The Image and the Likeness Part 1

The Image and the Likeness.

by John Scott Campbell.

Shanghai had changed. We sensed that the moment we came ash.o.r.e.

Extraterritoriality was long gone; we had known that, of course. The days of exploitation, of clubs where Chinese and Burmese and Indian servants waited on Britons and Americans were pa.s.sed. Pan-Asia had seen to that. This was 1965. The white man's burden in the east had been upon brown and yellow shoulders for over sixteen years now, and the Indians and Burmese and Indonesians were ruling themselves, after their fling at communism in the fifties.

The initial bitterness which followed the debacle of 1955 had pa.s.sed, we were glad to see. Porters no longer spat in the faces of white men. They were polite, but we had not been in the city a half hour before we sensed something else. There was an edge to that politeness. It was as Major Reid had written before we left San Francisco--a subtle change had come over Asia in the previous few years. They smiled--they waited on us--they bent over backwards to atone for the excesses of the first years of freedom from foreign rule; but through it all was an air of aloofness, of superior knowledge.

Baker put it in his typically blunt British way.

"The blighters have something up their sleeves, all right. The whole crew of them. Did you notice that rickshaw boy? When I said to take us to the hotel, he answered 'Yes, today I take you'. The Major was right--there's something in the wind, and it's d.a.m.ned serious."

We were sitting, surrounded by our luggage, in our suite at the New China Hotel. There were four of us: Llewelyn Baker, Walter Chamberlin, Robert Martin, and myself, William Cady. Baker and Martin were anthropologists, and old China hands as well. Chamberlin was a geologist, and I claimed knowledge of zoology. We were here ostensibly as a scientific expedition, and had permission from the Republic of East Asia to do some work on Celebese man, following up the discoveries by Rance of bones and artifacts on that East Indian island in 1961.

We had another reason for coming at this particular time, although this was not mentioned to the authorities. Our real objective was to find out certain things about New Buddhism, the violently nationalistic religion which was sweeping Pan-Asia.

New Buddhism was more than a religion. It was a motivating force of such power that men like Major Reid at the American Emba.s.sy were frankly worried, and had communicated their fears to their home governments. The Pan-Asia movement had, at first, been understandable. At first it had been nationalism, pure and simple. The Asiatics were tired of exploitation and western bungling, and wanted to rule themselves. During the communist honeymoon in the early fifties, it was partly underground and partly taken over by the Reds for their own purposes. But through everything it retained a character of its own, and after '55 it reappeared as a growing force which was purely oriental. Or at least so it seemed. Our job was, among other things, to find out if Russian control was really destroyed.

We had already made several observations. The most obvious was the number of priests. Yellow robed Buddhist priests had always been common, begging rice and coppers in the streets, but in 1955 a new kind appeared. He was younger than his predecessors, and was usually an ex-soldier. And his technique was different. He was a salesman.

"Rice--rice for Buddha," he would say. "Rice for the Living Buddha, to give him strength. Rice for the Great One, that he may grow mighty. Rice for the strength to cast off our bonds."

And they had organization. This wasn't any hit or miss revival, started by a crackpot, or by some schemer for his own enrichment. There was direction back of it, and very good direction too. We sensed that it had been j.a.panese, at least at the start, but with the end of the occupation, we could no longer barge in and investigate officially. Now there were treaties to respect, and diplomatic procedure and all that sort of thing.

Instead, we were here to spy. Unofficially, of course. The amba.s.sador was very explicit on that point. We were strictly on our own. If we were caught, there could be no protection. So here we were. Four scientists investigating Celebese man, and trying to find out, on the side, just what was back of New Buddhism.

We washed up, had dinner, and presently, as we had expected, Major Reid called. After a few jocular references to anthropology, for the benefit of the waiter, he got down to business.

"I'll have to be brief," he said, "because I can't spend too much time with you without stirring up suspicion. You all know the background.

They claim that this business is simply a new religion, a revival of Buddhism modeled to fit new conditions. President Tung claims that there is no connection between it and the state. We think differently. We have reason to believe that the direction back of this movement is communism, and that its ultimate object is military attack on the western world.

What we don't know is the nature of the proposed attack. Some of us suspect that they are making H-bombs, and have covered up so that we cannot spot them. That's what we must find out.

"The headquarters of New Buddhism is on a small volcanic island called Yat, off the east coast of Celebes. Your job is to reach that island and find out what's going on, and then bring the information back. Clear?"

We nodded. We had received a similar briefing in Washington, and from a far more distinguished personage than Major Reid, but we felt no need of mentioning this. In such a business, gratuitous information, even to friends, serves no useful end.

Our informant in Washington had told us a good many other things, too. In the name of New Buddhism, the priests had been collecting immense quant.i.ties of supplies, and on an increasing scale. Tons of foodstuffs had been gathered and then shipped off to an unknown destination. Machinery, lumber, structural steel, canvas by the thousands of yards had been purchased, loaded onto ships and barges, and spirited away. It appeared that the New Buddhists were maintaining a standing army, or perhaps a labor force somewhere east of Borneo, but the picture was very incomplete.

