The Raft & Socrates Asks Why

by Eric Linklater

  PASSENGER

  A good gardener, they say, has green fingers. What he plants will grow. And it seems to me that Britain has also had green fingers. We have been conquerors, I know, but only at intervals and often in a very casual and unpremeditated way. It is more important to remember that we have been good gardeners.

  WIRELESS OPERATOR

  Do you think we have been good gardeners in our own country? Do you remember unemployment before the war, and the semi-starvation that went with it? Have you ever seen the slums in our seaport towns? Do you think that all the millions we have spent on so-called education have been well spent? Have you ever heard of depressed areas in Durham and South Wales?

  STOKER

  Yes, and in the Highlands of Scotland too. I have a brother who was a minister in Portree, before he went into the Army, and he has told me that in the first forty years of last century the island of Skye sent nearly eleven thousand men into the British Army, and twenty-one Generals and a Governor-General of India too. That was from Skye alone, but the total number from all the islands and the Highlands was very large indeed. We cannot find so great a number to-day, because the Highlands have been very much neglected. And that is a pity.

  LIEUTENANT

  Nobody is going to deny that we have made tragic mistakes and committed the most destructive follies. Nobody, I hope, will ever suggest that we should keep silent about our faults and national misdeeds and acts of lunacy. But it would be ridiculous to talk about nothing else. In justice to ourselves we should speak, from time to time, of what we have done well. Are we not entitled, now and then, to remember with pleasure those matters in which we have been successful? Would it be wholly unforgivable if, on occasion, we were even to congratulate ourselves on some of the wise and timely actions we have taken?

  PASSENGER

  Hammer that nail home. We have dispraised and underrated ourselves too long.

  LIEUTENANT

  We have certainly underrated ourselves. You know the way in which people nowadays regard the pilots and air-crews of the Royal Air Force? As if they were a race apart, men with some incomprehensible virtue and mysterious superhuman qualities. But a year or two ago those pilots and navigators and air-gunners were the people we rubbed shoulders with in the streets. We took no particular notice of them then. They were clerks and mechanics, they were accountants and shopmen, they were sheep-farmers, they sold secondhand motor-cars and life-insurance and radio sets, they were agents and managers and ironmongers and bus-conductors.

  PASSENGER

  They were even the products of those public schools which have been the object of so much unkind criticism.

  LIEUTENANT

  They were the ordinary people of our country. But in those ordinary people was a virtue, a strength, a mystery that we did not recognise. We underrated them. And we know, now, that we underrated the whole country.

  WIRELESS OPERATOR

  We may have underrated its potentialities, but for a good long time it would have been very difficult to underrate its performance.

  SECOND MATE

  Let’s not start a post-mortem on Britain-before-the-war. I’ve got a feeling it would make me slightly uncomfortable, being not more than a couple of cables from post-mortem myself.

  PASSENGER

  We suffer, as a nation, from lack of imagination. That has often been a comfort, but more often a handicap. Lack of imagination — of imaginative perception — kept us from seeing fighter-pilots and navigators in those ordinary young men whom we used to meet in suburban trains and city offices. Yet we all know the strands in our history: the English admirals and the English poets, yeomen farmers and strong craftsmen, the same stock in the foundries to-day who tempered swords for Agincourt and made cannon for Francis Drake. We should have been confident enough, but we doubted everything. Then came the year when we stood alone, when France had fallen, all Europe was captive, when Russia held its fire and America was not yet ready. Then at last, when we had no visible reason for confidence, confidence returned. Standing alone at the cross-roads, unarmed and naked, we discovered a little fragment of the truth: we knew, at least, that we should never give in.

  LIEUTENANT

  No one shared that knowledge. All the world believed that we had been defeated. It took me a long time to understand how deeply that belief was held. I have been in America for nearly three months. My ship went there for repairs, and we lay in the Philadelphia Navy Yard for six weeks, and then I fell ill and had to stay behind when she sailed. My American friends were more kind and generous than I could have believed possible, but they shocked me when they confessed their belief that after Dunkirk we were beaten.

  PASSENGER

  I have been in America longer than you. They had no choice but to suppose we were beaten, because all that preserved us from defeat was something that lay so deep in our hearts, so secret and long-neglected, that we ourselves had more than half forgotten its existence. We gave them no encouragement to believe in us. They had to find the secret for themselves, and this is the story I was told.

  For a long time the information which the President had been receiving was all of the most dismal kind. He was told about the weakness of Britain, the sinking of our ships, our failure to re-arm with proper speed. About political quarrelling and the enmity between capital and labour. About our slackness, our stupidity, our cynicism. All the bad things and every circumstance that promised our defeat were carried to his ears. But the President, in spite of all the evidence, was not wholly convinced. He, perhaps, knew more about us than we did ourselves. He has never lacked — what did I call it? — imaginative perception.

