During the next few days, wherever I went, in the offices, clubs and dinner-parties, tempers were more bitter than they had been in this part of the London world since Munich. As at the time of Munich, one began to refuse invitations to houses where the quarrel would spring up. This time, however, the divide took a different line. Hector Rose and his colleagues, the top administrators, had most of them been devoted Municheers. Now, conservative as they were, disposed by temperament and training to be at one with Government, they couldn’t take it. Rose astonished me when he talked.
‘I don’t like committing my own future actions, my dear Lewis, which in any case will shortly be of interest to no one but myself — but I confess that I don’t see how I’m going to hypnotize myself into voting Conservative again.’
He was irked because for once he had known less than usual about the final decision: but also, he was shocked. ‘I don’t mind these people—’ he meant the politicians, and for once did not use the obsequious ‘our masters’ — ‘failing to achieve an adequate level of intelligence. After all, I’ve been trying to make them understand the difference between a precise and an imprecise statement for nearly forty years. But I do mind, perhaps I mind rather excessively, when they fail to show the judgement of so many cockatoos.’ Bitterly, Rose considered the parallel, and appeared to find it close enough.
He was sitting in his room behind the bowl of flowers. He said: ‘Tell me, Lewis, you are rather close to Roger Quaife‚ is that true? Closer, that is, than one might expect a civil servant, even a somewhat irregular civil servant, to be to a politician, even a somewhat irregular politician?’
‘That’s more or less true.’
‘He must have been in it, you know. Or did you hear?’
‘Nothing at all,’ I said.
‘The rumour is that he put up some sort of opposition in Cabinet. I should be mildly curious to know. I have seen a good many Ministers who were remarkably bold outside, but who somehow were not quite so intransigent when they got round the Cabinet table.’
There was a new rasp in Rose’s tone. He went on: ‘It might conceivably do a trivial amount of good, if you dropped the word to Quaife that a number of comparatively sensible and responsible persons have the feeling that they suddenly find themselves doing their sensible and responsible work in a lunatic asylum. It can’t do any harm, if you communicate that impression. I should be very, very grateful to you.’
Even for Rose, it took an effort of discipline that afternoon to return to his duties, to his ‘sensible and responsible work’.
Meanwhile, Tom Wyndham and his friends of the back benches were happy. ‘I feel I can hold my head up at last,’ said one of them. I did not see Diana Skidmore during those days, but I heard about her: the whole of the Basset circle was solid for Suez. Just as the officials seemed slumped in their chairs, the politicians became brilliant with euphoria. Sammikins, for once not odd man out, exuded more euphoria than any of them. In his case, there was a special reason. He happened, alone among his right wing group, to be pro-Zionist. Whether this was just a whim, I did not know, but he had applied for a commission in the Israeli Army, and he was riotously happy at the prospect of getting in one more bout of fighting before he grew too old.
In the clubs, the journalists and political commentators carried the rumours along. We were all at the pitch of credulity or suspiciousness — because in crisis these states are the same, just as they are in extreme jealousy — when anything seemed as probable as anything else. Some supporters of the Government were restive, we heard. I had a conversation myself with Cave and a couple of his friends, who were speaking the same bitter language as the officials, the professional men. ‘This is the last charge of Eton and the Brigade of Guards,’ said one young Conservative. How could we stop it? How many members of the Cabinet had been against it? Was — going to resign? Above all, what had Roger done?
One morning, during a respite from Cabinet meetings, Roger sent for me to give some instructions about the scientists’ committee. He did not volunteer a word about Suez. I thought that, just then, it would do no good to press it. Soon a secretary came in: Mr Cave had called. Would the Minister see him?
On the instant, as soon as the name was mentioned, Roger’s equable manner broke. ‘Am I never going to get a minute’s peace? Good God alive, why don’t some of you protect me a bit?’
He relapsed into sullenness, saying he was too busy, too pestered, she must make some excuse. The girl waited. She knew, as well as Roger did, that Cave was the most talented of Roger’s party supporters. She knew he ought not to be turned away. At last Roger, with a maximum of ill-grace, said he supposed she had better send him in.
I made to go out, but Roger, frowning, shook his head. When Cave entered, his head was thrown back from his slack, heavy body, eyes flickering under the thick arches of brow. Roger had made himself seem matey again. It was Cave who came to the point.
‘We can’t grumble about things being dull, can we?’
There were a few remarks, affable, half-malicious, to which Roger did not need to reply. All of a sudden, Cave ceased being devious.
‘Is there really any bit of sanity in this affair?’ he said.
‘What am I expected to say to that?’
‘I’m speaking for some of your friends, you know,’ said Cave. ‘Is there anything which you know and we don’t, that would alter our opinion?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, should you?’
‘No, Roger,’ said Cave, who, having thrown away side-digs or any kind of malice, was speaking with authority. ‘I was asking you seriously. Is there anything we don’t know?’
Roger replied, for a second friendly and easy: ‘Nothing that would make you change your minds.’
‘Well, then; you must know what we think. This is stupid. It’s wrong. On the lowest level, it won’t work.’
‘This isn’t exactly an original opinion, is it?’
Neither Cave nor I knew then, though I was able to check the date later, that on the night before the Cabinet had heard of the veto from Washington.
‘I’m quite sure it’s your own. But how much have you been able to put it across?’
‘You don’t expect me to tell you what’s happened in the Cabinet, do you?’
‘You have been known to drop a hint, you know.’ Cave, his chin sunk down, had spoken with a touch of edge.
At that remark, Roger’s temper, which I had not seen him lose before, except as a tactic, broke loose. His face went white: his voice became both thick and strangulated. He cried: ‘I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve not lost my senses. I don’t believe this is the greatest stroke of English policy since 1688. How in hell can you imagine that I don’t see what you see?’ His anger was ugly and harsh. He did not relish the voice of conscience, perhaps most of all, when it came from a man as clever, as much a rival, as Monty Cave: but that wasn’t all. That was only the trigger.
‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ Roger shouted. ‘You’re wondering what I said in Cabinet. I’ll tell you. I said absolutely nothing.’
Cave stared at him, not put off by violence, for he was not an emotional coward, but astonished. In a moment he said, steadily: ‘I think you should have done.’
‘Do you? Then it’s time you learned something about the world you’re living in.’ He rounded on me. ‘You pretend to know what politics is like! It’s time you learned something, too. I tell you, I said absolutely nothing. I’m sick and tired of having to explain myself every step of the way. This is the politics you all talk about. Nothing I could have said would make the slightest difference. Once these people had got the bit between their teeth, there was no doubt what was going to happen. Yes, I let it go on round me. Yes, I acquiesced in something much more indefensible than you’ve begun to guess. And you expect me to explain, do you? Nothing I could have said would have made the faintest difference. No, it would have made one difference. It would have meant that one newcomer would have lost whatever bit of credit he possessed. I’ve taken risks. You’ve both seen me take an unjustified risk.’