THE SUN NEVER SETS
Mayer, Milton
THE SUN NEVER SETS By Milton Mayer Bromma, Sweden IT was the dimmest of dawns, but my eyes, at that dim hour, were dimmer yet. "There," said the Captain of the Kristina Thorden, "is your...
...if you chain yourself to the ledge, you will be all right except, of course, you will have to prepare for invasion...
...Cod, hake, haddock, and halibut abound {if I may use the term) on the banks...
...Your own," he said...
...The North Atlantic Conference...
...Not so fast," said the Captain...
...I don't see it," I said, "do you...
...III A few weeks later I meandered through Stockholm—whither I had come with my little brood to discover what a century of peace and prosperity had done for the Swedes— to the British Information Service, which, like the American Information Service, allows an item or two of actual interest to be sandwiched in among the propaganda materials, and I went idly through my favorite newspaper, the Times of London, which has the want-ads on the front page and the news at the back...
...You will practice isolation...
...Has anyone ever landed on it...
...One or two," said the Captain, "and two would be enough to present difficulties...
...In 1896 the Royal Irish Academy sent a scientific expedition which failed to land after two desperate attempts...
...What about the Spirit of Geneva...
...Four landings have been made—the first in 1810—and many more have been tried unsuccessfully...
...And in 1949 James Fischer, the eminent English ornithologist, sailed to Rockall with H. G. Hasler on the latter's yacht Petula in the hope of landing there and determining whether or not it is actually a breeding-place (or only a resting-place) for shear-waters and fulmars, but the landing attempt failed...
...One false step, and you are lost, your rule replaced by a puppet (always to be found among the natives or, if, as on Rockall, there are no natives, to be imported), your people enslaved and exploited, your farms and industries expropriated, and the Voice of America and the Voice of Moscow jamming each other in your ears...
...The Swedish for "spirit"— we were speaking Swedish, naturally —is spoke...
...Outer Mongolia...
...No," said the Captain, "I told you nobody wanted it up to now...
...Against whom...
...And many a war—the Russo-Japanese of the last century, for example—has begun over fishing rights...
...They will insist upon giving you aid...
...I'm thinking it over," I said...
...It doesn't look like much from anywhere," said the Captain, "except from below...
...Whose would I recognize as the government of China—Mao's or Chiang's...
...I'll log your claim," said the Captain, "but you'll have to do more than sit in an overstuffed chair, drinking the Company's aquavit, to establish it...
...But it's only 83 feet in diameter at its base on the surface, and it rises almost sheer...
...You'll have to enforce it against all comers...
...The Rockall submarine plateau is one of the finest fishing grounds in the world...
...This will not be difficult during the winter, since the summit is often awash...
...Vidal, 2000-ton survey ship under the command of Commander R. H. McConnell, R.N...
...That's why I'm going to Rockall in the first place...
...Come on inside and I'll show you a picture of it...
...we know Mayer...
...Let them protect their own shipping," I said...
...In the first place, you won't take much of a look at it tomorrow because we're forbidden to come that close...
...In the edition of September 22, 1955— more than a month before we had sailed from New York on the Kristina Thorden—there appeared a column-long article which left only five lines at the bottom of the page for an item about a man who had murdered all six of his wives the evening before...
...13° 41", 200 miles west of the Outer Hebrides and 250 miles northwest of Ireland...
...more, in heavy weather like this...
...The column-long article was headed, "Annexation of Islet," and began: "The Admiralty announced yesterday the annexation of the islet of Rockall in the North Atlantic, 200 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, has been carried out in the name of the Crown by a landing party from the H.M.S...
...There," said the Captain of the Kristina Thorden, "is your kingdom," and he pointed off to the starboard at nothing at all...
...Yes," said the Captain, who, unlike me, was not wearing glasses, "but I'm accustomed to seeing it...
...That doesn't matter," said the Captain...
...A Norwegian ship foundered on it— radar and all—and now we keep a good twenty-five miles off it, to the port...
...I am not talking about NATO," said the Captain...
...It doesn't look like much from here," I said...
...Spoke is right," said the Captain, in Swedish...
...Therefore it must be valuable...
...What about Franco Spain...
...Potential aggressors...
...It is then that we think of islands like Rockall, but, according to the Captain, nobody had thought of it yet...
...If you can take it, you ought to be able to hold it...
...What flag...
...The landing party of four was lowered by helicopter to the six-foot ledge on the steep face of the hitherto unclaimed rock, where, after a plaque was cemented, the Union Jack hoisted, and a 21-gun salute fired from the Vidal, Rockall was established as one of the Realms and Territories of Her Majesty...
...I advise you," he said, "to land there, if you can, and cement a plaque on the face of the rock and hoist a flag...
...He turned on the radar and the sweep went around, picking up nothing at all except the undulation of the sea around us...
...It's on a submarine plateau (which, oddly enough, is part of the American landmass geologically) and the reefs have never been fully sounded...
...But," I said, "Rockall rises almost sheer from the water, and if only I can succeed in landing on it, I ought to be able to prevent my enemies from landing...
...asked the Captain...
...The Captain knew all there was to know about Rockall...
...Rockall—a Gaelic word meaning "the spiked rocks"—is its name...
...It was mine...
...We go from long glooms to short ecstasies and, like our seasons, quickly back again...
...and our character is consequently affected...
...But," I said, "you told me nobody wanted it...
...But," the Captain went on, "as a Swede you ought to know that that is a dangerous game...
...But," I said, "it's worthless...
...But," I said, "I have no army and navy...
...Rockall is, if I may say so, in a tactically exposed position...
