The Moment of Truth

by Storm Jameson

  “Have sense, Andy. You’re not like this man Heron, you’re not having to choose between fighting and running away to live an ordinary easy life. You and I … no, I don’t understand.”

  “What?”

  “Your unkindness. Why you’re leaving me. How can I understand it? It’s—something I didn’t expect. Don’t you see?”

  He did not look at her.

  “It’s a question of decency,” he said at last. “Of the sort of fighting.”

  “How? Andy, look at me, please.”

  He had a sense that by looking her in the eyes he was preventing her from swaying and perhaps falling: and at the same time he was leaning on her himself.

  “Lackland asked me to stay here and act directly. Not just drop other people to do it. It may be years before we come back. If we ever do. It’s now I’m wanted.” He saw that she was listening without believing him, and said, “Try to see it—my little love. If it’s possible for you to go you must. I can’t go.”

  She looked at him intently for a moment longer, and then she had no more strength left: tears ran over her face, she put her hands out in a gesture of complete helpless despair, bewildered. His refusal destroyed her confidence in herself; she did not know what to say to him.

  “Don’t send me off,” she stammered, “let me stay here, please. I can’t … you’re spoiling everything. …”

  “But you must, yes, must go,” Kent said. He had trouble in moving his tongue: it, and his whole body, were stiff.

  She tried to control herself.

  “But not alone. To live the whole of my life without you, Andy? I can’t and I won’t. Why, I might live for another fifty years!”

  Marriot pulled himself out of his chair and made a step towards her. He was going to speak, but checked himself and stood, with a face of indecision and pity, watching.

  Kent had given in: in a minute he would tell her so and set everything right; he needed a minute to get rid of, not bitterness, certainly not bitterness, but a feeling of acute relief and shame—he was being let off and he had failed. He knew, too, in this moment, that his love for her had changed; it was not now the happiness, the zest, of life, it was the shape itself of his life, joy, anguish, disappointment, shame, meaning. Nearly inaudibly, he said,

  “Very well, pup, I give in. If one of them drops out—Heron or one of the old men—and if Jock wants to risk it, I’ll go.”

  She did not move.

  “Is it all right?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And if there’s no room, we stay.”

  He smiled wryly.

  “You don’t trust me?”

  Marriot’s voice, abrupt, made them both jump.

  “There’s no sane reason why either of you should go.”

  Kent turned round on him.

  “What the devil are you talking about?”

  Marriot hesitated. He looked from one to the other of them with smiling affection. At last,

  “You’re taking for granted that you’ve only one choice—America or this romantic nonsense of a maquis. … And you couldn’t go into any maquis, you know, Browny, not with a baby.”

  Vexed, she said calmly,

  “I know that.”

  “Don’t be angry.” He spoke to Kent. “You’ve thought of this yourself. If you go to America and the war goes on, what will you be doing? Making life hell for people here. … You don’t like the idea of dropping bombs on this country—which is what it will come to. That’s why you prefer Lackland. Isn’t it?”

  “Part of it.”

  “Very well. If you go with this silly brute, with his puerile ideas—puerile, dead—you might as well go out there”—he glanced swiftly at the darkness outside, made black by the circle of light round them—“and jump over the cliff. Whatever happens, Lackland is done for. So are you if you join him.”

  He paused, and Kent asked quietly,

  “What are you getting at, Davy?”

  The smile in Marriot’s dark eyes became mocking.

  “Talk of holding an outpost! You can’t hold outposts against the future—Lackland can’t, the Americans, with everything they’ve got, and their nerves and bad consciences into the bargain, can’t. But why try? Why turn your back to the future? Do you want it to kick your ass? That’s exactly what it will do.”

  Kent was listening to him attentively, without any sign of approval.

  “Well?”

  Marriot thrust his head forward a little—as though the energy of his thin compact body were concentrated in it. He began to talk with a new and bitter vehemence.

