Sam Bourne - Pantheon

The words were very familiar to James. How many Quaker meetings had he sat through where the speaker, often his father, had repeated those same points, citing the same sources? The only difference this time, besides the accent and the charisma of the delivery, emanated from the congregation. James was used to hearing the case for pacifism presented to a room full of pacifists. Yet here was a man preaching to a crowd which, it was obvious, was anything but converted. The pastor had his supporters, but there was a low, unvoiced hum of discontent throughout that was undeniable. Now the preacher moved to address it.

‘As I say, you know my views. You don’t need to hear them again. And I know the Yale fellowship is not of one mind on this topic, that our community of scholars has been debating this question fiercely. That’s how it should be. And I want that debate to live here, in God’s house. For as the holy texts tell us, “These and these are the words of the living God.” These and these. There is always more than one view.

‘Which is why I’m sharing this pulpit today. I have invited Dr Ernest West from the Philosophy Department to speak about the theory of the just war. Not that I think there can be such thing-’ He stopped himself with a smile. ‘Forgive me, I’m used to having the floor all to myself. Dr West, please come and address the congregation.’

James watched as the room seemed to shift, a wave of energy rippling through it. Some sat forward in their seats, others pulled back and folded their arms into a posture of sullen disapproval.

The new man at the pulpit was younger and more uncertain. He was clasping a text, which shook slightly in his hands.

‘I’d like to thank Pastor Theodore Lowell for welcoming me here today,’ he began, as if addressing the wood of the lectern. ‘And I come before you humbled by the scale of the task. I want to persuade you that the right place for the United States of America is by the side of those Europeans fighting for their lives and against the tyranny of Herr Hitler and his Third Reich.’

‘America first!’

James swung around to his left in search of the heckler, but the acoustics had confused him. The voice could have come from any of the wooden benches on that side of the church. He looked up and saw that the speaker too was confused, thrown off balance by what he had heard. Dr West gathered himself and looked up to face his audience.

‘“America first”, you say and I understand that. I agree with it too. America should always put its interests first. But I tell you, this war is about our interests. Only Britain now stands between us and the Nazi menace. If Britain falls, then Germany will control the Atlantic. We could wake up any week now, any day now, with Nazi warships in Boston harbour and U-boat submarines off New York.’

The heckler was silenced by that and the hush of the church seemed to catch the speaker by surprise.

‘And let’s remember that Germany will not be alone in this part of the world. It has friends — in Mexico and Argentina and throughout Latin America. Just imagine what Hitler would be capable of with a network of military bases throughout that continent. I say to you, we would face the very same threat now faced by our British cousins: bombs. A Blitzkrieg could come from the south, German bombs landing on San Diego or Houston or Miami, even, who knows, Chicago. So I do put America first. I put American safety first.’

James noticed that the man’s voice was less nervy now; he was beginning to hit his stride. ‘That’s why we have a direct, vital interest in making sure Europe does not get swallowed up in Nazi tyranny. America cannot exist alone on this side of the Atlantic, hiding away from the world.’

‘Warmonger!’

The same heckler or a different one, James could not tell. Now there were a few cries in response: ‘Pipe down!’ ‘We came here to hear him, not you!’

James noticed that the pastor did nothing to impose order on his church, but was watching the unfolding scene with an indulgent smile.

Dr West chose to ignore the last interruption and press on. ‘We cannot hide ourselves away. We need Europe. Not just to buy our goods. Though I have to say America will only be the leading power of this twentieth century if we sell and trade with the rest of the world. And there will be no trade with Herr Hitler’s empire. No, we need a Europe that holds to the same ideals as we do.’

‘Our ideal should be peace!’

‘Of course it is. But you cannot make a pact with the Devil. And we should be clear what kind of enemy we face. “Know thine enemy”, that’s what the Bible tells us, doesn’t it, Pastor Lowell? And there can be no denying that we face a new and terrible enemy in Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. America will not be able to live in a world where such brutality holds supreme. As President Roosevelt-’

‘Rosenfeld!’

‘As President Roosevelt has argued so forcefully, it is a delusion, a fantasy, to think that we can let America become, I quote, “a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force”. Our ideals as Americans, the very ideals set out by our founding fathers-’

‘“Beware of foreign entanglements”, that’s what Washington said!’

‘I know what he said: you don’t have to shout his words at me. But these are different times. There was no threat then equal to the threat we face today, a dictator bent on ruling the world.’

There was more commotion now, as a small group to James’s right attempted to start a chorus of ‘America first!’ James fought the urge to stand up, march over to the pulpit and deliver a speech of his own. Did these people have no idea what was happening across the sea? He had left a country already at war, its men either at the front or preparing to defend the homeland; a place plunged into unbroken darkness at night, where people, including him, were digging holes in their gardens to shelter from bombs; where even a two-year-old boy like Harry was told to carry a gas mark lest Hitler attempt to fill the air with poison; where the enemy was a matter of miles away, just twenty-two of them in fact, Dover to Calais.

Yet here in New Haven war was a debating topic, with arguments to be made for and against. This was how Britain itself had been three or four years ago, back when Chamberlain reckoned he could make peace with Hitler. There had been debates like this, plenty of them, at the Oxford Union and elsewhere, with young gentlemen making speeches about whether they would fight for ‘King and country’ and all that. But not any more. That argument was over.

In the United States, however, here in this chapel, the argument was just beginning. He was suddenly aware, more keenly than he had ever been before, that Britain truly did stand alone. Stalin and the Soviet Union had become Hitler’s allies; Italy had joined in, declaring war on Britain a matter of weeks ago; France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg had fallen to the Germans. And America was still debating with itself.

It struck James with sudden, painful force. Britain was on the brink of extinction. If it were to survive, if its people were not to live under the boot-heel of the Gestapo, they would have to defeat the German menace with their own bare hands.

He didn’t wait for the speaker to finish, leaving him instead to take on the hecklers over whether Roosevelt was agitating for war as an excuse to build up the might of the federal government.

As he got up to leave, he caught sight of something that stopped him in his tracks. Someone he recognized. A face there, then gone. He scanned the congregation again only to see what he had seen before: the same sea of undifferentiated, unfamiliar faces. But the vague sense of recognition, someone spied in his peripheral vision, lingered. He craned slightly, to see around a pillar, but found nothing.