The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(69)

‘I hadn’t thought about that.’

‘I had a talk with your brother, Ma’am, at Lippinghah, he informed me you’d had a sailor in your family for centuries. And I’m told that in yours, Captain, there’s always been a soldier. I believe in heredity. Is this the Foreign Office?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m just wondering whether that guy will be in? I’ve a kind of impression they do most of their business over food. We should do well to go and look at the ducks in the Park till three o’clock.’

‘I’ll leave this card for him,’ said Jean.

She rejoined them quickly. ‘He’s expected in at any minute.’

‘That’ll be half an hour,’ said Hallorsen. ‘There’s one duck here I’d like your opinion of, Captain.’

Crossing the wide road to the water they were nearly run down by the sudden convergence of two cars embarrassed by unwonted space. Hubert clutched Jean convulsively. He had gone livid under his tan. The cars cleared away to right and left. Hallorsen, who had taken Jean’s other arm, said with an exaggeration of his drawl:

‘That just about took our paint off.’

Jean said nothing.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ continued Hallorsen, as they reached the ducks, ‘whether we get our money’s worth out of speed. What do you say, Captain?’

Hubert shrugged. ‘The hours lost in going by car instead of by train are just about as many as the hours saved, anyway.’

‘That is so,’ said Hallorsen. ‘But flying’s a real saver of time.’

‘Better wait for the full bill before we boast about flying.’

‘You’re right, Captain. We’re surely headed for hell. The next war will mean a pretty thin time for those who take part in it. Suppose France and Italy came to blows, there’d be no Rome, no Paris, no Florence, no Venice, no Lyons, no Milan, no Marseilles within a fortnight. They’d just be poisoned deserts. And the ships and armies maybe wouldn’t have fired a shot.’

‘Yes. And all governments know it. I’m a soldier, but I can’t see why they go on spending hundreds of millions on soldiers and sailors who’ll probably never be used. You can’t run armies and navies when the nerve centres have been destroyed. How long could France and Italy function if their big towns were gassed? England or Germany certainly couldn’t function a week.’

‘Your Uncle the Curator was saying to me that at the rate Man was going he would soon be back in the fish state.’

‘How?’

‘Why! Surely! Reversing the process of evolution – fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals. We’re becoming birds again, and the result of that will soon be that we shall creep and crawl, and end up in the sea when land’s uninhabitable.’

‘Why can’t we all bar the air for war?’

‘How can we bar the air?’ said Jean. ‘Countries never trust each other. Besides, America and Russia are outside the League of Nations.’

‘We Americans would agree. But maybe not our Senate.’

‘That Senate of yours,’ muttered Hubert, ‘seems to be a pretty hard proposition.’

‘Why! It’s like your House of Lords before a whip was taken to it in 1910. That’s the duck,’ and Hallorsen pointed to a peculiar bird. Hubert stared at it.

‘I’ve shot that chap in India. It’s a – I’ve forgotten the name. We can get it from one of these boards – I shall remember if I see.’

‘No!’ said Jean; ‘it’s a quarter past three. He must be in by now.’ And, without allocating the duck, they returned to the Foreign Office.

Bobbie Ferrar’s handshake was renowned. It pulled his adversary’s hand up and left it there. When Jean had restored her hand, she came at once to the point. ‘You know about this extradition business, Mr Ferrar?’

Bobbie Ferrar nodded.

‘This is Professor Hallorsen, who was head of the expedition. Would you like to see the scar my husband has?’

‘Very much,’ murmured Bobbie Ferrar, through his teeth.

‘Show him, Hubert.’

Unhappily Hubert bared his arm again.

‘Amazing!’ said Bobbie Ferrar: ‘I told Walter.’

‘You’ve seen him?’

‘Sir Lawrence asked me to.’

‘What did Wal – the Home Secretary say?’

‘Nothing. He’d seen Snubby; he doesn’t like Snubby, so he’s issued the order to Bow Street.’

‘Oh! Does that mean there will be a warrant?’

Bobbie Ferrar nodded, examining his nails.

The two young people stared at each other.

Hallorsen said, gravely: