an appalling loneliness, so I made up my mind to seek out a few old friends and see how they were faring.

  My first choice was John and Alice Collier. He was my stock-broker, and they lived in a pleasant house up at Hampstead. Instinctively I made for the taxi-rank on the slope up to Westminster Bridge; but I had not covered a dozen yards before I realised that I was incapable of giving the driver directions; so, short of exhausting myself by moving for the best part of two hours at a walking pace, I must go by bus.

  When one with the right number came along I impelled myself upwards, passed through a window, and settled on its upper deck. Having let it carry me up to Hampstead, I got off and drifted under my own steam the last half mile to the Colliers’ house.

  It was set back a little way from the road in its own garden, and as I went up the path I was cheered quite a lot by the memory of the many jolly evenings I had spent there and the thought of seeing John and Alice again, even though I could not talk to them.

  Passing through the front door I crossed the hall to the drawing-room at the back of the house, thinking that the most likely place to find them at this hour on a Sunday. They were not there. Instead a strange couple were in possession. The man, a seedy-looking individual with a walrus moustache and a large paunch, was lying on the sofa; he was in his shirt-sleeves and wore no collar. The woman was seated close by in an arm-chair, knitting; she was somewhat cleaner, but her wispy grey hair looked as if it could do with a wash.

  After my first surprise I realised that, the school term not having yet begun, John and Alice must still be down at Angmering with the children at the bungalow they had taken for the summer; and that these people were caretakers.