In High Places

Brian Richardson shrugged. 'Well, I guess you're not the only one.'

'You were Jim Howden's man, not mine,' Warrender insisted. 'When Jim wanted you to be party director I spoke out against it. I guess Jim's told you that, trying to set you against me.'

'No, he never told me.' Richardson shook his head. 'And I don't think he'd want to set me against you either. There'd be no reason for it.'

Abruptly Warrender asked, 'What did you do in the war?'

'Oh, I was in the Army for a while. Nothing very spectacular.' He forebore to mention three years in the desert -North Africa, then Italy, through some of the toughest wartime fighting. Ex-Sergeant Richardson seldom spoke of it now, even to close friends. War reminiscences, the parade of hollow victories, bored him.

'That's the trouble with you fellows who had soft billets. You all came through. Those that mattered most…' Harvey Warrender's eyes swung back to the portrait'… a good many of those didn't.'

'Mr Minister,' the party director said, 'couldn't we sit down? There's something I'd like to talk to you about.' He wanted to have done with it all, and get out of this house. For the first time he wondered about Harvey Warrender's sanity.

'Go on then.' The Immigration Minister pointed to two facing armchairs.

Richardson dropped into one of the chairs as Warrender crossed to the desk, splashing whisky into his glass. 'All right,' he said, returning and sitting down, 'get on with it.'

He might as well, Richardson decided, come directly to the point.

He said quietly, 'I know about the agreement between you and the Prime Minister – the leadership, the television franchise, all the rest.'

There was a startled silence. Then, his eyes narrowed, Harvey Warrender snarled, 'Jim Howden told you. He's a double-crossing…'

'No.' Richardson shook his head emphatically. 'The chief didn't tell me, and he doesn't know that I'm aware of it. If he did, I think he'd be shocked.'

'You lying son of a bitch!' Warrender jumped up, weaving unsteadily.

'You can think that if you like,' Richardson said calmly. 'But why would I bother lying? In any case, how I know doesn't make any difference. The fact is, I do.'

'All right,' Warrender stormed, 'so you've come here to blackmail me. Well, let me tell you, Mr Fancy-Pants Party Director, I don't care about that agreement being known. Instead of your threatening me with exposure, I'll get the last laugh yet. I'll beat you to it! I'll call the reporters and tell them – here, tonight!'

'Please sit down,' Brian Richardson urged, 'and shouldn't we lower our voices? We might disturb your wife.'

'She's out,' Harvey Warrender said shortly. 'There's no one else in the house.' But he resumed his seat.

'I haven't come here to threaten,' the party director said. 'I've come to plead.' He would try the obvious way first, he thought. He had little hope of it succeeding. But the alternative must only be used when everything else had failed.

'Plead?' Warrender queried. 'What do you mean by plead?'

'Exactly that. I'm pleading with you to give up your hold over the chief; to let the past be finished; to surrender that written agreement…'

'Oh yes,' Warrender said sarcastically, 'I imagined you'd get around to that.'

Richardson tried to make his tone persuasive. 'No good can come from it now, Mr Minister. Don't you see that?'

'All I can see, suddenly, is why you're doing this. You're trying to protect yourself. If I expose Jim Howden, he's finished, and when he goes, so do you.'

'I expect that would happen,' Richardson said tiredly. 'And you can believe it or not, but I hadn't thought too much about it.'

It was true, he reasoned; that possibility had been least in his mind. He wondered: why was he doing this? Was it personal loyalty to James Howden? That was part of it, he supposed; but surely the real answer should be more than that. Wasn't it that Howden, with all his faults, had been good for the country as Prime Minister; and whatever indulgences he had taken, as a means of retaining power, he had given more, far more, in return? He deserved better – and so did Canada – than defeat in disgrace and ignominy. Perhaps, Brian Richardson thought, what he himself was doing now was a kind of patriotism, twice removed.

'No,' Harvey Warrender said. 'My answer is positively and finally no.' '

So, after all, the weapon must be used.

There was a silence as the two surveyed each other.

'If I were to tell you,' the party director said slowly, 'that I possess certain knowledge which would force you to change your mind… knowledge which, even between ourselves I am reluctant to discuss… would you change your mind, change it even now?'

, The Immigration Minister said firmly, 'There is no know-, ledge in heaven or earth which would make me alter what I have already said.'

'I think there is,' Brian Richardson contended quietly. 'You see, I know the truth about your son.'

It seemed as if the quiet in the room would never end.

At length, his face pale, Harvey Warrender whispered, 'What do you know?'

'For God's sake,' Richardson urged, 'isn't it enough that I know? Don't make me spell it out.'

Still a whisper. 'Tell me what it is you know.'

There was to be nothing presumed, nothing unsaid, no avoidance of the grim and tragic truth.

'All right,' Richardson said softly. 'But I'm sorry you've insisted.' He looked the other directly in the eye. 'Your son Howard was never a hero. He was court-martialled for cowardice in the face of the enemy, for deserting and imperilling his companions, and for causing the death of his own aircraft navigator. The court martial found him guilty oh all counts. He was awaiting sentence when he committed suicide by hanging.'

Harvey Warrender's face was drained of colour.

With grim reluctance, Richardson went on, 'Yes, there was a raid to France. But your son wasn't in command, except of his own aeroplane with a single navigator. And he didn't volunteer. It was his first mission, the very first.'

The party director's lips were dry. He moistened them with his tongue, then continued: 'The squadron was flying defensive formation. Near the target they came under heavy attack. The other aeroplanes pressed on and bombed; some were lost. Your son – despite the pleas of his own navigator – broke formation and turned back, leaving his companions vulnerable.'

Warrender's hands trembled as he put the whisky glass ''' down.

'On the way back,' Richardson said, 'the aeroplane was ' struck by shellfire. The navigator was badly wounded, but your son was unhurt. Nevertheless your son left the pilot's seat and refused to fly. The navigator, despite his wounds and the fact that he was not a qualified pilot, took over in an attempt to bring the aeroplane home.'… If he closed his eyes, he nought, he could visualize the scene: the tiny, crowded, noisy cockpit, bloody from the navigator's wounds; the motors deafening; the gaping hole where the shell had hit, the wind tearing through, outside the bark of gunfire. And within… fear over all, like a dank and evil-smelling cloud. And, in the corner of the cockpit, the cowering, broken figure…

You poor bastard, Richardson thought. You poor benighted bastard. You broke, that's all. You crossed the hairline a good many of us wavered over. You did what others wanted to do often enough. God knows. Who are we to criticize you now? -

Tears were streaming down Harvey Warrender's face. Rising, he said brokenly, 'I don't want to hear any more.'

Richardson stopped. There was little more to telclass="underline" The crash landing in England – the best the navigator could do. The two of them pulled from the wreckage; Howard War-' render miraculously unhurt, the navigator dying… Afterwards the medics said he would have lived except for loss of blood through the exertion flying back… The court martial; the verdict – guilty… Suicide… And, in the end, reports hushed up; the subject closed.