Len Deighton - Declarations of War

I was too young at the time to have been aware of the historic radio broadcast by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on September 3rd, 1939, when he declared ‘…and that consequently this country is at war with Germany’. It was almost one year to the day of this announcement that our London home was demolished by enemy aircraft; we were luckier than many who suffered during the Blitz, as my parents and I were dug out of the remaining rubble, alive. Some years later I took the opportunity of using a recording of this most famous of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s speeches in one of my films on the Second World War, Genocide.

Len Deighton’s collection of short stories, Declarations of War, is a rich tapestry, illustrating scenes and landscapes from conflicts that stretch from the relatively recent Viet Nam War all the way back to the ancient days of Hannibal and the Roman Empire. As such, designing a cover for this collection presented a unique challenge: how to come up with a single image that could stand for all? In the end, it was the most obvious solution to draw upon the evocative title of the collection for inspiration; after all, what more powerful and arresting statement is there than ‘War is Announced’?

I duly searched for a photograph of a newspaper seller holding a news sheet declaring war, and eventually found an appropriate one at a photo archive. I then decided to produce a multiple of the image, each representing one of the thirteen stories, with the image on the spine representing the bonus story. The existence of a barking newspaper seller with a bundle of newspapers tucked under his arm is now something of a rarity. As such, the image captures an essence of history while communicating a message that is as potent today as it was centuries ago, announcing an event that will have a profound and devastating effect on humans on both sides of a conflict.

For the back cover I chose to photograph a montage of several objects to illustrate a few of these stories: a First World War china military ambulance bearing the crest of my home town of Margate; a US Confederate flag; a Royal Flying Corps cap badge and a cigarette card of a Battle of Britain Hawker ‘Hurricane’ fighter.

I trust that these artefacts project a flavour of the book’s content, and I hope you enjoy matching each to a story in this fine collection.

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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This paperback edition 2010

FIRST EDITION

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1971

Copyright © Len Deighton 1985, 2010

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2010

Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2010

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Ebook Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007395392

Version: 2017-08-18

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Cover Page

Cover Designer’s Note

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

It Must Have Been Two Other Fellows

Winter’s Morning

First Base

Paper Casualty

Brent’s Deus Ex Machina

A New Way To Say Goodnight

Lord Nick Flies Again

Discipline

Mission Control: Hannibal One

Adagio

Bonus for a Salesman

Action

Twelve Good Men and True

The Man Who Was a Coyote

About the Author

By Len Deighton

About the Publisher

Many people in the book trade dislike books of short stories, saying that readers avoid them. I believe much of this antipathy springs from the undeniable fact that most collections of short stories are a rag-bag of literary excursions, varied in quality, originating over many years and reprinted from periodicals. So I want to assure you that the stories in this volume were all written over a period of less that two years and were specifically intended for publication together here.

The basic theme of this, my only collection of short stories, is the non-heroic episodes of war; I don’t mean that these are the actions of anti-heroes (I don’t know exactly what an anti-hero is). These are stories that I planned and wrote – sometimes overlapping in their production – in a period of my life when I restlessly travelled around my mother’s country: Ireland. Ireland is a beautiful and friendly country and, armed with a portable typewriter and supported by my beloved wife, it was not a period of hardship. On the contrary, I found the changes of scene, the long stays in comfortable rural hotels, and homely Irish cooking, provided a stimulating and yet stable home for a writer.

The empty mansion that is the setting for ‘Paper Casualty’ is an enchanting location in County Louth. The description is overwritten perhaps, but the house and the grounds through which I picked my way almost every morning were as I have depicted them. Our temporary home was two big rooms plus bathroom and kitchen in the wing of a grand country house nearby. Its owners became good friends and delightful company. It was in this house and at this time that I recorded a BBC radio interview about my newly published book Bomber. Reg arrived with tape recorder in hand. Reg was a one-man band: producer, director, interviewer and technician; a free spirit. I recognized in him the same compulsive itinerancy from which I have always suffered. Perhaps that was why we hit it off so well. That evening after dinner, from talking about my research for Bomber, we talked of the war in general. Reg had served as a ‘Camp Commandant’ in an army headquarters and knew how such organizations functioned. Reg revealed the secrets of high command in a most entertaining way and, while I thought I knew quite a lot already, he provided a far more interesting insider’s view of military authority. I added the plot and used the nearby empty mansion as the setting and ‘Paper Casualty’ was born. I met Reg only once and I regret having forgotten his family name for I enjoyed his company immensely.