The Man who Missed the War (2 page)

‘What nonsense you talk!’ Pin answered placidly. ‘The boy’s not as bad as all that. He’ll be down in a moment.’

She had hardly finished speaking when Philip joined them. Like his father, he was tall, but he had none of his father’s rugged compactness. He seemed all long, ungainly limbs, and his awkwardness was accentuated by large knobbly knuckled hands which always gave the impression of being out of control. His fine, high forehead and thin cheeks gave him a somewhat ascetic appearance, but his blue eyes were quick and friendly.

His father’s glance appraised him from top to toe with a swiftness born of years of professional inspections.

‘Well?’ Philip inquired, a shade anxiously.

‘You’ll do.’ The elder man’s mouth relaxed into a faint smile. It was obvious to him that for once the boy had made an attempt to subdue his shock of fair unruly hair, but the sight of the ill-tied bow caused him to add: ‘It’s a pity, though, that up at Cambridge they don’t teach you to wear your clothes a bit better.’

‘That’s hardly a tutor’s job,’ Philip shrugged; ‘and few of the men bother much about clothes. Such tons of more interesting things to think about.’

Captain Vaudell could hardly quarrel with that statement, as he knew that his son’s whole mind was absorbed in studying to become a Civil Engineer, and, although he said little about it, he was extremely proud of the boy’s rapid progress.

Ellen walked quickly over to her brother and re-tied his tie. She had only just finished when Canon Beal-Brookman was announced.

The Canon was a short, fat, red-faced man possessed of boundless energy and a certain artless charm which few could resist. As usual, he was a little breathless, having hurried from one of the dozen meetings which his forceful personality
dominated each day in a dogged attempt to enforce social progress on a large, poor and apathetic sub-diocese.

In less than a minute he had wrung his host fiercely by the hand, inquired after Pin Marlow’s asthma, complimented Ellen on her adult appearance, given Philip a friendly pat on the arm, and, having accepted a pink gin, sunk it with gusto.

‘Good gracious!’ he exclaimed a minute later. ‘I drank that one up pretty quickly, didn’t I? Wasn’t really thinking what I was doing. Never mind! It’s a pleasant change from the innumerable cups of tea that misguided women think it their duty to force upon us clergy. If only they would all provide Earl Grey or Orange Pekoe it wouldn’t be so bad. The thick black muck I have to swallow plays the devil with my digestion.’

Without any false embarrassment he held out his glass to be refilled, just as the door opened and the maid ushered in Vice-Admiral Sir James Jolly.

Although he did not look as fat as the little Canon, the Admiral was the heavier of the two by several stone, and his weight was emphasised by his rather ponderous gait. He was a florid-faced man with a fringe of grey hair round his shiny bald head and blue eyes which he liked to believe were stern, but which had a disconcerting habit of displaying a sudden twinkle at moments when he allowed himself to forget his self-importance. Having shaken hands all round, he gave free reign to his obvious pleasure at spending an evening with his old friend’s family. After ten minutes’ easy chatter, they went in to dinner.

The meal was orthodox—tomato soup, fried fillets of sole, roast saddle of mutton and Charlotte Russe, washed down by a good claret. The Canon ate as though racing against time, but in spite of that he contributed his full share to the conversation. The Admiral talked more readily when any Service matter was touched upon, and Vaudell, having similar interests, naturally encouraged him. Pin and Ellen put in an occasional mild platitude, but Philip remained almost silent, wondering how soon the guests would go so that he could get upstairs again to his beloved books.

At last the nuts and port were put on the table, and the ladies withdrew. The talk then turned upon the old days in China and
went on to Singapore with its new vast Naval Dockyard, from a visit to which the Admiral had only recently returned.

‘Singapore’s the final answer to the Japs all right,’ he announced with a chuckle. ‘It’s put the lid on any ambitions those little devils may have had in the East Indies and Australasia once and for all.’ He went on to speak of the great Battle Fleet that the huge base would be able to accommodate when it was completed the following year.

Up to this point it had required a conscious effort on Philip’s part to disguise the fact that he was vaguely bored; but now his face lit up with sudden interest and, in a voice made louder than he had intended through a slight nervousness, he exclaimed:

‘Surely, sir, battleships aren’t going to count for much in any future war!’

‘Eh, what’s that!’ The Admiral turned to him with a startled glance. ‘What do you know about Naval strategy, young man?’

