Читать книгу The Very White of Love: the heartbreaking love story that everyone is talking about! - S Worrall C - Страница 16
ОглавлениеMartin races down the stairs and sprints across the quad. In half an hour, a debate will be held in the Oxford Union on the question of conscription. An idea that had up till now been merely theoretical – that Martin and the rest of his generation may be called up for military service – has now become real.
Two months have flashed by since he lay on that bank on Crowell Hill, during the motor trial, seeing her eyes reflected in the blue winter sky. The Easter holidays have come and gone. Like fugitives from love, they have managed to snatch a few days together, either at Whichert House or in London. But Nancy has been either chained to her desk typing insurance claims, or spending most evenings and weekends rehearsing her play in London. They had hoped to spend Easter together but at the last minute he was summoned to Wiltshire again by his mother. Not an hour goes by when he doesn’t think of her but term has started again with a bang. There are books to read, essays to write, tutorials to attend.
In that time, clouds have darkened over Europe. In March, Hitler’s Panzers rolled into Czechoslovakia. Hitler has smashed Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement with an iron fist. Now, the world is holding its breath to see if Poland will be next. Love and war are now entwined in Martin’s and Nancy’s destinies.
‘Hugh!’ Martin spots his friend amidst the throng of students heading for the Union.
‘Think it’s going to be 1933 all over again?’ Hugh pulls out a cigarette, lights it and offers Martin one.
The so-called King and Country debate in 1933 had shocked the nation, when the Oxford Union adopted a pledge not to fight in the event of war with Germany, a pledge Churchill called ‘vile’ and ‘squalid’. Tonight’s debate won’t have any more legal standing than that one, but it will be an important barometer of public opinion. For weeks, it has been a hot topic of debate in college dining rooms and studies.
‘I don’t think so.’ Martin draws on his cigarette. ‘The mood in the country is different. Hitler has revealed his true intentions.’
Arriving at the Union, Martin and Hugh join a scrum of students pushing their way inside. Martin has never seen anything like it. Normally, these debates are languid affairs conducted in front of a half-filled hall. Tonight even the galleries are crammed to overflowing with students, leaning over the balustrades, whistling or calling to their friends on the floor. Hundreds more students stand or lean against the raspberry-coloured walls.
Martin and Hugh manage to find a seat near the front, on a bench facing the dispatch boxes. Martin looks around, waves to some friends in the gallery, then turns to the front, where the three speakers are waiting to address the throng. The atmosphere is electric, somewhere between a bullfight and a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
‘How’s Nancy?’ Hugh asks.
‘She’s fine.’ Martin pulls a face. ‘Hardly seen her, though. We’ve both been too busy. Did I tell you, she’s got a small part in a play in London?’
‘I didn’t know she acted. Where?’
‘Players’ Club. They have a little space on King Street.’
‘Near Covent Garden? I know it,’ Hugh interjects.
‘That’s it. Michael Redgrave is involved.’
‘Better watch out, Martin.’ Hugh nudges him in the ribs. ‘I’ve heard he’s a terrible womanizer.’
Martin knows his friend is only joking but the thought that Nancy might be unfaithful gives him a sharp pain, like a dagger stuck between his ribs. But his attention is quickly focused on the sight of the President of the Union rising from his high-backed chair on the dais behind the dispatch boxes. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Oxford Union.’ A wave of applause echoes round the walls. The students in the gallery drum on the wooden railings. ‘As war threatens Europe once again, the question of conscription has again leapt to the top of the national debate.’
‘No war!’ a heckler shouts from the back of the hall.
The President holds up his hand for silence. ‘And I am pleased to welcome three eminent speakers, who will debate the question from their own different, unique viewpoints.’ He turns and motions to the three speakers. ‘The Right Honourable Stephen King-Hall.’
There are a few boos.
‘ . . . Captain Basil Liddell Hart . . . ’
Liddell Hart waves, cheered by a group of undergraduates in the gallery.
‘And, last but not least, the Right Honourable Randolph Churchill.’ A cacophony of cheers and hissing erupts. Churchill waves, in an avuncular manner.
