There had been no noise, almost no coughing, in the hall. I had been aware of the faces round me, some naked with interest, the banker’s reflective and morose. Just then, a voice down the end of the opposite table shouted, thick with drink: ‘Speak for yourself!’
Sammikins was on his feet, berserk, calling to the interrupter.
‘Shut up, you blasted swine!’
‘Speak for yourself!’ came a drunken voice.
Sammikin’s neighbours were pulling him down, as he cried, ‘Where have you fought? This man has, you pig!’
Roger held up his hand. He stood, impassive, immobile, without a flicker. He said: ‘I’m prepared for anyone to accuse me of being cowardly. That doesn’t matter. It’s hard, I sometimes think, for a man with young children not to be. But I’m not prepared for anyone to accuse the people of this country of being cowardly. They’ve proved the opposite quite enough for any reasonable man. Anything we decide, now or in the future, about our military position, will be done because it seems to us moral and sensible, not because we’re frightened, or because, on the other hand, we have to prove that we’re not.’ He drew the first rumble of ‘hear, hears’. He let them run, then held up his hand again.
‘Now, after this bit of pleasantry, I’m going to ask the questions. As I say, no one knows the answers. But if all of us think about them, we may some day be able to say something that decent people, people of good will all over the world, are waiting to hear. First, if there is no agreement or control, how many countries are going to possess thermo-nuclear weapons by, say, 1967? My guess, and this is a political guess, and yours is as good as mine, is that four or five will actually have them. Unless it is not beyond the wit of man to stop them. Second, does this spread of weapons make thermo-nuclear war more or less likely? Again, your guess is as good as mine. But mine is sombre. Third, why are countries going to possess themselves of these weapons? Is it for national security, or for less rational reasons? Fourth, can this catastrophe — no, that is going further than I feel inclined, I ought to say, this extreme increase of danger — can it be stopped? Is it possible that any of us, any country or group of countries, can give a message or indication that will, in fact make military and human sense?’
Roger had been speaking for ten minutes, and he continued for as long again. In the whole of the second half of his speech, he went off again into official language, the cryptic, encyclical language of a Minister of the Crown. The effect was odd, but I was sure that it was calculated. He had tried them deep enough: now was the time to reassure them. They would be glad of platitudes, and he was ready to oblige them.
He did not make much of a peroration, and sat down to steady, though not excessive, applause. There was an amiable and inept vote of thanks, and the Prime Warden’s procession, maces in front, Roger alongside Lufkin, left the hall.
When I recalled the evening, I thought that few of the people round me realized that they had been listening to what would become a well-known speech. I was not certain that I realized it myself. There was a sense of curiosity, in some sense of malaise, in some of let-down. I heard various speculations on my way out. Most of them were respectful but puzzled.
In the press of men jostling towards the cloakroom, I saw Sammikins, his eyes flaring, his face wild as a hawk’s. He was not far from me, but he shouted: ‘I’m sick of this mob! Come for a walk.’
I had a feeling that the invitation was not specially calculated to please his neighbours, who stood stolid and heavy while he pushed through them, lean, elegant, decorations on his lapel.
We had neither of us brought overcoats or hats, and so got straight out before the others, into the night air.
‘By God!’ cried Sammikins.
He had drunk a good deal, but he was not drunk. Yet it would have been an error to think that he was tractable. He was inflamed with his grievance, his vicarious grievance of the interruption.
‘By God, he’s’ (he was talking of Roger) ‘a better man than they are. I know men in his regiment. I tell you, he’s as brave as a man can reasonably be.’
I said that no one doubted it.
‘Who the hell was that bloody man?’
‘Does it matter?’ I asked.
‘I expect he was a colonel in the Pay Corps. I’d like to ram the words down his fat throat. What in God’s name do you mean, “Does it matter?”’
I said, being accused of something one knows oneself to be ridiculous, and which everyone else knows to be ridiculous, never hurt one. As I said it, I was thinking: Is that true? It pacified Sammikins for the time being, while I was brooding. No, I had sometimes been hurt by an accusation entirely false: more so than by some which were dead accurate.
In silence we walked to a corner and paused there for a moment, looking across the road at the bulk of the Monument, black against the moonlight blue of the sky. It was not cold; a south-west wind was blowing. We turned down Arthur Street and into Upper Thames Street, keeping parallel with the wharves. Beyond the ragged bomb-sites, where the willow herb was growing still, since the air raids nearly twenty years before, we saw the glitter of the river, the density of warehouses, the skeletal cranes.
‘He’s a great man, isn’t he?’ said Sammikins.
‘What is a great man?’
‘By God, are you turning on him now?’
I had spoken carelessly, but his temper was still on the trigger.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve thrown everything I could behind him. And I’m taking more risks than most of his friends.’
‘I know that, I know that. Yes, damn it, he’s a great man.’
He gave me a friendly smile. As we walked along what used to be a narrow street, now wide open to the moonlight, he said: ‘My sister did well for herself when she married him. I suppose she was bound to make a happy marriage and have a brood of children. But, you know, I always thought she’d marry one of us. She was lucky that she didn’t.’