The Hopkins Manuscript

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I have written nothing in these past three days. I have been ill with some kind of fever that must have come to me from the stagnant mists that rise from the undrained marshes of St James’s Park. I have lain upon my bed in a kind of dream, creeping out now and then for a little water from my store.

The fever has left me, but I find myself too weak to go any longer upon my journeys in search of food. Fortunately, when I was stronger, I set aside a little of the food that I discovered on my daily excursions and laid up a small reserve of water in the bath. The food is hanging above me, suspended in a sack from the electric light pendant – the only means of protecting it from the rats. There is sufficient to last me for a week, and I shall not leave this room again. The last pages of my story will be a desperate race – a desperate struggle against a weakness that consumes me day by day. I am writing with my thermos flask beside me. As each page is finished I roll it and place it in the flask. Should I feel the end suddenly upon me, my last act will be to seal my flask in order that posterity may receive at least the pages that I completed up to the moment of my collapse.

I hope and pray that my thermos flask will preserve them: that the hiding place will be discovered. It would be sad if all that I have done were proved to be in vain…

But I have no time for moralising: I must hurry with my story: every page shall be a victory over the panic of encroaching weakness – over the panic of the dreadful silence that enshrouds me more deeply every hour.

How shall I begin the story of these final, nightmare years?

Until the Prime Minister spoke on that April evening four years ago, we knew nothing of the storm that had been gathering throughout the winter. Desperate that nothing should disturb their laborious plans for rebuilding our cities, the Governments had deliberately kept us in the dark, no doubt appealing to the newspapers to support them. They knew how slight and precarious were the foundations of our new prosperity and they hoped that the international problems could be settled without disturbing us.

But the crisis had overwhelmed them. On the morning after the Premier’s speech the newspapers told us the whole fantastic, pitiful story.

The dispute over the ‘British corridor’, critical though it was to us, emerged now as a mere side-issue to the chaotic problems that were tearing Europe to pieces.

The root of the trouble, as I have said before, lay amongst the ignorant, unscrupulous adventurers who had seized power. All of them realised the doubtful methods by which they had become leaders: all of them, with one accord, set out to strengthen their precarious positions by glorifying themselves in the eyes of the more ignorant of their followers. Their way to glory lay in clamouring for a bigger slice of the moon than anybody else got – the whole of it if possible. They cared nothing for those whom they professed to lead: they cared only for power and riches for themselves.

The scientific expedition had naturally explored a small part only of the moon. Riches had been found, but vast areas still awaited investigation. The ‘leaders’ were torn between playing for safety and claiming the wealth already known, and gambling upon large claims upon the unexplored sections. They had no defined policy: they changed their plans and increased their demands from hour to hour.

Unfortunately the northern part of the moon had so far proved more fruitful than the south, and the north had been assigned by the British Plan (before the wealth was known) to the Scandinavian countries. Naturally this led to uproar. Italy demanded the coalfields in Denmark’s area. France clamoured for the oil-wells in Sweden’s territory and all without exception shouted for the goldfields reported in the strip assigned to Holland.

When I speak of ‘France clamouring’ or ‘Italy clamouring’, or any other nation ‘clamouring’, I mean that the leaders ‘clamoured’. The poor, bewildered people knew little and cared less about their ‘rights’ upon the moon. All they desired was leave to rebuild their houses, to grow their corn and to graze their cattle, to feed their pigs and to sit in the evening sunlight when the day’s work was done. All that they desired was peace, and the dignity of quietness.

The quarrel extended in further and even more bewildering directions. The ‘leaders’ in central Europe demanded free and uninterrupted approach to the territories which they had claimed upon the moon, for as Robin once pointed out to me, central Europe was cut off from the moon by the territories of France and Spain that lay sprawled in their way.

A demand was accordingly made for ‘corridors’ through France and Spain, but these old and stubborn nations had no intention of splitting their territories into pieces with ‘corridors’ swarming with Germans, Dutchmen, Hungarians and Poles. They rejected the demands and refused to discuss the matter.

To make the problem worse, America suddenly became truculent and extremely difficult. The Council of European Nations, in a special session at The Hague, had formerly declared the moon to be part of Europe. As America had so frequently declared her wish to take no part in European troubles, it was naturally assumed that America would have nothing to do with the moon.

America, however, had strong opinions to the contrary. A new and upstart President of the United States dropped a bombshell by declaring that the fairest way of settling matters was to divide the moon according to the respective sizes of the nations concerned. As America was as big as Europe, America would take the western half of the moon and leave the eastern half for Europe to divide or fight for as they wished.

That, briefly, was the situation when the Hague Council broke up in disorder upon the 7th April. The Deputies returned to their own countries, declaring that they would ‘take whatever steps were necessary to safeguard their rights’.

It all came flooding through to us over the radio – flaming its way to us across the pages of the newspapers. Speeches: leading articles: special reports… diehards… pacifists… compromisers… they all came swarming back like unwholesome ghosts from the old world before the cataclysm. Major Jagger was right… human nature had not changed.

For my own part I discovered, to my pleased surprise, a new strength within me: a strength engendered by two years of self-reliance: a sturdy independence that sprang from my conviction that we had built in Beadle Valley a little self-supporting Empire of our own. Bread and vegetables, milk and eggs, poultry – rabbits – fish: we had everything to support life and plenty to spare to sell or exchange for boots and clothing. The man who needs nothing from his fellows has a fortress impregnable: impregnable even against universal lunacy.

The downs and the valley were lovely in those early summer days: our farm a picture. The bluebells found protection once more beneath the stripling trees whose branches were now broad enough to shade them. The louder our dangers were bawled across the radio the more contemptuous I grew: the more determined I became to have nothing to do with it – to ignore this lunacy and get on with my own work.