In 1933, he spoke in favour of war and a student hurled a stink bomb at him. There are a few jeers and whistles from the pacifists in the hall. But the hubbub soon dies down.
‘I now invite the Right Honourable Stephen King-Hall to debate our motion,’ booms the President. ‘Should conscription be reintroduced?’
Cries of ‘No!’ and ‘Yes!’ echo round the hall, a mixture of boos and cheers. Martin is torn in his views about the possibility of war. His Uncle Robert’s stories and poems about the horrors of the Great War have made him instinctively opposed to military conflict as a means of solving problems, and the sort of bellicose rhetoric espoused by Randolph Churchill, which is why he is a strong supporter of the League Of Nations. On the other hand, he has come to believe that Hitler presents such a threat to Europe that, if Britain does go to war, he will do his duty and join up. Even if it means being away from Nancy.
‘Looks like this is going to be quite a firecracker,’ he says as King-Hall gets up and goes to the dispatch box. He is smartly dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. His polished head gleams under the lights.
‘Mr President, as many of you know, I served in the Navy during the last war.’ He looks up at the gallery. ‘My service on HMS Southampton showed me what war can do. The terrible toll in blood and gold. The sacrifice of tens of thousands of young men, in the flower of their youth.’
He looks out at the sea of young faces in front of him. ‘But there is another way of winning a war.’ A few boos start to echo round the hall. ‘Non-violent resistance.’ He pronounces each word singly, and with emphasis.
The hissing gets louder. Someone in the gallery shouts: ‘Communist!’
‘Here we go . . . ’ Martin nudges his friend.
‘Order! Order.’ The President gets to his feet. ‘I would like to remind the house that booing or hissing a speaker is both a grave and a pointless discourtesy, and an abuse of the forms of the House!’
More cheering and booing. King raises his voice: ‘But what are the principles of non-violent resistance?’ He looks out into the packed hall. ‘In conventional military thinking, occupation by enemy forces represents the end of the war and victory for the enemy. However, in the case of non-violent resistance, such thinking is wrong!’
Someone at the back of the hall shouts: ‘Rubbish!’ Others turn and hurl insults at him. There is more hissing and wolf-whistling
King struggles on. ‘ . . . by shifting the area of conflict into the sphere of non-violence, using techniques like civil disobedience, non-violent demonstrations, sit-ins, go-slows, . . . ’
Next up is Basil Liddell Hart, the well-known military strategist and writer. His ascetic features and steel-rimmed glasses give him the appearance of a Russian intellectual.
‘This should be interesting,’ Hugh says under his breath. ‘He’s a brilliant speaker.’
‘There are many reasons to oppose conscription,’ Hart begins. More boos echo round the hall. ‘First, it is impracticable. Soldiers need to be trained. But we have neither enough men nor enough qualified instructors. More importantly, conscription is alien to a democratic society!’
A wave of applause and cheers rises from the crowd. Their opponents shout, ‘Nonsense!’
‘Whatever the case for compulsory service in an earlier generation, when other democratic nations adopted it, it is inevitably affected now by the fact that we are threatened by nations who have made it not merely a means but an end – a principle of life . . . ’
There is cheering. A group of students in the gallery drum on the balustrades.
‘ . . . and for us to adopt compulsory service under pressure of their challenge would be a surrender of our own vital principles – and admission of spiritual defeat.’
There is thunderous applause, interspersed with a few boos. Martin looks at Hugh and raises his eyebrows.
‘He’s right, of course. But I can’t see him winning, can you?’
‘Not a chance.’ Hugh shakes his head. ‘You’re for fighting, aren’t you?’
‘Of course. If nothing else works. I just wish the League of Nations had some real teeth,’ says Martin, remembering his conversation with Nancy last November.
‘You might have to wait a long time for that,’ says Hugh, dismissively.
Hart leaves the dispatch box and returns to his seat to prolonged applause. The President gets up again. ‘Our final speaker, ladies and gentlemen, needs no introduction . . . ’
Martin has only seen Randolph Churchill in photographs. In the flesh, the young MP is even more different from his famous father. The face is gaunter, more sallow, the shoulders narrower. A red silk handkerchief pokes from his breast pocket.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’ His plummy voice is drowned in a wave of applause, mixed with catcalls and whistles.
