The Mouse That Roared

by Leonard Wibberley

  “The trouble was that we’re too big and they’re too little,” the Secretary replied quietly. “They did try to settle the matter peacefully, as they say in their declaration of war. We have found an official communique from the duchy, signed by the Duchess Gloriana XII and addressed to the United States Chamber of Commerce, drawing attention to the manufacture of this imitation Pinot Grand Fenwick and asking that it be suppressed.”

  “What happened to that?” asked the President.

  The Secretary blushed. “It was forwarded to the vintners for comment and they used it for promotion purposes. They claimed in a series of advertisements of questionable taste that their product was so like the original Pinot that it had brought an official protest against its sale. They tied this claim in with some kind of blurb about American ingenuity improving on the centuries-old skill of European wine makers.”

  “Oh, no,” said the President.

  “Yes,” said the Secretary.

  There was a little silence.

  “Did the Grand Fenwick people do anything else?”

  “Yes. There was another communique, also signed by Gloriana XII, to the Department of Agriculture, registering a protest against the sale of the imitation Pinot. This seems to have got lost in the shuffle. The only reply we can trace was the sending of a bulletin by the Department to the Duchess. The bulletin was entitled ‘Wine-making and the Culture of Grapes in California’.”

  The President closed his eyes. “And then their formal declaration of war was first of all dunked in the Potomac and then put down behind a radiator to dry out,” he said, half to himself. “You know, I am beginning to sympathize with this duchy. Their biggest job seems to have been not to go to war, but to get people to realize that they had a reason for going to war. And then, by golly, we had to use the Secret Service to find out that they had attacked us. How did they get over here?”

  “That’s something of a mystery. There are two theories. The first, which seems the more probable, is at the same time the most outlandish. That is that they somehow or other got hold of a submarine and came over on that. That would account for the complete disappearance of the General and the four policemen. If the sub came up the Hudson during the alert, at periscope depth, it would hardly be noticed. They could have landed from it, marched through Manhattan, captured the General and gone without more than a handful of persons knowing of it. And in the flurry of rumour, at the time, even those would not be believed.

  “I don’t believe the submarine story myself, however. A little nation like Grand Fenwick, completely landlocked, would hardly have a submarine and I don’t know of anywhere you can charter one. The other theory is that they came over on a sailing vessel. There’s some support for this in a curious story in the British Press a week after the alert. The captain of the Queen Mary, which cleared New York just as the sirens sounded, gave an interview to reporters on the subject of the exercise when he arrived in England. He let drop that when he had got fairly to sea, he sighted a brig--that’s a two-masted sailing vessel with square sails--hailed her and told her to put about as the Port of New York was closed. The brig continued on its course and he hailed her again. The only reply was a shower of arrows from the brig. Nobody was hurt.”

  The President picked up the declaration of war once again and read it through. He felt that he was, perhaps, dreaming, or in some kind of a trance. Certainly it was difficult to grasp that this was reality, that the greatest republic in the world had been invaded by the smallest nation in the world, and all without anybody knowing a thing about it.

  “What do you mean,” he asked, “when you say that Grand Fenwick won this war? You mean because they were able to invade us, take some hostages and get away again?”

  “Yes,” said the Secretary. “When this thing gets out--and it’s bound to get out--we’ll be made the laughing stock of the world. We’ll lose prestige everywhere. Think what the Muscovites will make of this. A handful of men from a tiny nation, forced to invade the imperialist capitalists to right their wrongs, and so on. The upholders of liberty trampling upon a tiny State, threatening them with starvation for capitalistic profits. It’s all nonsense, but it’ll make first-class propaganda to feed to their satellites. We’ll lose heavily, very heavily indeed, on the international scene. And no matter how many times we explain the thing and no matter in how much detail, it will be just that much worse. Some of the Latin American countries, you know, claim that while they have to listen to us, we never listen to them. And they’ll point to the war by Grand Fenwick as a classic example of how far a little nation has to go to get a hearing from the United States.”

