Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  ‘Can’t you understand that you progressives cannot simply destroy everything and then, from the wasteland you have created, expect people to spontaneously resurrect and reorientate themselves as a living and healthy society? It takes years, centuries, of travail and disappointments and disasters to do that. To create a whole new pattern and system.’

  He suddenly changes tack drastically.

  ‘You have been in England, haven’t you?’ he asks.

  ‘I have,’ I confess.

  ‘I myself would never go to such a barbaric nor anarchic place, but I do admire some of their authors.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m not thinking of modern novelists like Virginia Woolf, with their pretentious and excruciating prose and self-indulgent twiddlings.’

  Something else I could almost agree with.

  ‘But have you ever read the poet and novelist G. K. Chesterton, a grounded man, often exquisitely imaginative?’

  I admit I’ve read some of his Father Brown detective stories.

  ‘Harrumph,’ he says. ‘A pity. He would help you become a better writer. He once wrote this delightful short story. About a man, a very progressive man, who goes around sweeping away the cobwebs of all these fusty old traditions, destroying ancient buildings and laws and habits, because he must have modernity, innovation, impactfulness. And one day he’s walking around making decisions and doing destructions and he comes across this hedge. “Why is this hedge?” he asks. No one with him seems able to answer this question. “What is its purpose?” No one seems to know. “Then cut it down,” this progressive orders. So it is cut down. And ten minutes later he is killed by a bull.’

  That really is very good. I must remember to read more Chesterton.

  ‘And yet you progressives don’t see that’s exactly what you’re doing here. China has always essentially been a pacifist nation. And yet what are you doing? Tearing down its ancient customs and traditions and laws – which often have deep common sense and practicality and caution in them – simply because they are old. Don’t you understand the violence and anarchy this nihilism will unleash? We won’t need the Japanese any longer. In the future the Chinese will all be butchering and torturing and terrorizing each other. That’s what it’s going to be like,’ he says.

  Suddenly he’s weary. Slumps back into his chair.

  ‘You want some money?’ he asks wearily.

  ‘Well, er…’

  ‘For this preposterous schools idea.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Chiang Kai-shek, or at least Mrs Chiang, seems to like you. And as I believe in and live in a hierarchical society and General Chiang is my boss, I suppose I must grant you his wish.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘That is very kind.’

  I leave the Ministry of Education and walk along the Bund.

  Wuhan is such a strange place. All sorts of tides and forces are pulling it in all sorts of directions. One minute I am giddily progressive with Tian Boqi, the next crushingly reactionary with Chen Lifu.11

  It is all such fun!

  6

  George Hogg, the young Quaker from England, was a tad unsettled. The subject of Europe, the dictators, Britain’s policy of appeasement, had been discussed frequently at the Last Ditch Club, and Mr Chamberlain’s name had never been mentioned in favourable terms. Indeed, he was the subject of often vitriolic abuse. This upset George. As a Quaker, of course, he was a sincere and dedicated pacifist. He believed that war, all violence, was horribly wrong. One just had to look around in China to see the appalling, the devastating effect that war had – especially on children. George had been in Nanking and witnessed the appalling Rape of Nanking. For atonement, indeed, he spent some of his time in Wuhan working for free in an orphanage. So when Mr Chamberlain, rather than diving straight into a war, which most members of the Last Ditch Club seemed to think he should, announced that he would rather talk and would rather negotiate with Mr Hitler and the other dictators in order to first see if he could reach a peaceful and just settlement concerning all their various grievances, George was solidly in favour. Not being a drinker, George stood to one side of the bar sipping a lemonade. If the conversation turned to Czechoslovakia and the Runciman Mission he was determined to have his say.

  In the centre of the bar, commanding the room, stood a new arrival from London whom everyone seemed to know.

  ‘Vernon, so good to see you.’

  ‘How’s things in London, old chap? What’s the latest?’

