WITH the completion of Faraday’s laboratory came war, and it quickly appeared that both himself and his brother-in-law would be needed, each in his own peculiar capacity; but while the old detective found himself swiftly swallowed up by the demands of his former business, the professor, having been called to London, played his part in certain conferences, but found himself able to return home in a fortnight. To establish active collaboration and create a pool of brains was the preliminary purpose and one paramount task confronted not only European savants, but those embraced by the Empire and Dominions. As yet Russia lay without the radius of the war, and mystery still darkened the future fate of the Soviets.
Faraday, on returning to Cliff after his sojourn in London, summed up the situation confronting civilization and the vital reasons to believe that applied science rather than might of arms on land, sea and air, would secure victory.
“Our folly has come home to roost,” he told Trensham on a night ere the latter returned for the duration to Scotland Yard. “We have evaded a vital duty, starved and stunted research for a generation, shut our eyes to the approaching challenge and now rush to investigate and, if possible, employ the powers of atomic fissure with a view to winning the war by their application. That they lie within reach is true and the question in my mind is whether the enemy has been as supine as ourselves, or whether in their sleepless and self-denying preparations for this struggle they have concentrated on atomic energy and know far more about it than as yet we do. They will soon leave us in no doubt of what explosives are going to descend upon us from the air, where they will start with enormous numerical advantage. We may hope for sufficient time to destroy their aerial armies, but they have long been the greatest chemists in the world, and if the secret of an atomic bomb is already in their hands, nothing can save us. Now, at long last, the necessary money to make such a thing is forthcoming. The State will pour out its millions for a weapon of destruction, though it denied them in the interests of humanity. Nothing stands between us and the ultimate creation and perfection of such machinery as will be needful to conserve the new energy, and the combined wealth of the Allies may achieve on a large scale and in mighty laboratories what, in my own way, I am about to accomplish here.”
“You will be among the greatest men in science now,” said Ernest.
“As for myself,” answered the professor, “thanks to my own life’s labours, I found myself in a position of authority from the first and possessed of knowledge which proved worthy of very general attention at this critical moment. Hence my enhanced value; but these proceedings are profoundly secret and my own private activities are more secret still. I told them all I chose to tell, and tremendous advance will result from my data when worked out by efficient operators. But much that concerns me more continues to lie in my head alone and will remain there until after the war. I won their complete confidence, and even such frosty enthusiasm as scientific minds are capable of displaying. Then I was bidden return to my own laboratory and occupy myself on such aspects of the future of atomic application as I pleased. The Cabinet finds it necessary to begin thinking in thousands of millions now and, as a preliminary, are sacrificing our foreign securities to help provide them.”
“The infernal lack of money, that always dogged you before your father’s death, exists no longer then,” suggested Trensham.
“No longer,” agreed Faraday, “but a point to note is this: that had not Sir Hector passed untimely, and so placed the needful resources in my power, I should never have been able to proceed with my own great work. Given my speedy success, I may yet help to win the war in record time if we anticipate the enemy. There is some distance to go yet, and if the Germans have already made the discovery, we shall not be kept in doubt. The greater the delay the more our hope.”
That night he gave his relations a clearer sight of the situation than they had yet attained.
“Given atomic power, a new sort of war awaits the world,” he said. “If the old weapons, under normal evolution persist, then they will be common to both sides, and war on a larger scale than the last awaits us. Science is already busy with expedients to help our arms. On pure science such things entirely depend and great brains are engaged upon them. Research has been quickened beyond belief, but certain technical puzzles have yet to be solved in the laboratories of the Allies. From this country, or America, or Canada will, I hope, come the answer. From reliable information the United States seem most advanced, because she has spent most money, but they are not at war and, if they reach the secret first, will probably find themselves quite unprepared to share it with us.”
“Would they be drawn in, as they were before?” asked Greta.
“To save the British Empire they might,” he said. “If possessed of knowledge to use atomic power, they might come in and turn the tables against the Hun. But they are certainly not going to war again if it proves possible to avoid it. Who shall blame them? Whether the American States can remain neutral looks to be an open question, but what we may surely accept is that she will never fight against us. Team work is seldom very close between the English-speaking peoples, except those of the Empire, and we proceed at a jog-trot with the States and not a very genuine jog-trot; but since the outbreak of war there is increase of pace and even of harmony.
“I had conceived of England,” he continued, “as taking and keeping the lead in the future control and adjustment of this new power. I imagined us administering a world force and holding the balance between American capitalism and Russian communism for the benefit of civilization at large; but these dreams are gone, for one sees no reason why Russia should enter the war if not attacked. She may remain hidden behind the clouds of her own creation and not reckoned a world peril.”