  “You didn’t have to scrabble your way up from two rooms in a filthy street. I did. When I was living in them I loathed them. Once I’d escaped I had time to begin loathing the respectable people who think—how reasonably, how sensibly, how unanswerably!—What a pity children live in such places. But, after all, what can we do? What do you expect us to do? We’re not fairy godmothers. It costs a lot to keep a fine old society going, and its Etons, its expensive cars, its traditions, its luxury flats, its great hotels, its charm and high thinking. We do what we can afford, and if generations of families have lived and died in filth, why, they must be used to it and can wait their turn. … And they do wait. They wait.” His voice rose slightly. “I can get used to anything, any fraud—after all, when you think how few years we live and then they bury us for ever—except a fraud practised on children. And any misery—except a child’s. And you, you don’t want to be killed for a society only fit for the comfortably old, or aggressive brutes like Lackland, and women who think—no, they don’t think, their laziness and their horrible finger-nails think for them.”

  “I haven’t thought it out yet,” Kent said.

  Relaxing, Marriot drew a long breath; the bitterness that had pinched his face vanished in a familiar gaiety.

  “Time you began,” he laughed. He added quietly, “Not that it matters. Stone dead is dead, and a million Lacklands can’t help it.”

  Without any excitement, Kent said,

  “You’re going to work for them, are you?”

  “What do you think? I’m not ambitious, I don’t pretend to be better than an honest technician. All I say is that between people who’ll use me for a future and for children who are born free, and the others who say we can’t afford it this year, I know which to choose. It’s simple.”

  “You’re going to work for them?”

  “Yes.”

  Sunk in the relief of having got her way, and uneasy about it, Cordelia had been listening only with half an ear. She was startled.

  “But, Davy, they’re enemies,” she said under her breath. “After all, you don’t help an invader. You may have to put up with him, but you don’t help him.”

  He did not glance at her.

  “Browny, I’m very fond of you,” he said gently, “but you don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t like it,” Kent said.

  “You mean—?”

  “I mean I don’t like it. Your friends may be all you say they are, but I don’t like their other habits.”

  After a minute, Marriot answered,

  “I hoped you’d come with me, and think it out afterwards.”

  Kent looked at him with a peculiarly bright smile.

  “What were you counting on? My stupidity?”

  “No. On something else.”

  A silence. Kent’s shoulders sagged a little, as though he were suddenly tired. Feeling angry—need Davy have sprung this on him?—and at a loss, he muttered,

  “I think you’re mad. But I don’t suppose it matters.”

  Marriot frowned.

  “It might matter so much you ought to hand me over to Lackland,” he said drily.

  This amused Kent. “I don’t think you can do all that damage.” He grinned. “It’s heads or tails. If you’re right, I’m wrong—and vizz vozz, as Smith says. But for the life of me I don’t see why you should think your hairy friends will do things any better.”
>
  “Better?” shouted Marriot. “What d’you mean, better? For years we shall have to work like dogs—and on top of it we shall be fighting. At the very best, we’ll be cleaning up a white guard. Types like Lackland. D’you know what, Andy—if he weren’t intelligent and honest I shouldn’t hate him. What right has he to turn honesty and intelligence over to death? To serve death? Why does he want it so much? Can’t he wait? … He’s dangerous, but not repulsive. … When I think of the soft greedy bellies in America, the suckers, the cowards, the rats. And the imbeciles everywhere—everywhere—who think they can push history back without rotting their hands—”

  Kent had watched him with a cool smile, now he laughed gently. His friend looked at him.

  “Yes,” he said, in a suppressed voice, “you think I’m cracked. I’ll tell you something. You won’t be content, you won’t be able to live without a future—not for long.…”

  Unnoticed by any of them, Smith appeared in the doorway. He stood there.

  “Well, well. But if nothing is to be any better?” Kent mocked.

  “Neither better nor worse, but alive. New. The new thing. Hope.”

  Abruptly, Kent lost patience.

