entleman’s War : The Middle-East Command
(HoI3 TFH - UK AAR)
Chapter Thirty-One : Frenemies? - 1.9.1937 To 5.9.1937
It was the morning of the 3rd of September and the only sound in the office was the ticking of a clock. Hercule Poirot was examining his upturned moustache. No doubt worried one of the hairs were too long or out of place.
Miss Felicity Lemon came in with the morning mail and placed it on the desk. By now Poirot had finished worshiping his facial hair and was now too busy being annoyed at his collar to notice her entry. So Captain Arthur Hastings gave her a silent head nod in way of greetings.
“Why do they never get my collars right?” said the grumpy Belgian as he pulled at it with a finger.
Captain Hastings just smiled and said, “Why not just send your clothes to another laundry? If one business does not please you try another.”
“Nonsense,” replied the tiny man. “All I need to do is get them to understand. Just once. I will not let them defeat me!”
The Captain just shook his head in amusement and went back to the newspaper he was reading.
“Anything of interest?” asked Poirot. “A mystery for me to solve? A murderer to capture?”
“Well, besides the normal rumors of technology breakthroughs inside the halls of government,” remarked the Captain, “the news is mostly about the war in Asia. Japan has taken Tianjin and Beiping.”
“But,” he said with a grin as he got to his feet, stepped over to the desk, and placed the open newspaper in front of Poirot, “they have been counter attacked and overwhelmed by the forces of Shanxi.”
Poirot carefully placed his pince-nez reading glasses on his nose and peeked at the map.
“What I don’t understand is this Anti-Japanese feelings that had buried itself into the populace’s heart,” said the man thoughtfully as he looked the map over.
“The Japanese have been expanding themselves in Asia for decades,” pointed out Captain Hastings. “They are bullies.”
“But surely European powers have been doing the same for centuries,” replied Poirot with a sly smile. “Even Belgium has colonies over seas.”
“It is not the same,” grumbled Captain Hastings.
“And even if the Japanese are the…what would you English call them…the scoundrels? Surely the Chinese are not the Heroes.”
The Belgian put his glasses away and added, “The government of Shanxi are warlords. Nothing better than bandits. And the Nationalist Chinese….the Kuomintang I believe they are called…is nothing but a dictatorship. With strong anti-Communist AND anti-Democratic ideals. Surely you do not support them?”
“The Japanese must be stopped,” was all Hastings was willing to stay.
“You did not seem too quick to stop them when they were defeating the Russian Tzar, eh?” pointed out the egg headed man behind the desk.
“In fact at one point I would say the English and the Japanese were almost hand-in-hand in their beliefs and traditions,” added the detective.
“Not hand-in-hand,” remarked Hastings. “And you are just saying this because you don’t like how the Chinese do your shirt collars.”
“Not at all. I am basing it all on facts. For example, both the UK and Japan are island nations, both are dependent heavily on their navies, both have Constitutional Monarchies,” he continued. “You were like a pair of twins.”
“To be fair they got their government system from the Germans when the Kaiser was in charge,” admitted Hastings from behind his newspaper. “Not us.”
“Oh, excuse me,” replied Poirot. “Do you know why I think you British have become so upset by the Japanese lately? They remind you of how the rest of the world looks at you. They were your friends until you realized how the rest of the world saw them and now you try to distance yourself. And in doing so you realize just how much alike you are. And it is upsetting. Yes?”
“What?” exclaimed the Captain almost dropping his newspaper. “We are no where near as bad as the Japanese! Er…I mean…”
“You have a massive Empire of colonies,” said Poirot. “There are people in Asia, Africa, and South America who downright hate you.”
“Well…don’t we all have that problem? People will get jealous you know. Even Belgium has colonies.”
“True. But you supported slavery for centuries and even after making it illegal yourself, you almost joined the Confederacy,” added the Belgian.
“I say, that was a long time ago! Stick to the current century if you plan to make a point,” remarked Hastings with a frown. "Also the French were thinking about helping the slave states too you know."
“Your past is mostly made up beyond the 14th Century,” Poirot added with a small smile. “I mean, you were not really civilized until the Romans showed up and when they left it was mostly a Dark Age. How embarrassing it must be. I wonder if that is why you needed to conquer all these other nations? Egypt, China, and the people of the Middle East. All very advanced civilizations when you were still painting yourself blue and living in caves. Maybe a inferiority complex? Is that why you invented King Arthur and-”
“I’m going out for a pint,” was all Hastings said in return as he grabbed his coat and left the office.
“The English are so easy. So many feathers to ruffle,” the detective said to himself as he glanced at his pocket watch. “A little too early for a pint I would think. Oh well, he knows best.”
“I wonder how they will handle it if the Italians decide to conquer them and force them to eat pasta and drink cheap wine?” the man said to himself as he closed the newspaper and set it to one side.
The Belgian understood what it was like to have a nation taken from him. During the ‘Great War’ he had fled his own nation and had ended up in England.
He loved his new motherland. Well, there was flaws. The countryside was too…well..natural. Mud and sheep and other creatures of mother nature’s horrible invention. And then there were all the people who thought he was French. And the English sense of fashion was always changing. Few people even carried pocket watches or seemed to wear patent leather shoes. Fewer even seemed to understand the art of facial hair. Tut!
“I should ask Miss Lemon can get me some tea,” he said aloud before going back to tugging on his collar.
On the 5th Poirot noticed, in the newspapers, that the Japanese had recovered and were making headway in their war. Or was it wars? The British press wasn’t very happy about this news and said it was only a small setback for the Chinese.
But Poirot was not as optimistic as he sometimes seemed when on the trail of a criminal. He had already been on the wrong end of a war. A war that, he felt, could have gone either way. Only luck, and the Americans, had brought victory.
In the end he could not, honestly, support either side of the Second Sino-Japanese War. But he prayed for the many civilians on the ground. He hoped they would find safety and some kind of peace.