...When you have established your claim, it will compel you to maintain a light, and perhaps a foghorn, to protect shipping...
...That's your kingdom," said the Captain...
...The fact that it wasn't settled in the first place will not occur to anybody...
...True," said the Captain, "but who will believe it...
...it was the last no-man's-land on earth...
...The swell of the winter sea was immense...
...I can but try," I said, and returned to the bridge to gaze through the lifting mist in the direction (general, to be sure) of my kingdom...
...Let's go and get it.'" "Captain," I said, "what do you advise...
...From below it's 150 miles long...
...It had never MILTON MAYER, regular contributor to The Progressive, is presently in Europe with his family gathering material for articles and lectures...
...I can but try," I said, thinking of Captain Basil Hall...
...They won't let you," said the Cap tain...
...Then, as it went by the starboard scope, a little green blip came into view and went out again...
...I'll take you as close as prudence and the Company will let me...
...As he described it, it is almost perfectly conical, except for a six-foot ledge that runs half-way around it, about 30 feet from the summit...
...If I succeeded in establishing my claim to the satisfaction of other sovereigns, they would insist upon recognition and the exchange of legations...
...Well," I said, "I'll protect it myself...
...Would I court Afghanistan, and, if I did, wouldn't Russia court me, and then what would the Americans do...
...By the Russians or the Americans, unless, like the Egyptians and the Yugoslavs and the Indians, you are able to persuade both of them each to offer you aid against the other...
...As soon as you want it, somebody else will want it...
...You should fire some sort of salute and have a ceremony, with newsreel cameras present, perhaps offshore with long-range cameras, and make a speech...
...We live ten miles from our nearest neighbor, but misanthropy besets us in the long gloom and we wish we lived a thousand...
...I'll build on the ledge...
...Besides, it might be fought for on the sea or in the air...
...Would I—or wouldn't I—exchange diplomatic missions with our glorious democratic ally, the Emperor of Abyssinia, in whose democratic land human slavery is still practiced outright...
...It has no light, no horn, nothing...
...There are no people or farms or industries on Rockall...
...The Captain had shown it to me on the chart the night before...
...I said...
...The official absorption of Rockall was not unexpected, in view of its location in the approximate firing channel for rockets from the island of South Uist in the Hebrides...
...What could you do to protect yourself against either one of them...
...I will not join NATO," I said...
...It must be protected by reliable, peace-loving people...
...After all, the Russians have 169 fully armed divisions and the Americans 168.2 and the French .8...
...People will say, 'If it were worthless, Mayer wouldn't want it...
...57° 36", W. Long...
...You will, of course, have to have a considerable store of supplies," said the Captain, "because it may be another ten or twenty years before the weather conditions are appropriate for another landing...
...The first landing-party, in 1810, by the H.M.S...
...I said...
...The North Atlantic Conference is a shipping organization...
...I'll take it," I said...
...Not to mention the offshore fishing rights...
...That, when you stop to think of it, is how the rest of the world was divvied up...
...Then they will have to take over part of your ledge—the greater part, I fear—as an international light, and you will find yourself in politics...
...Then you will have to prepare to hold it against, as I say, all comers...
...They won't believe you are strong enough...
...It began: "All who, like myself, know and love the Hebrides, must be deeply disturbed by the proposal to put a guided missile range on South Uist, not only on account of the threat to sport and bird life on the island, the last breeding place of the greyleg goose, whose feathers winged our arrows at Crecy...
...But it's yours—all yours...
...We Swedes—he was a Swede, like me—are a dour people...
...The Admiralty explained that Rockall had never been claimed by any nation and that the Crown was formally claiming it now to eliminate the possibility of embarrassing counter-claims once the Hebridian guided missile project was under way...
...Emperor of Rockall...
...By whom...
...I brushed the ice from my beard and my eyelashes, moistened my salted lips and wiped them instantly with my sleeve before they froze...
...It also means "ghost...
...No entangling alliances," I said...
...It's a regular devil...
...But," I said, "there wouldn't be room for them anyway...
...You will have to think one up, maybe with a lion-and-lamb motif, or a heart with an arrow through it, anything you like...
...Rockall's location is N. Lat...
...The summit is a peak, 70 feet above the surface of the North Atlantic at low tide...
...Have another Schluckchen of the Company's aquavit...
...Yes," said the Captain, reaching for his Lippincott Gazetteer...
...been claimed by anybody...
...You yourself said that there's only room for one man on that ledge...
...Endymion, Captain Basil Hall, Commander, succeeded in climbing to the peak of the rock, a feat Which has never been repeated...
...Then," said the Captain, "you may encounter difficulties...
...Think it over...
...And the island is solid rock, a three-mineral granite quartz to which the name of the island has given the name 'rockallite,' so you'd better take a few bushels of dirt with you for gardening...
...the troughs were canyons...
...But," said the Captain, "you will have commercial responsibilities, and these will lead to political responsibilities...
...Our winters are long and dark, and our summers, in which we work from dawn until ten at night, are short...
...I'll have a look at it tomorrow, but I'll take it sight unseen...
...Rockall is little known apart from the sonorous reference in the BBC weather reports to 'Bailey, Rockall, and Shannon.' " In the same edition of the Times there appeared a Letter to the Editor from Marshal of the Royal Air Force J. C. Slessor...
...II The next morning, after I had seen my kingdom on the radar screen, the Captain said he had thought of another difficulty...
...After it has been liberated, by either the Russians or the Americans, or by both in turn, they will immediately resettle it...
Vol. 20 • February 1956 • No. 2
