A Tale of ‘16

IF the Order Above be but the reflection of the Order Below (as that Ancient affirms, who had some knowledge of the Order), it is not outside the Order of Things that there should have been confusion also in the Department of Death. The world’s steadily falling death-rate, the rising proportion of scientifically prolonged fatal illnesses, which allowed months of warning to all concerned, had weakened initiative throughout the Necrological Departments. When the War came, these were as unprepared as civilised mankind; and, like mankind, they improvised and recriminated in the face of Heaven.

As Death himself observed to St. Peter, who had just come off The Gate for a rest: ‘One does the best one can with the means at one’s disposal, but —’

‘I know,’ said the good Saint sympathetically. ‘Even with what help I can muster, I’m on The Gate twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four.’

‘Do you find your volunteer staff any real use?’ Death went on. ‘Isn’t it easier to do the work oneself than —’

‘One must guard against that point of view,’ St. Peter returned, ‘but I know what you mean. Office officialises the best of us . . . What is it now?’ He turned to a prim-lipped Seraph who had followed him with an expulsion-form for signature. St. Peter glanced it over. ‘Private R. M. Buckland,’ he read, ‘on the charge of saying that there is no God. ‘That all?’

‘He says he is prepared to prove it, sir, and — according to the Rules — ‘

‘If you will make yourself acquainted with the Rules, you’ll find they lay down that “the fool says in his heart, there is no God.” That decides it; probably shell-shock. Have you tested his reflexes?’

‘No, sir. He kept on saying that there —’

‘Pass him in at once! Tell off some one to argue with him and give him the best of the argument till St. Luke’s free. Anything else?’

‘A hospital-nurse’s record, sir. She has been nursing for two years.’

‘A long while.’ St. Peter spoke severely. ‘She may very well have grown careless.’

‘It’s her civilian record, sir. I judged best to refer it to you.’ The Seraph handed him a vivid scarlet docket.

‘The next time,’ said St. Peter, folding it down and writing on one corner, ‘that you get one of these — er — tinted forms, mark it Q.M.A. and pass bearer at once. Don’t worry over trifles.’ The Seraph flashed off and returned to the clamorous Gate.

‘Which Department is Q.M.A.?’ said Death. St. Peter chuckled .

‘It’s not a department. It’s a Ruling. “Quia multum amavit.” A most useful Ruling. I’ve stretched it to . . . Now, I wonder what that child actually did die of.’

‘I’ll ask,’ said Death, and moved to a public telephone near by. ‘Give me War Check and Audit: English side: non-combatant,’ he began. ‘Latest returns . . . Surely you’ve got them posted up to date by now! . . . Yes! Hospital Nurse in France . . . No! Not “nature and aliases.” I said — what-was-nature-of-illness? . . . Thanks.’ He turned to St. Peter. ‘Quite normal,’ he said. ‘Heart-failure after neglected pleurisy following overwork.’

‘Good!’ St. Peter rubbed his hands. ‘That brings her under the higher allowance G.L.H. scale —“Greater love hath no man —” But my people ought to have known that from the first.’

‘Who is that clerk of yours?’ asked Death. ‘He seems rather a stickler for the proprieties.’

‘The usual type nowadays,’ St. Peter returned. ‘A young Power in charge of some half-baked Universe. Never having dealt with life yet, he’s somewhat nebulous.’

Death sighed. ‘It’s the same with my old Departmental Heads. Nothing on earth will make my fossils on the Normal Civil Side realise that we are dying in a new age. Come and look at them. They might interest you.’

‘Thanks, I will, but — Excuse me a minute! Here’s my zealous young assistant on the wing once more.’

The Seraph had returned to report the arrival of overwhelmingly heavy convoys at The Gate, and to ask what the Saint advised.

‘I’m just off on an inter-departmental inspection which will take me some time,’ said St. Peter. ‘You must learn to act on your own initiative. So I shall leave you to yourself for the next hour or two, merely suggesting (I don’t wish in any way to sway your judgment) that you invite St. Paul, St. Ignatius (Loyola, I mean) and — er — St. Christopher to assist as Supervising Assessors on the Board of Admission. Ignatius is one of the subtlest intellects we have, and an officer and a gentleman to boot. I assure you’— the Saint turned towards Death —‘he revels in dialectics. If he’s allowed to prove his case, he’s quite capable of letting off the offender. St. Christopher, of course, will pass anything that looks wet and muddy.’

