Charles Snow - The New Men

‘Administrators, of course, being a very lowly form of life,’ said Rose politely.

Francis flushed: somehow he, as a rule so effective in committee, could not put a foot right.

There was some technical argument among the scientists, taking up Mounteney’s point: weren’t the problems of Barford, from this time on, just engineering and administrative ones? Someone said that Martin, despite his calendar youth, was mentally the older of the two.

When we broke off for luncheon, Francis and I walked across the park together. For a time he strode on, in embarrassed silence, and then said: ‘Lewis, I’m very sorry I had to come out against Martin.’

‘Never mind,’ I said.

‘I couldn’t have done anything else,’ he said.

‘I know that,’ I said.

‘Do you agree with me?

By good luck, what I thought did not count. I said: ‘He’d do better than you’d give him credit for.’

‘But between him and Luke?’

‘Luke,’ I said.

Nevertheless, Francis had mishandled his case, and that afternoon and at the next meeting, it was Luke against whom opinion began to swell. Against Luke rather than for Martin, but in such a choice it was likely to be the antis who prevailed. They had, of course, a practical doubt, in Luke’s state of health. I was thinking, if you wanted a job, don’t be ill: for it had an almost superstitious effect, even on men as hard-headed as these; somehow, if you were ill, your mana was reduced.

‘Is it in Luke’s own best interests to ask him to take a strain like this?’ someone said.

It was not a close thing. Getliffe, who was a stubborn man, kept the committee arguing through several meetings, but in truth they had made up their minds long before. He twisted some concessions out of them: yes, Luke was to become a chief adviser, with a seat on the supervisory committee: yes, Luke would get ‘suitable recognition’ when his turn came round (Sir Walter Luke: Sir Francis Getliffe: Sir Arthur Mounteney: in five years’ time, those would be the styles). But the others would not give way any further. It was time a new arrangement was drawn up, and Bevill and Rose undertook, as a matter of form, to get Martin’s views.

On an afternoon in November, Martin came into Rose’s room. Bevill did not waste any words on flummery.

‘We’ve got a big job for you, young man,’ he burst out.

Martin sat still, his glance not deflecting for an instant towards me, as Bevill explained the scheme.

‘It’s an honour,’ said Martin. Neither his eyes nor mouth were smiling. He said: ‘May I have a few days to think it over?’

‘What do you want to think over?’ said Bevill. But he and Rose were both used to men pulling every string to get a job and then deliberating whether they could take it.

‘We should all be very, very delighted to see you installed there,’ said Rose.

Martin thanked him and said: ‘If I could give an answer next week?’

The day after Bevill offered Martin the appointment, Captain Smith came into my office and unravelled one of his Henry James-like invitations, which turned out to be, would I go with him to Wandsworth Gaol and have a chat to Sawbridge? I tried to get out of it, but Smith was persistent. He was sensitive enough to feel that I did not like it; but after all, I was an official, I had to live with official duty, just as he did himself.

In the taxi, he told me that he was clearing up a point about the Puchweins. It was worth ‘having another try’ at Sawbridge, who occasionally talked, not giving anything away, more for the sake of company than because he was softening. As we drove through the south London streets in the November sunshine, he told me more of Sawbridge. He had not recanted; others of the scientific spies gave up their communism in prison, but not Sawbridge. For a few days, sitting opposite to Martin, he had been ‘rattled’. During that time he made his confession. He had blamed himself ever since.

‘He’s quite a lad, is our young friend. He doesn’t make any bones about it,’ said Smith with proprietorial pride, stiff on his seat while we rocked over the tram-lines, through the down-at-heel streets scurfy in the sun.

At the prison, Smith took me to an assistant-governor’s room, which in his view gave a ‘better atmosphere’ for his talks with Sawbridge. For myself, I should have preferred the dark and the wire screen. This room was bright, like a housemaster’s study, with a fire in the grate, photographs of children on the desk, and on the walls Medici prints. The smell of tobacco rested in the bright air. Outside the grated window, the morning was brighter still.

When a warder brought Sawbridge in, he gave a smile as he saw Smith and me standing by the window, a smile not specially truculent but knowing, assertive, and at the same time candid. Above his prison suit his face looked no paler than in the past, and he seemed to have put on a little weight.

Smith had arranged for the warder to leave us alone. We heard him close the door, but there were no steps down the passage. Sawbridge, who was listening, cocked his thumb, as though at the warder waiting behind the door, and repeated his smile.

Smith smiled back. With me, with his colleagues, he was never quite at ease; but he was far less put off inside that room than I was.

‘Here we are again,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Sawbridge.

Smith made him take the easy chair by the fire, while Smith sat at the desk and I brought up a hard-backed chair.

‘Have a gasper?’ said Smith.

‘I still don’t smoke,’ Sawbridge replied, with his curious rude substitute for humour.

Smith began inquiring into his welfare. Was he getting enough reading material? Would he like Smith to inquire if he could be allowed more?

‘I don’t mind if you do,’ said Sawbridge.

Was he getting any scientific books?

‘I could do with more. Thanks,’ said Sawbridge.

Smith made a note; for once, Sawbridge was allowing himself to let slip a request.

Then Smith remarked that we had come down for a ‘spot of talk’.

‘What are you after?’

‘We should like to have a spot of talk about Puchwein,’ said Smith, surprisingly direct.

‘I’ve not got anything to say about him.’

‘You knew him and his wife, didn’t you?’

‘I knew them at Barford, like everybody else. I’ve not got anything to say.’

‘Never mind about that, old man,’ said Smith. ‘Let’s just talk round things a bit.’

As Smith foretold, Sawbridge was willing, and even mildly pleased, to chat. He had no objection to going over his story for yet another time. It occurred to me that he was simply lonely. He missed the company of his intellectual equals, and even talking to us was better than nothing. Methodically he went over the dates of his spying. As in each statement he had made, he would mention no name but his own: he had inculpated no one, and maintained all along that he was alone.

‘People remember seeing you at Mrs Puchwein’s,’ said Smith.

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Sawbridge.

‘Don’t you think you ought to be surprised?’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘I can’t think of anything obvious you’ve got in common.’

‘Why should we have anything obvious in common?’

‘Why were you there?’

‘Social reasons.’

‘Did you ever pay any other social calls of any kind?’ Smith asked.

‘Not that you’d know of.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘As far as that goes,’ said Sawbridge, turning on me with his kind of stolid insolence,’ why were you?’

Smith gave a hearty, creaking laugh. He went on questioning Sawbridge about Puchwein — where had he met him first?