by C. P. Snow
Luke shook his head.
‘All I know is that the bloody balloon went up all right.’
Someone said, with more personal sympathy than the rest: ‘It’s a pity it wasn’t yours.’
‘Ours ought to go a bit higher when it does go,’ replied Luke.
Francis Getliffe sat on a desk, looked down the small room, began to talk about reports from America – the argument was still going on, the scientists there were pressing the case against using the bomb, the military for; and all the statements for and against most of us knew by heart.
Then there was an interruption.
Mounteney leaned back, protruded his lean prow of a chin, and said, with unexpected formality: ‘Before we go on, I should like to know who invited L S Eliot to this meeting.’
‘I did,’ said Francis Getliffe. ‘I take it no one objects.’
‘I do,’ said Mounteney.
For a second, I thought it was a scientist’s joke, but Mounteney was continuing: ‘I understood that this was a meeting of scientists to find ways of stopping a misuse of science. We’ve got to stop the people who don’t understand science from making nonsense of everything we’ve said, and performing the greatest perversion of science that we’ve ever been threatened with. It’s the general class of people like Eliot who are trying to use the subject for a purpose none of us can tolerate, and I don’t see the point in having one of them join in this discussion. Not that I mean anything against L S Eliot, of course. I don’t suppose he personally would actually authorize using the fission bomb.’
It was only later that I remembered that he liked me, and that this was a triumph of impersonality.
Getliffe raised his voice. ‘We all know that Eliot thinks as we do. He also knows a great deal more than any of us about the government machines. That’s why he can be useful this afternoon.’
‘I don’t want anyone who knows anything about government machines,’ said Mounteney. ‘People who know about government machines all end up by doing what the machine wants, and that is the trouble we have got ourselves in today.’
Luke and Martin were exchanging glances, and Luke spoke.
‘We want Lewis Eliot in on this,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Mounteney.
‘Because you’re a wild man, Arthur, and he’s a cunning old dog.’
‘If you really do want him,’ said Mounteney, ‘I suppose I’m prepared to stay.’
‘I should think you are.’
‘But I still object in principle.’
Later, a good many scientists, not so wild as Mounteney, would have considered that in principle he was right.
Getliffe returned to the arguments in America. For weeks everyone in that room had thrashed them out.
Some of them gave an absolute no to the use of the bomb for reasons which were too instinctive to express. For any cause on earth, they could not bear to destroy hundreds of thousands of people at a go.
Many of them gave something near to an absolute no for reasons which, at root, were much the same; the fission bomb was the final product of scientific civilization; if it were used at once to destroy, neither science nor the civilization of which science was bone and fibre, would be free from guilt again.
Many, probably the majority, gave a conditional no with much the same feeling behind it: but if there were no other way of saving the war against Hitler, they would be prepared to drop the bomb. I believed that that was the position of Francis Getliffe; it was certainly Luke’s.
None of those attitudes were stated at this meeting. They had been agreed on long before, and they gave us much common ground. But those who answered with a conditional no could not dismiss the military counter argument out of hand. In America, so Getliffe said, those in favour of the bomb were saying: Our troops have got to invade Japan. This bomb will save our men’s lives; a soldier must do anything, however atrocious, if by doing so he could save one single life under his command.
As Getliffe said, that was a case which one had to respect. And it was the only case one could respect. Using the bomb to forestall the Russians or for any kind of diplomatic motive – that was beneath the human level.
Yet, if the dropping of a bomb could make the Japanese surrender, the knowledge that we possessed it might do the same?
‘Several of us,’ said Francis Getliffe, ‘had made a scheme, in case we had it before the end of the German war. Step one. Inform the enemy that the bomb was made, and give them enough proof. Step two. Drop one bomb where it will not kill people. Step three. If the enemy government will not budge, then’ – Getliffe had faced his own thoughts – ‘drop the next on a town.’
By this time, the meeting was in a state of deep emotion. If there is any sense or feeling left,’ said Francis Getliffe (it was only afterwards that I recalled that ‘sense and feeling’ was the one emotional phrase in his speech), ‘don’t begin by using this bomb on human beings.’
That was the case which scientists were putting up in Washington.
‘How are they taking it?’ asked a refugee.
‘Some are listening,’ said Francis.
‘Is that going to be good enough?’ said someone.
‘No one knows yet,’ said Francis, He added: ‘We’ve had one optimistic message.’
‘Who from?’
Getliffe gave the name.
Luke shook his head.
‘He’d believe anything that a blooming general told him. I must say, it doesn’t sound safe enough to leave.’
‘I agree,’ said Francis Getliffe.
‘What more can we do?’ came a voice.
‘There’s plenty we can do,’ said Luke,
‘There’s plenty we can do,’ said Mounteney, speaking into space, but there’s only one way we can make it impossible for them.’
‘What’s that?’ said Francis.
‘Issue a statement saying what has happened about the bomb and what is proposed. That will settle it in one.’
‘Who is to issue the statement?’ said Nora Luke.
‘We are.’
‘Breaking the law?’ said Francis.
‘I know that,’ said Mounteney.