  “All right. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

  “As you like.”

  “Just one thing. What the devil do you propose to do? Stroll up to a Russian and say: God bless you, I love you. Why should he trust you?”

  Marriot said, very slowly,

  “I have a friend or two already. And then—” he stopped.

  “And then what?”

  Marriot was silent, but the answer slid into his friend’s mind.

  “I see. You’re counting on that page of notes you picked up in Garra House. It’s worth something, they’ll want it—”

  “You dirty tyke.”

  No louder than usual, Smith’s voice shocked them. He came into the room, not hurrying himself at all, and halted in front of Marriot, staring, his pale eyes fixedly open. Cordelia had jumped up.

  “What the devil do you want?” Marriot said. “Get out of here.”

  “Not I,” Smith said quietly. “First I’ll tell you what I think of you, you young ape—ape it is, to swallow so much muck—then I’ll sort out what’s to be done.”

  “You will, will you?” Kent said, with rage. “You’ll mind your own damned business.”

  Smith glanced at him with a sly, almost friendly smile.

  “And what’s my business? It seems I’m the only one here knows you don’t turn round and join yourself on to a lot of murdering foreigners—whatever you do it for: because you like ’em or because they’ll pay you.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Cordelia said, with anxiety, “but Mr. Marriot didn’t mean it.”

  “He meant it,” answered Smith—civil, unmoved.

  In a mocking voice, Marriot asked,

  “What do you know about anything? You don’t think, you do as you’re told.”

  The hard shrewd contempt in Smith’s little eyes did not change.

  “Maybe I do as I’m told, and maybe I think, too. Anyhow enough to have pulled th’ quilt off of your new thing and caught her dowsing it with a policeman. We don’t want that here—”

  “Mind your tongue a bit, Smith,” Kent interrupted.

  “A pity if you lost it,” Marriot smiled, “you wouldn’t be able to lick so many boots in future.”

  With apparent suddenness, Smith lost his temper. His sallow face darkened, he spat on one hand, wiping it on the other sleeve, and said slowly,

  “Now, me lad, I’ll give you the thrashing you want.”

  Kent stepped between them. “Behave yourself, you fool,” he shouted.

  The door from the corridor opened: in a sharp voice Lackland asked,

  “What the hell do you mean by all this noise?”

  Kent was infuriated by his tone, and cool enough at the same time to be anxious to get rid of him. Keep the army out of this, he thought: he said pleasantly,

  “Sorry, sir. I’m afraid we’ve got into the habit of treating this room as our own.”

  Smith’s slow anger was too hot still for his instinctive prudence.

  “The noise,” he said steadily, “is because we have a rat here.”

  Kent glared at him.

  “Hold your tongue, Smith.”

  “What?” Lackland asked. “What’s this?”

  “A private argument,” Kent said.

  “You’re nothing but a young ignorant lad,” Smith said. Turning to Lackland, he said, “This chap”—a jerk of his head towards Marriot—“thinks he should go over to them, to the Roossians. He has something he’s pinched, some sort of paper—he thinks they want it—”

  “How do you know this?”

  “He said so, I heard him.”

  “You think you heard,” Kent said quietly.

  Ignoring him, Lackland turned an intimidating glance on Smith.

  “When did you hear this?”

  “Just now. I was—”

  Lackland interrupted.

  “You heard him say he was working for the Reds, and he’d stolen something, a paper, he meant to hand over to them?”

  Smith hesitated. His anger was cooling off, and he had begun to wonder uncomfortably what he was meddling in. Maybe I’d have done better to hold me tongue, he thought, vexed.

  “Well?” Lackland insisted.

  “Not exactly that, sir”—he glanced, briefly, without moving his head, at Kent, and met a look so threatening that it annoyed him: he closed his mind and said stolidly, “He mentioned he had friends there.”

  “And the paper?”

  Kent laughed shortly.

  “Nothing was said about a paper. The man’s a fool.”