‘Tory scum!’ a bearded student in a donkey jacket shouts from the gallery.
Churchill ignores him. Martin rolls his eyes. ‘It is now nearly six years since this House adopted that shameful pledge not to fight for King and Country.’ A barrage of insults and jeers erupts from sections of the crowd. Others cheer and clap. ‘An oath my father, Winston Churchill, rightly called . . . ’ He lets the pause hang in the air, then raises his voice. ‘Abject. Squalid. And shameless!’ A wave of foot stomping echoes round the hall. ‘Since then—’ His voice is drowned out by catcalls and whistles. ‘Since then, Herr Hitler has continued to arm Germany at an alarming rate.’
The mention of Hitler’s name elicits a chorus of boos and hissing. Churchill raises his hand. ‘And, as a result, this great country that we love . . . ’ he leans against the dispatch box, letting his words sink in ‘ . . . now faces a threat more grave than any in the last thousand years.’
Someone shouts: ‘Hear, Hear!’ Churchill brings the palm of his hand down on the dispatch box with a loud bang. ‘Across the Channel, for the last three years, a war has been going on for the hearts and minds of the French people, as Nazi propaganda attempts to poison the minds of our allies.’ He thumps the dispatch box for a second time. His voice drips with disdain. ‘A war we are losing.’
Martin and Hugh exchange glances as more cheers, even louder this time, echo round the red-painted walls of the debating chamber. People begin to stamp their feet. Martin does not join in.
‘Yet, here, in Great Britain, we have so far only made . . . ’ he sneers ‘ . . . gestures of defiance.’ Martin feels Churchill’s eyes as he rakes the hall with a glare. ‘But we have reached a point where gestures are not enough!’
A shout goes up from the gallery: two students are flailing their fists. Others join in. The noise gets louder and louder. Churchill pulls the red handkerchief from his breast pocket, mops his brow. ‘We want not only gestures,’ he calls out to the crowd, letting the words sink in. ‘We want an army!’ Another wave of stamping and cheering erupts from the crowd. Churchill presses his hands down on the dispatch box, stares defiantly out at the crowd, and roars: ‘And that quite soon!’
A huge cheer goes up. People spring to their feet. Martin and Hugh remain seated, clapping enthusiastically.
The President gets to his feet. ‘And now, my honourable friends, the time has come to vote on our motion. Ayes to the right, please. Nos to the left.’
There is a cacophony of benches scraping, coughs and stamping feet, as the audience gets to its feet and files out of the debating chamber. As Martin reaches the brass rail dividing the votes, he hesitates, then steps to the right.
Martin and Hugh follow the crowds to the Eagle and Child pub, known to generations of Oxford students as the Fowl and Foetus. C. S. Lewis and Tolkien can normally be found in the back room talking about hobbits and magic wardrobes with other members of ‘The Inklings’. Not tonight. It’s bedlam. The heat is intense, the air blue with smoke. Everyone is arguing about the debate.
‘They should bloody shoot that Stephen King chap,’ a plummy-voiced young Trinity student sneers. ‘Or send him off to the Soviet Union!’
‘Liddell Hart’s not much better!’ his companion snipes. ‘Total Bolshie. Even looks like Lenin!’
Martin rolls his eyes as he tries to wriggle his way through the crowds to the bar. ‘The usual?’ he calls back to Hugh. Hugh gives him the thumbs-up.
Martin keeps trying to attract the barman’s attention, but he is wedged between two rugby players. He’s impatient. Can’t wait to get back to his room and write to Nancy about what has happened. The motion was easily carried. But though he knows the outcome has no ultimate meaning, he feels as though the war, which until now had seemed far away, has crept one step closer to their lives, like a fog rolling across winter fields.
Finally, he manages to commandeer two pints and edges his way back through the jostling, shouting crowd, holding the glasses above his head.
‘Cheers!’ says Hugh, relieving him of one of the glasses.
‘Cheers!’ Martin takes a long, deep draught. ‘So, what did you think?’
‘Exciting.’ Hugh has to shout to make himself heard. ‘You?’
