They had all gathered rumours about Roy’s sympathies, they had heard some of his comments in hall. Ironically, his name was flaunted about, this time as an authority, by old Despard-Smith. The old man was virulently pro-Munich, bitterly in favour of any other accommodation. He kept quoting Roy: “Calvert has just come back from Germany and he says…” “Calvert told someone yesterday…” Roy smiled, to find himself approved of at last in that quarter.
But Francis Getliffe did not smile at all. He was away from Cambridge many days in that summer term; we knew he was busy on Air Ministry experiments, but it was only much later that we realised he had been occupied with the first installations of radar. He came back and dined in hall one night, looking as tired as Roy — looking in fact more worn, though not so hag-ridden. It happened to be a night when most of the left were not dining. Nor was Winslow, who was an old-fashioned liberal but spoke caustically on Getliffe’s side — he had quarrelled acidly with the older men over Munich.
That night Despard-Smith and others were saying that war was quite unnecessary. Francis Getliffe, short-tempered with fatigue, told them that they would soon present Hitler with the whole game. “Calvert says,” began Despard-Smith. Getliffe interrupted him: “Unless you all keep your nerve, the devils have got us. It’s our last chance. I’m tired of this nonsense.”
The high table was truculent and quarrelsome in its own fashion, but it was not used to words so openly harsh. With some dignity, old Despard-Smith announced that he did not propose to drink port that night: “I have been a fellow for fifty years next February, and it is too late to begin having my head bitten off in this hall.”
Arthur Brown, Roy, Francis Getliffe and I were left in the combination room, and Brown promptly ordered a bottle of port.
“It’s rather sensible to drink an occasional bottle,” said Brown, looking kindly and shrewdly at the others. “We never know whether it will be so accessible in the near future.”
“I’m sorry, Brown,” said Francis Getliffe. “I oughtn’t to have cursed the old man.”
“It’s all right, old chap,” said Arthur Brown comfortingly. “Everyone wants to address a few well-chosen remarks to Despard on some subject or other. How are you yourself?” He smiled anxiously at Francis, for Arthur Brown, whatever his hopes of a compromise, believed in keeping his powder dry: and hence scientists wearing themselves out in military preparations had to be cherished.
“In good order,” said Francis. But it was false: he seemed as though he should be put to bed for a fortnight. He was painfully frayed, thinking of his experiments, thinking of how he could flog himself on, thinking of how many months were left. He turned to Roy: “Calvert, you’re doing harm.”
“Harm to what?”
“To our chances of winning this war.”
“The war hasn’t come.”
“It will. You know as well as I do that it will.”
“I’m frightened that it will,” said Roy.
“The only thing to be frightened about,” said Francis harshly, “is that we shall slide out of it. That’s what I’m frightened of. If we get out of it this time, we’re finished. The fascists have won.”
“I suppose you mean the Germans,” said Arthur Brown, who never accepted anything which he suspected was a left-wing formula. “I don’t think I can go all the way with you, Getliffe. It might suit our book to have another breathing space.”
“No,” said Francis. “Our morale will weaken. Theirs will get tougher.”
“Yes,” said Roy clearly, “theirs will get tougher.”
“You like the idea, don’t you?” Francis cried.
“They are remarkable people.”
“Good God.” Francis’ face was flushed with passion. “You like authority wherever it rears its head.”
“That may be so. I haven’t been very clever at finding it, have I?”
Roy had spoken with the lightness that deceived, and Francis did not realise that he had struck much deeper than he knew. Neither Arthur Brown nor I could take our eyes from Roy’s face.
“I don’t know what you’ve found,” said Francis impatiently. “I should have thought you might be content among your fascist friends.”
“If so,” said Roy, “I might have stayed there.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“No,” said Roy, “you wouldn’t see why not.”
“You’d be less dangerous there than you are here,” shouted Francis, stung to bitter anger.
“I dare say. I’m not so concerned about that as you are.”
“Then you’ve got to be,” Francis said, and the quarrel became fiercer. Arthur Brown tried to steady them, offered to present another bottle of port, but they were too far gone. Brown listened with a frown of puzzlement and concern. He admired Francis Getliffe, but his whole outlook, even his idioms, were foreign to Brown. Francis took it for granted, in the way in which he and I and many of our generation had been brought up, that there were just two sides in the world, and that the battle between them was joined, and that no decent man could hesitate an instant. “My Manichaeans had the same idea,” said Roy, which made Francis more angry.
To Francis, to all men like him and many less incisive, it all seemed starkly plain in black-and-white. Issues have to seem so at the fighting-points of history. It was only later, looking back, that one saw the assumptions we had made, the ignorant hopes we had indulged, the acts of faith that looked strange in the light of what was actually to come. At that moment, Francis was saying, everything must be sacrificed to win: this was the great crisis, and until it was over we could not afford free art, disinterested speculation, the pleasures of detachment, the vagaries of the lonely human soul. They were luxuries. This was no time for luxuries. Our society was dying, and we could not rest until we had the new one safe.
Roy replied, sometimes with his light grave clarity, sometimes with the kind of frivolous gibes that infuriated Francis most. “Do you believe everything that’s written in Cyrillic letters?” asked Roy. “I must learn Russian. I’m sure you’d be upset if I translated Pravda to you every night.” He told Francis that communism (or Francis’ approach to it, for Francis was not a member of the party) was a “romantic” creed, for all its dryness. “It’s realistic about the past. Entirely so. But it’s wildly romantic about the future. Why, it believes it’s quite easy to make men good. It’s far more optimistic than Christianity. You need to read Saint Augustine, you know. Or Pascal. Or Hügel. But then they knew something of life.”
Once or twice Brown chuckled, but he was uneasy. He was deeply fond of Roy; much of what Roy said came far nearer to him than anything of Francis’.
But Brown was cautious and realistic. He believed Roy was completely reckless — and every word he said on Germany filled Brown with alarm. Brown was ready to anticipate that his protégés would get into trouble. Roy’s folly might be the most painful of all.
As for me, I was watching for the terrible elation. His wretchedness had weighed him down for weeks; it was melancholy at its deepest, and it was beginning to break into the lightning flashes.
I was expecting an outburst, and this time I was terrified where it would end.
It was that sign I was listening for, not anything else in their quarrel. But Roy’s last words that night were quite calm.
“You think I’m dangerous, don’t you?” he said. “Believe this: you and your friends are much more so. You know you’re right, don’t you? It has never crossed your mind that you might be wrong. And that doesn’t seem to you — dreadful.”