‘Very little, sir. But it’s clear to most people that if there is another war the aeroplane will be the dominant factor in it.’

‘Oh come now! Aircraft will play their part, of course. Very useful for reconnaissance and harassing the enemy by dropping the odd bomb here and there. But they’re an unreliable weapon—darned chancy things—and no sane Commander-in-Chief would ever risk depending on his air force to play a key rôle in any major operation.’

‘I don’t agree,’ Philip’s words came hurtling out. ‘As sure as I’m sitting here, the time will come when great fleets of bombers will render bases like Singapore untenable; and having driven the enemy’s Fleet to sea give it no rest until they’ve sent the last ship to the bottom.’

The short pregnant silence which followed Philip’s outburst was broken by the sharp crack of a nut. Before the Admiral could speak again, Captain Vaudell laid down his nutcrackers and said:

‘You must excuse Philip’s wildly exaggerated belief in air power. Armament problems are rather a hobby with him, and because he’s going into an aircraft factory when he comes down from Cambridge at Christmas I’m afraid he’s come to believe that “Air” is the answer to everything.’

‘But it is, Dad,’ Philip protested. ‘Battleships won’t stand a
chance against the bombers of the future. The Admiralty would do far better to devote any money it’s got to building lots of small fast ships.’

The Admiral smiled indulgently. ‘Look here, my boy! I’ve heard the question debated scores of times—wasted many more hours on it than I care to remember—but there’s only one answer. The nation that has the biggest ships will always be in a position to gain and retain the command of the seas.’

Taking some pieces of nutshell from his plate and dividing them into two heaps, he proceeded to demonstrate with them on the mahogany table. ‘It works this way. These bits of shell are ships. Out comes a little fellow from one side. The enemy sends out something slightly larger. The little ship is sunk, or must scuttle back to port. Number one sends out something bigger; the other side in turn has to beat a retreat. Now he sends out a cruiser, say—we’ll use a whole nut for that; and number one is sunk again. He sends out a heavy cruiser, that’s the nutcrackers here—and the poor old nut is cracked.’

With a chuckle at his little joke, the Admiral suddenly stretched out and seized the port decanter. ‘But here comes the Queen of the Seas—a battleship; and if the enemy hasn’t got a bigger one his whole Fleet will have to spend the rest of the war bottled up in Port!’

‘Quite, sir,’ said Philip drily; ‘unless a squadron of bombers comes out and sinks the battleship.’

The Canon choked suddenly, as he said later, on a nut; but Philip had a very shrewd suspicion that the violent fit of coughing which ensued had really been caused by the effort of suppressing a burst of laughter. When the Canon had recovered his breath his host suggested that it was time to join the ladies.

While they were drinking their coffee in the drawing-room, it emerged that the Canon and the Admiral had a mutual friend in the Assistant Chaplain-in-Chief to the Fleet. This led to some talk on Welfare Services in the Navy, and thence to the Canon’s own labours among the seafaring population of the neighbourhood.

‘It’s uphill work,’ he said, with a shake of his dark, bullet-like head. ‘There’s nothing behind us—no good solid funds to draw on. We’re entirely dependent on grants from various charities,
plus what we can raise locally; and of course, both those sources vary from year to year according to the prosperity of the country.’

‘And I suppose it’s just when there’s a slump, and the people start cutting down their subscriptions, that you need the money most,’ remarked Captain Vaudell.

‘Precisely,’ agreed the Canon. ‘Having to rely on voluntary charity makes it extremely risky to launch any new undertaking and militates against the steady progress of the old ones. Really, one must confess that these things are far better managed in the Dictator countries. Mussolini has devoted millions of State money to slum clearance in these last few years, and Stalin, I’m told, has erected whole townships of convalescent and holiday homes for the Russian workers in the Crimea.’

‘That’s true enough,’ the Admiral nodded. ‘Look how this feller Hitler has tackled the unemployed question. There were eight million of ’em when he came to power, but he’s managed to find work for practically everyone on new roads and canals, and one thing and another.’

‘And in building a new Air Force to bomb Britain,’ added Philip.

‘He’s not building much of an Air Force, dear,’ Pin Marlow put in. ‘Mr. Baldwin said in the House not long ago that the R.A.F. is far stronger.’

‘Then he made a criminally misleading statement.’