“She must know well enough that, when Germany had settled with the Western powers, it would be her turn,” said Ernest. “But I suppose she couldn’t put up any show. Look what it cost her even to beat the Finns. She wouldn’t have a dog’s chance against Germany.”
“Go back to your researches and tell us about them,” begged Greta.
“More interesting certainly,” agreed her brother. “Well, what we, Canada and America know I can tell in a few words. What I know I tell none until perfected in every detail. Even when the time comes it will not be shared with any but British scientists under present conditions. Concerning the raw material for atomic energy our most advanced knowledge lies with me and me alone. Common knowledge is common property and most of it mistaken on every subject. For example, it has been stated that the United Kingdom is extremely lacking in uranium, and that is an error of fact. As far back as before the Great War, Cornwall exported substantial tonnage of pure uranium compounds to Germany. Only as subsidiary products they were regarded then, their content of radium being of primary importance; but now the present significance of uranium exalts it into first place. Plenty of uranium may be assumed to exist in Cornwall and I shall be devoting my present attention to the School of Mines in that county.”
“You will go to hunt uranium yourself?” asked Trensham.
“I shall go to stimulate the search and investigate the amount of activity being bestowed upon it,” he answered. “Personally I do not attach the vast importance to this element that science is doing, for I anticipate startling advances. That is where my secret knowledge makes rubbish of common knowledge. History repeats itself and we shall doubtless waste millions of tons of precious material — just as we have wasted and continue to waste incredible quantities of coal and increase instead of decrease its value and cost of getting. But science jogs on her way, no matter what our efforts to hamper her, and I prophesy a familiar phenomenon: the quickening of our brain activity under the impetus and goad of war. It may solve the problem of controlling and employing atomic energy for one thing, and thus open the road for men like me to venture into more perilous regions — regions containing still vaster revolutionary powers. What terrific sources of energy for example may the cosmic rays contain?”
“And what world power might be won by the people who discovered and applied them?” asked Ernest. “Given new miracles, Switzerland might have Europe at her mercy, or one Balkan State dominate the Middle East to-morrow.”
“In such an event science must control government and admit of no dictation from it,” declared Faraday. “Human nature, shackled by our cheap limitations of nationality and patriotism, continues quite incapable of achieving peace. A desire for peace is the criterion and while nations hunger for peace but remain content to be guided and controlled by the butcher-birds of the world, just so long atomic energy must lie in the control of reason and be denied to the mass of men. The most backward nations will ultimately be in possession of atomic energy and able to destroy such civilization as we can claim. It is only a matter of creating materials, and I am dedicating my life to that question and far farther on the road than any other living man. Virgin ground lies before me — ground probably containing vastly different ingredients from any we as yet associate with atomic fissure; but if what I seek proves unlimited and even more potent than existing known sources, then its possession is the vital acquisition and victory for the finders swift and certain.”
More than a year was to pass before these two men met again and many months separated Greta from her husband after they parted next day and she drove him to Exeter and saw him off for London. So the three pursued their different tasks against the background of the war: the scientist now in his laboratory — working alone; the policeman with his hands full at his old, salutary business; and Greta busy with far-reaching local organization of the Red Cross embracing a thousand knitting needles. The opening moves of the world’s greatest war were accomplished and the German project revealed. By daily thousands her more fortunate victims died a sudden death, while the less lucky she herded in extermination camps or conveyed to slavery. One by one the lesser kingdoms passed under her dominion; dynasties and rulers fled, or became prisoners of war, while increasing abominations heralded the New Order. Then fell France and over the beaches of Dunkirk descended the curtain on the first act.
With her brother, Greta Trensham would sometimes discuss events from day to day when they met, which was seldom save at breakfast or dinner. Absolute indifference marked his attitude to successive disasters and after the salvation and return of British armies from France, that stupendous achievement failed to waken a shadow of pride.
“These loud-sounding and theatrical incidents are as nothing,” he told Greta, “when compared with what is proceeding within the walls of my laboratory.”
Somewhat earlier than the mightier events about to happen in North Africa, Greta wrote her husband a long and personal letter concerning Cliff and all that was going forward there. She dwelt on the activities of the village, the Home Guard and those who guided it, the spirit of the people, the happy fact that as yet no enemy bomb had fallen within two miles of them.
“We are familiar enough with their mighty roar,” she wrote, “for we lie beneath their route to Bristol and Wales. They come and go and sometimes let fall the last of their bombs before they leave us on their way home but, round about here, they have slain as yet only a few rabbits on the high moors, and shattered not so much as a roof-tree.”
Then Ernest learned the latest news concerning his brother-in-law.