The brave old town of Mulcaster shared my views. They were sane, hard-working people; proud of their town, eager for its reconstruction. They listened to the radio and read the news and returned again to work. ‘It’ll all blow over,’ they said, ‘political scare.’

One evening, early in July, a gleam of hope emerged. John Rawlings, our Premier – the sole surviving statesman of the ‘old school’, spoke over the radio again. He announced that he was proposing a sweeping new Plan to all nations concerned. To end the drift towards disaster he proposed that every nation should give up all individual claim to the moon and its wealth: that the moon should be explored and its wealth exploited by a Permanent International Commission: that the wealth be pooled and divided amongst nations in fair proportion with their needs and population.

He spoke very well: he explained the complicated details simply and straightforwardly and as I listened I breathed a sigh of thankfulness. Nobody, not even a demented fanatic, could deny the fairness and common sense of the ‘Pool’.

There was a week of silence, and then came the news that every ‘leader’ in Europe had rejected the plan as ‘humiliating’.

When my bewilderment had passed, I realised the truth. There was no difference, in the vocabulary of the Leaders, between ‘fairness’ and ‘humiliation’. To them it was one and the same thing. The weaker their positions, the more moon they needed to justify themselves in the eyes of their followers, and as all of them were weak, it would have needed at least seven moons to satisfy the aspirations of them all. The vital issue to every Leader was not so much the amount he got, but how much more than the others he was able to snatch.

Our Premier’s plan was destroyed and our doom was sealed. Events now happened with such fierce rapidity and bewildering complexity that I cannot hope to relate them in logical order.

One evening – (it was August, because I remember the days were beginning to draw in) – I was startled from my work of collecting the eggs by an urgent shout from Pat. She came running from the front door, waving her arms and shouting: ‘Jagger! – quick! – Major Jagger!’

For a horrid moment I thought the man had called upon us in person. I hastened towards the house, and to my relief discovered that he had just been announced to speak over the radio in ten minutes.

‘ “Very special – great importance”, they said!’ Pat’s eyes were alight with excitement. She was still so charmingly young; so thrilled at the prospect of hearing over the radio the voice of a man whom she had actually met.

‘What’s he doing on the radio?’ I asked. I did not share Pat’s excitement. I did not like the sound of it at all.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Pat. ‘I switched on just as the news was ending – just in time to hear them announce Major Jagger.’

Robin came hurrying in. He seemed unusually disturbed and excited. He lit a cigarette and paced the room in a silence that seemed to last an hour.

It took me quite a while to recognise that voice again: it seemed deeper and more resonant over the radio – possibly because the thin, twitching face was hidden from us. But gradually that overwhelming personality came bursting through. I stood by the mantelpiece – Robin by the window: Pat beside the table, and we listened to the most astonishing speech I had ever heard in my life. We stood because the incredible, fanatical intensity of the speaker held us rigid…

I cannot attempt to record the whole of that amazing flood of words: it lasted, I imagine, for half an hour and left us weak and exhausted as if some giant vampire had sucked us dry of vitality.

The old Government, our sane, hard-working old Government, had fallen. A reactionary party had, that evening, taken power and Jagger was ‘leader’!

He began with a disgusting, shameless attack upon John Rawlings, the fallen Premier. He accused Rawlings and all his Ministers of cowardice: of attempts at compromise with the Leaders of Europe.

‘Rawlings, with his spineless compromise – his ignominious retreats – his futile arguments – has made our country the laughing stock of Europe! He disguised his terror of his opponents under such words as “reason” and “sanity”! To reason with these men is insanity itself! A few more weeks of Rawlings’ “reasoning” and the British Empire would have been wrecked beyond repair!’

We heard him take in a rasping breath that sounded like the ripping of a piece of canvas.

‘One thing alone will regain for Britain the respect of Europe’s Leaders,’ he shouted – ‘a good big dose of their own medicine, which I – Roland Jagger – propose to give them! I shall give them a double dose! – a treble dose! – a dose big enough to keep them on their backs until Britain by her own power, has assured peace in Europe and a fair division of the riches of the moon!

‘I have no intention of claiming the whole moon: no intention of claiming more than a just and rightful share. What I do claim is the right to trample on and suffocate these ridiculous little Leaders and give peace to the honest, decent people of the whole of Europe!

‘Europe today is plunging towards a destruction more hideous than any that was threatened by the moon itself! One hope alone remains to us! One nation must take the lead: one nation must gain such powerful ascendancy that it can call all other nations to heel and enforce them to accept peace. That nation must be Britain! With God’s help I shall remain your Leader until the great salvation is completed!

‘The people of Britain shall be the crusaders! I depend upon you, one and all! Man and woman, young and old, shall dedicate themselves to our great crusade! I am confident that none will hesitate: none will show themselves as cowards! Day by day I shall call upon you: I shall call upon you in the name of peace! – the name of sanity! – the name of Britain!’

The voice was so intense, so vibrantly overpowering, that I almost expected it to cry out: ‘You, Mr Hopkins! – what about you!’

The awful part of the speech was the reason of it! – the wild, raging reason of it! With things in their existing, hideous chaos, one nation must sooner or later take the lead. There were but two alternatives: either leadership must emerge after a long and horrible war: one nation an exhausted victor over a stricken Europe – or it must emerge now, and make a desperate bid to save not only Europe, but the world. Jagger was right. I loathed the man more than ever before: I hated his bombast: his truculence: his colossal conceit, but I knew that all of it was necessary – that the man himself was necessary. The only way to stamp out this pest of ‘Leaders’ in Europe was to produce one ourselves, worse than any of them, and stronger…

After his speech was over we went to bed. I don’t think that anybody, after listening to that speech, could have done anything else but go to bed. I think Jagger must have gone to bed himself.