The New Men (6 page)

He remained silent. I sat down in an armchair by his desk, He went on gazing at me, with an unwinking inflexible stare from his right eye: the other had little vision and turned blandly off at forty-five degrees. He was bald: square-jowled: podgy-nosed: wide-mouthed, with upturning melon-lips. I studied him, also without speaking.

‘Eliot,’ he said at last, ‘I’m not satisfied with the support that we’re receiving.’

I said that this was what I had come to talk about.

‘Now you’ve had an opportunity to see what we’re doing.’

I said yes.

‘I hope you’ve made the most of it. I hope you are beginning to realize that this place maybe – I don’t say that it is, I say
may be
– the most important institution in the entire world. And I’m going to ask you straight out: what help am I to expect from headquarters?’

I hesitated.

‘Naturally, I expect some positive results from you,’ said Drawbell.

I was the wrong man for this opening, but I had to be patient. I had two problems on my mind. What was going to happen? I had not much doubt of the answer – but how frankly should I tell it to Drawbell?

I knew in cold blood what was bound to happen. Even if Rudd’s scheme worked (perhaps Martin was underestimating its chances), it would take years. All the scientists they wanted were working elsewhere, most of them on RDF, on work that would pay dividends in one year or two, not in the remote future: no one in authority could take the risk of moving them; even if the Barford result was certain, instead of uncertain, no one at that stage of the war could do much more.

If I were to be any use as an administrator to Barford, I had to get them to trust me: so I decided to be open with Drawbell. I said that no one could spend any time with his scientists without becoming infected with their faith. He nodded his head. I should report that to Hector Rose and the Minister, for what it was worth: but Drawbell must not expect too much.

‘Why not?’

I told him what I had been thinking to myself. He was up against the facts of war. Whatever I reported to the Minister, or the Minister represented to his committees, or the committees recommended on their own, would make little difference. Barford would get buildings and equipment without any serious trouble, but could only hope for a few extra scientists. However much faith anyone had, the men just did not exist.

‘Strip the country,’ said Drawbell,

I told him any set of responsible persons would have to say no. We couldn’t weaken ourselves in 1943 or 1944 for the sake of a gigantic gamble.

‘I won’t tolerate the word gamble,’ said Drawbell, in a loud monotonous voice, speaking like a man trying to hold back his anger.

I had expected him to be reasonable; I had misjudged him.

He would not listen to my case. He shouted me down. He tried cajoling me, saying that I was the only man in the Minister’s entourage with any imagination. He tried threatening me, asking how I should feel when the Germans dropped the first uranium bomb on London.

I was used, like any official who has had to carry bad news, to being blamed for it, but it was an effort to keep my temper.

‘Quite frankly,’ said Drawbell, meaning by that phrase that something unpleasant was coming, ‘I hoped that you were going to be less obstructive.’

He went on: ‘Of course, I shan’t be able to hide it from your
superiors
that we’ve been disappointed by your visit.’

I said that was up to him.

‘If your superiors take the same hopeless attitude as you do, Eliot, it will be a black day for this country.’

‘You must tell them so.’

Suddenly Drawbell gave a surprisingly sweet smile. ‘I’ve told them already, Eliot, and I shall go on telling them.’

He behaved as though it were no use abusing me further, and began to talk in a realistic manner,

‘Well,’ he said, ‘assuming that you’re right to be hopeless – how many scientists shall I get?’

I had not replied before Drawbell put on a grin, half coaxing, half jeering: ‘Come on. Just between you and me.’

So all that display of indignation had been an act; he was ready to use his own moods, my comfort, anything or anyone else, for the sake of Barford.

This time I was cautious. I said that another establishment, doing work of the highest war priority, had just been allowed to search for thirty scientists of reputation. If the Minister and the committees made out the strongest case for Barford, they might get ten to twenty.

‘Well, if it’s only ten,’ said Drawbell, surprisingly reasonable, ‘that’s better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish.’