‘Breaking our oaths?’ said Francis.
Mounteney hesitated for some moments, ‘I don’t like that. But there’s no other way.’
‘We’re still at war,’ said Luke. ‘We shall never get the statement out.’
‘I think we should,’ said Mounreney.
‘It’d all be hushed up. A few of us would be in jug, and the whole bloody game would be discredited,’
‘We might be unlucky,’ said Mounteney. ‘In that case a few scientists would be discredited. If we do nothing, then all scientists will be discredited. I can understand some of you fighting shy of signing the statement. I shan’t mind putting it out by myself.’
That was a false note. He was a daring man, but so were others there. He was a man of absolute integrity, but most of them did not trust his judgement. Just at that turning point, they were undecided.
Francis Getliffe had expected some such suggestion all along; for himself, he was too disciplined to act on it. So was Luke. But it was Martin who spoke.
‘No, Arthur,’ he said, smiling to Mounteney. ‘That’s not fair. What’s more important, it isn’t realistic, you know. We couldn’t let you do it unless (a) it was certain to work, (b) there was no alternative. It just wouldn’t work. The only result would be that a Nobel prizewinner would be locked up for trying to break the Official Secrets Act, and the rest of us wouldn’t be able to open our mouths. Don’t you see that, if you try something illegal and it doesn’t come off – then we’ve completely shot our bolt? Whatever governments decided to do with the bombs, we should have lost any influence we might have had.’
There was a murmur in the room. If you were used to meetings, then you knew that they were on Martin’s side. I was astonished at the authority he carried with them.
It happened to be one of those occasions when it was easier
to make a prudent case than a wild one. Nearly everyone there was uneasy about breaking an oath – uneasy both out of fear and out of conscience.
They were not men to whom gesture-making came lightly: they could not believe, that sunny afternoon, that it was demanded of them. So they took Martin as their spokesman.
But also, I thought, he was speaking with an inner authority of his own; his bit of success had been good for him; he carried the weight of one who is, for the first time, all of a piece.
‘I don’t see any other way,’ said Mounteney.
‘We do,’ said Martin.
Mounteney, as well as being cantankerous, was the most obstinate of men. We were ready for him to argue for hours. Yet without explanation he gave way. I did not even wonder how mysterious his surrender was; we were too much in the middle of events to care.
Immediately, Martin brought out his proposal: that two or three English scientists should be flown over to America to say again what they had said that afternoon. It was known that a number of the scientists working on the American project had signed a protest: the English emissaries would take over a corresponding list of names. Those names were already known – of the scientists at Barford, everyone was willing to sign except Drawbell himself and two obscure chemists. There would also be some signatures, but a much smaller proportion, from the engineers and technicians.
Everyone in the room agreed; they were active men, and they were soothed by action for its own sake. Getliffe could arrange for an official aircraft within twenty-four hours. Who should go? There was a proposal, backed by Mounteney, that it should be Luke and Martin, the people who had done the work.
Luke was willing to agree, but Martin would not have it. Neither of them was known in America, said Martin: it was no use sending local reputations. Whereas Mounteney had his Nobel prize and Francis Getliffe a great name in Washington for his war work: they were the two who might count.
It was agreed. They would be in America by July 29th. Francis Getliffe said that they would hope to send us news before the middle of August.
26: Need for a Brother
On those first days of August, I had little to do in the office except wait for news. The ‘leave season’ had set in, as it had not done for six years; rooms round me were empty; the files ended ‘cd we discuss on my return?’
When I arrived in the morning, I looked for a despatch from America: but none came. I got through my work in an hour. Then I rang up Martin at Barford, hoping that Getliffe might have signalled to them and not to London: no news. There was nothing to do. Often, in the afternoons, I went off by myself to Lord’s.
It was the week before Bank Holiday. The days were like the other days: a sharp cool wind was blowing, more like April than full summer, the clouds streamed across the sky, at the cricket ground one watched for the blue fringe behind them.
On the Friday, I had still had no word from America; when I telephoned Martin (it was becoming a routine), nor had he. ‘We’re bound to hear before long,’ he said.
Saturday was the same. On the Sunday I stayed in my flat all day, half-expecting that Martin was right, that a message was on the way.
Next morning I was restless; once more I went off (half-thinking as when one waits for a letter in a love affair, that if I were out of the way, a message was more likely to arrive) to St John’s Wood, and sat there watching the game.
The ground was shabby that summer. The pavilion was unpainted; like the high Victorian afternoon of which it might have been the symbol, it had sunk into decay. Yet the smell of the grass was a comfort; it helped me to tell myself that though I had cares on my mind, they were not the deepest. Like the scientists, more often than not I felt this trouble about the bomb could be resolved. And in myself I was lonely rather than unhappy; at forty I had not reshaped my life. Perhaps that was why I took to heart this trouble at one remove. So I sat, watching those hours of cricket in the flashing rain-sharp sunshine, taken over by well-being, thoughtless, and secure.
