Роберт Шеррифф - The Hopkins Manuscript

The Major turned to me with a smile of pity.

‘There are one or two little details that possibly you haven’t realised. The moon is not a cake with currants evenly distributed in each slice. The scientists report that the oil is all in the northern area of the moon – the area allotted in the British Plan to Sweden. Germany and France will not agree to that: they want the oil themselves. Italy demands the coalfields. Every nation in Europe demands a bigger slice than what the British Plan suggested for them. In fact I am afraid there is not nearly enough moon to go round.’

‘But this is ridiculous! – childish!’ I cried. ‘You surely don’t suggest that the nations are going to quarrel about a gift ! Surely they can agree!’

‘They all agree upon one thing: they emphatically, fiercely agree that Britain must not have its corridor.’

‘A ten-mile corridor!’ exclaimed Dr Cranley. ‘Surely that isn’t asking much!’

‘It may only be ten miles wide,’ returned the Major, ‘but it happens to cut off other nations from direct communication with their own slices of the moon. We have agreed to give them freedom to cross our corridor without hindrance, but they declare it will give us too strong a strategic position: they fear we might fortify our corridor and cut them off at any time we wished to. They even declare we might, eventually, by means of our “strategic corridor”, take the whole moon for ourselves. They say that the British Empire is not above doing that. They are resolutely against us. The whole of Europe.’

Silence fell. Pat and Robin and Peter and Joan had scarcely said a word: they had scarcely moved except to strain forward over the map when Major Jagger had spread it upon the table. To me the whole evening had assumed a dreamlike unreality: we were playing a game of make-believe that had no kinship with real things.

‘What is happening now?’ enquired the doctor. The ruddy glow had passed from his cheeks: the old man looked tired and spiritless. Even his question seemed to lack demand for a reply.

‘What is happening?’ The Major shrugged his shoulders. ‘Deadlock. We refuse to give in. If we are robbed of our corridor and denied a clear open road to the seas, then the British Empire is finished.’

There was a knock: the butler entered and handed the Major a slip of paper. I watched him read, and raise his eyebrows.

‘You must excuse me, Doctor. A message from the Government. I must drive back to Oxford tonight for an urgent session.’

We stood at the front door to see him go. For a moment the coachwork of the big car gleamed in the light from the hall, and then it was gone. I was never to see the man again – but how many times was I doomed in days to come to hear that horrid, strident voice, booming its ‘messages’ over the radio!…

‘I think perhaps we should be going, too,’ I said. It seemed impossible to revive the gaiety of the party now. There was something ominous in Jagger’s sudden departure: almost as if he had been called away to defend our very shores from invading foreigners.

Dr Cranley made no attempt to detain us. I think that he felt, as I did, a longing to be alone – to think and to try and understand.

Even the night had changed in concert with our mood: the stars were gone and a slight drizzle had set in. While Pat and Robin were raising the battered old hood of the car I had the opportunity of a last word with Dr Cranley.

‘Was Jagger serious about all this?’ I asked. ‘I mean… it seems – impossible.’

‘He’s serious,’ replied the doctor. ‘Dead serious. In his way he is a great man. He is leading a new opposition party against the Prime Minister. He told me about it before you came in. The Prime Minister wants compromise. He has a plan for giving up all claim to that “corridor” to the Mediterranean. By establishing touch with Canada across the northern area of the moon we could reach Australia – possibly India. That would mean peace with Europe but the end of half our Empire – the end of Gibraltar and the Sudan – Africa and the West Indies…’ He paused for a moment, his face was hard and pale. ‘We can’t do that – we can’t desert and betray thousands of our people. We must have our corridor.’

‘So you are on the side of Major Jagger?’ I said, ‘on the side that opposes a “peaceful compromise”?’

‘Yes,’ replied the doctor after a long silence. ‘I share your personal dislike of Jagger: he’s not my sort of man, but I am with him in preserving our Empire. With him heart and soul.’

The drizzle turned to a silent, ceaseless rain. It was intensely dark and the lights of our car were feeble and uncertain. Robin, straining over the wheel, was peering intently through the tarnished windscreen at the rugged, difficult road and Pat sat up beside him to watch for pitfalls.

I sat in the back seat alone, trying to believe that two hours ago we had driven this same road without a care in the world.

I wondered whether increasing years had made me a coward. I remembered how I had faced the cataclysm without a shadow of fear: how I had even exulted, at times, over the fierce excitement and danger of it. But now I was afraid – miserably, despicably afraid.

I tried to fan within myself the spark of a new adventure – a flame of patriotism – a grim determination to face this new menace as I had faced the approach of the moon: to give up all that I had achieved in Beadle Valley: to take a gun, if necessary, and fight for freedom.

But it was useless. I had survived the cataclysm: by superhuman endeavour I had rebuilt my life. It was too much to ask of any man that he should face a second ruin and rebuild again.

I am in no sense of the word a politician. I have always preferred to leave politics to those who had no poultry farm or other keen interest to claim their attention, and I am fairly convinced that if it had not been for the politicians I would not now be struggling against increasing weakness to write the last tragic chapters of my story in the lonely twilight of a dying world.

Perhaps I am too hard upon the politicians. I may be judging them all upon the foul creatures that arose to destroy us. I admit that it was necessary to have some kind of Governing Body to lead us from the ruins of the cataclysm; and I also admit that our leaders performed wonders in the first two years.

But a strange thing happened, and it happened not only in England, but with uncanny similarity throughout the whole of Europe.

The first Parliaments to be elected after the cataclysm consisted with few exceptions of hard-working, level-headed, modest men. It seemed as if the survivors of the disaster turned instinctively to this quiet type of man to lead them from the brink of famine and disruption. There was no thought of election campaigns – no time for pedantic speeches and gimcrack theories. When the people were told to select a man from amongst themselves to represent them in Parliament they turned towards men of proved character and mature judgment – the country gentlemen – the local professional men – men who for the most part had been Mayors of Towns or Chairmen of Local Councils.

These were the men who set their countries upon the road to recovery and established international harmony of thought and ideals. These were the men who established the International Council at The Hague and were planning the United Parliament of Europe at Vienna when disaster overwhelmed them.

Disaster came through that fatal scientific report upon the riches of the moon. If these sane, level-headed men had remained in power I am convinced that they would have reached agreement and divided this lunar wealth fairly and peaceably to the immense and lasting benefit of all.