Jeremy asked, ‘What about the Vaisey millions now?’
‘Lyd’s going to be as tight-fisted as the butchers-of-the-blood, I’m afraid. She’s got very interested in overseas investment, I notice. Anyway, one good thing about it, it’s taken her out of that British Union crowd.’
‘You don’t go for that?’
‘Fascism? Good God, sir, I should think not! It’s the aristocratic leaning to that damned thing’s put us . . . Britain . . . where we are. Hitler and Mussolini, Franco, Tojo, would never have got where they are but for the pats on the back they’ve had from the British aristocracy, from Edward the Eighth down.’
‘Does this mean you lean to the Left?’
‘I don’t lean any way, Jeremy . . . but march ahead to the reality of human brotherhood I believe has already been realised to a degree in our . . . with your permission . . . Commonwealth.’
‘What do you think of Stalin?’
‘Czar of all the Russians . . . only he’s probably got only one valet instead of a hundred . . . and has pawned the Crown Jewels. Still, a valuable man.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He is the natural enemy of all other dictators. All pesky things have natural enemies to keep them in check. Stalin will settle Hitler, and vice versa, if left alone. If we interfere in Europe we’re going to get involved with one or the other. Our business is the — er — Commonwealth and Empire.’
‘What about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews? I was reading that even Albert Einstein has had to flee for his life.’
‘The fact is that Einstein had to be dragged out of Germany to have his life saved. That seemed to be the trouble with the Jews there. They were told to get out. They should have. The man Hitler stated clearly in Mein Kampf in 1925 that he would exterminate the Jews. Half of the German Jews have had the sense to leave. There’s enough money and to spare in World Jewry to get all of the Jews in Europe out . . . if they’re really interested in their people. It’s the Jews’ problem. I have a great admiration for Jews. I know them well. I’ve been C-in-C in Palestine. They are people who would be welcome anywhere, with their gelt, as they call their money, and their chein, their very special intelligence. You must know them from your Asia Minor days? There’re many now settled in Palestine. They’ve bought the lazy, slave-driving Arab sheiks out, and turned sand dunes into blossoming gardens. They could do the same here, in Africa, in South America . . . anywhere but where mediaeval superstition reigns and they are regarded as the killers of Christ. But the Jews have a great weakness. They rely too much on their cleverness. They think they will eventually outwit the goy, the hostile Christian. Einstein . . . and Sigmund Freud . . . were both supposed to have said that the Hun would regard them as too valuable to persecute . . . the two greatest minds of the century, you might say . . . and they had to be virtually bundled out with the howling brown-shirted Judenhetzen at their heels. Another weakness of the Jews is their tendency to go to extremities of opposite fanaticism when they renounce the faith of their fathers . . . Jesus, for instance, and Karl Marx. Their name is legion. The power behind Communism today is rationalised Judaism. That also has a lot to do with holding Jews back in Europe. The rationalists encourage the simpler ones to stay on with the promise of relieving them from persecution, while really all they want them for is as an opposition group. It’s complete madness . . . because the Russian, being naturally stupid and brutish, is the arch-enemy of the clever Jew. If the Russians beat the Germans, Judenhetze will become the pogrom. Really clever Jews see it, of course . . . and mistrust and fear Communism just as much as Fascism. Tell me, did you see anything of the Kibitka settlements Jews were making in Palestine?’
‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t.’
‘They were making them even then. The clever Jews of South Russia, knowing the Ottoman Empire was collapsing, got in quite early. It’s a Central Russian word, of course, meaning a camp. They got together in small groups and started plantations . . . oranges, dates . . . even planted your marvellous eucalypts. Since then, and especially of late the Kevutzoth movement, as they call it now, has grown enormously . . . to the great benefit of ourselves . . . I mean of the Commonwealth, since they now come under British rule. If only they’ll stay under it . . .’ Esk sighed.
‘Why . . . don’t they seem to regard it as the blessing you do?’
Esk smiled, tossed off his drink, then said, ‘Your true Jew is like Moses standing on Mount Pisgah and viewing the Promised Land. Only Jews can share the Jewish vision.’
The gong rang for dinner.
There was roast goose with sweet potatoes and a pineapple pie, all eaten with relish by the guests. Afterwards a short adjournment all together in the lounge, for coffee (again a produce of the place), brandy, and the news. In the news was an item on the founding of a scheme for the large-scale immigration and settling of refugee Jews in Australia. Esk smiled. ‘Speak of what the Chosen themselves would call k’rubim. You’re lucky. You might get an Einstein or a Bruno Walter.’ Jeremy made no comment.
