Cry Havoc! [antikvár]

chapter i DEAR H. G. WELLS . . . Dear H. G. Wells, You may remember that some months ago we found ourselves walking together down one of those little streets that huddle together, like poor relations, in the proud shadow of Mayfair. It was an afternoon in late spring — one of those quiet and exquisite London afternoons which cannot decide whether to dress in gold or in silver . . . for all the roofs were gold, but the plumes of smoke which trembled over the chimneys were palest silver, and so were the cobbled pavements, where the light caught them. We had been lunching with a charming lady in surroundings which were a little strange to both of us — for Punch's club — I think that was its name — was certainly the queerest background against which I ever hope to see you. There you were, sitting on a high stool against a cocktail bar, sipping water and nibbling hot hors d'ceuvres, and occasionally paying a charmingly phrased compliment to one of the slim and geranium-lipped girls who made up our party. I could not decide whether you liked the party or hated it I only knew that I was hating it. For the neurosis which now haunts me, with increasing dread, was just beginning in those days. And I was impatient of Punch's club, and the people in 9 CRY HAVOC! it, and all that they stood for. I wanted to get out into the fresh air and talk to you . . . about the next war, whose echo then seemed near enough, though it has grown alarmingly nearer, in the meantime. We did talk, at last, and when you heard that I had managed to persuade a highly respectable magazine to accept a fiery article which was called 'In the Next War I Shall Be a Conscientious Objector', you told me that I should probably get into trouble now, though I should be 'laying up treasure for myself in the future'. I have often wondered what you meant by that phrase. I feel sure that you did not mean that the article would prove comforting evidence to produce at the military tribunal before which, presumably, I shall be called. Because the article, in itself, is a form of death-warrant in that I publicly proclaim in it my desire to be shot in the nearest backyard, within twenty-four hours of the declaration of war, rather than shoot, or gas, or drown, or otherwise murder any of my fellow men. If a man makes that statement and means it, and if he makes it often enough, and if he is not entirely unknown by the public, it is presumed that he will either have to stand by it, when the hour comes, or else be denounced as such a hypocrite and a coward that life will be unendurable for him. I am still prepared to stand by it, but I am no longer sure that I shall be called upon to do so, because my individual problem, in the face of war, no longer seems so simple that it can be solved by conscientious objection. In other words my pacifism is no longer passivism. That is what a little honest research does for a man! And since lO