  Vernon Bartlett was suave in manner and smartly dressed. He sported a fresh orchid in his buttonhole. When his plane had landed at the aerodrome a couple of hours earlier, he had been a seasoned enough traveller to wait in the aircraft until the dust clouds outside settled before exiting. Left wing in politics, he wrote for Reynold’s News, a liberal Sunday newspaper, and, with his very reassuring voice, was the acknowledged master of the BBC’s popular ‘fireside chat’ radio programmes.

  Under his arm he carried a folded copy of the latest edition of The Times (now eight days old) which he had brought with him from London.

  George Hogg wasn’t sure he either liked or trusted ‘Vernon.’ Then instantly chastised himself for being so uncharitable.

  James Belden looked at Vernon with a steady eye.

  ‘Tell us what’s really happening in Downing Street, Vern. The truth.’

  ‘Yeah, tell us about the traitors,’ added Izzy Epstein.

  Peter Fleming sat on the opposite side of the room reading a Nancy Mitford novel.

  ‘You’ve all read the latest edition of The Times?’ enquired Bartlett.

  It had arrived from the airport half an hour before Bartlett, being delivered by bicycle courier. They’d all pored over it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rewi, ‘Beneš and Henlein.’

  ‘A bit of background,’ said Vernon. ‘We all know Hitler is going to seize Czechoslovakia. He’s employing exactly the same tactics he applies everywhere. Thanks to the Treaty of Versailles Czechoslovakia is a ragbag of nationalities – Czech, Slovak, Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians, all crammed together. A province of German-speakers inside Czechoslovakia stretches all the way down the border with Germany – the Sudetenland.

  ‘The leader of the Sudetens, Konrad Henlein, is a fascist, a Hitler bootlicker. So the Führer invites Mr Henlein to Berlin and orders him to start staging riots, demonstrations, demanding the right, as German-speakers, to secede from Czechoslovakia and join up with their brothers and sisters in the German Reich.’

  George Hogg readied himself.

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ he ventured, ‘that in the Treaty of Versailles, the Sudeten Germans were treated especially harshly, and…’

  A chorus of ‘hushes’ and ‘shut ups’ greeted his foray. Instinctively polite, he stopped.

  ‘So,’ continued Vernon, ‘Henlein stages all sorts of riots and provocations and the German press goes into hysterics about the “brutality” of the Czech police…’

  ‘The Czech police were brutal,’ insisted George. Everyone ignored him. Vernon continued.

  ‘…Hitler moves his army up to the Czech border and demands that, if the international community does not intervene and suppress these “massacres” immediately, he will be forced, much against his will, to invade Czechoslovakia. Which triggers panic inside Downing Street. That’s not in the script! Herr Hitler’s meant to be the victim, not the aggressor. He’s going to start a war!

  ‘I was Reynolds News’s lobby correspondent – for three whole days we didn’t hear a dicky bird from them. Paralyzed! Finally they tell us some ancient relic from the House of Lords, Lord Runciman, has been dug up and is travelling “immediately” to Prague and Berlin to “consult.”’

  ‘Waste time. Prevaricate.’

  ‘Exactly. He was to spend weeks travelling the capitals of Europe and would then write some enormous report which in the end would make no firm recommendations about anything, by which time Chamberlain obviously hoped the whole thing would have�
��’

  ‘Blown over.’

  ‘Journalists are no longer allowed to tell the truth in London. Proprietors threaten editors who threaten journalists to fall into line or be sacked. MI5 smears anyone who tells the truth. The BBC couldn’t wait to click its heels.’

  A silence.

  ‘Just before I left London I learnt the truth – what was really going on. What Runciman’s mission was really about.’

  ‘Yeah…?’ everyone chorused.

  ‘Who told you? Name names!’

  They all crowded round.

  It was at this moment that George decided to make his last stand.

  ‘This whole Sudetenland matter is being completely misrepresented,’ he stated.

  ‘Shut up,’ everyone shouted, some quite aggressively.