‘They are nearly all that now, sir,’ said the Seraph.

‘So much the better; and — as I was going to say — St. Paul is an embarrass — a distinctly strong colleague. Still — we all have our weaknesses. Perhaps a well-timed reference to his seamanship in the Mediterranean — by the way, look up the name of his ship, will you? Alexandria register, I think-might be useful in some of those sudden maritime cases that crop up. I needn’t tell you to be firm, of course. That’s your besetting — er — I mean — reprimand ’em severely and publicly, but —’ the Saint’s voice broke —‘oh, my child, you don’t know what it is to need forgiveness. Be gentle with ’em — be very gentle with ’em!’

Swiftly as a falling shaft of light the Seraph kissed the sandalled feet and was away.

‘Aha!’ said St. Peter. ‘He can’t go far wrong with that Board of Admission as I’ve — er — arranged it.’

They walked towards the great central office of Normal Civil Death, which, buried to the knees in a flood of temporary structures, resembled a closed cribbage-board among spilt dominoes.

They entered an area of avenues and cross-avenues, flanked by long, low buildings, each packed with seraphs working wing to folded wing.

‘Our temporary buildings,’ Death explained. ‘Always being added to. This is the War-side. You’ll find nothing changed on the Normal Civil Side. They are more human than mankind.’

‘It doesn’t lie in my mouth to blame them,’ said St. Peter.

‘No, I’ve yet to meet the soul you wouldn’t find excuse for,’ said Death tenderly; ‘but then I don’t — er — arrange my Boards of Admission.’

‘If one doesn’t help one’s Staff, one’s Staff will never help itself,’ St. Peter laughed, as the shadow of the main porch of the Normal Civil Death Offices darkened above them.

‘This facade rather recalls the Vatican, doesn’t it?’ said the Saint.

‘They’re quite as conservative. ‘Notice how they still keep the old Holbein uniforms?‘Morning, Sergeant Fell. How goes it?’ said Death as he swung the dusty doors and nodded at a Commissionaire, clad in the grim livery of Death, even as Hans Holbein has designed it.

‘Sadly. Very sadly indeed, sir,’ the Commissionaire replied. ‘So many pore ladies and gentlemen, sir, ‘oo might well ‘ave lived another few years, goin’ off, as you might say, in every direction with no time for the proper obsequities.’

‘Too bad,’ said Death sympathetically. ‘Well, we’re none of us as young as we were, Sergeant.’

They climbed a carved staircase, behung with the whole millinery of undertaking at large. Death halted on a dark Aberdeen granite landing and beckoned a messenger.

‘We’re rather busy today, sir,’ the messenger whispered, ‘but I think His Majesty will see you.’

‘Who is the Head of this Department if it isn’t you?’ St. Peter whispered in turn.

‘You may well ask,’ his companion replied. ‘I’m only —’ he checked himself and went on. ‘The fact is, our Normal Civil Death side is controlled by a Being who considers himself all that I am and more. He’s Death as men have made him — in their own image.’ He pointed to a brazen plate, by the side of a black-curtained door, which read: ‘Normal Civil Death, K.G., K.T., K.P., P.C., etc.’ ‘He’s as human as mankind.’

‘I guessed as much from those letters. What do they mean?’

‘Titles conferred on him from time to time. King of Ghosts; King of Terrors; King of Phantoms; Pallid Conqueror, and so forth. There’s no denying he’s earned every one of them. A first-class mind, but just a leetle bit of a sn —’

‘His Majesty is at liberty,’ said the messenger.

Civil Death did not belie his name. No monarch on earth could have welcomed them more graciously; or, in St. Peter’s case, with more of that particularity of remembrance which is the gift of good kings. But when Death asked him how his office was working, he became at once the Departmental Head with a grievance.