Martin gulps his beer. His heart is torn between two powerful emotions: his love for Nancy and his feeling of duty towards his country. A third emotion – anger at Hitler – only adds to the waves crashing against each other inside him.
‘It’s still sinking in,’ he says to Hugh, not yet ready to share his feelings, even to a good friend.
On his way back to Teddy Hall, Martin stops and looks up into the sky. It’s as clear as a bell and is like a sheet of black satin, the stars a thousand glimmering diamonds. He imagines Nancy looking up into the same sky at Blythe Cottage, two young people at a crossroads in their lives. At that moment, a plane passes overhead, its lights clearly visible.
The first thing he does when he gets back to his room is pour himself a large, dry martini and light a cigarette. The gas fire sputters. On the desk is a pewter tankard engraved with the college crest. Her Christmas gift. And a letter with a poem written by her.
I took a ladder from the wall
And held it up against the sky
And said, ‘I’ll climb the steps
And pick some stars
And throw them down to you.
That, when soft summer comes,
We’ll plait a basket
And walk, hand in hand,
Giving our stars to children
By the way; yes, all but one
That one our love shall light
Both day and night.’
Martin smiles, reads it again, then takes a sheet of writing paper and spreads it on the table. Inhales deeply on his cigarette, unscrews his pen and writes the words ‘Claire de lune’.
It’s his nickname for her: a play on her second name, Claire, and one of their favourite pieces of music, ‘Clair de lune’, by Claude Debussy.
I just got back from the debate on conscription. The Union voted for conscription by 430 votes to 370. So everything hangs fire, not only the season. Everyone is uncertain what conscription will mean to us. It is harder than ever to concentrate on my studies. There is so much more to do and experience and so many other places to explore. I know all this has been thought by other young people since time immemorial but it strikes all of us just now because these ideas have been highlighted by the gloom of war.
I’ve never bothered you talking about engagements or marriage and I think you feel the same way. But I’m a little frightened, so it’s natural to want to hold your hand more tightly, isn’t it? I’m hopelessly in love with you and want to keep you for myself for the rest of my life. I understand why you want to wait. And I respect that. I don’t mind waiting. I can be patient, although it’s hard. I’m full of emotional energy but also a bit patrician, so there is always a struggle going on inside me. I’m extravagant, a little unscrupulous, a little lazy, and rather too pleased with myself. But I have some good points, which I hope you can see.
Aunt D. came to tea yesterday with Dr Brann, an evacuee from Heidelberg, who she is putting up at Whichert House with his wife and child, until they can find somewhere of their own in Oxford. He told us all the latest from Germany. He says they are rounding up all the Jews and putting them in special camps. Can you believe this is happening in the country that gave the world Beethoven?
The clock of St Giles strikes ten. He looks at his watch. Pours himself another drink and lights a second cigarette. Scribbles on.
Did you see the sky tonight? Flawless, and infinite, with the stars pointed to it and shining goldenly. As I was walking, a solitary aeroplane flew over. I could see its lights. Red, green, yellow, all so clear. It must be perfect, flying now in the cold, clear light. There are so many things like that I long to share with you.
He lifts the pen, smiling at the memory, then draws on his cigarette. The outcome of the debate is sinking further in. Martin chews nervously on his pen top then brings the nib back to the page.
Whatever happens, you mustn’t worry about me: even if I don’t get my officer’s commission (which I should get) it will be no dreadful hardship to be conscripted. There will be ideas and people to line the sackcloth uniforms with fine silk to make them wearable and life liveable. To be loved by you is like sitting with the small of your back to a warm fire after wandering about in the winter and the chilliness.
I’m going to be fanatically busy this week because I must work extra hard to make up for last week’s lapses. So I’m writing this before the law books close in and around me.
Darling, I’m longing to see you. I think perhaps a half-hearted (metaphorically) meeting before term ends would add to the strain. What do you think? I shall have so much to do that I will have my mind occupied. And the holidays will soon be with us.
Forgive the scrawl. I’ll try to write properly soon, a little less chatter and more prose worthy of a poem, a masterpiece and enchantress all of which you are.
All my love, Martin.
