Back in my place at Douglas’ side, I listened to the First Lord making the first reply. He too was competent, more so than I had been told. He was using much the same language as the Opposition spokesman. In fact, I found myself thinking, as the words rolled out like the balloons from characters in comic strips, an observer from Outer Mongolia would have been puzzled to detect the difference between them. ‘Deterrence’ was a word they both used often. The First Lord was preoccupied with ‘potential scaling-down’, not scaling-down in the here and now, but ‘potential scaling-down if we can have the assurance that this will influence others’. He also talked of ‘shield and sword’, ‘striking power’, ‘capability’. It was a curious abstract language, of which the main feature was the taking of meaning out of words.
As I listened to their speeches and those which followed, I wasn’t interested in speculation, or even the arguments as such. We had heard them all, for years. So I was listening, with concentrated and often obsessed attention, not to the arguments, but simply to what they meant in terms of votes next night. That was all. For all those hours, it was enough. The House grew fuller during the early evening, then thinned at dinner-time. Until nine o’clock there were no surprises. A Labour Party back-bencher expressed views close to Francis Getliffe’s or mine. When it came to the vote there would, we already knew, be plenty of abstentions on the Labour side — how many we were not certain, but too many for comfort. Though these abstentions meant support for Roger’s policy, it was once again the support he could not afford. A Labour Party front-bencher expressed views that a member of Lord A—’s splinter group, or an American admiral, might have found reactionary. Lord A— himself made a Delphic speech, in which he stated his suspicions of the Government’s intentions and his determination to vote for them. Another ultra-Conservative, whom we had counted as lost, followed suit.
To the surprise of everyone round me, the first hours of the debate didn’t produce much animus. It was a full-dress parliamentary occasion. Everyone had heard the passions over the issue and the personality seething for weeks. They were waiting for violence, and it hadn’t come.
Then, precisely at nine, the member for a county division was called. When I saw him rise, I settled back without any apprehensions at all. His name was Trafford, and I knew him slightly. He wasn’t well-off, he lived on a small family business. He wasn’t on the extreme right, he wasn’t smart. He didn’t speak often, he asked pertinacious questions: he was never likely to be invited to Basset. I had met him because, in his constituency, there were people who had known me in my youth. I thought he was dull, determined, over-anxious to do all the listening.
He got up, heavy-shouldered, raw-skinned. Within a minute, he was ripping into an attack. It was an attack which, from the first sounding note, was virulent. He was a loyal supporter of the Government, he said: he hoped to be so in the future: but he couldn’t support this particular policy and this particular Minister. The policy was the policy of an adventurer. What else was this man? What had he done? What was his record of achievement? All he did was play the field, look out for the main chance, find the soft option. This was the kind of adventurer’s progress he was leading the country into. Why? What were his credentials? What reason had he given us for trusting him? Trust him? Trafford’s tone got more violent. Some of us compared him with a man we could truly trust, the Honourable Member for Brighton South. We wished that the Honourable Member for Brighton South were in his place tonight, bringing us back to our principles. We believed that he had been a victim to his own high standards.
As the constituency of Brighton South was shouted out, I could not recall the member’s name. I whispered a question to Douglas.
‘J C Smith,’ he said.
So it had got so far. The abuse went on, but the accusation became no more direct. It couldn’t have been understood, except by those who knew already; yet the hate was palpable. Was this man Trafford one of Smith’s disciples? It might be so. How far were they in touch with Hood, how far was he their weapon?
My own suspicion had crystallized. I did not believe that he was just a man unbalanced, on his own. Or rather, he might be unbalanced, or have become so, as he carried the persecution on. But I believed that there were cool minds behind it. There was evidence that he had a fanatical devotion to his own aircraft firm, the kind of devotion, passionate and pathetic, of one who didn’t get the rewards himself, but hero-worshipped those who did. There could have been people shrewd enough to use him, shrewd enough to know that he got excitement from the sexual life of others.
I thought that there were cool minds behind him. But it seemed to me that these were business minds. They might have their links with Smith’s disciples; but it didn’t sound like the work of those disciples, not even the work of this man himself, snarling in the chamber.
Adventurers were dangerous, he was saying. They might be ingratiating, they might have attractions for all those round them, they might be clever, but they were the ruin of any government and any nation. It was time this Government went back to the solid virtues, and then Trafford and his friends and the whole country would support them once more.
It wasn’t a long speech. Twice he was shouted into silence, but even Roger’s partisans were embarrassed and for a time hypnotized by his venom. Roger sat through it, eyes hard, face expressionless.
I hadn’t heard such an outburst in the House before. What harm had it done? For a few, for Collingwood, the reference to Smith wouldn’t be missed. The attack came from a quarter we should least have chosen, the respectable middle-of-the road of the Tory members. Had it been too violent for man to take? That seemed the best hope. When two of Hector Rose’s dinner companions got up to say they couldn’t support the Government, they were noticeably civil and restrained, and one paid a compliment to Roger’s character.
When the House rose, I couldn’t trust my judgement. A policeman was shouting ‘Who goes home?’ as I telephoned Ellen, not knowing what to say. I heard her quick, breath catching ‘Yes’, and told her all had gone as we expected, except — again a ‘Yes?’ — except, I said, for one bit of malice. I couldn’t tell what the effect would be. It had been meant to kill. It might result in nothing worse than a single unexpected abstention. ‘You’re not holding back?’ she said. I had to tell her there had been a hint about her husband: not many would have grasped it. Down the telephone came a harsh sigh: What difference would it make? Was it going to tip the balance? Her voice had risen. I said, in flat honesty, that no one could telclass="underline" I believed, for better or worse, it wouldn’t count. I added, meaninglessly, Try to sleep.
Through the sparkling, frosty night, I hurried round to Lord North Street. On the stairs I heard laughter from the drawing-room. As I got inside, I saw with astonishment, with the desire to touch wood, that Caro, Margaret and Roger were all looking cheerful. A plate of sandwiches was waiting for me, since I had not eaten all day.
‘What have you been doing to Trafford?’ Roger asked, as though to put me at my ease.
‘Do you understand it?’ I cried.
‘Whatever does he hope for?’ Caro spoke with genuine, full-throated scorn, not pretending. She must have heard each overtone of the insinuation, but she laughed like one saying — ‘If that is the worst they can do!’
‘Have you had any repercussions?’ I asked.
‘Not one.’ Roger spoke with studious interest, with the euphoria which sometimes breaks through in the middle of a crisis, ‘Do you know, I can’t begin to imagine why he did it. Can you?’