Stuart Slade - A Mighty Endeavor

As she stared at the statue, her mind worried away at the problem. This was big, serious; it affected the whole world. Her country was but a small part of that world, dwarfed by the powers that surrounded it. When elephants fight, mice get trampled. The old saying ran through her mind, its implications stark and clear. If something wasn’t done and done fast, Thailand would be trampled into the dust. For a moment, her mind raged at the idiots in Europe who had set this ball rolling. She crushed the fleeting urge mercilessly, grinding it down until all that was left was ice-cold clarity of vision. That was her gift. She hadn’t always had it; once she had been as prone to allowing emotion to cloud her judgment as anybody else, but the art of crushing her emotions had been taught to her, patiently and comprehensively. The gift truly was a gift, and now she treasured it more than even the other gift, the one she so painstakingly concealed. She knew she would need every scrap of insight she had to maneuver her way through this situation.

The first thought that crossed her mind was that the sudden collapse of Britain and France in Europe put some of their prime assets within her reach. The lands stolen by France in the last half of the 19th century were one set of cherries ready to be plucked. The problem was that other people also had their eyes on those lands; most notably the Japanese. Once again, the images of elephants fighting crossed her mind. When elephants fought, there were only three ways for the mice to survive. One was to be somewhere else. That option did not exist. The second was to ally with one of the elephants. That option very definitely did exist. The third was to become an elephant. That option was also closed.

Or was it? Suddenly, her mind snapped at the idea and bit into it, holding it hard. Was it so impossible? Did the way things had so suddenly changed make it possible? Suriyothai settled back on her heels. To any outside spectator, she was just continuing her worship at the family shrine. In reality, her mind was filled with a waterfall display; a sheet of colored lights interlocked and merged only to split apart again as the events that drove them eddied and swirled. As they did so, she assessed them and measured possibilities. One particular thread started to grow in greater prominence than the others; its color pulsed brighter and stronger than the rest. She looked at it and isolated it, examining it and its demands in depth. As she did so, she realized that it could be done. Not only could it be done;it was the only viable way out of the mess that had so suddenly been created.

She stood erect, holding her back rigidly straight, and stepped outside the shrine. Outside was her desk, an antique that had served her well for many years. If wood had a memory, this piece of furniture could tell a terrifying number of secrets. But if Suriyothai had believed that wood had a memory and could hold secrets, this desk would have been burned a long time ago. She started to write, her Thai script elegantly and perfectly formed. Once the message had been completed, she coded it from a book that was only known to her and her inner circle. Finished, she stood again, thoughtful and reserved. One of the implications of the course that she had set herself upon was that her anonymity would vanish. Her very existence was unknown outside tightly limited circles high in the Thai government. That would have to change. For good or ill, she was about to become a public figure.

“Lani, take this message. Ensure that it is sent by telegram to our embassies in London, Paris, New Delhi and Washington. Oh, and Canberra as well. Also ensure that it goes to our contacts at Jardine Matheson, Swire, Hutchinson-Whampoa, Hendersons, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank; all the Hongs in fact. I will need to see their Taipans urgently. Finally, send copies to Loki in Geneva and Philip Stuyvesant in Washington.”

“You, your Highness?” Lani’s voice was concerned.

“Yes, me. And I will also need to see Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram. I have urgent business that must be discussed with him.”

“Have we any idea of what is going on over there?” Henry L Stimson was bewildered. He’d got up this morning expecting the usual bad news about the war in Europe, but he knew neither just how much worse the situation would get nor just how quickly the slide downhill would gather speed.

“None. I hate to say it, but we’ve got virtually no insight into what has happened. We don’t even know who the British Prime Minister is. Is it Halifax? Or Churchill? Or somebody else entirely? Kennedy at the Embassy is worse than useless. All we’re getting from him is a barrage of nonsense about how it doesn’t matter to us who is top dog in Europe and it might as well be Germany as anybody else. Dear God, what is that man doing over there? A chimpanzee would make a better ambassador.”

“A trained chimp would be better. People like chimpanzees.” Philip Stuyvesant looked at the ceiling in despair. “The version I got was that FDR saw Kennedy as a political threat and wanted him out of the way, so he sent him to London in the hope he’d find his way under a German bomb. As it happened, of course, it didn’t take that.”

“Democracy is finished in England. It may be here. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time. As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn’t that Britain is fighting for democracy. That’s the bunk. She’s fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us. I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it’s up to me to see that the country gets it.”

Cordell Hull repeated Kennedy’s notorious message with what amounted to open disgust. “The only good thing about that barrage of nonsense was it destroyed any chance Joe has of getting to be President. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s told us nothing about what has just happened over there. Even the British Embassy doesn’t know what is happening. They came to us this afternoon asking us what was going on. Philip, what do your industrial people say? Any word coming out through the trade circuits?”

“Not much. The people we deal with are as bewildered as everybody else. One thing that is agreed, Winston had nothing to do with this. He spent more than a decade warning against the rise of fascism and the need to confront that rise before it got too great to take down without a major war. He wouldn’t just fold like this. Somehow, he’s been taken out of the picture. My guess would be that he’s either been taken into ‘protective custody’ or he’s on the run somewhere.”

“You’re making this sound like some sort of coup. Great Britain isn’t a banana republic; they don’t have coups there.” Cordell Hull was more bewildered than anything else; the frustration of being Secretary of State and not knowing what was going on in one of the most important countries in the world was telling.

“A coup is an illegal transfer of power executed by the direct or implied use of force.” Stuyvesant had an annoying way of speaking when it came to strategic matters. His disinterested lack of inflection could set people’s teeth on edge. To those who listened, and got past the dispassionate manner, found that it was worth their while; the understanding of grand strategy was unmatched. Then they realized the importance of that flat monotone. It described the world the way it was, not the way anybody wished it was or thought it should be. Stimson and Hull had both learned that lesson, just as their predecessors, Edwin Danby and Charles Hughes had learned it about Peter Stuyvesant, Philip Stuyvesant’s father. Like father, like son, Hull thought , for good and for bad .