  So he sent to Britain a special emissary, a friend of his, a man in whose judgment he trusted. And this man went to and fro about Britain, in the winter when London was burning, and spoke to the people. Not only to Cabinet Ministers and great industrialists. He spoke to them, of course, and to Admirals and senior Civil Servants. But he spent most of his time with quite humble people, in factories and shipyards and football grounds, in narrow streets, in tram-cars and the corner pub. He learned for himself the true temper of Britain. But for a time he said nothing. He would not disclose what opinion he had formed, and no one knew whether it was good or ill.

  Then, after he had been here for some weeks, he was invited to a dinner-party in Scotland. There were about a dozen people there, all of them important. The Prime Minister was there. After dinner the Prime Minister made a little speech, and so did one or two others. Then the American, the President’s emissary, got up to speak. He had spent the day, after his usual manner, among ordinary people. He spoke of this and that, but said nothing of any consequence. Then he paused for a little while, and continued in this way:

  ‘It occurs to me that some of you may be interested to know what impression I have formed, of your country and its people, during the short time I have been here. You are aware, I suppose, that the attitude of the United States of America may to some extent be influenced by what I have to say about you. And to the best of my knowledge you are inclined to attach some importance to America’s attitude. You would not regard with indifference, let us say, the prospect of wholehearted American assistance in this war you are waging. Well, gentlemen, what I have learnt about your country and your people, from your people, has now made me bold enough to anticipate the verdict of my country. Speaking in the name of my country, and the words of the Bible, I say to you: “Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”’

  LIEUTENANT

  That evening, whenever it was, anticipated history. Everybody there, hearing that promise, must have known that victory, however long it might take to come, had been assured.

  SECOND MATE

  And what assured it was the ordinary people of Great Britain. They were the evidence. Your American emissary found his proof in the pubs and the buses, in the factories and the streets. It was the people who convinced him.

  LIEUTENANT
/>   I believe in their virtue and their strength, in the kindliness and good-humour of their hearts, in the justice of their intention.

  WIRELESS OPERATOR

  I believe in freedom and fair play for all. I believe that England might have done better than she has — but she might have done worse.

  GUNNER

  I believe in Scotland, though she is like an old bitch that has suckled too many puppies, and her whelps have gone far from her. But there is no beauty like the beauty of her mountains and the islands and the sea-lochs on a summer evening. And the Highland regiments have fought very well in this war.

  LIEUTENANT

  I believe in the Royal Navy, that has been stretched over all the seas of the world, and has fought the most desperate of all its wars.

  PASSENGER

  I believe that in the mystery of life there is benignity. I believe that in the mystery of these islands there is a weapon capable of serving that benignity.

  LIEUTENANT

  Read the whole story of Britain. Weigh on the one side all we have given, weigh on the other what we have taken. We have given more. It is a good story, though some of the chapters read darkly, and this also I believe, that the story is only beginning. There are new victories we shall win, new territories we shall explore. We shall march against the oldest enemies, against fear and cruelty, untruth and greed. We shall send our voyagers into the new lands of peace and justice, of understanding and high endeavour. When this war against Germany is over, the soldiers and the sailors will go back to their homes, but faith and duty and pride must not lay down their weapons. The faith and duty we have found in these years may not disarm, nor sober pride return to sleep. They will be needed still, for them there is no discharge. Keep them in service, and we shall do great things. We are still in the early days of our story. — All this I believe.

  STOKER

  I believe in my wife and child. She is a good woman, honest and laughing and kind, and the child is well cared-for. I believe, or I used to believe, in my own strength and the mates I’ve had in the stoke-hole of a dozen ships. I believe in the people in our street. They were good to us when I was out of work. — But what’s the point of all this? We are what we are, and if there was no good in us we’d have rotted and gone long since. You needn’t look for perfection, now nor ever, and there are rats in every ship. Too many rats. But the rats don’t rule the ship. Don’t worry too much about the rats. Take the toe of your boot to them, and go to work. Give us work to do, and we’re all right. Give us good work, and we’ll do it well. Yes, give us good ships, and put them to good use, and we’ll take them to sea. Set us a proper course, and we shan’t fail you.

  LIEUTENANT

  Set us a proper course.…

  There is silence, but for the chop of broken water on the raft, the lapsing of the sea, and the wind combing the tops of the swell. The slap of a wave, a sound like that of a pebble dropped into a deep well, the whistle of wind in the trough: nothing else.

  Then a steamer’s whistle is heard, and repeated. Presently there is the urgent noise that a boat makes in a heavy sea: the forefoot thudding on a wave, spray falling thickly, splash of oars. Then voices are heard.

  FIRST VOICE

  Easy, starboard. Easy! Give way, port.… Look alive, now. Steady there. Get aboard and make fast to something.

  SECOND VOICE

  Aye, aye, sir.

  THIRD VOICE

  If it hadn’t been for that Dornier diving and shooting at them, we’d never have seen them.

  FOURTH VOICE

  We’re too late, anyway. They’re all dead, aren’t they?

  FIRST VOICE

  All right forward? What do they look like? Any alive?

  SECOND VOICE

  I can’t make out, sir.

  FIRST VOICE

  I’ll come and have a look. — Get that oar out of the way! You’re a sailor now, not a billiard-marker.

  FOURTH VOICE

  They’re all dead, sir.

  FIRST VOICE

  What do you know about it? — Here’s one that’s alive. And another. — Come on, now, get moving! Cut that line away. Cut it, you beetle-fingered gravedigger! Come on, billiard-marker, take a hold of this fellow. Easy now. Careful with his head.

  FOURTH VOICE

  Are they still alive?

  FIRST VOICE

  Alive? Of course they’re alive. Men like these don’t die as easy as you’d think.

  Socrates Asks Why

  A SECOND CONVERSATION IN ELYSIUM

  The scene is the loggia of a country club in Elysium. Though the architecture is Palladian, the furniture betrays a modern taste for comfort, and upholstery has not all been sacrificed to design. A bank of azaleas, growing beneath a low balustrade, is almost luminous in the ebb of day.

  The time is also hinted by the demeanour of those present, who wear the easy look of men who have dined. SOCRATES, indeed, is yawning, and another is asleep. SOCRATES is a shortish thick-set man, bearded, with a big mouth, eyes like a bull, a snub nose with great nostrils. His woollen himation, carelessly worn, is not quite clean.

  In neighbouring chairs — they are not purposely in one party, but near enough for conversation — are ABRAHAM LINCOLN, M. DE VOLTAIRE, and DR. JOHNSON.

  LINCOLN’S appearance in Elysium has already been described in The Cornerstones. JOHNSON, a vast and sprawling figure, resembles the portrait by Reynolds rather than Macaulay’s description; though his coat is inelegant, it bears little evidence of his liking for fish sauce, and the rugged magnificence of his face wears no unseemly scars. But his speech is still explosive with puffing and grunting, and his gestures reveal rather the energy of his mind than the perfection of his manners. VOLTAIRE, thickly gowned even against the mild air of an Elysian evening, is a pair of eyes, a long thin nose, and a grin below a powdered wig.

  The sleeper reclines at the other end of the loggia. He is dressed, more formally than the others, in black. His brow is a bony cliff. His cheek-bones, from which the sleeping flesh has receded, are broad and harsh. His mouth, like that of a swimming giant come up for breath, gapes wide open. His hands, folded on his chest, are twitching. It is BEETHOVEN.

  Conveniently placed for the entertainment of the others is one of those Elysian television-sets which, with their unrestricted range and free selection, allow the inhabitants to see all they want of the world’s activity. At the moment an official Commentator, in a rich professional voice, is describing the progress of the war; and on the screen there is a picture of desperate fighting on the green hills of the Bataan Peninsula. But the view changes abruptly to a glimpse of oil-derricks and the aspiring, many-windowed rectangles of a sunlit American city.

  COMMENTATOR

  The Bataan Peninsula was defended by its weary garrison of American and Filipino soldiers with such dauntless fury that it seemed the whole crop of human bravery and tenacity had been gathered for their hearts alone. The Japanese had to pay a fearful price for victory. Their enormous strength was hugely mutilated, but the attack was unceasing, and the concentrated multitude of men and guns was finally irresistible. But America was not slow to respond, and now, in the cities of the United States, we can see the prodigious evidence of her determination to match a world in arms. The mind trembles at the brutal enormity of the war, for upon its issue depends the whole future of the world. But America meets the challenge! America is working, drilling, casting cannon, and building ships. America is spending money that reaches into figures which hitherto only astronomers have employed. Mr. Roosevelt has asked for an appropriation of $10,000,000,000 for naval expansion.…

  LINCOLN, after a questioning glance to the others and their assenting gesture, turns off both Voice and View.

  LINCOLN

  Either the world has got braver since my time, or is become insensitive. I remember getting a letter from Horace Greeley, just after the first battle of Bull Run. In New York, he said, ‘sullen, scorching, black despair sits on every brow.’ Yet this
war, so immeasurably vaster than ours, and beginning as it did with surprise and disaster, has not induced despair, but high spirits and determination. I would very much like to know what Horace thinks about this amendment to our spiritual constitution. He would approve, I know, of Mr. Roosevelt’s financial policy, for Horace had a lavish way with money himself.