  “We lost all right. Just the very fact that Grand Fenwick had to declare war against us, lost us the war on the propaganda and prestige front.”

  The President sat staring at his desk top, quite bereft of anything to say which might be profitable. There were too many angles to the astounding news given him by the Secretary of Defence to select one on which to concentrate his thoughts. Almost without being conscious of what he was doing, he opened a portfolio on the desk which contained the incoming batch of documents for his attention.

  He riffled through these moodily, pulled out those which he knew by experience required immediate attention. Towards the end of the stack he came upon a cheap little envelope on which was written, in a round, childish script, the words, “To the President of These United States.” He picked this up and opened it. The Secretary, watching him, saw him become suddenly alert and tense as he read the letter which the envelope had contained.

  When he had finished, the President reached swiftly for a telephone and snapped into the mouthpiece: “Get me Hoover at the F.B.I. Yes. In person.” Then, glancing up at the Secretary of Defence and covering the mouthpiece with his hand, he said: “Kokintz has gone. Disappeared. I don’t know about the bomb. But if Grand Fenwick captured Kokintz and the quadium bomb, we’re licked. Completely. Grand Fenwick becomes the most powerful nation in the world.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Count of Mountjoy was for sending the thing back. He regarded the possession of the Q-bomb as in about the same category as someone importing an enormous and fiercely active volcano into Grand Fenwick and placing it right in the centre of the duchy’s fertile valleys to await its eruption.

  “Your Grace,” he told the Duchess, in a private audience shortly after Tully returned with Dr. Kokintz, the bomb, General Snippett, and four New York policemen, “we have fought a war against my better judgment and reaped, as the fruits of victory, incalculable disaster. This frightful engine which the man Bascomb has malignantly brought into our land may, at the mere rumbling of the wheels of a farm cart, hurl us all into eternity. Not merely ourselves and our children, our fine vines, our homes, and our national forest, but also the Swiss, the French, the Dutch, the Germans, the Italians, and the Spanish. Indeed, the whole of Europe, which is the cradle of Western civilization. The man Bascomb should be impeached and exiled. He has achieved a victory quite contrary to the wishes of his Government. You will recall, Your Grace, that it was our plan to lose this war. Contrary to this plan, indeed, almost in defiance of it, Bascomb has won it.”

  Gloriana smiled a little smile of satisfaction. She was thrilled at Tully’s unparalleled success, and admired him as she had no other man, including her father. Her reaction, however, was lost on the Count of Mountjoy, who stormed on.

  “What are we to do now?” he demanded. “Rehabilitate the United States, perhaps, as we had anticipated that they would rehabilitate us? That is beyond our capacity were we a people a thousand times our size, with a million years in which to achieve the task.

  “Who in America will buy the wines of Grand Fenwick after the outrage this villain Bascomb has perpetrated upon that great and innocent people? I repeat, we dispatched him to lose a war and he has impertinently and disastrously won it. Your Grace will recall that in a private audience with his lieutenants, you counselled them to oppose his plan for the secret infilt
ration of the United States and an attack upon the White House. Instead, he was to attack New York boldly, the object being that he would be immediately defeated and the rehabilitation of Grand Fenwick, according to the traditions of America, would commence upon the morrow.”

  “Your Grace, there is every precedent for the discharge, if not the impeachment, of those generals and captains who, contrary to the wishes of the executive, vigorously prosecute a war which wiser heads believe should be won by other methods. Far from advancing the prosperity and the security of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, Bascomb has placed us all at the mercy of a foul box containing all the frightful forces of the pit of hell itself.”

  ”Bobo,” said Gloriana, “you have been reading Churchill’s memoirs and they have had a marked effect upon your oratory. I think it is very nice. But I don’t believe we should impeach Mr. Bascomb. I think we ought to have a Privy Council meeting and we ought to ask Dr. Kokintz and Mr. Bascomb to attend. I know it is unusual to have a prisoner of war present at a council meeting of the nation which captured him. But this whole situation is unusual and we need his advice on what this bomb can do and how we can stop it from going off when we don’t want it to.”

  “Whatever Your Grace wishes,” said the Count of Mount-joy stiffly. “I seek only to serve.”

  “Don’t be angry, Bobo,” cajoled Gloriana, with one of her little personal smiles. “I really believe that Tully has done something tremendous, only we’re not quite sure how to put it to the best use. He is an interesting man . . . indeed, a magnificent man. And if you’re worried about the bomb going off because of the noise of the carts, give instructions for all the roads past the castle to be covered with straw. That will deaden the vibration.”

  Tully’s return, two months to the day from the time his little force had caught the bus to Marseilles to launch its attack upon the United States, had embodied in miniature all the aspects and details of the victory march of far greater armies of far greater countries through the centuries. The brig Endeavour, slipping out of New York harbour, had headed north to catch the prevailing westerlies off the Canadian coast. The Atlantic crossing had been achieved in ten days. Favourable winds and the Portuguese current had brought the Endeavour swiftly to the Gibraltar straits, and the worst part of the voyage had been the three days consumed in getting to Marseilles with the uncertain Mediterranean breezes blowing from every quarter. From there, the Fenwickians had taken the bus to the borders of the duchy and then disembarked. Tully held them two hours at the border while mail and bows were polished, all made as splendid as might be, and the Duchess notified of the return of her army. Then with a fanfare on hunting horns, with the banner of Grand Fenwick held proudly aloft, the little force crossed the border into its homeland.,

  Every man, woman, and child in Grand Fenwick was there to welcome the returning soldiers. They cheered, they wept, they sang, they embraced each other and they embraced the longbowmen. They strewed the road before the warriors with flowers and they hung garlands around their necks. And when the body of Tom Cobley, representing the casualties of the campaign, was carried by, they bowed their heads and prayed for him.

  The order of the march was as follows. First came Tully clad in his mail and surcoat, with Will at his side, carrying the Grand Fenwick banner. Immediately behind, bewildered and nervous, were Dr. Kokintz, General Snippett, and the four New York policemen, closely guarded by ten bowmen and two other men-at-arms. Behind them was the Stars and Stripes at half-mast to signify the defeat of the United States. Then, on a plank, held shoulder high by two men, and cushioned with straw, was the Q-bomb. Bringing up the rear, and draped with the Fenwick banner, was the body of Tom Cobley. All of war was there--the triumph, the captives, the prize, and the dead. Tully led his men to the courtyard of the castle where the Duchess awaited their arrival, and here the ceremony officially announcing the victorious conclusion of the campaign was enacted.

  The Duchess stood upon the castle steps, flanked by the Count of Mountjoy, representing the Anti-Dilutionists, and Mr. David Benter, representing the Dilutionists. As a special honour, Tully’s father, Pierce Bascomb, stood with them to the right of Mountjoy. When the men were assembled in the courtyard, Will saluted Gloriana by bringing the banner down so that the head of the staff touched the ground before her, and raising it again. Tully went down on one knee and asked leave to report that he had successfully attacked the United States, taken six prisoners and captured the greatest weapon in the whole of the American arsenal.

  Gloriana had considerable difficulty in controlling herself on hearing this news--a difficulty exceeded only by that of the Count of Mountjoy, who, to his credit, this being a public occasion, managed to keep his monocle in place though only by putting his hand swiftly to it. Both had expected news through the nearby American Consulate that the whole army had been captured and interned. Their only secret worry had been whether the United States would refuse to recognize that a state of war existed between the two countries and bill Grand Fenwick for the board, keep, and repatriation cost of its expeditionary force. That would indeed have been disastrous. To discover that far from this being the case, the army was back of its own accord, victorious, with prisoners and had captured also, if Tully was to be believed, America’s most powerful weapon, was next to incredible.

  “What weapon is this?” Gloriana asked, in a carefully modulated voice.

