Shaw said, “We’ll see about that.”
“Well put, Commander! We shall indeed see about that.” Tucker swivelled from side to side in his chair. “First let me fill you in on some detail, so that you will have the broad outline into which your answers will fit — so that you will know exactly the kind of answers I want from you. You see the map on the wall behind me?”
“Yes.”
“A map of the world — all the world, Black, Yellow, Brown, White.” He paused. “How much of that world, do you suppose, is White — wholly White, Commander?”
Shaw snapped, “Plenty.”
“You think so? You really think so — you, an intelligent man?” Tucker seemed highly amused. “Not enough, Commander! Let me show you clearly.” Without removing his gaze from Shaw and Flame he reached out and pressed a button at the edge of the desk and the appearance of the map altered. The concealed lighting went out and was replaced by a glow from behind the map itself. Parts of the world grew dim, other parts blacked out altogether except for blobs of light of varying sizes, but extensive areas were brilliantly lit. Tucker said softly, “You see now, do you not?”
“I see light and shade.”
“Exactly. Now, Commander, re-orientate your normal way of thinking. The lighted parts do not represent the great British Empire of former times, or anything like it. It is the Black and Coloured world in general that is represented by the areas of light — the light that is the lamp of hope for the future. Study the map, please. Africa, large areas of South America, all India, Ceylon, the Middle East, Burma, Viet-Nam, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, North and South Korea, the Pacific Islands, the West Indies… and so on and so on. Most important to us—China! All that, all those peoples — leaving aside for the moment that the present leaders of certain of the countries I have named do not see eye to eye with China — all those peoples, against Europe and North America and Russia, together of course with such White parts of the British Commonwealth as Australia and New Zealand… the places, as you will see on the map, where the lights have gone out. The dimming of those lights is a symbol, Commander… a symbol of the ending of White power, and—”
“You don’t—”
“One moment, please.” Tucker held up a big hand. “Think, Commander, of what has gone already of Western power across the years… the ports of Trincomalee, Dakar, Casablanca, all of them commanding great tracts of water from Malacca Strait to the Atlantic sea routes; the great North American coastal bases that were so vital in the last war; the staging ports of the Middle East and East Africa that used to watch over the Indian Ocean; the Suez Canal, the air base at Kamina, the American air force bases in North-West Africa that covered the whole continent and beyond to Europe and the East. We have seen the Europeans leave Morocco, Tunis, Algeria. We have seen the ending of the Indian Empire. We have seen the mass rape of White women in the Congo and elsewhere, the ritual feasting on dismembered Europeans, the return of Coloured rulers to the practice of wearing native dress on all public occasions, the conferences attended only by representatives of the Communist countries. All this has been but a start, Commander!” Tucker paused, his eyes alight with emotion. “May I quote a line from a song that came from the first of your British states to rebel against you… I refer, of course, to the Irish Republic, which in effect led the disaffection of your Empire so long ago. The line is this: Our star shall shine out when the proudest shall fade. That line is about to become applicable also to us, the Black peoples of the world.…”
Shaw said, “You must be raving mad.”
Tucker hadn’t heard. He went on, “There are other lights I must draw your attention to. The White countries, in particular of course the United States and Britain, have large Negro and other non-White populations in their own territories — these are indicated where you see the circles of light in the otherwise dark areas. In America alone there are well over twenty million non-Whites. Now, Commander — to sum up in round figures. The population of the world is now an estimated three and a half thousand million — there has been a very heavy increase since the middle sixties, especially among the Coloured peoples. I doubt if I would be very far out were I to suggest that the White population of the world is little more than one thousand million, leaving some two and a half thousand million non-Whites. Two and a half to one, Commander, throughout the world!”
“So?” Shaw was listening intently now.
“So the dice are very heavily loaded against the Whites, are they not? Especially taking into account the fact that the White world no longer has the stomach for fighting, for defending itself. Your people are decadent, finished. They cringe at the thought of nuclear war, they will go to any lengths to avoid it. Take your own country. The old ideas of patriotism have been dead for the last generation at least. There was a time when your people did not mind dying for Britain, for Britain herself was believed capable of going on for ever, while human life was transitory… which indeed was the very reason why your astute ruling classes plugged the line that Britain was everlasting.” He shrugged, and mopped at his face with a silk handkerchief. “Today it is known that Britain would vanish in twenty-four hours if nuclear war should break out! That takes the will from a man. Also, there are two more very relevant facts you should bear in mind — and they are these: your former African empire is not only free of you now, but hates the guts of the White man. For years past the emergent countries of Africa have spurned you, have been ready for Communism — and now their chance is approaching. They are desperately eager to do all they can to assist our efforts — that is, my efforts under Peking. All their colossal manpower is at our disposal.” Tucker’s eyes were brighter than ever, glittering with an insane intensity. “And now another fact: the hard fact that the Chinese People’s Republic is not only in possession of the nuclear bomb, but is now in possession also of the means to deliver that bomb and to deliver intercontinental ballistic missiles as well. You still do not see?”
Shaw said, “I’m beginning to.” He’d had those suspicions before he had left London, those frightening thoughts about the way the Negro rioting was taking a shape, a pattern — as though the whole business had been co-ordinated. But he had never imagined anything so far-reaching, anything so totally centralized as the world revolution this madman seemed to be suggesting. He hadn’t considered the Blacks capable of that.
Tucker — his image, his powerful and confident personality, seeming to fill that great room — went on, “Already we have the Coloured peoples everywhere stirred up, inflamed… already we have the Whites jittery as to where trouble will break out next — in a localized sense, that is.”