‘Thanks to this abominable war,’ he began testily, ‘my N.C.D. has to spend all its time fighting for mere existence. Your new War-side seems to think that nothing matters except the war. I’ve been asked to give up two-thirds of my Archives Basement (E. 7-E. 64) to the Polish Civilian Casualty Check and Audit. Preposterous! Where am I to move my Archives? And they’ve just been cross-indexed, too!’

‘As I understood it,’ said Death, ‘our War-side merely applied for desk-room in your basement. They were prepared to leave your Archives in situ.’

‘Impossible! We may need to refer to them at any moment. There’s a case now which is interesting Us all — a Mrs. Ollerby. Worcestershire by extraction — dying of an internal hereditary complaint. At any moment, We may wish to refer to her dossier, and how can We if Our basement is given up to people over whom We exercise no departmental control? This war has been made excuse for slackness in every direction.’

‘Indeed!’ said Death. ‘You surprise me. I thought nothing made any difference to the N.C.D.’

‘A few years ago I should have concurred,’ Civil Death replied. ‘But since this — this recent outbreak of unregulated mortality there has been a distinct lack of respect toward certain aspects of Our administration. The attitude is bound to reflect itself in the office. The official is, in a large measure, what the public makes him. Of course, it is only temporary reaction, but the merest outsider would notice what I mean. Perhaps you would like to see for yourself?’ Civil Death bowed towards St. Peter, who feared that he might be taking up his time.

‘Not in the least. If I am not the servant of the public, what am I?’ Civil Death said, and preceded them to the landing. ‘Now, this’— he ushered them into an immense but badly lighted office —‘is our International Mortuary Department — the I.M.D. as we call it. It works with the Check and Audit. I should be sorry to say offhand how many billion sterling it represents, invested in the funeral ceremonies of all the races of mankind.’ He stopped behind a very bald-headed clerk at a desk. ‘And yet We take cognizance of the minutest detail, do not We?’ he went on. ‘What have We here, for example?’

‘Funeral expenses of the late Mr. John Shenks Tanner.’ The clerk stepped aside from the redruled book. ‘Cut down by the executors on account of the War from “173:19:1 to “47:18:4. A sad falling off, if I may say so, Your Majesty.’

‘And what was the attitude of the survivors?’ Civil Death asked.

‘Very casual. It was a motor-hearse funeral.’

‘A pernicious example, spreading, I fear, even in the lowest classes,’ his superior muttered. ‘Haste, lack of respect for the Dread Summons, carelessness in the Subsequent Disposition of the Corpse and —’

‘But as regards people’s real feelings?’ St. Peter demanded of the clerk.

‘That isn’t within the terms of our reference, Sir,’ was the answer. ‘But we do know that, as often as not, they don’t even buy black-edged announcement-cards nowadays.’

‘Good Heavens!’ said Civil Death swellingly. ‘No cards! I must look into this myself. Forgive me, St. Peter, but we Servants of Humanity, as you know, are not our own masters. No cards, indeed!’ He waved them off with an official hand, and immersed himself in the ledger.

‘Oh, come along,’ Death whispered to St. Peter. ‘This is a blessed relief!’

They two walked on till they reached the far end of the vast dim office. The clerks at the desks here scarcely pretended to work. A messenger entered and slapped down a small autophonic reel.

‘Here you are!’ he cried. ‘Mister Wilbraham Lattimer’s last dying speech and record. He made a shockin’ end of it.’

‘Good for Lattimer!’ a young voice called from a desk. ‘Chuck it over!’

‘Yes,’ the messenger went on.‘Lattimer said to his brother: “Bert, I haven’t time to worry about a little thing like dying these days, and what’s more important, you haven’t either. You go back to your Somme doin’s, and I’ll put it through with Aunt Maria. It’ll amuse her and it won’t hinder you.” That’s nice stuff for your boss!’ The messenger whistled and departed. A clerk groaned as he snatched up the reel.

‘How the deuce am I to knock this into official shape?’ he began. ‘Pass us the edifying Gantry Tubnell. I’ll have to crib from him again, I suppose.’

