Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

Outside, the sirens ululated. They were late that night. In a few minutes, down the estuary we heard the first hollow thud of gunfire. The rumble came louder and sharper. It was strangely warming to be sitting there, in that safe room, as the noise grew. It was like lying in front of the fire as a child, while the wind moaned and the rain thrashed against the windows. It gave just the same pulse of rich, exalted comfort.

We turned off the light and drew aside the curtains. Searchlights were weaving on the clouds: there was an incandescent star as a shell burst short, but most were exploding above the cloud shelf. There were only a few aircraft, flying high. The night was too stormy for a heavy raid. Two small fires were rising pink, rosy, out to the east. The searchlights crossed their beams ineffectively, in a beautiful three-dimensional design.

The aircraft were unseen, undetected, untouched. We heard their engines throbbing smoothly and without a break. They flew west and then south; the gunfire became distant again, and died away.

We looked out into the dark night; one searchlight still smeared itself upon the clouds.

“They won’t find it so easy soon,” I said.

“Who’ll stop them? Getliffe and his gang?”

“They’ll help,” I said. “It won’t be any fun to fly.”

“You’re sure, old boy?” said Roy very clearly, in the dark room.

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. I had always had a minor interest in military history: since the war, with the opportunities of my job, it had become more informed. “It was the most dangerous job in the last war. It’s bound to become so again.”

“On both sides?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean — the most dangerous job?”

I defined what I meant. I said that special élite troops on land, like commandos, might take greater risks than the average fighting airman; but that the whole fighting strength of the air force would suffer heavier casualties than any similar number of men on land or sea.

“They’ll take very heavy losses,” I said, staring at the night sky.

“And we shall too?”

“Quite certainly,” I said. “I don’t know how many fighting airmen will survive the war. It won’t be a very large percentage.”

“Just so.” I heard the clear voice behind me.

Two mornings later, Houston Eggar rang me up at my office. He was excessively mysterious. In him discretion was becoming both a passion and an art; both he and I had secret telephones, but he thought it safest not to speak. It would be wiser to meet, he said zestfully, revelling in his discretion. He would not give me an inkling of the reason. Would I mind going round to the Foreign Office?

I was annoyed. I did not believe that he was as busy as I was. I knew that he enjoyed all the shades of secrecy. Irritated, I went past guards, sandbags, into the dingy entrance of the Foreign Office, followed a limping messenger down corridors and up stairs.

Eggar was occupying a tiny ramshackle room, marked off by a pasteboard partition. The building was overcrowded, and, somewhat to his chagrin, he could not be accommodated according to his rank. One window had been blown out, and was not yet boarded over. It was a cold morning, and bitter draughts kept sweeping in. Eggar sat there in his black coat and striped trousers, muscular, vigorous, cheerful. He did not mind the cold. He worked like an engine, and he would be sitting in that arctic room until late at night, plodding through the day’s stack of files.

He greeted me with his effusive cordiality, man-to-man, eyes looking straight into eyes.

“Between ourselves,” he said, “I think I’ve got a job for you.”

“I’m pretty well booked,” I said.

“I know you’re not disponible. I know you’re getting well-thought-of round here. I hear your minister thinks the world of you.” Eggar was a generous-hearted man, and he was genuinely pleased that I should get some praise. Also he was thinking of one of his own simple, cunning, pushful moves. “But I want you for something important. I think we may be able to extract you for a week or two.”

“I do rather doubt it,” I said. “What do you want me for?”

“You’ve kept in touch with young Calvert, have you?”

The question surprised me.

“Yes.”

“Well, this is strictly in confidence — we’re particularly anxious that it shouldn’t get round, for reasons that I’m obliged to keep to myself. Strictly in confidence, young Calvert has received a letter from a German friend of his. I don’t want to give you a wrong impression. There’s nothing to blame Calvert for. He has behaved perfectly correctly.” Eggar told me the story of Romantowski’s letter over again; he produced a copy of the original, and I listened to another translation.

“Very curious,” I said.

“It may be useful,” said Eggar. “We’re finding out whether this chap Romantowski is really living at that address. If so, we want to chase it up.” He explained, as he had done to Roy, that they were uncomfortably short of news from inside Germany. “We think it might be worth the trouble of sending Calvert to talk to him.”

I nodded.

“Yes, we shall probably send Calvert out,” said Eggar. He looked at me, and added: “If we do, we should like you to go with him.”

“Why?”

Then Eggar took me completely aback.

“Between ourselves, Eliot, you ought to know. You ought to remember that two or three years ago Calvert was inclined to see some good points in the German set-up. I don’t count it against him: a lot of people did the same. I’m not saying for a minute that today he isn’t a hundred per cent behind the war. But we can’t afford to take chances. I should be more comfortable if you went and helped him out in Switzerland. I expect he would be more comfortable too.”

It was informal, rough-and-ready, fixed up like an arrangement between friends. It was the way things got done. I felt a new respect for Eggar’s competence.

I could not escape being persuaded. If they wanted news badly enough to send Roy, it was as well that I went with him. Eggar beamed at me triumphantly. He would not have got me ordered there against my will, but now all was clear, he said, for him to call upon my minister. It was quite unnecessary, for the minister was the least ceremonious of men; I could have explained it to him in five minutes.

But he was also a uniquely influential man, and Eggar was determined to know him. On its own merits, it was a good idea to despatch me to look after Roy; Eggar could always keep one eye on the ball. But the other eye was fixed elsewhere. From the moment he had thought of sending me, Eggar had been determined to make the most of the opportunity. It was an admirable excuse to introduce himself to the minister; he was out to create the best of impressions. He would never have a finer chance.

“We’ll get you there somehow,” said Houston Eggar heartily, when I asked about our route. The more I thought of it, the more my apprehensions emerged. In fact, it was so difficult to arrange the journey that it was cancelled twice. Each time I felt reprieved. But Eggar was determined that we should go, and at last he managed it.

The Foreign Office had been able to trickle a few people in since the fall of France, and Eggar used the same method for us: but even so, and getting us the highest priority, he took weeks to produce our papers complete. The delay was almost entirely caused by the French, for we needed a visa through Vichy France.

Though I viewed the journey with trepidation, I could not help being amused at the technique. For we were to fly to Lisbon in the ordinary way; there was nothing comic about that, but then the unexpected began; we were instructed to catch a German plane from Lisbon to Madrid, and another on the standard Lufthansa route from Madrid up north through Europe. We were to get off at Lyons, though the plane went on to Stuttgart. It had been done several times before by visitors on important missions, said Eggar: like them, we should carry Red Cross papers, and he expected all would be well. The French at last gave way. Eggar told us as though he had done all the difficult part, and ours was trivial; but, as a matter of fact, he was beginning to feel responsible.