  “A bomb, Your Grace, which can destroy the whole of Europe,” said Tully. He rose to his feet and beckoned the soldiers who carried the Q-bomb on the plank. They brought it before Gloriana, who looked at the little box in disbelief and was about to pick it up.

  “No! No!” shouted Dr. Kokintz. “Don’t touch it. It will destroy everything.”

  “Silence,” roared Tully, “and don’t faint on parade.” And then to Gloriana: “What he has to say, Your Grace, is true. He is the man who made this bomb, though he is as weak as a mouse himself. It is the only bomb of its kind in the world, and if he is to be believed, it will, on exploding, wipe out an area of two million square miles.”

  There was a whisper around the courtyard among the people who had managed to crowd into it to view the ceremony, and they crouched back against the walls to be as far away from the little box as possible. Mothers held their children more closely and husbands pushed their wives behind them. All looked at the bomb on the plank and when the whispers died down there was only silence. The sun seemed for a moment to have lost its warmth and the castle looked old and weary beyond words.

  “Take it inside,” Gloriana commanded, almost in a whisper. “And put it in the deep dungeon. It must not hurt our people.”

  Tully bowed. “By your leave,” he said, “it will never hurt any people.”

  The bomb was carried into the castle to be placed under guard in the deep dungeon, and the ceremony continued. Tully surrendered his prisoners to Gloriana, and spoke of the bravery of the man who had fallen during the war. “He spoke no word, Your Grace, when he died,” he said, “but when he was struck down, he rose again to fight with what little of life there was left in him.”

  “Had he any family?” Gloriana asked.

  “None,” replied Tully.

  “But he was brother to us all,” said Gloriana, “and all of us his kin. He was of the common sort, yet more noble in his death than many who claim better blood are during their whole lives. He shall be laid to rest beside Sir Roger Fenwick, and the day of his death will be known as Cobley Day, so that the sacrifice he made for his nation will be remembered as long as his nation survives.”

  The ceremony concluded with an address by Gloriana in which she paid tribute personally to Tully and generally to all who had accompanied him on the expedition. She capped it by announcing, to thunderous cheers which made Dr. Kokintz very nervous for the Q-bomb, that a feast would be held in the grand banqueting hall of the castle, to which all were invited. Then she took Tully aside and requested him to wait on her in the private audience chamber.

  Wh
en they were alone Gloriana did not know precisely what to say. It aggravated her that this was the one man in the whole duchy in whose presence she was always at a loss on how to begin. She seated herself at a circular table and beckoned him to a chair opposite. He was, she noted, very bronzed and somehow seemed bigger and more male than he had before. When she looked at him, she felt a sort of lightness. Her heart seemed to beat faster and her voice was a little hard to control.

  Tully looked at the fair hair like a cap of gold, the proud chin, the firm eyes, and then turned quickly to examine his hands placed on the table before him.

  “Tell me all of your story,” said Gloriana, “and tell me particularly about this bomb.”

  Tully did so, omitting no details and adding such facts as he had learned about the bomb from Dr. Kokintz during the return voyage.

  “What are we to do with it?” Gloriana asked, when he was finished.

  “The first thing which we must do,” said Tully, “is to guard our frontiers day and night. The Americans will try to get it back. Others may also try to steal it, for who has this bomb has mastery over all the nations, because of the threat the bomb represents. Both sides, the Americans and the Russians, may send agents to get the bomb. But we are fortunate in two respects. Our frontiers are easily patrolled and aliens can be readily excluded. And if one should manage to get past the border, he would be quickly recognized because, being as small as we are, everyone in Grand Fenwick knows the other by sight. A stranger would soon be discovered.

  “The Americans or the Russians might try to drop someone here by parachute. But again, because we all know each other so well, a parachutist, even if dropped at night-time, would not have much chance. Side by side with guarding our borders, a guard must be placed around the castle to prevent anyone entering who has no official business. And a double guard must be put on the dungeon where the bomb is. That guard must be maintained twenty-four hours a day; and must be instructed to admit no one to the dungeon but yourself.”