Then, leaving Prindy and Denzil Dickey to their musical theory and Malters and his Memsahib talking of local native customs, Jeremy and Esk departed for the annexe, settled down in the den. Jeremy wasted no time in getting Esk onto the subject of the Treaty of Westminster, that agreement by which self-governing members of the so-called British Commonwealth of Nations, founded under the Balfour Declaration of 1925, were given complete and unequivocal autonomy over their own affairs, even to the point of making their own individual declarations of war. Jeremy had a pile of papers, magazines, books, that he said he had been studying in the hope of finding something about what the General had obviously shocked him by declaring with such evident knowledgeability, but confessed that he had failed. He added wryly: ‘I thought myself the great patriot . . . and now have to confess that I’ve got nothing on record about that most important event, except a few cuttings from papers and some angry comments I made at the time about that use of the term Commonwealth. I was going to write to Scullin, Australian Prime Minister at the time, about it. He’d been here on a visit. I didn’t, because when my anger cooled, I realised that if he’d had any feeling in the matter he wouldn’t have allowed it. So . . . well, please tell me the facts . . . Mark.’
It was the first time Jeremy had used the first name. Esk murmured, ‘Thank you, Jeremy.’ After drinking, as if to their established friendship, he said, ‘As I’ve told you, old man, I was sent out here by the War Office, just as I would be out to India, Burma, any such place still ruled from Westminster. I’d followed the Statute of Westminster business cloosely, because of my all-abiding interest in the affairs of my country, and naturally thought Australia had ratified the Treaty, and queried the legality of my appointment. They showed me that Australia had simply not sought ratification. It seemed curious, when the cry at the time was that the limiting clause of Function in the Balfour thing literally gave the Government of Great Britain the last say in everything. Canada, South Africa, and Eire, immediately established their own citizenship as against common British citizenship, and established their own legations throughout the world. Are you aware of having any Australian Ambassadors anywhere?’
Jeremy shook his head, leaning back, staring at the lean face, so like Lady Lydia’s in the shaded light. ‘That should be proof enough,’ Esk went on. ‘At the time of the general ratification, Australia was in political turmoil. As you say, one Scullin was your Prime Minister at the time. He came back from Westminster to find one Lang, Premier of the State of New South Wales, in process of being sacked by the State Governor, one Game, an Englishman, of course, who was using the ancient and honourable Royal Prerogative. It seems to me a frightfully high-handed thing to do, evidently engineered by British banking interests, because this man Lang wanted to introduce some unorthodox fiscal policy to beat the effect of the financial depression, which would have ruined the banks, I suppose . . . at least in New South Wales. I missed that, because of a crisis in Egypt, wh
ere I’d been sent. But reading about it . . . well, it looked like a case for another Boston Tea Party. Of course you’d know it all. Your Lang was hailed as the Greatest of Australians . . . Greater than Lenin, I believe was the slogan of his friends . . . or enemies . . . I couldn’t decide quite which in what I read.’
Jeremy merely nodded, filled the General’s glass. ‘Thanks, old boy . . . cheers! Well, Mr Lang called on Mr Scullin to support him and throw the British Garrison into the sea. Scullin could have, too, quite lawfully, under the ratified Statute of Westminster . . . and they were both fellow Labor Party men. I’ve met Scullin, as you have. I did so deliberately to get to the bottom of this. He’s a bookish man, a theorist, a coward, I’d say, politically . . . whereas Lang, whom I’ve not met, nor would dare to, because he’s been one of my attackers, is just the opposite . . . an Australian of the Bulldog Breed. The other man is like an Irish priest. At the time his, Scullin’s, Federal Labor Party was collapsing around him. There was fighting in the streets of Sydney, a Fascist-type uprising . . . New Guard, so called. It struck me that Scullin was deadly scared and deliberately let the Ratification slide, dodging the responsibility true nationhood would have left him with. His weakness cost him his head politically, of course. A split in the Labor ranks. Then the rise of this man Lyons with his so-called United Australia Party. An Australia so united that they had to call on Westminster to send a Commander-in-Chief! I asked the PM would he be ratifying the Treaty. He was so evasive, speaking of economic matters as having priority over all else at present, that I began to think there might be something in what the Left Wing papers, and this Fascist thing here . . .’ Esk waved to the bright copy of Australia Free lying on top of the stack of papers ‘. . . were saying about my being appointed to protect Imperial financial interest with troops. However, I soon discovered that my authority as Commander was strictly limited . . . and, in fact, that the PM himself has little real authority. The real power seems to be in the hands of the Attorney-General . . . groomed for eventual Prime Ministership, I’ve been told . . . his grooms, two former holders of that office, Messrs Hughes and Bruce . . .’
‘God help us!’
‘I’m glad to hear you, Jeremy. I was becoming a little apprehensive of your silence. But why the invocation?’
‘A Cockney runt and a Bunyip Lord!’
‘Bunyip Lord, dear boy?’
‘A term applied to Australian holders of Imperial titles . . . the Bunyip is a monster of Aboriginal legend, the only one to get into our own folk lore, but well used, I must admit . . . the Order of the Bunyip, as they say.’
Esk chuckled: ‘If only I’d known that before I left London. I met Lord Bruce there as High Commissioner. He seemed so damned pukka, don’t y’know. I’d have sooled the old Duke onto him. The old boy’d have got onto the subject of Bunyips with him, mark my words.’
‘And put the Damned Colonial in his place, eh?’ Jeremy’s voice was dry.
