Charles Snow - The New Men

‘How long will he get?’ I asked.

‘About the same as the other one.’

He stared at me.

‘Ten years, there or thereabouts,’ he went on. ‘It’s a long time for a young man.’

I nodded.

‘We’ve got to do it,’ he said, in exactly the same neutral creaking tone. He had not spoken of Sawbridge’s sentence with sentimentality, but as a matter of fact; but also I had not heard him condemn Sawbridge. Smith had more moral taste than most persons connected with crime and punishment; the country had a right to guard itself, to make sure that men like Sawbridge were caught; but, in his view, it had no right to insult them.

The next night, the Friday, Smith was late arriving at my office. When he did so, fingering the rolled-up record as though it were a flute, he said: ‘Our friend is going to make a complete statement on Monday morning.’

Smith decided that we ought to take the news at once to Bevill and Rose. I followed him down the corridor to Rose’s room, where, as Smith began a preamble about having a ‘confab’, I glanced out of the window into the dark and muggy twilight, with the lights already shining (although it was only half past six on a September evening) from windows in Birdcage Walk.

Bland behind his desk, Rose was bringing Smith to the point, but, as he did so, there was a familiar step outside, a step brisk and active, which did not sound like an old man pretending to be young — and Bevill came in, with a flushed happy look. He left the door open, and in a moment Martin entered.

‘This is good news for us all,’ said Bevill.

With one question, aside to me, Rose grasped what news they brought.

‘It’s jolly good work,’ said Bevill.

‘I suppose, in the circumstances, it is the best solution,’ said Rose, and added, with his customary coolness: ‘Of course, it will mean a good many awkward questions.’

‘I hope this will encourage the others,’ said Bevill.

‘There mustn’t be any more,’ said Martin, speaking for the first time since he came in.

Bevill, who had been congratulating Smith, turned to Martin. ‘You needn’t think we don’t know how much we’ve got to thank you for.’ The old man beamed at him.

Martin shook his head.

Rose said: ‘It’s been a real contribution, and we’re very grateful. Many, many congratulations.’

‘What I like,’ said Bevill, ‘is that you’ve done it without any fuss. Some of your chaps make such a fuss whatever they do, and that’s just what we wanted to avoid. I call you a public benefactor.’ Bevill was rosy with content.

The party broke up, Smith leaving first. As Martin and I walked away down the corridor, not speaking, I heard the brisk step behind us.

‘Just a word,’ said Bevill, but waited until we reached my room.

‘This is a clever brother you’ve got, Lewis,’ said the old man paternally. ‘Look, I want to stand you both a dinner. Let’s go to my little club. I didn’t ask friend Rose up the passage, because I knew he wouldn’t want to come.’

It was completely untrue, and Bevill knew it; Rose would have loved to be taken to Pratt’s. But Bevill still refused to introduce his Whitehall acquaintances there. In his heart, though he could get on with all men, he did not like them, especially Rose. It was a fluke that he happened to like me, and now Martin.

The evening was sultry, and it was like a greenhouse in the club kitchen, where the fire blazed in the open grate. The little parlour was empty, when we had dinner at the common table off the check tablecloth; but one or two men were drinking in the kitchen.

That night, as on other occasions when I had watched him there, Bevill was unbuttoned; he stopped being an unobtrusive democrat the instant he passed the porter in the hall. His well-being was so bubbling that I could not resist it, though I had resolved to speak to Martin before the end of the night. Nevertheless, that seemed far away; and I felt light-hearted.

Bevill shouted to his friends through the parlour door. He was too natural to assume that Martin would know them by their Christian names, or alternatively would not be curious about the company he was in. Accordingly, Bevill enunciated a couple of the famous English titles: Martin attended to him. Looking at them, sharing some of the old man’s euphoria (the evening was still early), I thought of the young Proust.

Unlike the young Proust, Martin was drinking pints of bitter. He appeared to be enjoying himself without reserve, without any sign of the journey that had brought him there.

Bevill, who still had a taste for a night’s drinking, was having our tankards filled before we went on to port. For a time, while we sat alone round the table, he became elated with drink and could not resist a bit of philosophy.

‘What do all our concerns matter, you two, when you put them in their proper place? They’re just phenomena, taking place in time — what I call false time — and everything essential exists in a different and more wonderful world, doesn’t it, right outside of space and time? That’s what you ought to think of, Martin, when you’re worried about fellows like Sawbridge, or your project. All our real lives happen out of time.

‘That isn’t to say,’ he said, coming down to earth, ‘that it won’t be nice when you people at Barford give us a good big bang.

‘Fine words butter no parsnips,’ went on Bevill gravely, waving a finger at Martin, who in fact had not spoken. ‘You chaps have got to deliver the goods.’

‘That’s bound to happen. It’s cut and dried, and nothing can stop it now,’ said Martin.

‘I’m glad to hear you say so.’ Bevill looked from Martin to me. ‘You know, you chaps have got something on your hands.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘It’s not so easy pulling this old country through as it was when I was your age. If chaps like you don’t take over pretty soon, it’s not a very bright lookout.’

Martin and I both replied to him direct, not talking across to each other. But we agreed. Obviously the major power, which he had known, had gone: the country would have to live by its wits: it could be done: better men had known worse fates.

Bevill gave a cherubic, approving nod.

‘You two ought to know, I shouldn’t call myself a socialist,’ he said, as though making an astonishing but necessary revelation, ‘but I don’t care all that much what these fellows (the government) do, as long as we keep going.’

It was spoken in drink, but it happened to be true. Half drunk myself, I loved him for it.

Cheerful, naïf (one could forget that he was a cunning old intriguer), he rambled on ‘philosophizing’ again to his heart’s content, until in the kitchen, with sweat pouring down his face and mine, and beads at the roots of Martin’s hair, he said: ‘I want to say something, Martin, before I get beyond it.’

He said it in a different tone, sharp and businesslike.

Perhaps Martin did not know what I did — that when it came to action, it did not matter what state Bevill was in, or what nonsense he had been talking. On serious matters, like jobs or promises, he would nor say a word out of turn or one he did not mean.

Martin listened as though he knew it too.

‘You’re sitting pretty at Barford, young man,’ said Bevill.

‘I suppose I am,’ said Martin.

‘I’m telling you, you are . We shan’t forget what you’ve done for us, and it’s time we did something for you.’

Bevill went on: ‘There are different views on how to run the place — and who’s to do it, I needn’t tell you that. But I can tell you that whatever arrangement we make, it won’t be to your disadvantage. You can just sit back and wait and see.’