  “Nay, that I’m not, and you know it,” muttered Smith.

  “Don’t interfere,” Lackland said. “You’re sure about the paper?” he asked Smith.

  With a blank face, Smith answered,

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  Cordelia had moved so that she was standing immediately behind Kent. She asked him in a whisper, “What’s happening? …” “Nothing.” He smiled. As little reassured as if he had said: God knows, she touched his arm lightly. He did not glance at her.

  For the first time, Lackland turned his attention to Marriot. The young man was standing slackly, one knee on the dilapidated arm of a chair, his useless arm dangling. He had listened attentively. His glance moved from one to the other without nervousness.

  “What have you got to say?” demanded Lackland.

  A derisive smile moved across Marriot’s eyes.

  “Why should I say anything to you?”

  “You understand what this means?”

  “I don’t even understand what you mean. You’re not exactly lucid.”

  Lackland scrutinised him with a detached interest: his eyes moved from the young man’s face to his withered hand, over his battle-dress, back again, with an inquisitive gleam, to his face.

  “Don’t play the innocent. It’s silly.”

  Marriot as it were brought his derisive smile forward, so that his face became arrogant, but it was an arrogance as little suited to him as a glove on a child’s hot restless hand. He said nothing.

  “Are you a communist?” Lackland asked.

  The derision left Marriot’s face: he said quietly,

  “Yes.”

  “A member of the party?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Which do you mean?”

  Silence.

  “Are you trying to be discreet? Or you simply have no lie ready?”

  “You know that the communist party doesn’t exist now,” Marriot said.

  “Where is this paper you stole?”

  “Find it,” Marriot said, with a smile. He seemed light-hearted suddenly, as though he had decided to treat the thing as a joke. Kent, looking at him, knew that he had become bored—it happened to him quickly nowadays. Staring fixe
dly, he tried to warn him. With despair, he realised that Marriot, under his amusement, felt only a rash contempt for Lackland.

  Lackland had taken his revolver from its case. “Where is it?” he repeated.

  Still smiling, the young man did not speak.

  “Don’t make things worse,” Cordelia said abruptly. “It’s in his pocket-book.”

  “God damn you, Browny. …”

  Obeying the jerk of Lackland’s head, Smith gripped Marriot round the body, coming behind him with arms like cords, almost as thin and hard. For a moment, Marriot tried to wrench himself free: he heard Lackland say, “Go through him. You—” and saw Kent hesitate and decide, with fury, to spare him Lackland’s own attentions.

  “Sorry, Davy,” Kent muttered.

  Marriot stood still and let him find the pocket-book, take from it the folded paper and pass it to Lackland.

  “Thanks. Go and ask General Thorburn to come here.”

  Kent did not move. In a low voice, Cordelia said,

  “I’ll go.”

  “He’s probably in bed.”

  “Well, never mind,” she said, with a slight smile.

  She went out quickly. Lackland glanced after her with an air of displeasure, turned to Smith, and asked him brusquely,

  “Where were you when you heard this officer talk?”

  Reluctant and vexed, Smith said,

  “I was in the doorway—outside.”

  Lackland said nothing more. The silence was heavy, as though pressed down by the darkness on the edges of the room, and the dark air outside. At one moment Kent thought he heard the noise, at a great height, of an aeroplane: he listened, glancing at Marriot, who looked back at him without any expression, except of sleepy good-humour. Does he know what we’re in for? Kent thought—he realised in the same instant that he did not know that himself. … It was not an aeroplane; if it had been anything, it was the sea, at the foot of the cliffs, turning in its sleep. Then a breath moved the reeds, so that they rasped the wall outside, near the door.

  The general came in, pulling desperately at the band of his trousers, and buttoning the jacket across his stained wrinkled shirt. Clarke was with him, in trousers and a pyjama jacket: he hobbled to an armchair, his hand pressing Cordelia’s shoulder so that the girl could scarcely walk. When he released her, she straightened herself with an effort.