“Faraday is very pale,” she told him. “He grows thin and his great, luminous eyes shine out under his forehead brighter than ever. But he assures me that he is exceedingly well and, from the energetic way he takes his morning exercise and tramps five measured miles every morning before he goes to work, I think he must be all right. He lives a hermit’s life and seldom sees anybody. The elderly man looking after estate business appears to satisfy him and he leaves everything else to me. He seldom talks about anything but atomic energy and is now convinced that Germany has not got it; but from what he reads — papers and letters he gets from America — he thinks their scientists are ahead of us. They are concerned with an aspect of the subject which interests Faraday very much: the amount of heat which may be represented by the new energies. Such heat could create an enormous increase of electrical power in the world and may prove the most valuable product of atomic energy for any after-war, rational use of it. ‘If not destroyed by other means before,’ he said, ‘the world will presently grow much colder and darker than we as yet know it, and, if humanity persists into a future Ice Age, it must find creation of heat and light and food the first things that matter.’
“Now something novel about my brother, darling,” went on Greta. “He has taken to drinking quite a lot of stimulant! You know how he never touches anything but ‘soft’ drinks and one glass of port after dinner always — to please his father — a habit he never gave up. But now Roger Horn has unearthed from the cellars dozens of old, famous burgundy, and he prevailed upon Faraday, six weeks ago, to take some at luncheon, when he came in very tired and as white as a ghost. He even had not enough fight in him to tell Roger to go to the devil, as I expected, but drank up the wine at a gulp or two and then took another glass. It is priceless, old liquor, so Horn says, and it evidently did Faraday a great deal of good, for he cheered up, became himself — frosty, of course, but not cast down. Since then he has taken it regularly, but more often at dinner than at midday, for, after breakfast he frequently does not appear again till dinner. Happily there is plenty of this very choice burgundy available.
“Dear father was fond of buying wine, just as he was fond of wine lists, and flower catalogues always amused him, too. He liked producing choice vintages for his friends at his dinner and luncheon parties. Then, when understanding men praised his treasures, they generally found a dozen bottles in their cars for them when they drove home. He always used to say that if you can give game and fruit, why not wine. Horn told Faraday not long ago that the champagne we have got, at present war prices is worth more than a thousand pounds, and I was sorry he did, because now it will probably all be sent to London. But I hope Faraday’s forgotten and I shall warn Roger to keep plenty of it on your account.”
Greta ended her letter with expressions of joy that at last her husband was in sight of long leave and that they were going to meet in the course of a few weeks; but it was now that her brother found himself called to another London conference and his dislike at this necessary break in his work paled before a far greater display of annoyance when a week later he returned.
“They have started an infernal Commission,” he told Greta, “and the situation is regarded as so grave that, with my peculiar and extensive knowledge, they take it for granted I shall serve. This business is admittedly important, though the Secret Service declares with authority that Germany is not gaining upon us. But the United States are making substantial advances, at any rate, they claim to be. There are already very eminent anti-Nazi Germans in America and Canada, and now they have openly indicated from Washington and Quebec that, at no distant date, they will demand all the best brains we can send over to them. They know just those they need and I am one of them, of course. Which means that ere long I have a trip to America hanging over me — a most tiresome and inopportune call from my own point of view — yet apparently impossible to evade.”
“You certainly cannot escape it,” agreed Greta. “If, with your genius, you could shorten the war by a month, Faraday — what a blessing!”
“Better lengthen the next peace by a century,” he answered, “or create conditions to ensure eternal peace. This filthy episode, in the history of the only conscious being to appear on earth, is concerned with our generation — not the next. I care little who are left after peace returns, so that there remain enough to build again, and act with reason.”
“That will depend on who are left, and who win the war,” said Greta; “and anything you can help to do to win the war for us will be on the side of the brave new world we already talk about.”
“I had done better for the brave new world by stopping here and minding my own business,” he said, “than by joining this learned gang in America. Here at least I preserve my self-respect; there I shall only be assisting to create the most prodigious machines for destruction designed as yet by the prostitution of scientific knowledge.”
Ernest Trensham arrived and his visit was marked by a more important incident, for Faraday learned that he had been awarded a fellowship of the Royal Society.
“Nothing now,” he said, “though once how I longed for it! These gawds are only precious while you lack them. Once yours, you find them dust and would part with them for a drink of water if you happened to be thirsty.”
The policeman came and went and, in ignorance, wove the first strands of a web destined to embrace in one wide ambit his wife and her brother. But none dreamed of Ernest’s secret activities at Cliff on this occasion and, least of all, was the man himself aware that they would develop as they were destined to do. Inexorable tragedy was born while he loitered and took his rest; it grew and shaped out of the darkness; and when, in time to come, humanity faced the thing and strove to measure all it meant, upon the dead compassion centred; but for the living only horror, devoid of any pity, awakened.