Esk drank, asked coolly, ‘You wouldn’t approve even in the case of a Bunyip Lord?’
Jeremy also drank. He said, ‘Tell me about this other fellow. With such grooms as you mention, he might well turn out to be the worst political disaster we’ve ever had . . . and that’s saying something . . . Fisher, who pledged us to the Last Man and the Last Shilling in support of British military ineptitude, and Taffy Hughes who would have utterly destroyed us in the squeeze to get them.’
‘I can’t say I know so much about him. He took to me while he thought I was a Blimp, but soon withdrew when he found I meant business in my appointment. The curious thing is that, while he’s the complete Little Englander in outlook and didn’t mind me as an Imperial figurehead, he actively supports the local lads who’ve made such a mess of your defence, in opposition to my having true command.’
Jeremy stared.
Esk went on: ‘You appear to be as bemused about it as I, old chap. Your politicians are reckoned tricky fellows . . . by British standards. I was prepared for that. It’s the same with your military men. On the one hand there’s downright truckling to Imperial Brass, yet behind your back you’re regarded as an interloper. I can’t see any sense in it. In point of fact, that’s why I’m here . . . with you.’
Jeremy, pouring brandy, looked up quickly.
‘“The one just man in Sodom” if you remember? I want to know whether I’m dealing with a national characteristic of deviousness for its own sake, or have run up against something more sinister.’
After a moment Jeremy asked, ‘What sinister purpose could there be?’
‘Struggle for power in which I could be used as a pawn, perhaps. I’ve told you there are two military factions. Perhaps it’s the same in the Government.’
‘Well, that’s your answer.’
‘It’s not. The British Commonwealth is in deadly danger. Its existence depends, in my opinion, utterly on the loyalty of this nation, or semi-nation, to the ideals the Commonwealth stands for. All these men appear to accept the Commonwealth without question . . . yet, as for doing anything practical to contribute to its strength and ideals, as the saying is, they couldn’t care less. Even the PM after calling on the Imperial powers for me, when I’ve tried to thrash out the matter of the country’s defence with him, avoided it. He just told me I had a free hand to do what I liked, see what was required to be done, and report on it, and he’d see that it was done . . . ever since which I’ve been bowed into every officers’ mess in the country pretty well, had my questions about efficiency largely answered with the most polite No Sir’s and my orders with the liveliest Yes Sir’s . . . and yet not a damned thing to show for it!’
They stared at each other again for a while. Esk broke the silence: ‘You can’t help me?’
Jeremy swallowed: ‘You put me in a very strange position . . .’
‘How’s that, dear boy?’
‘I’m the veriest Anglophobe, Mark. I mistrust everything the English do. I don’t want to offend you . . .’
Sir Mark shrugged, smiled. ‘We are a much misunderstood people. We’re not forthright. I think we’re even clumsy . . . not with ourselves, but with the world. We judge the world by ourselves . . . fair play and all that. It’s our fair play and honesty of intention that gets us where we want to go. But we have to put on masks to do it. We get dismayed by being misunderstood, and try to play the other fellow’s game a little to show him we’re friendly. Then he accuses us of perfidy. The Indians hate us . . . when we want them to love us. We become stiff with embarrassment. The situation gets worse. The Irish hate us . . .’
‘With every cause, surely!’
‘Ah . . . you’d be of Irish descent, of course . . .’
‘And Welsh. The Irish in me doesn’t matter that much . . .’
‘Are you so sure?’
‘One of the things I hate most in this mostly hateful community is the heroising of the Irish among us, who did nothing for their country’s good but leave it, and nothing for us but teach us hatred of England.’
‘Indeed!’
‘You can easily check on that by a turn I put on at Beatrice River on New Year’s Eve.’
‘Tell me about it, dear boy.’
Esk listened intently to the story, commenting when it was done: ‘Well, well . . . I’ve met your Shamus Finnucane. He did me the honour to treat me to a special Irish whisky he claims he’s keeping for his wake . . . which I thought rather touching, although I didn’t quite believe it. You see, I know the Irish fairly well. One of my less happy appointments was as a trouble-shooter during the Throuble, as they call it . . . therefore a Throuble-shooter . . .’
‘You were a Black and Tan?’
‘Hardly, dear boy!’
‘But the Throuble so-called . . .’
‘The Black and Tans were police, a lot of them English-born Irish. It was a bad political move to put them in the country . . . but the actual fact is that the Irish Government called for help. The country was in a state of civil war. The Sinn Feiners were attacking thei
r own people as much as the British soldiery. I was sent rather to quell the excess of the Black and Tans . . . which in effect meant to save them from the IRA. Again no thanks . . . because we tried to be on both sides. Ireland couldn’t live without England. For a long while we’ve regarded it as a trade-agreement, really. The trouble is a small band of violent men bent on violence against anyone for anything. Ireland is best dropped . . . as we’ve dropped her . . . but it leaves an awful gap in our family . . . because we’ve loved her ever since we civilised her. Do you believe we civilised her?’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 114