Part of the failure of ordinary methods of intelligence may have been due to the supersecrecy of the New Buddhists themselves. It was not difficult to corrupt priests on the lower levels, but all they knew was that certain quotas of food and materials were set for their territory, which were then shipped away to Borneo.

The big break had come only a few months ago. One of the OSS men got through to a barge captain, who had been to the headquarters itself. He identified the location as an island a few miles off the northeast coast of Celebes. It was, he said, highly mountainous--in fact he believed it to be an extinct volcano, with a water filled crater reached only by a narrow pa.s.sage from the sea. Boats, he said, could go in and out, but his barge was not among those permitted. He delivered his cargo, three thousand tons of rice and five thousand raw hides, and was then sent on his way. Under questioning, he said that there were many people living on the island--thousands at least. Most of them lived in barracks among the trees fronting the ocean, but some had special privileges and were allowed to go to the top of the crater rim.

Of the activities within the crater our informant knew nothing. At night the clouds were often lit by reflections from there, and once he had heard noises, accompanied by a distinct shaking of the earth, as though blasting were being done at a great depth.

This was the extent of our knowledge. We knew the location, but it was up to us to find out the rest.

Our departure from Shanghai for the great island of Celebes involved the usual exasperation of delay and red tape. The American Emba.s.sy did everything possible to expedite matters, and brought a little pressure to bear, I think, on the strength of the then impending American Sixth Loan to China. In any case we were at last cleared, and boarded the plane for Celebes.

We took one of the six place compartments on the upper deck, and presently had company in the form of two yellow-clad New Buddhist priests. Baker, who had the best command of Chinese, engaged them in conversation.

As we had expected, they were very willing to talk, and displayed a lively interest in Celebes man. That they were here to watch us was obvious. Baker bided his time, and then switched the conversation to New Buddhism. On this subject too the priests were anything but reticent.

They described with enthusiasm the great spiritual renaissance that was sweeping all Asia "like a wind, the breath of life from the Living Buddha." Baker asked a few questions about the Buddha, since to show no curiosity about such a life subject might excite suspicion. The priests were ready for them, and gave what was evidently the stock answer: the Living Buddha was the very incarnation of Gautama himself, a spiritual leader who was being groomed to take over the guidance of all mankind, in east and west alike.

"Where does the Great One live?" asked Baker, alert for a trap.

"In Celebes, where you are going," was the reply.

"Oh," said Baker innocently, "Then perhaps it could be arranged for us to meet him?"

This, explained the priest, was quite impossible. In due time Buddha would display himself for the world to see and marvel over; meanwhile, while his preparation was yet incomplete, he must remain in seclusion.

By now convinced that the presence of the priests was no accident, Baker settled down to the sort of verbal sparring match that he enjoyed. He had been speaking in the Cantonese dialect, but now he abruptly switched to English.

"You know," he remarked, "you fellows are using an amazing amount of material at your headquarters. Enough food to keep a good sized standing army."

The two priests, who had professed ignorance of English at the start of the conversation, stiffened visibly. Baker returned to Chinese.

The priests recovered their composure with some effort. The older replied suavely, "Gossip is a creative art. There is a large monastery at our central temple, and much is needed to maintain its activities."

"Truth," said Baker pontifically, "is usually disappointing. The imagination changes a mud hut to a palace, and a sickly priest to a demiG.o.d."

The two priests inclined their heads slightly at this. We watched their expressions. If Baker's purposely provoking language brought a reaction, it was not visible. But we had learned one thing: they spoke English but preferred that we did not know it.

Our arrival at New Maca.s.sar, the Indonesian capital of Celebes, was attended by the usual confusion and delay. Our Buddhist friends vanished with a speed which suggested special consideration, while the man from the American Consulate was still getting our equipment through customs.

This business at length completed, we were escorted to a taxi by the attache and whisked up one of the wide avenues of the city without a question as to where we were to stay. Baker and Martin stared out the window with studied ease--they knew that something was up, but were content to await further developments. Now I noticed something else. The driver of our cab was a European, not a native. I started to frame a question, when, without warning, the car ducked into a side street, swung around two corners and abruptly entered an open doorway in a tall stucco building. Both Walt and I were half out of our seats in alarm, when our guide spoke.

"The American Consulate, gentlemen," he said, with the slightest trace of a diplomatic smile.

The cab had stopped in the ground floor garage of the consulate, and opening the door was the consul himself.

"Good morning, I'm Stimson. Hope Avery didn't give you too wild a ride, but I thought it best not to advertise my interest in you at the front door. Things have changed a bit in the last few days. Well, Avery will show you to your rooms. I'll be in the upstairs study when you're freshened up."

There was little to speculate on as we shaved and changed to less rumpled clothes, but we worked over the available data for what it was worth.

"Consul takes us in tow," remarked Chamberlin. "That isn't in line with the unofficial status so strongly impressed on us at Washington."

"And sneaking us in through the back door isn't according to best diplomatic form, either. Stimson wants to protect us from something, but obviously doesn't want the local constabulary to know." This from Martin.

"It seems to me," I ventured, "that they could check the hotels. It shouldn't take them long to put two and two together when we don't show.

I'm blessed if I can see what Stimson has to gain from this maneuver."

Baker turned from the mirror where he had been adjusting his tie.