“Is there anything to follow?” asked the tramp politely.
“To follow?”
“Well, brandy, a cigar, or even a fill for my pipe?”
The Captain rose to his feet pulling away the napkin from his roll neck. “Now see here!” he roared.
“Gaffer Tim Garney was telling me of your generosity with the navy plug?”
The Captain flung the tramp his tobacco pouch. “Shag,” said he, slumping into a chair.
“Shag then, my thanks again.” The tramp took to filling his pipe, his glittering eyes wandering towards the Captain’s brandy bottle.
“I expect you’ll be wanting to make an early start tomorrow?” said the Captain.
The tramp said, “Excuse me?”
“Well,” the Captain replied, “I know you fellows, can’t keep you cooped up under a roof for very long. Life of freedom eh, knights of the road, the sky above, the earth below?”
The tramp scratched his head, raising small clouds of blue dust. “There I am afraid you are mistaken. Please do not construe from my appearance that I incline towards the life of the casual wanderer. On the contrary, my every movement is guided towards inevitable consequence. I follow my kharma as all must.”
“Indeed?” said the Captain. “Well, far be it from me to hinder you in your search for the ultimate truth.”
“I feel that our paths have not crossed out of idle chance,” said the tramp, “in fact, I will go so far as to say that destiny has pointed me to your door with a straight and unwavering digit.”
“Possibly this same destiny will point you in yet another direction tomorrow?”
“I doubt that,” said the tramp with a note of finality. “Now, about this brandy?”
The Captain rose early the next morning. He had lain sleeplessly upon his bunk chewing at his knuckles and muttering nautical curses into the early hours. The ghastly truth that he was no longer alone beneath the Mission roof gnawed at his hermitical soul like a rat at a leper’s foot. By dawn he had run himself dry of profanity and fallen into an uneasy sleep.
Now he stalked to and fro along the verandah emitting thick clouds of seaman’s shag and grumbling to himself. Somehow he must rid himself of this unwelcome visitor, but if Brian Crowley was at the bottom of it he must be on his guard. He would just have to treat the hideous stranger with politeness while hinting with firm conviction that the traveller might fare better in distant and sunnier climes. He looked up at the sky and was appalled to see that it was likely to be another beautiful day.
Suddenly a voice at his elbow said, “I see you like to make an early start to the day, Captain.”
Colour drained from the Captain’s face and he dropped his tobacco pouch, spilling its contents to the verandah floor. “Must you always come damn well creeping up?” he coughed as he took a great gust of smoke up his nostrils.
“I must say that I slept very well,” said the tramp. “What is on the menu for breakfast?”
The Captain folded his brow into a look of intense perplexity. “You seem exceedingly spry for a man who demolished an entire bottle of brandy and better part of an ounce of shag in a single evening.”
“And very nice too,” said the tramp. “Now as to breakfast?”
“I make it a rule never to over-eat at this time of the day,” the Captain explained. “Makes a man sluggish, impairs the limbs, corrodes the arteries. A simple bowl of bran and a glass of salt water serve as my early morning repast.”
“I should kindly prefer double eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, tomato and a fried slice. Possibly, as I have no wish to lessen your resolve, you would prefer to eat alone,” said the tramp.
The Captain pulled upon his lower lip. “Possibly that would be impolite of me, it is always wise to eat well before travel.” Here he looked at the tramp from the corner of his eye. “Thus we shall have a hearty meal of it before your departure.”
The tramp smiled. “Have no fear upon that account, I have no intention of moving on within the foreseeable future.”
The Captain frowned furiously and stalked away to the kitchen. The tramp scooped up the fallen pouch and proceeded to refill his pipe.
7
As founder and sole member of the Brentford and West London Hollow Earth Society Soap Distant thought it about time to put matters firmly into perspective. “There have been many words spoken and much local controversy over the arrival of a certain extraordinary being upon our streets of late,” he announced to the Saturday lunchtime crowd in the Swan’s saloon bar.
Neville nodded thoughtfully. The tramp had been pretty much the sole topic of conversation in the borough for nearly a month although his last sighting was more than a fortnight ago.
“I know that you all understand to whom I refer,” said Soap.
Those who did nodded. Those who did, but had no wish to listen to yet another of Soap’s endless diatribes upon the denizens of the inner world took a sudden interest in the bottoms of their pint glasses.
“Speculation has been rife,” Soap continued, “and up until now I have kept my counsel whilst the false prophets among you have battled one another to a standstill. Now and only now I am ready to impart to you the sole and unimpeachably cosmic truth.”
Omally groaned. “I had an uncle once,” said he, hoping to change the subject, “who swallowed a golf ball thinking it to be a plover’s egg.”
“Really,” said old Pete, who hated Soap Distant and his “bloody silly notions”. “And what happened to your uncle, how was he?”
“A little under par,” said the Irishman.
“There are none so deaf as those who will not hear,” said Soap.
“Here, steady on,” said Norman.
“How many times have I propounded my theories regarding the lands beneath and their interterrestrial occupants, and how many times have I offered irrefutable proof as to their existence, only to be scoffed at and ridiculed by those pseudo-intellectuals who nestle in seats of authority having sprung up like mildewed fungi upon the rotting corpse of this present society?”
“Many times,” said Omally. “A great many times.”
“Listen.” Soap rattled his pint glass upon the bar top in agitation. “I know all about your views on the subject, you are a Philistine.”
“I resent that,” said John, “I am from the South.”
“Beneath the surface of the globe,” said Soap in a reverent tone, “is the vast and beautiful land of Agharta, and in that sunken realm at the very centre of the planet, Shamballah, capital city of Earth. Here in unimaginable splendour dwells Rigdenjyepo, King of the World, whose emissaries, the subterranean monks of black habit, weave their ways through the endless network of ink-dark corridors which link the capital cities of the ancient world.”
“Such is the popular Buddhist doctrine,” said Omally.
“Rigdenjyepo is in constant contact with the Dalai Lama,” said Soap.
“The Dalai rarely drinks in these parts,” said John.
Soap threw up his arms in dismay. “When the great day comes and the portals are opened then the smile will flee your face like a rat from a sinking ship.”
Omally brought his smile into full prominence. “I have always found it to be the case,” said he ingeniously, “that most ships, especially those sailing under the colours of the Esoteric Line, generally sink due to a surfeit of rats weighing heavily upon the bows.”
