Читать книгу In the Mouth of the Wolf - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 19

We did everything together, didn’t we, Pieter? With Papa away at work up in London even during the school holidays, you were the only one at home I could really talk to. We swam, we cycled, we climbed trees, we learnt to drive together, learnt about girls together too. Learning to drive was a whole lot easier.

There came a day when we had both grown away from home, and were not big brother and little brother any more. I had left university and you were at drama college and were acting at Stratford-upon-Avon – Julius Caesar, it was, and you were the best actor in the play, no question. I was so proud of you in your toga, so envious of your great gift. How could that little boy who had trailed behind me in the forest, fencing off the wolves with his stick, longing to go to the stars, have become such a great actor?

We took a rowing boat out for a picnic on the river, tied up under a willow tree, and we talked properly, maybe for the first time. We argued, not angrily but passionately, about Hitler and Mussolini, about the war we knew was coming. I spoke of the futility and waste of war, of the barbarity and horror of the Great War, of how we must not descend to the level of the fascists and join in another conflict that would only serve to kill more millions. I insisted that pacifism was the only way forward for humanity.

And you surprised me with the force of your argument. You said that you had always respected my views, but that I was wrong, that pacifism would not stop Hitler, that the cruelty of fascism had to be confronted. Hitler had marched into Austria, and into Czechoslovakia and Poland, and everyone knew his tanks would soon be rolling into Alsace-Lorraine, you said. The freedom of Europe, of the whole world, was threatened. If it came to war, you would join up and fight. You said you loved acting, but you couldn’t go on making make-believe on the stage when the survival of everyone and everything you held dear was at stake. And I told you – and how well I remember saying it – that killing another human being, no matter how worthy the cause, was wrong, was as wicked as any evil, as any tyrant you might be fighting. Wars solve nothing. I was adamant.