ATDTDA (16): Swords into ploughshares, 443-445

[Paul Nightingale]

The new section begins with "one of [Miles'] temporal excursions" (a
facility that might explain his ability to provide "a sumptuous 'spread'" at
the end of the previous section). Here, he predicts some kind of battle
turning the desert into a "great planetary killing-floor", which Chick
likens to the vision provided within Dr Zoot's time machine: meaning remains
elusive, "as obscure to them now as then" (444).This "simple prophecy" is
fulfilled at the bottom of the page with the onset of the Taklamakan War.
However, cf. the first glimpse of Nuovo Rialto: "... ruins written on by
combat ancient and modern" (439).

As with the images conjured up by the time machine, the reference
specifically to animal slaughter goes back to the descent over Chicago, and
"the smell and the uproar of flesh learning its mortality" (10): that take
on capitalist rationalisation provided a counter to the optimism of the
novel's opening, establishing a sense of the morbid. Moreover, if the
reader's superior knowledge of upcoming events allows them an advantage over
the Chums, the emphasis is very much on their inability to read the signs.

And so to news of the attack on the Saksaul, consequent on the Chums'
delivery ("in their innocence") of the Sfinciuno Itinerary (444). The reader
might see this as evidence of the Great Power conflict that led to WW1; but
again the Chums might be said to be "carelessly aviating" (418). Cf.
Randolph on 442: "Once again we are being used to further someone's hidden
plans."

Toadflax tells Gaspereaux this is why he came aboard (444). Previously,
"[t]he cryptic civilian" left the Chums--with the exception of
Miles--"flabbergasted" (437); now it seems his role has always been to
escape to England. At this point one wonders if he should be numbered among
those survivors whose "accounts [are] sketchy and inconsistent" (444).
Perhaps it is more important that he promises to give us access to "the
legendary Captain, now Inspector, Sands, soon to be known to Whitehall--as
well as to readers of the Daily Mail--as 'Sands of Inner Asia'". The section
begins with one prophecy, and ends with another, one exploiting the reader's
knowledge, the other emphasising the role of the narrator.

As battle continues weapons "[fall] into the hands of goat-herders,
falconers, shamans, to be taken out into the emptiness, disassembled,
studied, converted to uses religious and practical ..." etc (445).
Transformation, an alternative reality. Cf. also the first appearance of the
Saksaul: "Any observer on a nearby dune might have watched, perhaps in
superstitious terror ..." etc (434).