It must have been about a quarter to six when I left Lord’s. I walked in a meaningless reverie down to Baker Street and then along the Marylebone Road; the light was brilliant after rain, and in it the faces of passers-by stood out sharp-edged. At last I went at random into a pub in Portland Place. I heard my name. There, standing at the bar beside a man in a polo sweater, was Hankins.
I began by saying something banal, about not meeting for years and then twice in a month, but he cried loudly:
‘This is my producer. I’ve just been giving a talk on Current Shakespeareana.’
He said that he had had only one drink, but his bright, heavy face was glistening, he was talking as if he were half drunk.
‘And all the time I was thinking of my words going out to the villages and the country towns and clever young women saying “That was a good point!” or “I should like to take that up with him”.
And then I came out of the studio and met the man who had been reading the six o’clock news just before I went on.’
‘Is there any news?’ I asked.
‘There is,’ said Hankins.
I knew.
‘So they’ve dropped it, have they?’ I asked dully. I felt blank, tired out.
‘Were you expecting something then?’ said Hankins. But his inquisitiveness for once was swamped: yes, the six o’clock news had contained the announcement about the bomb and he, in innocence, had broadcast just after.
‘I wonder how many people listened to my immortal prose!’ cried Hankins. ‘Current Shakespeareana. I wish it had been something slightly more obscure. The influence of the Duino Elegies on the later work of C P Cavafy – that’s how I should like to have added the only comment literary culture was entitled to make on this promising new age.’
He was upset and hilarious, he wanted an audience, human bodies round him, drink.
‘The chief virtue of this promising new age, and perhaps the only one so far as I can tell, is that from here on we needn’t pretend to be any better than anyone else. For hundreds of years we’ve told ourselves in the west, with that particular brand of severity which ends up an paying yourself a handsome compliment, that of course we cannot live up to our moral pretensions, that of course we’ve established ethical standards which are too high for men. We’ve always assumed, all the people of whom you,’ he grinned at the producer and me, ‘and I are the ragtag and bobtail, all the camp followers of western civilization, we have taken it for granted that, even if we did not live up to those exalted ethical standards, we did a great deal better than anyone else. Well, anyone who says that today isn’t a fool, because no one could be so foolish. He isn’t a liar, because no one could tell such lies. He’s just a singer of comic songs.’
The producer said that next day he had a programme on the care of backward children. ‘One can’t help thinking,’ he said, ‘whether there’ll be any children left to care for.’
Hankins suddenly clapped a hand to his head.
‘I suppose this wasn’t the piece of scientific policy we were interested in, you and I, Lewis, last time we met?’
‘It was.’
‘You said it was important,’ he said, as though in reproof. I nodded. ‘Well, perhaps I could concede it a degree of importance. What is important, after all?’ He had a writer’s memory for the words we had each spoken. ‘Did Irene know about this?’ he flashed out.
‘No.’
‘Did your brother and the rest of them?’
‘None of them knew that this bomb was going to be dropped.’
‘But they’d been working heroically on it, I suppose,’ said Hankins. ‘And now they’re getting the reward for their labours. It must be strange to be in their shoes tonight.’
It was also strange to hear him speak with such kindness, with his own curious inquisitive imagination.
We went on drinking, as Hankins talked.
‘The party’s nearly over,’ he said. ‘The party for our kind of people, for dear old western man – it
’s been a good party, but the host’s getting impatient and it’s nearly time to go. And there are lots of people waiting for our blood in the square outside. Particularly as we’ve kept up the maddening habit of making improving speeches from the window. It may be a long time before anyone has such a good party again.’
If I had stayed I should have got drunk, but I wanted to escape. I went out into the streets, on which the anonymous crowds were jostling in the summer evening. For a while I lost myself among them, without a name, among many who had no name, a unit among the numbers, listening but hearing no comment on the news. In the crowd I walked down Oxford Street, was carried by the stream along Charing Cross Road: lights shone in the theatre foyers, the plays had all begun, in the wind relics of newsprint scuffled among our feet.
Near Leicester Square I drifted out of the crowd, into another pub. There some had heard the news, and as they talked I could pick out the common denominator of fear, sheer simple fear, which, whatever else we thought, was present in us all, Hankins and his producer, the seedy travellers, agents, homosexuals in the Leicester Square bar. Hankins’ rhetoric that night: Francis Getliffe’s bare words on the way down to Barford: they were different men, but just for once their feelings coincided, they meant the same things.
But in the pub there were also some indifferent. They had heard, and thrown it off already.
One, an elderly man with a fine ascetic face, sat with strained eyes focused on the doors. From a passing remark, I gathered that he was waiting for a young man, who had been due at six.
I walked across Piccadilly Circus, up Vigo Street and then west of Bond Street, through the deserted fringes of Mayfair, towards my club. As soon as I entered, acquaintances spoke to me with interest, with resignation, with the same damped-down fear. Had I known? Was there a chance that we could make ourselves safe again? What would happen to this country in another war? To this town? There was one interruption, as I stood in a party of four or five, standing round the empty grate. A young member, elected that year, asked if he could have a word with me. He had been invalided out of the Navy, his face was sallow, he had a high-strung, delicate, humorous look. But he spoke with urgency:
