“That’s enough,” George interrupted. “You’re much too clever for me. And
if that’s what you get from studying philosophy at a university—”
“No, George. That’s what I got from piloting a bomber over Germany. You
have to think of SOMETHING then. Something fearful and logical, like
predestination, or else mystic and mathematical, like the square root of
minus one.” The boy’s eyes were streaked now with flashes of wildness.
“Anyway, how did we get on to all this?”
“I was saying you’re going to get better—and meaning it too. That
is, if you tackle the future the right way.”
“I know. And avoid scenes. Scenes don’t help. And when I feel better
enough to tell my mother about Julie there’ll be a scene. And then I’ll feel
worse again… Sort of a vicious circle, isn’t it?”
George nodded. “All the same, though, I wouldn’t wait too long.”
“You mean, before I tell her?”
“Nay, don’t bother your head about that. I mean, before you marry the
girl.”
A strained smile came over Charles’s face. “Where’s the hurry?” he asked,
with sudden excitement. “What makes you give me that advice?”
George answered: “Because it seems to me there’s another vicious circle
knocking around. You say you won’t marry till you know for certain you’re
going to get all right, but perhaps marriage is one of the things that would
help to MAKE you certain.”
Charles laughed. “I see! Doctor Boswell’s advice to those about to get
married—DO! Advice based on his own experience of long, happy, and
fruitful wedlock!” After a wilder outburst of hilarity, the laughter drained
suddenly from the boy’s face and a scared look took its place. He clutched
frantically at George’s arm. “Oh God, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that… I
never thought… I forgot for the moment… George… Oh, George, PLEASE
forgive me…” His voice and body began to shake convulsively.
It was the first time George had seen the kind of thing Julie had told him
about, and it shocked him immeasurably. He put his arms round the boy and
fought the enemy with a silent, secret strength of his own. There was not
much to say. He kept saying: “Steady, lad… it’s all right… all
right…”
“George, I didn’t mean… I swear I didn’t mean anything
personal—”
“Aye, I know you didn’t. And what if you did, for that matter? To blazes
with everything except you getting well again… Quiet down a bit more, lad,
and then let’s take a walk…”
All this took place during another of George’s visits to Cambridge. He had
been in London on business, as before—one of those fairly frequent
conferences that had often been a nuisance in the past, but which now he
looked forward to with an excitement entirely unshared by his colleagues.
Nobody had at times been more severe than he in castigating the week-end
hiatus in official circles, but now on a Saturday morning in some Whitehall
Government office he found himself almost gleeful over slow-moving procedure,
actually hoping in his heart for an adjournment till Monday.
This had happened, once more, so he was enjoying the intervening day with
a clear conscience. And another item of good fortune was that Charles could
now walk short distances, with only one stick, and relish the exercise.
Perhaps it was this that made him seem more boyish, even school-boyish on
occasions; and for the first time George ceased to be startled when he
reflected that Charles was only in his twenty-third year.
But other startling ideas filled the gap, and one of them was unique
because it came to George in—of all places—a public-house.
Charles had mentioned this pub as being a rather pleasant place within
easy walking distance in the country, and after an evening meal George let
him lead the way there. The scene a few hours earlier seemed to have drawn
them closer together, though in a way that neither could have expressed or
would have wished to talk about; but George, at least, was aware of it and
satisfied. It gave an edge to his enjoyment of the full moon over the fields,
and the scents of crops and flowers that lay heavy on the warm air. Familiar
as he was with the grimmer landscape of the north, he thought he had never
known anything so richly serene as those rural outskirts of the university
town—a quality enhanced, somehow, by the counterpoint of events
overhead. For while they walked the hum and throbbing never ceased, sometimes
increasing to a roar as planes in formation flew directly above. The R.A.F.
was evidently out in force, heading for the Continent, and George guessed and
was a little apprehensive of Charles’s mood as he heard and was perhaps
reminded.
For that reason George tried to keep the conversation on trivialities.
