Charles Snow - The New Men

Martin smiled. It all seemed far in the future, the shadow of horror passed away.

Suddenly Martin exclaimed. ‘It’s a mistake to be absent-minded,’ he said. We asked him what the matter was.

The swan was stretching his neck, asking for more. ‘I’ve just given him a piece from the palm of my hand,’ Martin remarked. ‘I’m glad he left my fingers on.’

He threw the last piece of bun into the water, then stood up.

‘It wouldn’t do any harm,’ he said, returning to the discussion, but only out of his habit of precaution, ‘to drop a word in high quarters if we get a chance.’

I decided to report that conversation about the use of the bomb to Hector Rose. To him it seemed almost unbelievably academic.

‘I fancy our masters will cross that bridge when they come to it,’ he said. He was as impatient as he ever allowed himself to be. Scientists talked too much; here they were, speculating about ethical dilemmas which might never arise, as though they were back in their student days. ‘But I’m grateful to you for keeping me in the picture, my dear Eliot, many, many thanks,’

To Rose, Barford did not present any problems for decision, either then or for months to come. The pile was going up, the first instalment of heavy water had arrived; so far, so good. He was immune to the excitement that had infected me, and, as 1943 went on, I had nothing new to tell him. On my visits, I could see no change. Luke paid a visit to Canada, but otherwise was still fretting his nerves away, unoccupied, playing his piano. Martin spent much time on the hangar floor, watching the builders putting up the frame inch by inch, correct to a thousandth, making a progress perceptible to them and himself, but not to me.

By this time he was showing the strain though in a fashion opposite to Luke’s. Instead of blowing and cursing, Martin sank into a kind of frozen quietness. He was more capable of pretending than Luke, and was still reasonable company. He and Irene seemed friendly when I saw them together; she was a better mother than many people were willing to believe, and the scandal about her had died down. At Barford her name was mentioned without malicious gossip, and in consequence with disappointment, lack of tone and interest.

Often, alone with Martin, I wondered how much in those months of waiting and semi-idleness, he harassed himself about her. How right was Hanna? Was he living with that suspense, as well as the public one?

Even the public one he kept clamped down, but occasionally he was remote, as though thinking of nothing but the day when they would test the pile.

I was beginning to feel confident for him, even confident enough to ask Pearson’s opinion, the most certain of all to be discouraging, when he called at my flat one evening that autumn.

He was just leaving for Los Alamos, and had come to fetch some papers. I had not been into the office that day, because of an attack of lumbago: Pearson had no more taste for conversation than usual, and intended to take the documents and depart without the unnecessary intermediate stage of sitting down. But, as he was glancing the papers over, the sirens blew, and we heard gunfire in the distance: it sounded like the start of one of the short, sharp air raids that were becoming common that November.

‘I think you’d better stay a little while,’ I said.

‘I might as well,’ said Pearson.

He sat down, without having taken off his mackintosh. He sat as though he were quite comfortable; he did not speak until we heard the crunch of bombs, probably some way the other side of the river. Pearson looked at me through glasses which magnified his calm eyes.

‘How old is this house?’

That summer I had moved from the Dolphin block into a square close by. As I told Pearson, the houses must be about a hundred years old, run up when Pimlico was a new residential district, now left with the stucco peeling off the porticos.

‘A bit too old to stand up well,’ said Pearson.

We heard the whine of a bomb, then the jar and rumble. The light bulbs swung, and flecks of plaster fell on to the carpet.

‘About a quarter of a mile away,’ said Pearson, after a second’s consideration. He picked a spicule of plaster off his lapel.

I said I often wish that I had not moved from the steel and concrete of Dolphin Square.

Twice we heard the whine of bombs.

‘What floor was yours?’ asked Pearson, with impassive interest.

‘The fourth.’

‘The factor of safety was about eight times what you’ve got here.’ I was frightened, as I was whenever bombs fell; I could not get used to it. I disliked being frightened in the presence of Pearson, who happened to be brave.

Four bombs: one, Pearson guessed, nearer than a quarter of a mile: then the gunfire slackened overhead and we could hear it tailing away down the estuary.

‘If I were you,’ he remarked, ‘and they began to drop them near this house, I should get a bit nervous,’

Soon he got up.

‘That’s all for tonight,’ he said.

But even Pearson felt a touch of the elation which came to one after an air raid. He was not quite unaffected; because bombs had been dropping near us, he was a little warmer to me. When I suggested that I should walk part of the way to Victoria, he said, more considerately than I had heard him speak: ‘Of course, if you feel up to it.’

In the square the night was misty, but illuminated across the river by a pillar of fire, rose and lilac round an inner tongue of gold, peacefully beautiful. It seemed to be near Nine Elms, but might have been a little farther off, perhaps at Battersea.

‘It’s silly, trying to knock towns out by high explosive,’ said Pearson, as we turned our backs to the blaze and walked towards Belgrave Road. ‘It just can’t be done,’ he said.

I had never known him so communicative, and I took advantage of it.

‘What about the other bomb?’

He turned his face towards me, and in the light of another, smaller fire, I saw his eyes, lazy, half suspicious.

‘What about it?’ he said.

‘What’s going to happen?’

After a pause, he did not mind answering:

‘We’re going to get it.’

‘Who is?’

‘Who do you think?’ He meant, of course, the American party he was working in. As with most of the scientists, nationalism in its restricted sense touched him very little — when he said ‘we’, he thought of nothing but his own group.

‘You’re sure?’ I asked, but he was always sure.

‘It stands to reason.’

Then I asked, expecting a flat answer: ‘So you don’t think anything will come of Luke’s affair?’ I was prepared for the flat answer; what I actually heard sounded too good to be true.

‘I shouldn’t like to go as far as that,’ he replied, looking in front of him indifferently.

‘You believe it might work?’ I said.

‘When he started talking about it, I thought he’d do himself a bit of no good.’ He gave a contented, contemptuous grin. ‘But it doesn’t seem to have been all hot air.’

‘You really think they’ll pull it off?’

‘I’m not a prophet.’

I asked him again.

‘Oh, well,’ said Pearson, ‘in time Master Luke might show a bit of return for his money. Though’ — he gave the same contemptuous grin again — ‘he won’t do it as soon as he thinks he will.’

I did not receive any greater assurance until the spring, when, in March, I received a note from Luke himself. It said:

The balloon is due to go up on the 22nd. The machine ought to work some time that afternoon, though I can’t tell you correct to the nearest hour. We want you to come and see the exhibition.

I had no doubt that Martin did not know of the letter; it would have seemed to him tempting fate. For myself, I felt the same kind of superstition, even a misgiving about going down to watch. If I were not there, all would happen according to plan, Luke triumph, Martin get some fame. If I sat by and watched — yet, of course, I should have to go.