‘Be careful!’ a companion whispered, and shuffled a typewritten form along the desk. ‘I’ve used Tubby twice this morning already.’

The late Mr. Gantry Tubnell must have demised on approved departmental lines, for his record was much thumbed. Death and St. Peter watched the editing with interest.

‘I can’t bring in Aunt Maria any way,’ the clerk broke out at last. ‘Listen here, every one! She has heart-disease. She dies just as she’s lifted the dropsical Lattimer to change his sheets. She says: “Sorry, Willy! I’d make a dam’ pore ‘ospital nurse!”; Then she sits down and croaks. Now I call that good! I’ve a great mind to take it round to the War-side as an indirect casualty and get a breath of fresh air.’

‘Then you’ll be hauled over the coals,’ a neighbour suggested.

‘I’m used to that, too,’ the clerk sniggered.

‘Are you?’ said Death, stepping forward suddenly from behind a high map-stand. ‘Who are you?’ The clerk cowered in his skeleton jacket.

‘I’m not on the Regular Establishment, Sir,’ he stammered. ‘I’m a — Volunteer. I— I wanted to see how people behaved when they were in trouble.’

‘Did you? Well, take the late Mr. Wilbraham Lattimer’s and Miss Maria Lattimer’s papers to the War-side General Reference Office. When they have been passed upon, tell the Attendance Clerk that you are to serve as probationer in — let’s see — in the Domestic Induced Casualty Side — 7 G.S.’

The clerk collected himself a little and spoke through dry lips.

‘But — but I’m — I slipped in from the Lower Establishment, Sir,’ he breathed.

There was no need to explain. He shook from head to foot as with the palsy; and under all Heaven none tremble save those who come from that class which ‘also believe and tremble.’

‘Do you tell Me this officially, or as one created being to another?’ Death asked after a pause.

‘Oh, non-officially, Sir. Strictly non-officially, so long as you know all about it.’

His awe-stricken fellow-workers could not restrain a smile at Death having to be told about anything. Even Death bit his lips.

‘I don’t think you will find the War-side will raise any objection,’ said he. ‘By the way, they don’t wear that uniform over there.’

Almost before Death ceased speaking, it was ripped off and flung on the floor, and that which had been a sober clerk of Normal Civil Death stood up an unmistakable, curly-haired, bat-winged, faun-eared Imp of the Pit. But where his wings joined his shoulders there was a patch of delicate dove-coloured feathering that gave promise to spread all up the pinion. St. Peter saw it and smiled, for it was a known sign of grace.

‘Thank Goodness!’ the ex-clerk gasped as he snatched up the Lattimer records and sheered sideways through the skylight.

‘Amen!’ said Death and St. Peter together, and walked through the door.

‘Weren’t you hinting something to me a little while ago about my lax methods?’ St. Peter demanded, innocently.

‘Well, if one doesn’t help one’s Staff, one’s Staff will never help itself,’ Death retorted. ‘Now, I shall have to pitch in a stiff demi-official asking how that young fiend came to be taken on in the N.C.D. without examination. And I must do it before the N.C.D. complain that I’ve been interfering with their departmental transfers. Aren’t they human? If you want to go back to The Gate I think our shortest way will be through here and across the War–Sheds.’

They came out of a side-door into Heaven’s full light. A phalanx of Shining Ones swung across a great square singing

‘To Him Who made the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion.

To Him Who drives the cleansing tide twice a day round Ocean–Let His Name be magnified in all poor folks’ devotion!’

Death halted their leader, and asked a question.

‘We’re Volunteer Aid Serving Powers,’ the Seraph explained, ‘reporting for duty in the Domestic Induced Casualty Department — told off to help relatives, where we can.’

The shift trooped on — such an array of Powers, Honours, Glories, Toils, Patiences, Services, Faiths and Loves as no man may conceive even by favour of dreams. Death and St. Peter followed them into a D.I.C.D. Shed on the English side where, for the moment, work had slackened. Suddenly a name flashed on the telephone-indicator. ‘Mrs. Arthur Bedott, 317, Portsmouth Avenue, Brondesbury. Husband badly wounded. One child.’ Her special weakness was append............