  For the first time in his life George felt anger licking within him. Since, as a good Quaker, he’d never been angry before, these feelings puzzled him, worried him even, and he stopped short.

  Bartlett continued.

  ‘The true situation, gentlemen, was personally told to me by a senior and impeccable source within the Foreign Office. To my face.’

  ‘Yes…?’

  ‘He told me that Lord Runciman had been sent by Chamberlain to President Beneš with precisely the opposite brief to the one that’s been in all the newspapers. Chamberlain told Runciman to order Beneš to immediately secede the Sudetenland to Hitler – lock stock and barrel – or Britain and France would abandon Czechoslovakia. Hitler could invade Beneš’s whole country and Britain and France wouldn’t lift a finger.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘And that, gentlemen, is what the Runciman Mission is all about.’

  ‘Treason!’

  ‘No wonder they’ve got MI5 strong-arming journalists!’

  ‘Fact is,’ concluded Bartlett, ‘the government’s panicked. Retreated into a bunker. They listen to no one but themselves. They’ve decided that if they don’t appease Hitler the communists, the Russians, will take over the world. Doesn’t matter what Churchill, what Eden, what Attlee tell them… Nothing will get them out of their funk hole. Beneš has no option but to yield the Sudetenland.’

  George had suppressed the flickerings of anger within him and was determined to speak.

  ‘This whole situation is being grossly misrepresented,’ he shouted. ‘Mr Chamberlain is a man of honour. He cares about peace. Lord Runciman is a man of honour. He too has been…’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ screamed Izzy Epstein, stepping towards George with his fists up. ‘Shut the fuck up, you dirty little Jew hater…’

  George stared at him.

  ‘I have nothing against Jews,’ he stuttered, ‘I like Jews…’

  ‘You fucking Nazi,’ screamed Izzy.

  Izzy was about to launch himself into the bewildered pacifist when suddenly the room was filled with the scream of a nearby air-raid siren. Bombs! Everyone instinctively ducked, then grabbed their glasses and stampeded down the stairs into the cellar.

  Downstairs in the darkness, rather than debate the latest vagaries of Chamberlain’s European policy, there was sombre silence. Even though it was a Europeans-only shelter they had always allowed the Chinese and White Russian staff from the club and the restaurant below, along with their customers, to enter with them. Everyone stood packed tight together, silent, stifling, sweating as the bombs began to fall and the ground shook around them. The Chinese were doubtless thinking and praying for their families and friends and property caught above ground. The Europeans, as they stood there, sank into ever deeper gloom as they analyzed over and again the desperate situation their own continent now found itself in. How many months or weeks even would it be before Europe too, indeed the whole world, was plunged into this chaos and slaughter? They thought of their dear ones and families at home suddenly having to cower in their cellars, or being enlisted to fight in unending wars. And they felt especial anger as they faced the pusillanimity, the duplicity, worst of all, the sheer stupidity of their leaders. Stupid as heifers standing patiently in line at the abattoir.

  At least, the Europeans felt, as the ground shook around them, the Chinese are fighting back.

  *

  As George Hogg was leaving the air-raid shelter to return to his office, Peter Fleming of The Times slipped in beside him.

  ‘Going back to your office, old chap?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t we share a rickshaw? My office is just down the road from yours.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’

  They both clambered into a rickshaw and the driver started off with his burden.

  ‘George,’ said Fleming, as if he’d known him all his life (they’d never actually spoken before), ‘congratulations, I thought you were jolly brave in there – speaking up for the prime minister against all those awful lefties.’

  ‘Oh,’ said George. He actually considered himself rather ‘lefty’ – in favour of getting the government to support the poor, increasing employment, not getting involved in endless wars – but anyhow…

  ‘You showed real courage.’

  ‘Well,’ said George modestly, ‘it’s just I feel that, if there’s a discussion, both sides of the argument should be heard before a decision is made.’

  ‘That’s democracy.’

  ‘Not that I know much about Chamberlain and so on,’ George added diffidently.