During the walk they overtook several other pedestrians, which George
commented must make a red-letter event in Charles’s post-hospital experience,
even though the slower movers were only old bent men plodding along at a mile
an hour. Charles drily rejoined that there was a good deal of rheumatism
locally, which was a peculiar thing in an otherwise healthy district.
“Maybe not so peculiar,” George countered, getting on to one of his
favourite topics. “Give people decent houses, in town or country, and don’t
think that roses round the door make up for bad drains and damp walls.”
Charles laughed. “Not bad, George. You might win a parliamentary election
yet. Castle Winslow would give you a chance, anyway. It’s a family
constituency—with the Winslow influence you’d probably romp home.
Unfortunately the old boy who represents it now may hang on for another
twenty years.”
George laughed also, and in the same mood. “Pity. But in the meantime
there might be a chance for YOU—in Browdley. Then I could demonstrate a
bit of MY influence.”
They both went on with the joke till the passage of planes in even greater
numbers changed the subject back to an earlier one. “I once tried to write a
poem,” Charles said, “about the contrast between those old chaps and the boys
upstairs. I thought of it actually while I was flying back from Germany after
a raid. You have to think of something then, when your nerves are all on
edge. I can’t remember more than one of the verses—I think it went
‘Each with a goal his own—Beginner’s or Ender’s luck—Four
hundred miles to Cologne, Two to the Dog and Duck…’
It’s less than two from where we are now, but some of those veterans
wouldn’t miss their nightly pint if it were twice that… By the way, though,
you don’t drink?”
“No, but I’ll swill lemonade while you have all the beer you want.”
“All I can get, you mean. Don’t be so bloody optimistic.”
Presently they reached the pub and pushed into the already crowded bar,
where Charles received a few cordial but quiet greetings from people whom he
had presumably met there before. A few air-crews from the near-by station
were taking their drinks, and others were having a dart game, but perhaps
half the crowd were civilians, mostly old farm labourers with tanned and
wrinkled faces. The changing world met here with the less changing earth,
tilled throughout the ages by men who had worked heedless amidst clashes of
knights in armour, and were now just as heedless up to the very edge of
runways and bomb craters. HEEDLESS? But the word failed to express the rueful
sagacity, the merry ignorance, that flourished nightly in the bar parlour of
the Dog and Duck. Like all genuine English country pubs, it was always a
cheerful but rarely a boisterous and never a Bacchanalian place—it was
a microcosm of that England in which so many things are not done, including
the act of wondering too truculently why they are not. George, even with his
small personal knowledge of pubs, recognized at once the same spirit that
usually obtained at Council meetings and Whitehall conferences, and thus he
felt immediately at home. And in that heart-warming mood, while he leaned
over his glass of lemonade and Charles over his tankard, George’s startling
idea came to him for the second time, but really startlingly now because, in
a fantastic way, he half meant it. “Why DON’T you stand for Browdley at the
next election?”
Charles looked puzzled. “You mean—for Parliament?”
“Aye. It’s an idea.”
“No, it’s a joke, George, and not a very good one.”
“Of course there won’t be an election till after the war—so far as
one can foresee. But there might be worse things that a chap like you could
do when the time comes.”
Charles smiled and drank deep. “And better things, I hope.”
“Listen… When I visited you in that hospital at Mulcaster you said
something I hope you remember. You said you blamed my generation for not
making a proper peace after the last war. And I asked you then if you weren’t
afraid that the kids now in their prams might grow up to blame YOUR
generation for the same thing… Well, lad, they will—unless you do
something about it.”
“Maybe—but not in politics.”
“How else?”
“I don’t know, George—don’t ask me. I can’t fly any more, or I might
drop a few bombs somewhere. But I do know I couldn’t face the political
racket. Nobody would ever vote for me, anyway—I’m not the type that
goes around kissing babies and promising everything to everybody. I’d say the
wrong thing, and probably think it too—because, to be frank, I’ve never
seen an election without feeling that the whole machinery of it is a bit
ridiculous—”
“And it is. But it’s the machinery we’ve got, and we’d better use it while
we’ve got it.”