He regarded me with good nature, as though I had, through no special fault of my own but for a higher purpose, been roughly handled. It was amiably that he inquired: ‘Would you like to know what I shall do with them?’ I expected him to say – they will go to Rudd. Drawbell made a theatrical pause, and said: ‘
I shall put them
where they are most needed
.’

I asked, impatient at this new turn, where that would be.

‘Rudd thinks he will get them all,’ said Drawbell.

‘Will he?’

‘Not on your life. It’s not good for anyone to think they’re the only runners in the field.’

He gave a cheerful, malevolent chuckle. One could tell how he enjoyed using his power, keeping his assistants down to their proper level, dividing and ruling.

To complete the surprise, he was proposing to reinforce Luke whom he disliked, whom he had heard disparaged for weeks.

‘It doesn’t matter who brings it off,’ he said, ‘so long as someone does.’

He nodded, for once quite natural: ‘I don’t know whether you pray much, Eliot, but I pray God that my people here will get it first. Pray God we get it.’

LOOKING back, I re-examined all I could remember of those early conversations at Barford, searching for any sign of troubled consciences. I was tempted to antedate the conflict which later caused some of them suffering. But it would have been quite untrue.

There was a simple reason why it should be so. All of them knew that the enemy was trying to make a fission bomb. For those who had a qualm of doubt, that was a complete ethical solvent. I had not yet heard from any of the scientists, nor from my friends in government, a single speculation as to whether the bomb should be used. It was just necessary to possess it.

When Drawbell prayed that the Barford project might succeed, he was not speaking lightly; he happened to have kept intact his religious faith. In different words, Puchwein and the fellow-travellers, for just then there was no political divide, would have uttered the same prayer, and so should I.

When I first heard the fission bomb discussed in the Minister’s room, my response had been the same as Francis Getliffe’s, that is, to hope it would prove physically impossible to make. But in the middle of events, close to Martin and Luke and the others, I could not keep that up. Imperceptibly my hopes had become the same as theirs, that we should get it, that we should get it first. To myself I added a personal one: that Martin would play a part in the success.

During my November visit to Barford my emotions about the project were as simple as that, and they remained so for a long time.

Yet, soon after that visit, I was further from expecting a result even than I had been before. Within quite a short time, a few weeks, the wave of optimism, which had been stirred up by Drawbell, died away; others began to accept what Martin had warned me of by the Barford bridge. It was nothing so dramatic as a failure or even a mistake; it was simply that men realized they had underestimated the number of men, the amount of chemical plant, the new kinds of engineering, the number of years, before any of the methods under Rudd could produce an ounce of metal.

Then America came into the war, and within a few weeks had assigned several thousand scientists to the job. The Barford people learned of it with relief, but also with envy and a touch of resentment. There seemed nothing left for them to do. A good many of them were sent across to join the American projects. The Minister, whose own post had become shaky, was being pushed into letting others go.

By the early summer of 1942, the argument had begun as to whether or not Barford should be disbanded.

Just as that argument was starting, we heard the first rumours of Luke’s idea. Could the Canadians be persuaded to set up a heavy-water plant? the Minister was asked. If so, Luke saw his way through the rest.

No one believed it. The estimates came in, both of money and men. They were modest. No one thought they were realistic. Nearly all the senior scientists, though not Francis Getliffe, thought the idea ‘long-haired’.

Following suit, Hector Rose was coming down against it, and deciding that the sensible thing was to send the Barford scientists to America. High officials like Rose had been forced to learn how much their country’s power (by the side of America’s) had shrunk; Rose was a proud man, and the lesson bit into his pride, but he was too cool-minded not to act on it.

I did not believe that Luke’s idea would come to anything. I did not know whether anything could be saved of Barford. As for Martin, I was angry with him again because his luck was so bad.

I was wondering if I could help find him another job, when in July I received a message that he urgently wished to talk to me and would be waiting at my flat.

