BASIS FOR NEGOTIATION
Brian Aldiss
 
 
THE University College of East Lincoln is a muddle of build ings. In the centre stands the theatrically baroque pile still called Gransby Manor, while round it lie the pencil-boxes of glass and cedar and cement that are our century’s contribution to the treasury of world architecture. John Haines-Roberts and I walked round the grounds in agonized discussion, view ing our conglomeration of a college from all its meaningless angles.
 
When I tell you the date was July 1st, 1971, you will know what was the subject under discussion.
 
‘I tell you I cannot just stay here, John, idle, isolated, ignorant,’ I said. ‘I must go to London and find out what the devil the government is doing.’
 
Most of the conversations that follow, I feel confident, are word for word what was said at the time. My memory is generally eidetic; in times of stress such as this, it records everything, so that I see John Haines-Roberts now, his head thrust forward from those heavy shoulders, as he replied, ‘I will offer you no platitudes about considering your reputation at such a grave time. Nevertheless, Simon, you are a public figure, and were before your knighthood. You have a foot in both worlds, the academic and the world of affairs. Your work on the Humanities Council and the Pilgrim Trust has not been forgotten. You were M.P. for Bedford under Butler. That has not been forgotten. At such a trying time, any untoward move by somebody of your stature may fatally prejudice the course of events, marring——’
 
‘No, no, John, that’s not it at all!’ I stopped him with a curt movement of my hand. He talked that awful dead language of English newspaper leaders; with his evasions and euphemisms, his ‘untoward moves’ and ‘trying times’. I could not bear to listen to him. He believed as I did on that one fundamental point, that the British Government had made the most fatal error any government could have done; but this apart we could have nothing in common. His woolly language only reflected the numbness of his intellect. At that terrible moment, one more prop fell away. I began to hate John. The man who had been my friend since I took the specially created chair of Moral History two years before suddenly became just another enemy of my country, and of me.
 
‘We cannot discuss the problem in these terms,’ I told him. He stopped, peering forward in that intense way of his. In the distance, I saw some undergraduates bunched together in the tepid sunshine and watching us with interest. ‘The British have turned basely against their dearest friends and allies. Either this wounds you to the heart or it doesn’t-----’
 
‘But the Americans can manage alone perfectly well-----’ he began, with all the patience and reason in the world in his voice. John Haines-Roberts was a saint; nothing in the world could ruffle him in debate. I knew he would be standing reasoning in some quiet corner of University College when the H-bombs fell.
 
‘I’m sorry, John, I’m not prepared to go into it all again. The sands have run out—right out of the bottom of the glass. This is no time for talk. You don’t think the Communists are standing talking, do you? I’m going to London.’
 
He saw I was making to go and laid a placatory hand on my sleeve.
 
‘My dear fellow, you know I wish you well, but you have a reputation for being over-hasty. Never, never let action be come a substitute for thought. You’ll recall what that great and good man Wilberforce said when-----’
 
‘Damn Wilberforce!’ I said. Turning away, I strode off. The undergraduates saw me coming and fanned out to inter cept me on my way to Manor, pouring out questions.
 
‘Is it true the Americans have cordoned off Holy Loch? Sir Simon, what do you think of the news about the Inter national Brigade? Did you see C. P. Snow on TV, blasting poor old Minnie?’ ‘Minnie’ was their nickname for Sir Alfred Menhennick, the Prime Minister.
 
Behind my back, John was still calling, ‘Simon, my dear fellow. . . .’ To my audience, I said, ‘Gentlemen, from this week onwards, only shame attaches to the name of England. You know how I feel on this subject. Please let me pass.’
 
Their faces were before me, troubled, angry, or snivelling. They began bombarding me with preposterous questions— ‘Who do you think will win? America or China?’ as if it were a boat-race staged for their delight.
 
‘Let me through!’ I repeated.
 
‘Why don’t you join up, if you feel so strongly?’ ‘We don’t owe the Americans anything.’ ‘We’ll still be here when they’re one big hole in the ground.’ And so on.
 
I said: ‘You had the police in here last night. Rowdyism will get you nowhere. Why don’t you go somewhere quietly and consult your history books if you have no consciences to consult?’ I hated them, though I knew they half-sided with me.
 
‘Consult our history books!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘He’ll tell us to cultivate our gardens next!’
 
Angrily I pushed through them, making my way towards my rooms. That last remark echoed through my head; obvi ously many of them could not differentiate between my con victions and those of, say, Haines-Roberts. In the final judgement, he and I would be lumped together as men who sat by and let it happen—or, even worse, would be cheered as men who had not interfered.
 
With distaste I surveyed the comfortable room with Adam fire-place and white panelling that I had chosen in preference to an office in Whitehall, asking myself as I took in—through what a scornfully fresh vision!—the untidy book-cases and neat cocktail cabinet, if there was still time left to do some thing effective. How terribly often in the past must Englishmen have asked themselves that!
 
Momentarily I surveyed myself in the looking-glass. Grey-haired, long in the nose, clear of eye, neat in appearance. Not a don. More a retired soldier. Certainly—oh yes, my God, that certainly—a gentleman! A product of Harrow and Balliol and a Wiltshire estate. With the international situation what it was, it sounded more like a heresy than a heritage. Nothing is more vile (or more eloquent of guilt) than to hate everything one has been: to see that you have contaminated the things that have contaminated you.
 
Taking a deep breath, I began to phone my wife at home. When her voice came over the line, I closed my eyes.
 
‘Jean, I can’t bear inaction any longer. I’m going up to London to try and get through to Tertis.’
 
‘Darling, we went over all this last night. You can’t help by going to see Tertis—no, don’t tell me you can’t help by not going either. But it becomes more and more obvious each hour that public opinion here is with Minnie, and that your view point. ...’
 
By ceasing to listen to her meaning, I could concentrate on her voice. Her ‘all’ was pronounced ‘arl’, her ‘either’ was an ‘eether’; her tone had a soft firmness totally unlike the harsh ness of so many Englishwomen!—no, comparisons were worthless. It was stupid to think in categories. She was Jean Challington, my beloved wife. When I had first met her in New York, one fine September day in 1942, she had been Jean Gersheim, daughter of a magazine publisher. At twenty-six, I was then playing my first useful role in affairs on the British Merchant Shipping Mission. Jean was the most anglophile, as well as the most lovely, of creatures; I was the most americanophile and adoring of men. That hasty wartime wedding at least was a success; no better Anglo-American agreement ever existed than our marriage.
 
This was the woman on whose breast I had wept the night before last, wept long and hard after the bleak TV announce ment that in the interests of future world unity the British Government had declared its neutrality in the American-Chinese war. Last night I had wept again, when the U.S.S.R. had come in on the side of the People’s Republic and Sir Alfred Menhennick himself had smiled to viewers under his straggling moustache and reaffirmed our neutrality.
 
Now, with the phone in my hand and Jean’s voice in my ear, I could not but recall Menhennick’s hatefully assured delivery as he said, ‘Let us in this darkest period of civilized history be the nation that stands firm and keeps its lamps alight. It is a difficult—perhaps you will agree that it is the most difficult—role that I and my government have elected to play. But we must never forget that throughout the quarter century of the Cold War, Great Britain’s path has been the exacting and unrewarding one of intermediary.
 
‘We must remember, too, that the United States, in facing Communist China, faces an enemy of its own creating. One of the most fatal failures of this century was the failure of the U.S. to participate in world affairs during the twenties and thirties, when Britain and France strove almost single-handedly to preserve the peace. Despite constant warnings, the U.S. at that time allowed their enemy Japan to grow strong on the spoils of an invaded China. As a consequence, the broken Chinese peoples had to restore their position as a world power by what means they could. It is not for us to condemn if in desperation they turned to Communism. That their experi ment, their desperate experiment, worked must be its justifica tion. At this fateful hour, it behoves us to think with every sympathy of the Chinese, embroiled yet again in another terrible conflict. . . .’
 
The hypocrisy! The sheer bloody wicked hypocrisy, the lies, the distortions, the twists of logic, the contortions of history! My God, I could shoot Menhennick!
 
‘Darling, I hadn’t mentioned Menhennick,’ Jean protested.
 
‘Did I say that aloud?’ I asked the phone.
 
‘You weren’t listening to a word I said.’
 
‘I’ll bet you were telling me to pack a clean shirt!’
 
‘Nothing of the sort. I was saying that here in Lincoln there are some demonstrations in progress.’
 
‘Tell me about them.’
 
‘If you’ll listen, honey. The best-organized procession carries a large banner saying “Boot the traitors out of Whitehall”.’
 
‘Good for them.’
 
‘My, yes, good for them! The odd thing is, those boys look like exactly the same crowd we used to see marching from Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square shouting, “Ban the Bomb”,’
 
‘Probably they are. If you think with your emotions, slight glandular changes are sufficient to revise your entire outlook. In the Aldermaston days, they were afraid of being involved in war; now that Russia has come in on China’s side, they’re afraid that the U.S. will be defeated, leaving us to be picked off by Big Brother afterwards. Which is precisely what will happen unless we do something positive now. What else goes on in Lincoln?’
 
Jean’s voice became more cautious. ‘Some anti-Americanism. The usual rabble with ill-printed posters saying, “Yanks, Go Home” and “Britain for the British”. One of them spells Britain “B-R-I-T-I-A-N”. So much for the ten thousand mil lion pounds spent on education last year. ... It feels funny, Simon—to be an alien in what I thought was my own country.’
 
‘It’s not my country either till this is all put right. You know that, Jean. There’s never been such a time of moral humilia tion. I wish I’d been born anything but British.’
 
‘Don’t be silly, Simon.’
 
Foreseeing an argument, I changed the line of discussion.
 
‘You’ve got Michael and Sheila and Adrian there with you?’
 
‘Oh yes, and Mrs. B. And a platoon or so of sheepish English soldiers drilling opposite the Post Office.’
 
‘Fine. You won’t be lonely. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
 
‘Meaning just when?’
 
‘Soonest possible, love. ‘Bye. Be good.’
 
I put the phone down. I looked distractedly round the room. I put pipe and tobacco into one jacket pocket, opened a drawer, selected three clean handkerchiefs, and put them into the other pocket. I wondered if I would ever see the room— or Jean—again, and strove at the same time not to dismiss such speculations as simply dramatic.
 
London, I knew, could turn into a real trouble centre at any hour. Early news bulletins had spoken of rioting and arrests here and there, but these were mere five-finger exercises for what was to come.
 
Until now, the sheer momentousness of world events had deadened reactions. After a month of mounting tension, war between the U.S. and China broke out. Then came Menhennick’s unexpected tearing up of treaties and declaration of neutrality. Initially, his action came as a relief as well as a surprise; the great bulk of the electorate saw no further than the fact that an Armageddon of nuclear war had been avoided. The U.S.S.R.’s entry into hostilities was more a shock than a surprise, again postponing real thinking.
 
Now-—as I foresaw the situation—a growing mass of people would come to see that if they were to have any hope for a tolerable future, it would be fulfilled only by throwing in our lot heart and soul with our allies, the Americans. We had behaved like vermin, deserting in an hour of need. Even Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich in 1938 to pro claim ‘Peace in our time’ had not brought the country into such disgrace as Minnie with his ‘nation that keeps the lamps alight’.
 
Soon the English would realize that; and I wanted to be there when trouble broke.
 
As I was heading for the door, David Woolf entered, quickly and without knocking. David was University Lecturer in Nuclear Physics, with a good but troubled record from Har well. Three years back, he had run for Parliament, but an ill-timed tariff campaign had spoilt his chances. Though his politics were opposed to mine, his astute and often pungent thinking was undeniably attractive. Tall and very thin, with a crop of unbrushed hair, he was still in his thirties and looked what he undoubtedly was: the sort of man who managed always to be unhappy and spread unhappiness. Despite this— despite our radically different upbringings—his father had been a sagger-magger’s bottomer in a Staffordshire pottery—David and I saw much of each other.
 
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘I can’t stop, David.’
 
‘You’re in trouble,’ he said, clicking his fingers.
 
I had not seen him since the Chinese declaration of war forty-eight hours before. His face was drawn, his shirt dirty. If he had slept, clearly it had been in his clothes.
 
‘What sort of trouble?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t we all in trouble?’
 
‘The Dean has you marked down as a dangerous man, and at times like this the Dean’s kind can cause a hell of a lot of grief.’
 
‘I know that.’
 
Dean Burroughs was a cousin of Peter Dawkinson, the re actionary editor of the Arbiter, the newspaper as firmly en trenched behind out-dated attitudes as The Times had ever been at its worst period—and as powerful. Burroughs and I had been in opposition even before my first day at East Lin coln, back when I edited Garbitt’s short-living independent Zonal.
 
‘What you don’t know is that the Dean has started vetting your phone calls,’ David said. ‘I was by the exchange just now. You made an outgoing call; Mrs. Ferguson had it plugged through to old Putters, the Dean’s fair-haired boy.’
 
‘It was a private call to my wife,’ I said furiously.
 
‘Are you leaving or something? Don’t mind my asking.’
 
‘Yes, I’m leaving, though by God what you tell me makes me want to go and sort things out with Burroughs first. No, that luxury must wait; time’s short. I must leave at once.’
 
‘Then I warn you, Simon, that they may try to stop you.’
 
‘Thanks for telling me.’
 
He hesitated, knowing I wanted him to move away from the door. For a moment we stood confronting each other. Then he spoke.
 
‘Simon—I want to come with you.’
 
That did surprise me. The news about the phone did not; in the present tense atmosphere, it merely seemed in character, a small sample of a vast untrustworthiness. I accepted David’s words as truth; David, though isolated from the rest of the teaching body by his political and sexual beliefs, had a way of knowing whatever was happening in the college before anyone else.
 
‘Look, David, you don’t know what I am doing.’
 
‘Let me guess, then. You are going to drive to London. You have influential friends there. You are going to get in contact with someone like Lord Boulton or Tertis, and you are going to throw in your lot with the group trying to overthrow the government.’
 
This was so good a guess that he read his answer in my face. I said, with some bitterness, ‘Your politics are no secret to me. For years you have preached that we should disarm, that we should cease to behave like a first-rate power, with all the assumptions of a first-rate power, when we are really a second-rate power——’
 
He seized my arm, only to release it at once. Behind his spectacles, his eyes brimmed with anger.
 
‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Simon! We are a second-rate power, but now the moment of truth is upon us, isn’t it? The bastards who misgovern us would not climb off their silly perches when they had a chance, when we were warning them. Now, now, they just must honour agreements. You know I’ve no time for America, but by God we owe it to them to stick by them: we owe it to ourselves! We mustn’t behave like a fifth-rate power: that at least we’re not.’
 
‘So we’ve both arrived on the same side?’
 
From his pocket he produced a revolver.
 
‘You could have worse allies than me, Simon, I don’t go to Bisley every year for nothing. I’m prepared to use this when needed.’
 
‘Put it away!’
 
Savagely he laughed.
 
‘You’re a gentleman, Simon! That’s your trouble. It’s the only really vital difference between us. You don’t enjoy force! You’re as like Minnie as makes no difference! In the ultimate analysis, his faults are yours—and it’s a class fault.’
 
I grabbed his jacket, clenching a fist in his face and choking with rage.
 
‘You dare say that! Even you’ve not opposed Minnie as bitterly as I. I hate all he stands for, hate it.’
 
‘No you don’t. You both belong to the same league of gentlemen—Balliol and all that. If it wasn’t that your wife happened to be American, you’d feel as Minnie does. It’s you blasted gentlemen putting the social order before the country that have got us into this bloody disgraceful muddle. . . .’ With an effort, he broke off and pushed my hand roughly away, saying, ‘And I’m in danger of doing the same thing myself. Sir Simon, my apologies. Our country has disgraced us before the world. Please let me come to London with you. I’m prepared to do anything to boot out the Nationalist party. That’s what I came here to say.’
 
He put out his hand; I shook it.
 
* * * *
 
We were round at the car port getting my Wolseley out when Spinks, the head porter, came thudding up at the double.
 
‘Excuse me, Sir Simon, but the Dean wants you very urgently, sir. Matter of importance, sir.’
 
‘All right, Spinks. I’ll just drive the car round to the front of Manor and go in that way. He’s in his rooms, I take it?’
 
His round heavy face was troubled.
 
‘You will go straight in to him now, sir, won’t you? He did stress as it was urgent.’
 
‘Quite so, Spinks. Thank you for delivering the message.’
 
I drove round to the front of Manor, accelerated, and in next to no time we were speeding down the drive. David Woolf sat beside me, peering anxiously back at the huddle of buildings.
 
‘Relax,’ I said, knowing it would anger him. ‘Nobody’s going to shoot us.’
 
‘The war’s forty-eight hours old—I wonder how many people have been shot already?’
 
Not answering, I switched on the car radio as we struck the main road. I tried the three channels, General, Popular, and Motorway. On the first, a theatre organ played Roses of Picardy. On the second, a plummy woman’s voice said, ‘. . . when to my bitter disappointment I found that all the jars of strawberry jam had gone mouldy; however, this tragedy-----’ On the third, a disc jockey announced, ‘That was My Blue Heaven, and while we’re on the subject of colour, here is Reggy Palmer and his Regiment in a colourful arrange ment of another old favourite, Chinatown.’
 
‘I wonder they didn’t censor that one out for reasons of political expediency,’ David said sourly.
 
We stayed with the jocular jockey, hoping to catch a news bulletin, as I drove south. Avoiding Lincoln, we entered the newly opened M 13 at Hykeham and increased speed. Notic ing the number of Army vehicles heading south with us, David started to comment when the news came through.
 
‘This morning has been punctuated by disturbances and demonstrations in most of the larger towns throughout Britain. Some arrests have been made. In Norwich, a man was fined twenty pounds for defacing the Town Hall. The Sovereign’s visit to Glasgow has been postponed until a later date.’
 
‘Royalty!’ David grunted.
 
‘Tautology!’ I grunted.
 
‘The Soviet Ambassador to Britain said today that the Soviet peoples greatly sympathized with the wisdom shown by the British in remaining neutral. They themselves had been drawn into the conflict with the deepest reluctance, and then only because vital interests were at stake. M. Kasinferov went on to say that he was sure that guided by our example the rest of Europe would remain neutral, thus saving itself from what could only be complete annihilation.’
 
‘Bloody flatterers,’ David growled.
 
‘Concealed threats,’ I growled.
 
‘In the United States of America, our neutrality has been generally condemned, although as one Washington correspon dent points out, “Had Britain not torn up her treaties with us, she might well have been obliterated by now.” Discussions over the immediate evacuation of U.S. air, naval, and military bases in this country are taking place in Whitehall now. A government spokesman said they were proceeding in what he described as “a fairly cordial atmosphere”.’
 
‘How English can you get?’ David asked.
 
‘They’re probably tearing each other’s throats out,’ I said, instinctively pressing my foot down on the accelerator. I looked at my watch; an idea had occurred to me. From the dashboard, the gentlemanly voice continued in the same tones it had used in happier years to describe the Chelsea flower show.
 
‘Last night saw little aerial activity, though reliable U.S. sources report aerial reconnaissance from points as far apart as the Arctic Circle and Hawaii. Formosa is still under heavy bombardment from shore batteries. Units of the British Fleet stand ready to assume defensive action in Singapore harbour. The fighting between Chinese Airborne forces and units of the Indonesian army in Northern Central Sumatra and near Jakarta in Java still continues. Peking yesterday reported the evacuation of Medan in Sumatra, but Indonesian sources later denied this, while admitting that the city was “almost un inhabitable” by now. The landing of U.S. troops near Palembang continues. So far only conventional weapons are being used on all fronts.’
 
‘So far . . . so far,’ David said. ‘They’re only limbering up yet.’
 
That was where all the trouble had begun, in Sumatra, little more than a month ago. Peking had protested that the large population of overseas Chinese were being victimized. Jakarta had denied it. A bunch of bandits shot a prominent Indo nesian citizen in the Kesawan, Medan. President Molkasto protested. Tempers flared. Fighting broke out. The U.N. were called in. The U.S.S.R. protested against this unwarranted in terference in national affairs. A plane full of U.S. experts was shot down near Bali, possibly by accident. The slanging started. Three weeks later, the People’s Republic declared ‘a crusade of succour’: war.
 
‘David, we’re going to London via Oxford,’ I said.
 
He looked curiously at me.
 
‘What the hell for? It’s a long way round. I thought you were in a hurry?’
 
‘The motorway will take us as far as Bicester. The delay won’t be too great. As you know, I’m a Fellow of Saints; I want to call in there and have a word with. Norman, if possible.’
 
His reaction was predictable. Among the less informed on his side of the political arena, Saints had an undeserved repu tation for being a sort of shadow Establishment from which the country was governed. This legend had been fostered by the fact that Saints, as a compromise between Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies and Oxford’s own All Souls, naturally contained the influential among its members.
 
‘Who is Norman?’ David inquired. ‘Do you mean Norman Parmettio, the Contemporary Warfare chap?’
 
‘If you like to put it like that, yes, “the Contemporary Welfare chap”. He’s in his eighties now, but still active, a sage and lovable man. He drafted the Cultural Agreement of ‘66 with Russia, you know. He’s seen academic and public service, including working as an aide to old Sir Winston at Yalta in the forties.’
 
‘Too old! What do you want to see him for?’
 
‘He’s an absolutely trustworthy man, David. You forget how out of touch I am. We can’t just drive into London know ing absolutely nothing of what is going on behind the scenes. Norman will put us in the picture as to what’s happening in the Foreign Office and to who’s changed sides in the last forty-eight hours.’
 
‘Touché. Carry on. You know I only came for the ride—but for God’s sake let something happen. My stomach’s turning over all the time; I have a presentiment of evil. I’m sick!’
 
‘So’s the whole confounded country.’
 
We felt sicker before we reached Bicester. Another news bulletin gave us more details of local events. International news, as I had suspected, was being heavily censored; there was no mention of what was happening in Europe, or of what the Commonwealth was saying or doing.
 
Several members of the government had resigned—the pre dictable ones like Hand, Chapman, and Desmond Cooney, with a few unexpecteds such as poor old Vinton and Sep Greene, Martial law had been proclaimed in Liverpool and Glasgow. In the interests of public safety, a curfew would operate tonight and until further notice in the following cities: London, etc. . . . Airline services between Britain and the U.S. and Britain and the U.S.S.R. were temporarily suspended. The L.C.C. were all out at Lords for 114.
 
At Fogmere Park we ran into trouble. There was a big U.S.A.F. base at Fogmere. You could see the planes and run ways from the road at one point. A knot of people perhaps a hundred strong—a fair number for such a country spot—filled the road. Several cars were parked on the verges, some with men standing on top of them. Banners waved, many of them bearing the usual disarmament symbol. One florid individual was haranguing the crowd through a megaphone.
 
‘This’ll take your mind off your stomach,’ I told David, rolling forward at 20 m.p.h. and sounding my horn. I glanced sideways at him. He sat rigid with his fists clenched in his lap—presumably nursing his presentiment of evil.
 
The crowd that had been facing the other way turned to look at us, parting instinctively to clear the road. The fellow with the megaphone, a big man with a red face and black moustache, dressed in a loud tweedy suit—how often one saw his type about the country!—bore down on us and tried to open my door.
 
‘It’s locked, old fellow,’ I said, rolling down my window. ‘Looking for a lift to somewhere?’
 
He got his big fingers over the top of the window and poked the moustache in for me to inspect. His eyes went hotly from me to David and back to me.
 
‘Where do you two think you are going?’ he asked.
 
‘Straight down this road. Kindly get your face out of the way. You are being obstructive.’
 
He was running to keep up with us. I could hear the crowd shouting without being able to grasp what they were saying.
 
‘Don’t annoy him,’ David said anxiously.
 
‘I want to talk to you,’ the heavy man said. ‘Slow down, will you. Where are you going? What’s the ruddy hurry?’
 
His head was outside the car door. The window closed electrically, catching his fingers. He roared in anger, dropping the megaphone to clasp his bruised knuckles. As we surged forward, it became apparent why the crowd had gathered. Beyond them had been established a check-point with a black-and-white bar across the road and the legend: ‘UNITED STATES AIR COMMANDO, HALT.’ Behind sandbags were armed men and a couple of hefty tanks, besides several light vehicles, including a British Army Signals truck. It all appeared very efficient in the colourless sunshine.
 
As I halted at the barrier, two Americans in uniform stepped forward, a corporal and a sergeant, one on either side of the Wolseley. Again my window came down. The sergeant looked round and amiable. I thrust my face out before he could get his in.
 
‘What’s happening here, Sergeant?’
 
‘U.S. Air Commando check-point. Just a formality to check for weapons. We have to stop all vehicles.’ This in an East Coast accent: Maine, I guessed.
 
‘Have to? Whose orders?’
 
‘Look, my orders, sir. It’s only a formality. We don’t want trouble.’
 
‘It’s we English, unfortunately, who don’t want trouble, Sergeant, but I’m curious to know by whose authority you have closed a main British road.’
 
The crowd behind, divided in loyalty as in understanding, called ‘Lock ‘em up!’ and ‘Let ‘em go!’ indiscriminately.
 
The corporal on David’s side of the car, a yellow-complexioned fellow I had already marked as a trouble-maker, since his type was prevalent in the British Army, said, ‘You Limey copsuckers, you’d always argue rather than act.’
 
‘Simon, don’t be difficult; tell him what he wants to know and let’s get on,’ David implored. Turning to the corporal, he added, ‘Don’t make any mistake, we’re really on your side.’
 
‘Oh no you ain’t, Mac. You’re just a neutral. You ain’t on anyone’s side.’
 
‘A very apposite answer, if I may say so,’ I replied. ‘I still wish to know by whose orders you have erected this barrier across the highway.’
 
‘Let’s not argue, mister. Let’s just say it’s necessary, or I wouldn’t be here wasting my time,’ said the sergeant patiently. A British Army officer, a dapper captain, was coming from behind the barrier towards us. I beckoned to him and repeated my question.
 
Instinctively he summed me up, just as I summed him up the moment he spoke. Under his Sandhurst veneer I recognized the Birmingham middle-class accent, just as I saw he had identified my Balliol honk, accentuated for the occasion The moment would be lost on our American sergeant, a breed without many subtleties.
 
‘There’s been a spot of trouble, sir,’ the captain said, very politely. ‘A small private van passed along the road a couple of hours ago and machine-gunned the American planes over on the runway. So we are just taking precautions to see that such a breach of neutrality doesn’t happen again.’
 
‘Captain, I am a friend of Lord Waters, the Lord Lieutenant of the county. Who has sanctioned this road block?’
 
‘We naturally have official permission, sir, which I could show you.’
 
‘Get ‘em moving, Captain, before we all die of boredom,’ urged the sergeant. Two other cars had arrived behind us and were hooting.
 
‘Do you mind me asking, sir, have you any weapons in the car?’
 
‘No, Captain. No bombs, no machine-guns.’
 
‘Splendid. Carry on to the next check-point, sir, and try to keep moving all the time.’
 
‘I will try,’ I assured him earnestly, and we rolled under the barrier arm as it lifted. A mile down the road was the other point, stopping vehicles coming from Oxford; it let us through without comment.
 
‘Rather a comic incident that, eh?’ I said.
 
David’s face was wooden.
 
‘Your sort loves to make trouble and humiliate people, doesn’t it?’ he said.
 
‘Not at all. You can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry blocking the roads, or where would we be? I just asked a question I was perfectly entitled to ask.’
 
‘It comes to the same thing in the end.’
 
‘It’s people like you who fail to ask pertinent questions that get misled. Your party, for instance.’
 
‘You dare mention parties after the tragic mistakes yours has made this last week?’ He was furious. Debate always made his temper rise.
 
Quietly I said, ‘You know I know my party has behaved in defensibly, David—quite indefensibly. But your party’s unreal dreams of collective security without armament, of nuclear disarmament in a nuclear age, have hampered the country’s striking power so effectively that our shame must also be yours. When you were the ones who pulled our teeth, how could you expect us to bite? What curb could we offer the Red powers? At least these traitors like Minnie and Northleech can plead they had no alternative but to act badly.’
 
‘Christ, you wriggle on the hook as deftly as they do! What about the torn-up treaties? What about the promises? What about the Anglo-American alliance? All hot air, I suppose?’
 
‘Here’s Oxford,’ I said, as we came on to the top of the Banbury Road.
 
We were stopped again, this time by an exotic crowd of R.A.F. Regiment, Army, Civil Defence, and police, with a couple of A. A. men for luck. Plus a cheerful bunch of civilians doing good business with an ice-cream man.
 
‘Sorry, sir, can’t go through Oxford unless you’ve got a good reason for it.’ This was a well-scrubbed corporal with a tommy-gun over his shoulder, ambling up to the car.
 
‘Such as? I am a fellow of Saints and am on my way there now.’
 
‘Better make it next week instead, sir. There’s been a bit of trouble in the town. A fire or two and some hooliganism. We’re trying to keep the city centre clear. Try the by-pass, sir, if you were thinking of going through. Keep moving and you won’t get into no trouble.’
 
He wasn’t going to be budged.
 
“There’s a phone box over there,’ David pointed. ‘Try phon ing Norman.’
 
‘Good idea. Thanks, Corporal.’
 
‘Thank you, sir. Nice day, anyhow, isn’t it?’
 
‘Yes, lovely. Except for the L.C.C., eh?’
 
‘What, sir? Oh yes, quite, sir. They didn’t put up much of a show, did they?’
 
We left him beaming as I drove over to the side of the road. David laughed with an angry face.
 
‘You love playing the decent chap and you love playing the cad, Simon. Which are you really?’
 
The common man, David, l’homme moyen sensuel. In other words, a bit of both. Buy yourself an ice-cream while I’m phoning.’
 
I got through to Saints straight away and recognized the head porter’s voice at once, strained as it was through thickets of phlegm. Legend has it they built the college round him.
 
‘That you, Dibbs? Challington here. Would you put me through to Professor Norman Parmettio.’
 
‘Heilo, sir, nice to hear your voice. We haven’t seen you here for months. You used to be so frequent’
 
‘Pressure of work, I fear. Is the professor there?’
 
‘Well, we had a bit of trouble last night, sir.’
 
‘Trouble? What sort of trouble?’
 
‘Well, sir, we had to have the fire brigade round, sir. Some young hooligans threw petrol bombs over the east wall, sir. Terrible it was, sir. Fortunately I was all right in here. I phoned the police and the fire brigade and anyone I could think of. Proper scaring it was. I’ve never seen nothing like it.’
 
‘Indeed. Anyone killed?’
 
‘Not to speak of, sir. But the east wing’s a ruin. Your old room gone, sir, and part of the chapel. By a miracle of good fortune my lodge was preserved, but-----’
 
‘It seems impossible such things could happen in Oxford, Dibbs. The time is out of joint. Where’s Professor Parmettio?’
 
‘Those are my feelings exactly, sir. There you have it. Terrible, it was. As for the professor, bless his soul, he com mitted suicide the day before yesterday an hour or so after the Prime Minister spoke about us British being neutral and keeping the lamps alight. At least he missed the fire and all the fuss-----’
 
‘Parmettio dead? Do you say he’s dead?’
 
‘No, he committed suicide, sir, up in his bedroom. Left a note to say his country had dishonoured him and that he was taking the only possible course open to him. A fine old fellow he was, sir...’
 
* * * *
 
As I climbed back into the car, David dropped a newspaper he was scanning.
 
‘You’re pale as a ghost, Simon. What’s the matter?’
 
‘How’s your presentiment of evil, David? Norman’s dead. Committed suicide—couldn’t bear the dishonour. Poor dear old Norman! The porter told me and put me on to the warden.’
 
‘On to Starling? He’s a true blue government man. What did he have to say?’
 
‘He’s not so true blue as we thought; frankly I feel sorry for him. He sounded like a sick man over the phone. He told me that several of the clearer-thinking younger Fellows, Thorn-Davis, Shell, Geoffrey Alderton, and one or two more, tried to charter a private plane to fly to America. Foolish, I suppose, but quite understandable. They were apparently arrested at the aerodrome and haven’t been heard of since. Starling went round and saw the local superintendent of police in person but couldn’t get a word out of the man. He was almost weeping as he told me. And then-----’
 
‘Then?’
 
‘Starling was cut off.’
 
We sat in silence.
 
At last David said, ‘I’m sorry if I sounded stupid before. It’s all a bit nastier than we thought.’
 
‘No nastier than we had a right to expect. We’d better get to London while we still have the chance.’
 
‘You think all potential trouble-makers are being arrested?’
 
‘What else? And I’d hazard that by now you and I are on the list. Got that gun of yours ready?’
 
He had bought a local paper from a vendor while I was phoning. As we drove off I caught sight of its headlines: RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SATELLITE IN ORBIT: Ultimate Weapon, Moscow Claims: For Emergency Only.
 
At one point, David leant over and switched the radio on, but they were playing Roses of Picardy again.
 
* * * *
 
We drove into and through the outskirts of London without being stopped. By noon we were crawling through Hammer smith, moving in fits and starts through dense traffic.
 
‘How about stopping for a drink and some sandwiches?’ David asked. ‘We don’t really know when we’ll eat again, do we?’
 
‘Good idea. There’s a pub over there that looks likely.’
 
London was far from normal. In the centre of town we would see processions and meetings. Here were only people in small groups, hanging about or strolling. Some of the smaller shops were closed. Never had I seen such a large percentage of the population with their eyes buried in newspapers, not even at the time of the Suez crisis, back in ‘56—when the Americans had failed to support us, came the treacherous thought to my brain. Momentarily irritated with myself, I ushered David into the pub.
 
As I ordered drinks, I saw him cast his eye over the men present. One of them next to him, a man in voluble conversa tion with his mate, mistaking the intent of David’s look, leant towards him and said, ‘You agree, don’t you, mate?’
 
I could not be sure what David replied in the general hub bub, but I heard the other fellow say, ‘Why should we go to war for a lot of black men in Sumatra? I’d never even heard of Sumatra till last week! I reckon the government did right. Old Minnie has my vote every time. Let the blighters fight their own battles.’
 
At last I got served. Carrying a tray with a Guinness and a pale ale and expensive chicken sandwiches over to David’s table, I was in time to hear David say, ‘I can’t see that neu trality is a way of saving our skins.’
 
The two men, who worked, or so I surmised, at the big cake factory nearby, were on him with glee.
 
‘You mean you think it would be safer to have declared war on the Chinks and Ruskies?’
 
‘I mean that once global war breaks out, safety axiomatically disappears.’
 
‘Never mind axiomatically, mate! As long as we aren’t in it, it’s not global, is it? ‘Ere, Bill, there’s a bloke here thinks we ought to be fighting for the bloody Yanks!’ They motioned to a couple of their mates, and soon there was a ring of them round our table. David’s nervousness increased.
 
‘If they wants a war, let them have it, I say,’ Bill opined. His cheeks were heavy with woe and drink-fat. ‘It’s none of our business.’
 
‘But that’s precisely what it is, Bill,’ I said. ‘You’ve heard of N.A.T.O., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I expect?’
 
Howls of derision greeted this. The first speaker—Harry, I believe he was—leant over our table and said, ‘Are you honestly going to sit there and tell me that you want to see this country blown to bits just because the Americans have come a cropper in Sumatra?’
 
‘That’s not a proper question. But if you are trying to ask me whether I support the democratic way of life, then I must answer yes------’
 
‘Democracy! Wrap up!’
 
‘—because I believe, like many another Englishman, that it is better to die fighting than die under Communist bombs or whips.’
 
‘That’s all bloody propaganda!’
 
‘Who’s he think he is?’
 
‘Go and join the Army!’
 
‘You’re a right one,’ Bill said to me. ‘What have the Yanks done for you to make you so fond of them?’
 
‘You ought to ask yourself that,’ David said angrily. ‘You’re old enough to remember the last war—yes, and the war before that! How do you think we’d have managed without American aid then?’
 
‘Okay then,’ Bill said in gloomy triumph. ‘Then we’ll hang on for three years, and then we’ll come in to help them, the way they did with us before!’
 
This sally drew a howl of laughter, and they turned away from us, losing interest and going back to a game of shove-ha’penny.
 
‘Bill certainly averted a nasty moment,’ David said with rancour. He drank deeply into his Guinness. ‘Thank God for this poisonous British ability to laugh at themselves.’
 
‘And at others.’
 
We drank up, ate our sandwiches, and rose to go.
 
‘See you on the Russian steppes—scrubbing them!’ Harry called. Their laughter followed us into the sunshine.
 
* * * *
 
We drove down the Mall and so to the Foreign Office, where I hoped to see Tertis. We had passed the marchers and the speakers, the ragged and the angry; but the prevalent mood was distastefully light-hearted. Although many of the shops had closed, cafés and pubs were open, and people were treat ing the whole thing as a grand unplanned holiday, lying in the parks caressing each other or buying each other ice-cream.
 
All this angered David much more than it did me; he had always been the one with faith in the masses.
 
I thought of the cities I knew thousands of miles away, their grandeurs and their shortcomings: Washington, New York, San Francisco (my favourite American city), Chicago, Kansas City, and others I had never had the opportunity to visit. Yes, and I thought of Moscow and Leningrad, Baku and Tiflis, each of which I had visited on trade missions in the fifties; and of the teeming cities of the Orient, Canton, Shanghai, Peking with its factories and Ming tombs, Amoy, all cities I had not visited and now never would visit.
 
What was happening to them now? Were they being crushed to the ground, even while London lazed in the sun? I looked up to the sky, half expecting to see—I knew not what.
 
‘Not yet,’ David said grimly, interpreting my look. ‘But it will come.’
 
We parked the car with difficulty and made our way to the F.O.
 
On the drive down from Oxford, after hearing of Norman Parmettio’s death, my mind had become clear. If it were possible to help overthrow Minnie’s government, I would help. If I were needed to take part in a new government, in whatsoever capacity, again I would help. Throughout the fifties and the early sixties, when the Cold War had shown signs of thawing (largely because of the then Russian leader Khrushchev’s love-hate affair with the West) I had remained convinced that Communism was a declared enemy. Nothing I had written or spoken publicly had wavered from that belief. My record was clean. There were not so very many like me left in Britain. If I were needed, I would serve.
 
Although I did not know if Tertis was accessible, he was my best line of approach. I had worked with him often; we knew and trusted each other. If he were not available, I would try elsewhere, probably with the Athenaeum as first call.
 
At the doors of the F.O., David and I were stopped. We had to give our names, after which I was allowed to write a note for a messenger to take up to Tertis. The messenger was gone for a long while; only when fifteen minutes had elapsed did he return and request us to follow him.
 
Leo Tertis was assistant head of the Military Relations Department formed in the sixties and lately of growing im portance. We walked down a corridor I remembered well, with messengers lounging in doorways and chandeliers hanging overhead. Nobody knocks on doors in the F.O., the assump tion, I suppose, being that anyone admitted to the building in the first place will be birds of a feather. When our messenger indicated the second room of the Department, I walked straight in.
 
Tertis was there, five years my junior and at fifty a curiously youthful figure with plump pale cheeks, almost white hair and dark eyebrows. He looked, not unexpectedly, exceedingly grave and very tired. A vacuum flask of coffee stood on his desk; though the window was open, a smell of stale cigarette-smoke pervaded the room.
 
He had been sitting talking to a short plump man. As David and I entered, he broke off, rose, and came round the desk to shake my hand. I introduced David; Tertis eyed him appraisingly.
 
‘David Woolf; I remember the name. You stood for Fleet wood in the by-election, didn’t you?’ he asked.
 
‘I did.’
 
‘Then you’re a unilateralist. What are you doing here with Sir Simon?’
 
Give David his due, he hardly hesitated before replying, ‘I’ve seen the error of my ways.’
 
‘You’re too late, my boy,’ Tertis said grimly, turning away to add, ‘I won’t pretend I’m particularly glad to meet either of you just now, but while you’re here you’d better be introduced to the Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr. Edgar Northleech.’
 
I had already recognized the plump man as Northleech. For me he represented one of the country’s worst enemies, a crony of Menhennick’s, and one of the prime movers for in creased appeasement towards the U.S.S.R. since the retirement of Macmillan had allowed his sort to get into power. North leech moved heavily towards us now, his white hair flowing round his head, paunch well out, beaming through his spec tacles as he extended his hand. David took it; I did not.
 
Moving round to Tertis, I said, ‘We don’t have to tell each other where we stand. What can I do to help, Leo?’
 
‘I’ll give you the true picture in a moment; it’s bad. Friend Northleech, like your friend Woolf here, is busy changing sides. These are men of straw, Simon, blowing with the wind. I would rather ditch them than use them.’
 
Northleech came into the conversation saying, in the ramb ling manner he maintained even when angry, ‘The ability to change should not be despised. I can help you, Tertis. I can get you to Menhennick; he’s ready to discuss anything; pressure of events makes him feel he may have been misled.’
 
‘Misled!’ David exclaimed. ‘We don’t want to talk to you and Minnie. We want to shoot you. Don’t you realize that revolution or civil war are brewing up and down the country? Misled, be damned!’
 
‘Enough of that talk, Mr. Woolf,’ said Northleech. ‘We have the situation in hand, you know. Anybody can be misled.’
 
‘It’s the duty of men in office not to be misled. You’ve failed in your duty—abysmally. The Communist bloc’s intentions have been clear since the forties.’
 
Red in the face, Northleech pointed a fat and shaking finger at David and said, ‘That comes well from a unilateralist and a homosexual!’
 
‘Leave personalities out of this! At least I and my party acted from our convictions. We advocated national disarma ment as a first step towards general international disarma ment. We advocated neutrality because as a neutral power Britain could weld other neutrals into a powerful enough group to break the deadly status quo of Big Two power ideologies that have frozen the world since the close of World War II. But your people, Northleech—yes, and I include you in this, Simon, and you, Mr. Tertis—what were you up to all the time?’
 
Tertis banged furiously on his desk.
 
‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘If you wish to remain in here, hold your tongue.’
 
But David went straight on, levelling one finger like a fire arm at the three of us.
 
‘Your sort had no real thought for world peace, or even for the country. You were after preserving the social structure to which you belonged, just as Halifax, Baldwin, Chamberlain, and the other hangers-on did in the thirties. You’re the damned middle-class powermongers with no knowledge of Russian or Chinese language and culture, or of what goes on in their dan gerous skulls. It’s your unspoken assumptions that have ruined Britain, not Communism or Socialism or all the other isms put together—your assumption that the best thing that can happen to anyone is that he can become a conformist and a gentleman, your assumption that your own narrow way of life is the only fit way of life. What happened to the workers? Once they got an education—your type of education, with a smattering of Shakespeare and a veneer of B.B.C. accent— then they too were hell-bent on becoming gentlemen, poor carbon copy gentlemen.’
 
‘Paranoia!’ I exclaimed.
 
‘Why?’ he demanded explosively, turning on me. ‘Because I don’t subscribe to your conventions? Don’t worry, you had nearly everyone else subscribing. You fools, you’ve ended by deluding yourselves. That’s why we’re all on the brink of disaster: you said to yourselves, “Oh, the Chinese leaders are gentlemen. Treat them like gentlemen and they’ll behave like gentlemen!” Look where it’s got you.’
 
‘You’re a very foolish young man,’ Northleech said. ‘There is no historical basis for your remarks. If we have in this country a rule by gentlemen, as you claim, then it is simply because the hoi-polloi have proved themselves unfit to rule. Besides, there is no conspiracy. Sir Simon and I went to the same public school, but we never had one opinion in common, then or since.’
 
‘Except the unspoken assumption that you were both of leader material!’
 
‘Bringing you to the F.O. has gone to your head, David,’ I said. ‘Your speech would have been more effective delivered to rabble in Trafalgar Square.’
 
‘It may be yet. I’d still like to know why Northleech should be here, rather than with Minnie, palling up to the Chinese.’
 
With a brow of thunder, Tertis said, ‘If you’d had the courtesy to keep quiet when you came in here, you would have heard why the Minister is here. It’s too late for your type of speechifying, Mr. Woolf, just as it’s too late for a lot else. Edgar, you’d better tell them why you came.’
 
Northleech cleared his throat, glanced anxiously at Tertis, removed his spectacles to polish them furiously as he said, ‘It is no longer possible to keep peace with the People’s Republic. Three hours ago—probably at about the time you were leav ing your university—the first nuclear weapon of World War III was detonated. A “clean” one-megaton bomb was dropped on Hong Kong. It fell at about six in the evening, local time, when the maximum number of people was about in the streets. We are as yet unable to obtain coherent accounts of the extent of the destruction.’
 
* * * *
 
In the silence that followed, Tertis’s internal phone rang. He picked it up, listened, said, ‘Bring him in.’
 
Looking up at us, he said wearily, ‘Our country is fatally split, gentlemen. That’s the curse of it: when we come to dis cuss any detail, the opinions on it are infinite, and one man’s vote is as good as another’s. Perhaps it’s the democratic system itself that has brought us to this humiliating position; I don’t know. But I must ask you now to put personal con siderations aside if you wish to remain here. We are about to be visited by General Schuller, Deputy Supreme Commander of N.A.T.O.’
 
This I scarcely heard. I was still overwhelmed by the news of the Hong Kong catastrophe and trying to assess its mean ing. As a result, I had one of the briefest and most significant exchanges that ever passed between two men.
 
I asked Northleech, ‘Then I suppose we are now actually at war with Communist China?’
 
Northleech said, ‘No. Their Ambassador has apologized. He claims the bomb was dropped by accident.’
 
There seemed to me no possible reply ever to this, but David asked, ‘And you believed him?’
 
‘It seemed politic to do so,’ Northleech said stonily.
 
‘Politic! My gods alive, there’s a term being used appositely for once!’ David broke into ragged laughter.
 
Hopelessness came up and overwhelmed me. The terrible betrayal all round was at last revealing itself, and not a man in the country was innocent. Faintly, I said to Tertis, ‘You were going to put us in the picture. What of the countries of the Commonwealth?’
 
A deep voice from the door said, ‘Canada declared war on the common enemy two hours after the U.S. did so. It was expedient for the defence of the North American continent. Australia entered the war as soon as Sydney got news of the Hong Kong disaster. Your government promptly tore up the S.E.A.T.O. agreement. Seems the one thing it is efficient at is the gagging of news.’
 
General Schuller did not introduce himself. He marched into the room and planted himself by Tertis. He was brusque and angry and had cut himself shaving with an old-fashioned razor that morning. His German-American accent was thick and nasal. Dark, handsome, very neat and be-medalled, he dominated the room with compressed fury.
 
‘Well, Tertis, here I am. Who are these men? We were to be alone, as I understood it.’
 
Tertis stood up, listing us without introducing us. I felt like an undergraduate again under that black stare. The General made no comment, save for a snort when Northleech’s identity was made known to him. Plainly he dismissed David and me from his calculations. David, with his sensitive nature, would not stand for this. Stepping forward, he produced his revolver and said, ‘I am an enemy of your enemies. I’m prepared to shoot any traitors, sir.’
 
Schuller never paused.
 
‘Shoot Northleech,’ he ordered.
 
As my body seemed to freeze, so the tableau did. Even Northleech only cringed without moving from where he stood. David Woolf remained absolutely immobile. Then he returned the gun to his pocket and spoke contemptuously, in perfect command of himself.
 
‘I kill from conviction, not to pass a personality quiz.’
 
Schuller grunted again, outwardly unmoved, but from that moment the first impact of his personality was weakened.
 
‘I won’t mince matters,’ he said, swinging his head so that he spoke directly to Tertis. ‘Britain has never added anything to the power of America. Rather, it’s been a liability, a weak partner to be helped along, mind without muscle. Get it?’
 
‘There to aid your muscle without mind,’ I interposed tartly, but he continued without condescending to notice the interrup tion,
 
‘We could have done without Britain as a partner once. But because she needed us, we’ve got bases and personnel and war material over here to defend our friends. Now at the eleventh hour—no, by Jesus, nearer half past midnight!—your Prime Minister announces that Britain is to be neutral. Egged on by Red threats and encouragement, he says America must with draw from these Isles. Right?
 
‘It so happens it is no longer strategy for us to withdraw. We cannot withdraw. We are not going to withdraw. What’s going to happen now, Tertis?’
 
Without hesitation, Tertis said, ‘As things are now, with the present government, we shall fight you to turn you out’
 
‘Get in the picture, man. You are fighting us. Norfolk’s a battleground right now. Outside Glasgow, the R.A.F. is bomb ing our installations.’
 
‘I don’t believe it!’ I said.
 
‘You’d bloody better believe it, Sir Simon, because it’s happening right enough.’
 
‘I believe it, General,’ Northleech said. ‘You presumably want to know what can be done to change the situation?’
 
‘No, I’m going to tell you what can be done.’
 
‘You need our help, General. Don’t interfere with our offering it to you. What are the alternatives as you see them?’
 
‘The alternatives are brutal. Either you get Minnie Menhennick and his boys out of the way and replace him by a reliable anti-Red government, or—or London is going to be destroyed and this island will become an American forward base. You’ve got till sundown to act. We can’t let you have any further time.’
 
Put the way he put it, it sounded all wrong. Without Ameri can interference, we would have set our house in order any way. Made to do it under threats, we would become in glorious traitors. After all, what future was there for Britain in a nuclear war? Suddenly before my eyes rose a picture of our cities all in ruins, women and children dying, even as they were dying now in Hong Kong . . . and it could happen within five minutes of our declaration of war. All the same, Schuller’s view was understandable, inevitable even. I just wished it could have been put by someone less obviously a gun man.
 
Dismissing that hopeless argument ad hominem, I asked Northleech, ‘Where is Minnie? Can you get us to him? Is he at Chequers, or No. 10, or where?’
 
‘He’s in London, in an underground H.Q. I could get us there in twenty minutes in my car, if you’re sure it’s the right thing...’
 
‘It’s too late to talk. We have to act,’ General Schuller said. ‘Yes, let’s for God’s sake go in your car. My Thunderbird might be a little kind of suspicious.’
 
‘I’m staying here,’ Tertis said. He was the least ruffled of any of us. ‘Though I’m under suspicion, I can be more use by keeping in touch at this end. My boss feels as I do, and there are plenty more in responsible positions who will back a change of government. You’re comparatively unknown, Simon, but they’d accept you for P.M. in the emergency. You go with the Minister.’
 
As the others moved towards the door, I shook Tertis by the hand and said, ‘I’ll do whatever I can.’
 
‘One word of warning,’ he said. ‘The country is now under martial law. Conscription for Civil Defence starts tomorrow, and you, Simon, have been officially declared an agitator—by the Dean of your college, so I hear. There’s a warrant out for your arrest, so mind how you go.’
 
‘It should improve my reputation if I stand for office,’ I said. ‘And David?’
 
Tertis nodded.
 
‘They want him too.’
 
I turned round just too late to see what happened then. David had evidently gone first into the corridor. Northleech was frozen in the threshold with General Schuller close be hind. Shouts came from along the corridor, shouts and the sound of running feet.
 
David pulled out that wretched revolver and fired twice, backing into the room as he did so. Someone screamed and the running stopped. Belatedly, one shot was fired in reply. It splintered through the door, which David had shut by then.
 
Gasping, he looked round at me and said, ‘They’re after us, Simon. Now what the hell do we do?’
 
‘Rubbish,’ Schuller growled. ‘They’re after me: who else? What is this, a trap or something? Northleech, Tertis, get that desk across the door before they rush us.’
 
He strode across the room as Tertis and Northleech went into action. He wrenched open the side door leading into the third room of Tertis’s department. This was the secretaries’ room. There were three of them, nice fresh young fellows all looking rather identical with identical suits and their hands raised above their heads. The General had brought two majors and a signalman with him, to wait for him in this outer office. The majors had already attended to the secretaries, while the signalman worked at his walkie-talkie, speaking into it in unhurried code.
 
‘Nice fast work, Fames and Able,’ General Schuller said, striding into the third room and adding to the secretaries, ‘Sorry about this, boys, but if I’m in a trap you’ll have to play hostage.’
 
‘They’re after Woolf and Sir Simon, General, not you,’ Tertis said, following Schuller. ‘Let me go out into the corridor and explain to them.’
 
‘You’ll stay where you are. I’m sorry not to trust you, Tertis, but right now the British aren’t my favourite nation. I’m taking no chances with anyone. Fames and Able, bring those three hostages into the other room. Get the desk in too and barricade the side door with it. Look slippy. Operator, get Green Devil One on the air.’
 
‘Right to hand, sir,’ the operator said, looking up and hand ing a scramblerphone to Schuller.
 
Both majors carried light machine-guns. The one addressed as Fames covered Tertis, David, Northleech, and me, while Able directed the three secretaries. The latter worked effi ciently, dragging in the desk, even smiling as they did so; for them this seemed just a break in F.O. routine. I wondered whether they were displaying British nonchalance or if they genuinely did not grasp the seriousness of the situation.
 
For myself, I expected a grenade to come through the door at any moment, until it occurred to me that the guards out side were holding their fire in case they injured the General. Everything happened in such rapid succession that it was difficult to think clearly. Although I did not know in what tone Dean Burroughs had reported my hurried exit from East Lin coln, it seemed likely that he would have exaggerated enough for the group in the corridor to regard me as a potential killer.
 
The General handed the scramblerphone back to his opera tor, informing the majors as he did so, ‘They’re going to have a whirlybird at this window in two minutes minus.’
 
Instinctively we all glanced over at Tertis’s long windows with the balcony looking out across Horseguards’ Parade.
 
Later it occurred to me that here was a moment for clear thought—the first since the General had entered the room. He filled it by striding from one desk to the other with his jaw forward, saying with heavy sarcasm, ‘And now, my friend Tertis, we’ll test out your theory that the guards outside aren’t gunning for me at all. Fames, throw this guy David Woolf out into the corridor.’
 
You understand there were ten of us in the room. The place was comparatively crowded. I saw David’s face shift as he ducked and moved. He looked rat-like: both frightened and frightening.
 
‘You can’t do this, Schuller. I’m on your side. Take me in the helicopter with you!’
 
He dodged behind Northleech, who whinnied with fright, and behind Schuller, pulling out his gun as he went. The crazy scheme no doubt was to hold Schuller at pistol-point until we were all safe in the copter. Doubtless David fell between self-preservation and patriotism and saw this idea as offering more hope than being pushed out into the corridor.
 
‘Hold still, General, I won’t harm—’ he began, his voice shrill. But Fames moved too. He sprang two paces across the room, dropped to one knee, and fired an automatic, one short and deafening burst.
 
The long window splintered and fell in. Northleech dropped next—through sheer panic reaction. For a second, dazed, I thought David had not been hit. Then dark blood gouted out of three holes in his shirt, spreading fast.
 
General Schuller swung round on him. David closed his eyes and fired one shot. Schuller blundered forward on to him. The two men fell together, breaking a chair as they went. Appalled, the two majors ran forward.
 
In moments of extreme crisis, a governing mechanism seems to take over from the rational centres of the brain. Without reflecting at all on what I was doing, I went to the outer door, pushed aside the desk that barricaded it, and threw it open.
 
Behind an open doorway opposite, armed men watched from cover. I saw their weapons come up. Down the corridor one way, another group had gathered, dark suits mingling with khaki.
 
‘General Schuller has been assassinated! Help!’ I called.
 
Framed in the doorway with smoke drifting past me, I must have looked a wild enough figure. But it was that pregnant cry ‘Assassination’, echoing down the corridors of the Foreign Office, that brought them all running. As they came, I turned and beckoned Northleech.
 
In the excitement, the two of us left unnoticed. My last glimpse into the room caught a sudden shadow falling over it. Schuller’s helicopter was arriving—on time, but too late. We ran down the corridor, Northleech puffing hard. As we descended the grand staircase, more shots rang out. Another fool had gone trigger-happy. Long bursts of automatic fire indi cated that the helicopter was returning as good as it got.
 
We met several people. To all of them I uttered my formula and they scattered. Even at the door, where a no-nonsense captain in the South Wales Borderers moved to block our escape, I said, ‘Captain, General Schuller has been assassin ated and you people will have to answer for it. See you get reinforcements and surround the building. Nobody whatsoever must leave until further orders. Clear?’
 
‘I’m not in charge here, sir-----’
 
Then consider yourself so immediately. Get half a dozen men up on the second floor at once.’
 
He jumped to it and we were through.
 
‘My car!’ Northleech puffed. ‘It’s got a radio link. I must speak to Whitehall as we go. Over this way.’
 
He headed towards the Chiefs’ Park and I followed, blink ing in the sunshine.
 
‘We’re going to Menhennick?’ I asked.
 
‘Yes.’
 
His car was one of the new J.C. wagons, with a chauffeur lounging near who threw open the rear door smartly as we approached.                  
 
‘The Tower, James—fast,’ Northleech ordered.
 
We climbed in and I asked, ‘You mean to say Menhennick’s in the Tower of London? How singularly appropriate.’
 
‘Underneath it.’
 
Northleech was just recovering his breath. As we rolled forward, he opaqued the bullet-proof glass so that we could see out and not be seen. At the press of a button, a small bar slid out at knee level. At the press of another, his radiophone opened before him. We were of course completely sound proofed off from the driver.
 
The screen before the Minister lit. A severe matron ap peared, with behind her a crowded Whitehall room where people came and went.
 
‘Give me Bawtrey, General Intelligence,’ Northleech said, still puffing slightly.
 
‘There may be a moment’s delay, Minister. Routine is a little disturbed at present.’
 
‘Fast as you can, miss. Emergency.’
 
She turned away. Northleech stabbed a finger at the screen.
 
‘I’ll give her “routine disturbed”. Look, there’s some bugger walking round that room with a cup of tea in his hand. Do you wonder the country’s going to the dogs!’
 
I bit off the obvious answer that it was people like him who helped it go. He poured us some drinks, looked more cheerful, and began to grumble, all the while tapping one knee im­patiently and staring at the screen before him.
 
‘Sorry we had to leave Leo Tertis with his hands full like that. . . . Expedient, however. Look, Simon, I don’t want you to feel disappointed, but Tertis was flannelling you in there.’
 
‘In what way?’
 
‘This incredible stuff about the possibility of your becoming P.M. No offence, but it just shows how far poor old Tertis’s judgement is awry. I urged the Foreign Secretary to get him into something safe like Housing years ago. ... I mean, for P.M. we need a man of experience, a young man, a man in the public eye, a man who knows the ropes, knows where to turn for guidance.’
 
‘To you for instance?’
 
‘I’ll serve as long as the public need me, Simon. I’m an old warhorse.’
 
‘You’re a bloody pacifist, Edgar. Appeasement’s the be-all and end-all of your philosophy.’
 
He looked broodingly at me, entirely without taking offence.
 
‘You don’t really want to see this grand little country blown to bits just to gratify your ambition, do you?’
 
‘My record-----’
 
‘Bugger your record! You can’t help being what you are, I know. You’ve never held office and you can’t see the reason for being guided by necessity occasionally. There’s none of the sticker about you, Simon, that’s what’s lacking. In my young days, I had the fortune to be guided by the great Lord Halifax------’
 
‘You know what I think of Halifax!’
 
‘I don’t care what you think. You don’t think enough. That’s the world’s trouble. Look at Schuller: the action school, as much brain power as a bull. Need never have been killed if he’d spent thirty seconds cogitating instead of emoting. Non cogitavit ergo fuit. Same with Woolf—an anarchist and sub versive like all his kind. He had no idea he was shooting Schuller; it was simple father-hatred squeezed the trigger.’
 
‘Package reasoning! There was a lifetime’s conviction be hind that bullet of David’s. He had a reasoned hatred of big and noisy men who use their position to make more noise-----’
 
‘Putting you through,’ said the panel. Simultaneously, a bearded man in shirt sleeves with a cup at his elbow and a pile of flimsies in his fist blinked into being on the screen.
 
‘Hello, Bawtrey,’ Northleech said, with a parade of affa bility. ‘What’s happening since I called you last?’
 
‘Everything,’ Bawtrey said, taking a swig from his cup. ‘What do you want to know, Minister?’
 
‘Relevant events of the last two hours. Hong Kong?’
 
‘Nothing fresh. No new H-bombs dropped. First casualty estimate, one hundred fifty thousand dead, wounded, and missing. Singapore on general alert, Aussie fleet engaging Chinese warships off New Guinea. Three Russian nuclear subs detected and destroyed off Alaska coast------’
 
‘What else? Washington?’
 
‘Contact with America is just about defunct,’ Bawtrey said, looking at us under his eyebrows. ‘They’re tearing their hair here, Minister. Not a peep from Washington, New York, Ottawa, Toronto—the whole blessed continent might just as well have disappeared. All cables are reported temporarily out of order, and all wavelengths blanketed with unusually strong interference.’
 
Northleech and I looked at each other.
 
‘How long has this been the case?’ Northleech asked.
 
Bawtrey glanced at his watch.
 
‘I’ve been on shift two hours. Two and a half hours, at a guess. There may be something through in a few minutes. Meanwhile, hang on, here’s something else of interest.’
 
As he was speaking, Bawtrey leafed through his flimsies. ‘The first space battle is now in progress. U.S. Orbitters attack ing the Red nuclear satellite, meeting opposition from Tsiolkos and China bugs.’
 
‘Europe?’
 
‘Mobilization in France, Italy, and the Scandinavian coun tries. Every man in Western Germany at the frontier, Reuter reports. Same in Turkey, Greece. Main impression seems to be that they’re waiting to see what Great Britain decides.’
 
As the man talked, I stared out of the window. We moved with unconscionable slowness, though Northleech’s driver took short cuts when he could. Trafalgar Square was crowded, and not only with soap-box orators. A figure in a white cassock was holding a service on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Down the Strand, traffic was entirely at a standstill. We detoured round Covent Garden, to squeeze into a Fleet Street almost as crowded.
 
In contrast to the sightseers round the Park, people here looked grave. Outside a Civil Defence recruitment booth, both men and women queued. The military was out in strength: a column of light tanks added to the traffic congestion. I thought of the other grey old capitals of Europe, members of the same dying yet grand order, all teetering on the brink of annihila tion.
 
Bawtrey shuffled up another piece of paper as we ap proached Ludgate Circus.
 
‘Dame reaffirms Sark’s neutrality,’ he read disgustedly, screwing it up. ‘And here’s one more in your line, Minister. Deputy Supreme Commander of N.A.T.O., General Gavin T. Schuller, was assassinated within the last twenty-five minutes by David Woolf, described as a member of the British Com munist Party. Members of the Special Police shot Woolf before he could escape. Fighting is still-----’
 
He paused. Someone visible to us only as a torso tapped Bawtrey’s shoulder and handed him a fresh communiqué. He read it out slowly, squinting now and again at Northleech as he did so.
 
‘Here’s one for the general circuits. Sounds like big stuff. Seems they finally got through to Washington and Ottawa. This one’s datelined Washington and reads: “Mr. Martin Mumford, President of the United States, will make a special address to the world at 1500 hours, British Summer Time, to day.” That’s in about twenty-eight minutes’ time. “This address will transcend in importance any previous statement ever made by a U.S. President.” Hm, some billing. “It is of the utmost importance that the largest possible audience in all countries sees and hears the President speak.” Sounds as if the Martians have stepped in, doesn’t it?’
 
‘That will be all, thank you, Bawtrey,’ Northleech said, obviously disapproving such facetiousness. As he switched off, the bearded man picked up his cup, swigged it and faded into nothing. The set folded neatly back into its compartment.
 
The traffic thinned; we accelerated along the last stretch of the way, and the Tower swung into sight ahead. The bright dress uniforms had gone. Light tanks had replaced the sentry-boxes. Everything was handled efficiently. Northleech pro duced a pass for the guard officer, which was okayed. Never theless, we and the driver had to climb out and be searched for fire-arms, while two plain-clothes men simultaneously examined our vehicle.
 
They gave us clearance in about forty-five seconds, saluting us as we drove on under Byward Tower with a guard riding beside the driver.
 
We drove over to the Queen’s House and climbed out. I followed Northleech inside. Another guard stationed by a wooden staircase was replacing the receiver on a handphone as we entered; the main gate had warned him we were about to arrive. He flicked over a switch normally concealed behind oak panelling.
 
The wooden staircase hinged at the sixth step up, yawning open to reveal a flight of carpeted stone stairs descending underground. Motioning to me, Northleech started down them, his untidy white hair fluttering round his head in the warm updraught of air.
 
I recognized that smell of canned air, sweet with disinfect ant. It reminded me of the underground H.Q. of my depart ment in Hyde Park during World War II. This was a much more elaborate and larger subterranean system. At the bot tom of the stairs was a chain of three airlocks giving one on to each other, their indicators all at a neutral green. They opened on to a large circular space, well-lit but almost de serted. Here stood a magazine and paper stall, a tobacconist’s, and a cafe, all open. Piped music played softly, I noticed other stairs leading down into this foyer.
 
Without hesitation, Northleech led over to a central block of lifts, a row of perhaps a dozen varying sizes, each with an ancient male attendant waiting by the doors. We entered the nearest.
 
‘Level X,’ Northleech said crisply.
 
Glancing at me with a sly humour, he remarked, ‘You see the government hasn’t been entirely unprepared for emer gencies.’
 
‘Every man for himself,’ I replied.
 
It was an express lift. I climbed out at the bottom feeling slightly sick. For a second we had been in free fall.
 
Here was a maze of corridors, with many people moving fast with set faces. After some slight confusion and a word or two of barked argument, Northleech got us into an ante-room, where a smartly formidable secretary left us, returning in two minutes.
 
While he was out of the room, Northleech said, ‘I know this man, this secretary. Obviously Menhennick is still in full con trol. We’ll have to watch our step until we see how the land lies. Agreed?’
 
‘It seems inevitable.’
 
‘Keep it that way. We don’t want trouble if it can be avoided.’
 
‘Spoken in character, Minister.’
 
‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Simon. You’re out of your depth and you know it.’
 
The secretary, returning, said, “The P.M.’s with the Indian Premier and other Commonwealth gentlemen. You may go in, but don’t intrude.’
 
We went in.
 
We did not intrude.
 
The room was impressive. Some fifty men were gathered there, many of them leading diplomats. Waiters with trays un obtrusively served drinks, On the surface it appeared incon gruously peaceful. I recognized Mr. Turdilal, the Indian Premier, at once. He stood on a raised platform with Minnie slightly behind him. Minnie looked worn and shrunken; his face reminded me of the ill look I had seen on the face of Sir Anthony Eden at the time of Suez.
 
Turdilal seemed incongruously cheerful. He was in full spate as we entered, waving a relaxed right hand in time with his phrases.
 
‘. . . and furthermore, gentlemen, you need no reminding from me that India has always stood for the peace of the world. We are an old nation and we have always stood for peace. That is why we are standing now at this terribly black hour of international conflict solidly behind the British government and most of the other members of the Common wealth for neutrality. We------’
 
‘What about the invasion of Indonesia?’ a voice called.
 
Turdilal smiled a charming smile.
 
‘What about the invasion, indeed, my South American friend? Carnage added to carnage does not equal peace, my friend. We are not Gadarene swine, may I remind you. Your country is also on friendly terms with Indonesia, but you are not hurrying to bear arms on their behalf. No. You are wise. Instead you are stepping up armament production to sell to China, I guess.’
 
Ugly murmurs greeted this, but Turdilal flowed on.
 
‘South America must remain neutral. And that is what I am saying also about Britain and the Commonwealth. Someone must rebuild out of the ashes. That is a harder task than creating the ashes. So I for one applaud Mr. Menhennick’s stand against the pressure of power politics.’
 
A hubbub arose as he finished, angry cries mingling with cheers and the odd handclap.
 
Minnie came forward, clapped Turdilal weakly on the back, and held up his hand for silence. When it came, he rubbed the hand over his moustache and said, ‘Thank you for your sup­port, gentlemen. I realize our country is in an invidious position, I realize it only too well. But we have been in an in vidious position for a quarter of a century now, ever since the perfection of this deadly nuclear power and the emergence of the two great powers. Rest assured, I have done all in my power to keep our beloved country safe. Rest assured, I shall not stand down------’
 
‘Shame!’ I cried.
 
‘—until I feel the nation has no more need for me....’
 
‘Go, in God’s name, go!’ I shouted.
 
Two Ghana ministers looked angrily round and said, ‘Keep silence while he speaks,’ and a waiter pressed a large whisky into my hand.
 
‘I will say no more now,’ Minnie continued, looking at his watch. ‘In two minutes, the American President, Mr. Mumford, is speaking to the world via Telstar II. We can see it on the wall screen here. I do not know what he is to say, but doubtless it will be of grave import. Just at present our con tacts with Washington are disturbed; however, I have been reliably informed that a very few hours ago the American continent was subjected to intense nuclear bombardment on both her seaboards.’
 
A ripple of amusement that grew with the beginning of his last sentence was killed stone dead by the end of it. A terrible silence, a chill, settled over everyone present—myself, of course, included. Everyone present had their differences with the United States, yet in that moment friction died and love came uppermost. Many faces were full of shame. We all stood motionless.
 
Not a word was spoken until the big wall screen lit. The time was three o’clock.
 
The Global Viewing sign came on, a spinning world with the illuminated orbits of the TV reflection stations surround ing it. How long, I wondered, before they were shot down and TV shrank again into a petty national plaything instead of the transnational communication it had become?
 
A voice said, ‘Here is the President of the United States of America, Mr. Martin Wainwright Mumford.’
 
He sat composedly at a desk bare of everything bar one sheet of paper. He wore a neat suit. Behind him hung the American flag. He looked young, determined, and under enormous strain. He launched into what he had to say without preliminaries; he spoke without rhetoric.
 
‘I invited everyone in the world to see and hear me be cause what I have to say is of personal importance to you all.
 
‘Only a few hours ago, the enemies of the United States launched their mightiest weapons upon us. Intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads descended on all our major cities almost simultaneously. Their destructive forces when unleashed on their targets were so great that no nation could have survived the blow.
 
‘Happily, all those missiles were checked some miles up in the atmosphere.
 
‘The United States of America now possesses a sure defence against the hideous and hitherto all-conquering weapon of nuclear bombing.
 
‘This defence is of such a nature that it could only be given thorough trial under actual test conditions. We have had to undergo that test, and we have survived. Had the defence failed, I should not be here talking to you now.
 
‘The defence takes the form of a shield, which we call the geogravitic flux. In theory, this form of defence has been known for some time, but its consumption of energy seemed so vast as to render it impracticable. However, our scientists and technologists have perfected a way whereby the shield— which now covers all of North America, our Canadian allies as well as ourselves—the shield draws its power from the nuclear power it destroys. The greater the force exerted against it, the more greatly the shield is able to resist.
 
‘You will see that we are in consequence impregnable. What is more, we shall remain impregnable for a long time. We have this new defence. Our enemies have new weapons. We were subjected not only to nuclear attack; we were bombarded by a type of anti-matter bomb infinitely more terrible than the nuclear bomb, which must now be regarded as old-fashioned. Our shield effectively repelled all comers.’
 
Almost furtively, I glanced about me. Every face was fixed in fascination on that grave face looming on the screen. An immense pressure of triumph was building up as the President continued his address.
 
‘I confess that this nation has—as yet—no anti-matter bomb. We have been concentrating on methods of defence rather than offence. But we have literally at our finger-tips the mighty power of the atom. So far we have unleashed no retaliatory bombs in reply to the brutal attack of our enemies.
 
‘It is my hope that retaliation will not be necessary. America and Canada cannot be conquered; but we could bring our enemies to their knees two hours from now. We could destroy them utterly, as they well know. We do not desire to take this ultimate step. The collapse of the two vast Communist coun tries would involve the rest of the free world in decades of rehabilitation too costly to be visualized. So we are stepping forward, laying our cards on the table, and inviting our enemies to make peace with the Free World at once.
 
‘This is an unprecedented step to take. We live in un precedented times; God grant us unprecedented courage to meet it.
 
‘Such a step would not have been possible had not our friends the British, and the other North Atlantic countries who look to them for leadership, decided to remain neutral. Had they not so decided, then beyond doubt they would have suffered the same terrible bombardment inflicted on us. With out the geogravitic shield, they would never have survived, and we should have been forced to carry out total war to avenge their destruction.
 
‘So I say again, we whole-heartedly and unreservedly offer a fresh chance to make peace. On behalf of my government and people, I invite the leaders of the Communist bloc to meet me personally on neutral ground in London. I give them forty-eight hours to make a just peace. After that time, if they have not shown themselves more than willing to build a last ing agreement—they know what the consequences will have to be.
 
‘They will be shown no mercy then, as they have shown us no mercy. But United America offers them more than mercy now.’
 
Mumford’s image disappeared. At once a subdued uproar broke out in the hall. Like many of the others, I was weeping with an un-British lack of restraint.
 
Next to the hall was a canteen. As I was eating there a few minutes later, Northleech approached, talking to a secretary. By his manner, I saw he bubbled with excitement. No doubt he was, in his own phrase, being guided by necessity. He broke off his conversation to speak to me.
 
‘Look here, Sir Simon, this wonderful gesture of Mumford’s has put a different complexion on matters. I will see to it personally that the warrant for your arrest is cancelled straightaway.’
 
‘Thank you. Then I can go back to East Lincoln to see how my wife is. Though I shall have to tender my resignation to the Dean.’
 
‘Understandable, quite. Well, that must remain your worry; I can’t interfere there, naturally.’
 
‘Naturally.’
 
‘Though the Dean may not accept it. His anti-American views were always too clear. Since you’ll no doubt return there as something of a hero, he may feel that by keeping you on he will gain popularity for himself. I’m sure I should feel like that, in his boots.’
 
I looked down at my plate to conceal my distaste.
 
‘I’m sure you would,’ I said, ‘But I’m sick of appeasement in all its forms. A new breeze is blowing from now on, and I’m coming back into politics.’
 
A spark of anger fired in the old boy. He rapped on my table, making my spoon rattle against the plate.
 
‘Before you do that, you’d better learn to distinguish between negotiation and appeasement.’
 
‘I can already. You’re a great appeaser, Minister; Mumford is a great negotiator. The difference is in the position from which you talk: a position of weakness or a position of strength. Mumford’s is one of strength, yours and Minnie’s one of weakness—and chiefly moral weakness.’
 
He cleared his throat. His wattle had turned a dusky red. In a low voice he said, ‘Stop kicking a man when he’s down. You saw for yourself how shaken poor old Alfred Menhennick was. He can’t resign quickly enough.’
 
There had never been better news. I only wished Jean—and David Woolf—could have shared it with me. Then, sobering my excitement, came the thought that we would have to turn out all of Minnie’s sympathizers before the peace contingent arrived from America. When I spoke, the secretary flinched at the poison in my voice.
 
‘Your own position is none too happy, Edgar. Mumford may have granted Britain a face-saver for general consump tion, but you well know how Washington must really be feeling about us. Aren’t we revealed, every one of us, as a set of cowardly turncoats—not only to the U.S. but to the world? You might alleviate the situation slightly by resigning with Minnie, as quickly and publicly as possible—or preferably by falling on your sword.’
 
He gripped the back of his chair.
 
‘I remember this sort of holier-than-thou can from you in the Sixth,’ he said. ‘I’m a politician, not a Roman. I’ve no time for your sort of dramatics. It’s true the world, and the Ameri cans in particular, are going to need a lot of explanations, but I’m not going to quit now—I’m going to give them those ex planations. Now more than ever the country needs experienced leaders.’
 
Only for a moment did his face grow ugly; then he smiled with his mouth alone. The secretary aped the gesture of ill-omen.