  ‘Don’t run yourself down, old chap. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by all those damned Bolshies. For years they’ve been running round demanding we end all wars and scrap all armies and navies. Everyone must sign the Peace Pledge. Every single weapon we have must be melted down and turned into ploughshares and baths for the poor.’

  ‘I rather agree with that melting down into ploughshares bit,’ suggested George.

  ‘Yes, George, yes, but then suddenly, overnight, the lefties turn through 180 degrees and start shrieking that everyone must fight, we must all stand up against these dreadful fascists and pick up our weapons that we’ve just melted down and denounce the cowardly ruling classes for having melted them down and not having armed us properly. Two-faced twisters!’

  Fleming turned and looked fully into George’s face.

  ‘It took a lot of pluck to say what you said in there, George. For me it was a real pleasure listening to a chap speaking a bit of common sense.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said George gently, ‘but it was only a political discussion. I hardly spoke a word.’

  He looked away. The Old Etonian continued to study George’s face. Hogg – awful name – hadn’t actually agreed with anything he’d said, but so far he hadn’t dismissed anything either. He would require a bit of work.

  ‘And don’t get upset with all those accusations of anti-Semitism,’ he continued. ‘Jews always use that trick when they’re losing an argument.’

  George turned a bit red.

  ‘And on politics, let’s face it, Woodrow Wilson, with all his silly idealism, created the most godawful mess at the Treaty of Versailles…’

  George agreed with that 100 per cent, but didn’t say so.

  ‘…especially in Eastern Europe. All sorts of nationalities jumbled together. Why we should be forced to fight on behalf of a repressive government like Czechoslovakia I don’t know. You have Germans on one side of a contiguous border living beside Germans on the other side – let the two of them join together. It’s common sense!

  ‘Personally, old chap, I don’t think our ruling classes are in a funk. I think they’re holding their nerve – unlike some of those lefties in there. Why’s it suddenly in everyone’s interest to have a war? The last war left us crippled, flat on our backs. Then, just as we were recovering, along came the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. Here we are, just picking ourselves up again from that, starting to regain our trade, our industry, starting to be able to provide jobs for everyone, and suddenly the lefties demand we get involved in yet another ruinous European war. Britain is a trading nation �
� we trade with the whole world. Let the Nazis fight the Bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks fight the Nazis and the Czechs sort themselves out. What’s it to us? Once we were the world’s number one trading nation – with all the jobs and prosperity that gave us. The strongest banking system in the world. We could be that all over again – provided we ignore these endless European entanglements.’

  Still there was neither agreement nor disagreement from Hogg. Sometimes, when you’re playing a particularly shy fish, you must give it time, let it in its own time approach your bait.

  ‘Where were you at school, old chap?’

  ‘St George’s, Harpenden.’

  ‘St George’s, Harpenden,’ replied Fleming, implying he knew the place well, even though he’d never heard of it.

  ‘You were at Eton, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Did you go to university?’

  ‘Oxford.’

  ‘Really? Which college?’

  ‘Wadham,’ said George, with a slight fall to his voice. Wadham was Oxford’s least illustrious college. ‘And you?’

  ‘The House,’ replied Fleming with the aplomb only an Old Etonian can muster.

  ‘You were in the Bullingdon, weren’t you?’ asked George, a note of disapproval in his voice.

  ‘Oh,’ said Fleming, caught out for a second. He covered rapidly. ‘Yes. Hardly ever attended though. Spent most of my time out hunting and fishing. I love fishing.’

  In fact Fleming had studied hard at Oxford and won a First in English. But appearances must be maintained.

  This brief quadrille over English social standing ended swiftly with both parties knowing precisely where they stood, who was on top and who below. Fleming of course displayed no sign of his victory. With a grateful smile he turned to his companion as the rickshaw drew up at his office.

  ‘Been a real pleasure talking to you, George. Can’t tell you how refreshing it is in Wuhan to hear an informed person speak their mind, say exactly where they stand on a subject. Let’s keep in touch.’