‘That’s pretty strong language to use about the ex-Prime Minister, Philip,’ said his father.

‘But doesn’t it stand to reason, Dad? Hitler couldn’t employ
eight million
men on making roads and canals, and the German export trade is no better than it was when he took over. The only way he’s been able to find jobs for these enormous numbers is by going all out on full-scale rearmament. Nine-tenths of those eight million are hard at it turning out guns, tanks, planes and submarines. And whatever the true comparative strengths of the British and German Air Force are today, our production is limited by Parliamentary estimates, whereas Germany’s is not. That’s why they’re bound to overhaul us before long and old Baldwin’s statement was so wickedly misleading.’

‘Of course, Hitler is rearming to a certain extent,’ admitted the
Admiral. ‘There can be no doubt about that. But why should you suppose that his intentions are necessarily hostile towards Britain?’

‘Hang it all, sir!’ Philip threw out his knobbly hands in a little helpless gesture. ‘It was the British Empire that defeated Germany last time, wasn’t it? The French lost so many men that they were practically out of the game by 1916, and the Americans only arrived in really big numbers towards the end. It’s Britain that bars the way to German world domination, so whatever other plans Hitler may have he’s bound to have a showdown with us sooner or later. If he doesn’t his people will sling him out. The Germans are the last people to go on piling up armaments indefinitely without any intention of using them; and, if Hitler won’t play, the Junker Generals will find another leader who will.’

‘Do stop him, Daddy!’ Ellen said in a bored voice. ‘Other wise, he’ll be giving us the whole of the speech he made when the debating society up at Cambridge discussed rearmament last term.’

‘So that’s where you got all this stuff, eh?’ smiled Captain Vaudell.

Philip flushed slightly. ‘Not altogether. I’ve talked these things over with lots of chaps of my age—and we’ve got pretty good reason to be interested, you know. After all, if there is another war it will be we who’ll have to do most of the fighting this time.’

‘Do you really think there will be?’ asked the Canon.

‘I can’t see what’s to prevent it. My generation is absolutely powerless, and, to be frank, yours seems hypnotised with the extraordinary idea that, having fought the Germans to a stand-still in your youth, there’s nothing more you need do about it.’

‘What would you have us do?’

‘Do!’ said Philip. ‘Why, take steps to meet the sort of situation we may be called on to face in five years’ time—or less.’

‘What steps would you have them take?’ the Canon persisted.

‘Well, look at the Army. When the Scots Greys were due to be mechanised they kicked up a fuss, so the order was cancelled and they were allowed to keep their horses. That simply couldn’t
happen in any other country, but here the War Office simply said what damn’ good sportsmen they were, and purely on sentimental grounds the future efficiency of one of our crack regiments was sacrificed. The higher ranks of the Army are still packed with fox-hunting squires who haven’t the faintest conception of what the next war is going to be like; yet the foreman of any factory you care to go into could give them a pretty good idea. It will be a war of machines and technicians. It will be fought with giant tanks, motorised artillery, cannon mounted in aeroplanes, television sets, and every other man in it will have to be either a motor mechanic or a wireless expert. Yet, what are we doing to prepare for such a war? Just nothing! We haven’t got a single battery of anti-aircraft guns. Those lunatics at the War Office scrapped the lot after the last war. They scrapped the camouflage units too, and most of the other new ideas that enterprising civilians had succeeded in forcing on them. They won’t hear of giving the infantry sub-machine guns, but still put their faith in the bayonet, and if it weren’t for public opinion I bet they’d have scrapped the Tank Corps too. Their attitude to it is clear enough from the fact that it’s been kept so small.’

The Admiral had gone a shade pinker, and his voice was a little gruff as he said: ‘That’s all very well, but there’s one thing you seem to forget—money. The Services have to cut their coats according to the cloth they are given. Essentials must come first—barracks, rations, pay, uniforms and so on. Then they have to keep up the equipment they’ve already got. The income-tax payer would have to ante-up quite a bit more in the pound before we could afford to go in for the sort of luxuries you suggest?’

‘Yes, to some extent, sir, but not altogether. Doesn’t it depend on what are considered as essentials? For example, what about the six hundred horses of the Scots Greys that are still eating their heads off? Are they essential? And surely it’s better to have one thousand troops equipped with, and trained in the use of, the latest scientific devices for destroying the enemy than two battalions of footsloggers with obsolete weapons?’