“Not exactly,” came the laughed reply. “The military arts have moved on since the Japanese attack on Mongolia.” He leaned closer and switched into German. “But let me tell you something of what I’ve been planning ever since I was called down here last Thursday and Harold broke the news about Powell’s interest in his plot. The reason there is no electricity in this house is because we’ve abstracted it to our own use. There are trigger points all about this house. The moment they are crossed, beams of invisible but concentrated light will flash out in an elaborate pattern that no one can pass without being cut into halves or quarters.”
“I see,” I said in a more halting German than his own. I’d read about these the year before as possible air defences. I didn’t know anyone had yet been able to get them to work. Perhaps the Russians weren’t as far behind as everyone said they were. If so, it would explain—caution aside—why the Germans hadn’t attacked. I took in a deep breath of the cold, damp air, and waited for my head to clear a little more.
“Macmillan and his document and all his friends are the cheese in a giant mousetrap,” I went on, now in more confident German. “Once it’s been sprung and there’s no one left to sniff about, you can spread your wings and head for Mother Russia.” Foot smiled. I had another thought. “Might I be correct in thinking your invisible beams are also directed into the sky—so that no one without the proper glasses can know where to fly safely?”
“Fools can indeed be taught,” came the approving reply, now back in English. “Sometimes, they can even learn for themselves. A shame you’ll not have time to pack an overnight bag. But do stay close if you want to get out of here alive.”
“What on earth are you doing up here?” It was Macmillan. He’d poked his head through the hatch that led onto the roof, and was waving a pocket watch in our direction. “I’ve had the house searched from top to bottom. Everyone’s been in his place at table for twenty minutes.”
“Too much champagne for our Indian boy, dear Harold,” Foot rasped easily. “Though it might be a natural reaction, you wouldn’t want him vomiting all over your guests.” I caught a look at Macmillan’s impatient face as he stepped back to let us into the house. He looked at the night binoculars Foot was now carrying. Now, he smiled.
“Dear boys,” he said, “Whoever’s lurking out there will eventually come through the gates of Birch Grove. By then, however, it will be to take my instructions.”
“Then, I do hope,” Foot sneered, “that you’ll be giving tonight’s audience more undeniable truth than I’ve ever found in your speeches”.
“Truth, dearest Michael, is what people believe,” came the reply as Macmillan went back into his avuncular manner. “Undeniable truth is what everyone believes. Shall we make our way downstairs to dinner?”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
I once read a story about a man who invited people to dinner, and, for a joke, served them pictures of food. Macmillan’s kitchen had managed better than this. But, for all his staff must have slaved away and screamed at each other, tastier dinners may have been eaten in the most minor public school. The game soup had tasted mostly of pepper. The mutton might have been pre-cooked on its journey from New Zealand and then kept cold for reheating. But no one could fault the wine, and plenty of this was served. Almost before the soup plates could be cleared away, an already well-lubricated gathering was swimming in drink.
Nor could anyone fault the silver and the fine china on which dinner was served and eaten, or the supreme hospitality with which Macmillan had made everyone at home in Birch Grove. If Dr Robinson’s grace had turned into a strange, little sermon about how the Christian Faith—“in a very real sense”—required the abandonment of religion, no one seemed unhappy. This done, Macmillan had got up and made a short speech of his own that lasted until his own soup dish was filled.
Now, the plates of the main course were cleared away, and the room was filling with the dense smoke of several dozen pipes and cigars and cigarettes. One of the servants opened a window for air, and every candle fluttered in the sudden breeze. With a gentle crash, the window was pulled shut again, and the light and all the clouds of smoke steadied. There was another gust of air—this time internal, as the dining room door opened, and all the staff filed out.
I looked at my watch and thought again about timings. Foot had eaten nothing, but instead—and to the evident annoyance of those sat beside him—had chain-smoked throughout the dinner. Every so often, he’d darted knowing looks in my direction. I was beside Macmillan at the head of the long table. He’d jollied me along through both main courses with stories of his time as manager of the family business. Had I known less than I did, I’d have been angling like mad for him to buy me out of Richardson & Co. and to load me with lavish advances. As it was, I’d smiled politely and made the best of things with his wine. I was light-headed again. But, so long as no one expected me to get up and make a speech, I felt surprisingly cheerful.
“Please, gentlemen,” Macmillan was saying, now on his feet, “if I might have your attention.” He beat with the stem of his pipe on a wine glass. The hushed chatter died away from round the table, and every face was turned in our direction. Last of all to break off his conversation was Edward Heath. But even he smothered one of his ridiculous laughs and turned away from hectoring some smelly writer with spots who’d been introduced to me as Dennis Potter.
“Gentlemen, I’d like to thank you collectively for having had the goodness to drop everything at such short notice and come out into the middle of nowhere for what has turned out to be an unscheduled trip into the past.” He waved at all the candles and paused for a ripple of subdued laughter to sweep round the table. “But, to be serious, there have been developments that place on us all a duty to go beyond the private conversations each of you has shared with me during the past year or so.
“Let me take up the main theme of our private conversations. This room, I do not think anyone will disagree, is filled with the finest and most original minds this country has to offer. Each one of you has shown outstanding ability in your chosen field. Each and every one of you deserves to fill the highest positions within your field. And yet, with one or two exceptions, you have failed to obtain the advancement that is your right, or it has been made plain that you will fail. What are you as things stand? I will tell you. You are nothing. Who, then, are the professors in our universities, the bishops of the Established Church, the newspaper editors and great men of broadcasting, the playwrights and novelists, the High Court Judges, the departmental heads, the Ministers of the Crown? They are all men of far lesser quality than yourselves.
“Indeed, gentlemen, even those of you who have, against every opposition, achieved a certain eminence—do you suppose that you will be suffered to advance beyond this? I do not think so. I will not mention my own example. You will surely have read the newspaper articles about what has supposedly been agreed between Lord Halifax and my Cabinet colleagues. But, as it is with me, so it is with Edward over there—yes, you, Edward, if you will kindly pay attention.” There was more laughter. Heath blushed, and turned the stare he’d fixed on me back to the Foreign Secretary.
“If just one or two of you had been passed over, we might easily put this down to bad luck. Not everyone who is by nature of the first class can be expected to reach the first rank in fact. But, gentlemen, it really is as if each of you had been the victim of some overarching conspiracy. Now, let me say at once that I do not suggest that there has been a meeting in some smoke-filled room, where faceless men sat and marked each of your cards. Things do not work in that way in our country. Neither do they need to. I only say this—ever since the fall of the Lloyd George Ministry, far back in 1922, there has been a settled preference, in every walk of our national life, for original talent to be passed over in favour of dependable mediocrity. Even as you have distinguished yourselves, so you have marked your own cards.