“Oh, certainly—but leave it to the right man. YOU’RE probably the
right man for Browdley—you were born there, and you know the people. I
wouldn’t understand them—factory workers and miners—not because
I’m a snob, but because I’ve never lived in that sort of a place.”
“They’d understand you, that’s the main thing. They’d understand you
because they’re doing a job same as you’ve done a job, and some of them are
risking lives and health at it same as you’ve risked yours. You wouldn’t be
talking to them except as equals. Besides, it might be years off yet—
there’s plenty of time.”
“You really are a most persistent fellow, George. Anyone would think it
was something I’d agreed to.”
George laughed. “Aye, we’ll not worry about it. Twenty-two’s full young.”
And then he laughed again as he added: “Though William Pitt was Prime
Minister at twenty-four. You won’t beat THAT.”
But a dark look came into Charles’s face. “There’s one final reason,
George, even if there weren’t any other. You’ve heard me spout my opinions,
and you’re taking it for granted I’d think it worth while to convert others
to them. But I’m not sure that I would, even if I could. Don’t think me
cynical—it’s merely that I’m not sentimental. As I’ve found the world,
so far, it’s a pretty lousy place, especially when you get a glimpse of what
goes on behind the scenes. Most people don’t—and perhaps they’re better
off. That’s why I wouldn’t make a good vote-catcher. He has to be such a
bloody optimist—like you. Even if he warns of doom he has to promise
that if only you’ll elect him he’ll prevent it. Frankly, I don’t kid myself
to that extent and I don’t think I’d find it easy to kid Tom, Dick, and
Harry.”
“Aye, things are bad enough, I’ll admit that.” George drank the rest of
his lemonade in slow gulps. “But as for what goes on behind the scenes,
that’s just what gives me hope. Go behind the scenes of everyday life and see
the courage and decency most folks have—see the raw material we’ve got
to work on, if only those who have the brains for the job can keep faith in
it.”
“I know what you’re driving at, George. Just a simple little job of
rebuilding the world.”
“Ah, now, that IS cynical. Of course it’s not simple—was it simple
to invent a plane? It’s appallingly difficult and complicated—and
that’s where chaps like you come in. It’ll need all your brains and
education, but it’ll also need something I’VE got—and that’s a bit of
faith in Tom, Dick, and Harry.” George then added softly, administering the
gentle shock with which he had wheedled so much of his own way in his time:
“Since you once said you’d like to, why don’t you come to Browdley when term
ends and have a look at the place?”
“You mean—VISIT Browdley?”
“Aye, why not? Or were you only joking when you said you’d like to?”
“No, I wasn’t joking—matter of fact I wouldn’t MIND coming, only
—” He hesitated and then added: “I hate disappointing so many other
people.”
“But you can’t please ‘em all, no matter what you do. Why not please
yourself for a change? And of course you needn’t stay longer than you
want…”
George felt very happy as he sat in the London train that
night. Thinking
back upon the long conversation at the Dog and Duck he could not exactly
remember when the idea of taking Charles to Browdley had first occurred to
him, but he knew that as soon as it had, there had come to him the feeling of
instant lightness. It was like trying a new key in a strange lock and
knowing, even before the turn, that somehow it would work. And it all
happened, as so many things happened in George’s life, because he got talking
and couldn’t stop. He hadn’t, of course, been really serious about Charles
embarking on a political career. It was much too soon to be serious about ANY
kind of career for a youth who was still so far from mental and physical
health. But that led straight to the point; for part of the cure lay in BEING
serious about something. And suddenly George saw beyond the merely personal
relationship between them; he saw the boy’s problem as that of every boy
returned from battle with body, mind, and spirit scarred by experience; and
he knew that the problem must be tackled better than the last time, when
millions who had faced the realities of war were too embittered, or too
apathetic or (like George himself) too easy-optimistic, to face those of
peace. But Charles was not optimistic enough; and that, for George, made the
task of rehabilitation even more congenial. So if he could interest him in
Browdley, why not? And if, in due course, interest should deepen into
faith… faith in the things George had faith in…