It was a hot afternoon, and the Minister kept me late. When I arrived at Dolphin Square I could see no sign of Martin, except his case: tired, out of temper, I began to read the evening paper, comfortless with the grey war news. While I was reading, I heard a splash of water from the bath, and I realized that Martin must be there. I did not call out. There would be time enough for the bleak conversation in front of us.

Then I heard another sound, inexplicable, like a series of metallic taps, not rhythmical but nearly so, as though someone with no sense of time were beating out a very slow tattoo on the bathroom wall. Inexorably it went on, until I cried out, mystified, irritated: ‘What
are
you doing?’

‘Trying to lodge the pumice-stone on the top of the shaving-cupboard.’

It was one of the more unexpected replies. From his tone, I knew at once that he was lit up with happiness. And I knew just what he was doing. He kept his happiness private, as he did his miseries; and in secret he had his own celebrations. I had watched him, after a success at Cambridge, stand for many minutes throwing an india rubber up to the cornice, seeing if he could make it perch.

‘What have you been up to?’ My own tone had quite changed.

‘I moved into Luke’s outfit a few weeks ago.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got in on the ground floor.’

It was a phrase quite out of character – but I did not care about that. I had ceased to respond to his joy, I was anxious for him again, cross that I had not been consulted.

‘Was that wise?’ I called.

‘I should think so.’

‘It must have meant quarrelling with your boss.’ (I meant Rudd).

‘I’m sorry about that.

‘What about Drawbell? Have you got across him?’

‘I thought it out’ – he seemed amused that I should be accusing him of rashness ‘–before I moved.’

‘I doubt if Luke’s scheme will ever see the light of day,’ I cried.

‘It must.’

‘How many people believe in it?’

‘
It’s the way to do it
.’

There was a pause. Once more, there came a tinkle on the bathroom floor, meaning that he had missed his aim again.

‘Do you really think that?’ I said.

‘I’m sure.’

‘How long have you been sure?’

‘I was more sure when I got into this bath than I’ve ever been.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It came to me.
It was all right
.’

Without altering his tone, still relaxed and joyful, he announced that he was going to leave off his efforts with the pumice; he would get out and join me soon. As I waited, although I was trying to think out ways and means, although I had a professional’s anxiety (how could we manoeuvre Luke’s scheme through?), although I could not keep my protectiveness down, yet I was enthused with hope. Already I was expecting more for him than he did himself.

I passed as a realistic man. In some senses it was true. But down at the springs of my life I hoped too easily and too much. As an official I could control it; but not always as I imagined my own future, even though by now I knew what had happened to me, I knew where I was weak. Least of all could I control it when I thought of Martin: with myself, I could not help remembering my weaknesses, but I could forget his. So, given the least excuse, as after listening to his voice from the bath, I imagined more glittering triumphs for him than ever, even fifteen years before, I had imagined for myself.

He came in wearing a dressing-gown of mine, and at once I was given enough excuse to hope as much as I could manage. As with most guarded faces, his did not lose its guard in moments of elation – that is, the lines of the mouth, the controlled expression, stayed the same; but his whole face, almost like one of the turnip masks that we used to make as children, seemed to be illuminated from within by a lamp of joy.

We did not begin at once to discuss tactics, for which he had come to London. Sometime that night we should have to; but just for this brief space we put the tactics out of our minds, we gave ourselves the satisfaction of letting it ride.

Martin had been visited by an experience which might not come to him again. So far as I could distinguish, there were two kinds of scientific experience, and a scientist was lucky if he was blessed by a visitation of either just once in his working life. The kind which most of them, certainly Martin, would have judged the higher was not the one he had just known: instead, the higher kind was more like (it was in my view the same as) the experience that the mystics had described so often, the sense of communion with all-being. Martin’s was quite different, not so free from self, more active: as though, instead of being one with the world, he held the world in the palm of his hand; as though he had, in his moment of insight, seen the trick by which he could toss it about. It did not matter that the trick had been invented by another; this was a pure experience, without self-regard, so pure that it brought to Martin’s smile, as well as joy, a trace of sarcastic surprise – ‘Why has this happened to
me
?’