FOLLOWING closely the German design, Japan announced her approaching domination and opened her scheme of mastery with surprise, bad faith, and contempt for sanctity of the oath. While German hopes faltered under defeat in North Africa and the Allied invasion of Italy, the Japanese enjoyed their vast, preliminary successes, conquered kingdoms and gazed from Burma upon India, from New Guinea to Australia. They had reached their peak of conquest, but as yet knew it not, and on the last day of his long leave, when Trensham, Greta and her brother sat together in the belvedere at Cliff on a moonlit, summer night, the scientist declared his faith.
“The aspects of this war and the solid facts that emerge from them can be chronicled up to a point,” he said, “and we now know the Allies must win. Science recognizes that, even if the nations engaged fail to do so. But what is at the bottom of our victory? What has changed the picture so completely since Dunkirk? Largely character, and as we were always a maritime nation and the first to conquer the sea, on which every island must depend for security, so we have continued to be. But because we proved greater on the sea, it by no means followed that we should find ourselves greater in the air. To me the first problem of this war has always been what account the British character would give of itself in that comparatively unexplored element. Nobody doubted Teuton bravery, and the tradition of their rare science made me guess that their fighting machines might prove far better than our own and weaken the morale of our aerial armies. I was wrong. Their machines proved no better than our own while our airmen were better than theirs — not braver, hardier, or readier to tackle every difficulty of the new warfare — but by qualities of character, by natural adapability and by native genius. As on the sea better, so in the air. The English-speaking people have taken to the air as the birds take to it, and when we found that atomic energy was not in the German armament, I knew that we must win.”
“You may say the same holds good for the Japanese,” suggested Ernest. “They, like ourselves, were a maritime people and had made themselves a great navy and built some of the finest battleships in the world, yet even on the sea, after their first bit of knavery, they were soon held.”
“Character again,” declared Faraday. “They curiously resemble the Germans. Limited barbarians behind their veneer. They have already bitten off more than they can chew. Science will account for them in their turn. But what I want to insist upon is this: that in addition to character, we English-speaking people embrace certain gifts which are not claimed for us and which we do not claim for ourselves. You hear it said we are ‘great’ this, or that — never that we are great men of science. The truth is that in science — recognized as an entity about four hundred years ago — we have led and advanced with the utmost speed that social and religious evolution permitted. War has quickened our wits in many sciences — that must be granted the accursed thing. Discoveries born of war’s requirements have been subsequently used for sane and profitable purposes: you must grant that, too.”
“Precious little we have to thank this war for,” said Greta.
“Quite mistaken,” answered her brother. “Already it is amazing how much. Take questions of health as applied to armies; take radar; take jet propulsion, which is in its infancy and comes too late to turn the scale. All these discoveries have sprung out of their need in this war, yet promise to prove their value in peace. Even a greater yet awaits us.”
“Something precious to peace rather than war?” asked Greta.
“Something vital to peace — the peace which continues to pass understanding,” he assured her. “Science must be international and until it becomes so war is not impossible. Government and science should understand each other better and scientists decline to obey orders when reason argues against them. We have now reached a point, or soon shall reach it, when science must refuse to further war in every shape or form.”
“The scientists would have every nation upon their side if they did that,” said Greta.
“Unfortunately a love for science doesn’t render the human animal immune from other affections and even passions,” he replied. “Otherwise I should not be going presently to help Canadians and Americans perfect atomic bombs. Be sure we all hate the cruel and filthy and devilish arbitrament of war; but if you asked us why a self-respecting crowd of learned men are gathering together to find how best they may destroy the vastest possible number of other men, women and children, our answer would be that thus we shall end the war more quickly, perhaps finish the carnage of war once for all and, in this case, at least hasten victory for the more respectable cause.”
“Would that hope justify any weapon so frightful as an atomic bomb?” asked his sister.
“If what we anticipate happens, the result will certainly justify the means,” he answered. “Human lives cease to have any value when pitted against principles of universal value. Germany and Japan are butchering thousands daily for their infernal dreams; we design a final massacre on behalf of freedom and democracy, which appear to be worthier ideals than domination. Science has often fought evil and never stood on the side of the devil to my knowledge. Many men have dedicated and sacrificed their lives deliberately to conquer the physical terrors that beset us — selfless martyrs who gave all they had to give, that the world might be rendered a better place for their kind. We can live in peace with fellow-men between our periodical encounters; but we cannot impose any peace upon Nature and the battle-fields of our eternal struggle with her hold the dust of our greatest.”
They listened to him a little longer and he went on, as will those accustomed to preach, or lecture, without interruption.
“So, feeling now that atomic energy may serve to shorten the war and so save thousands of Allied lives, we have put our heads together in sober earnest. America is responsible for the money and, with her eyes on Japan, does not grudge it. Something like five millions of pounds — an astronomic figure in dollars — she has expended. When I, who never counted in the past on using the power as a destructive, pestered my father for half a million, it was with no such purpose in my mind. Perhaps, if he had seen with me, the world war might have been escaped and history told a different tale, for I am doing with success what, given means, I might have done long years ago. I am concerned with neither uranium nor thorium, but other elements possessing radioactivity yet far more abundant, amenable and widely dispersed.”
“The Russians are working like beavers in the Ural Mountains to do the same thing,” said Ernest.
“They are, but so far have failed. I have succeeded,” replied the scientist. “Meanwhile a start has been made on the lowest and easiest plane rather than the highest. Now we want to pack the new power into bombs, and the cost of creating those tremendous temperatures this operation demands is enormous. Machinery such as was never seen on earth is rising in the United States and these huge plants are necessary at the present stage of our knowledge; but such cumbrous methods for obtaining the new energy will be archaic ten years hence, or sooner. Meanwhile, the responsibilities of science grow and it is certain that atomic energy will soon run the world of men, as it already appears to run the world of stars.”
“Or science may only end by destroying everything,” suggested Trensham.
“A possibility. Professor Kendall has pointed out that if we let our achievements get out of hand when welding hydrogen atoms into helium atoms, then our triumph will be heralded to the universe in the shape of an exceedingly bright and brief explosion; but human reason, though still scanty, may decree otherwise. Idiots tell you that science has nothing to do with the humanities, whereas the contrary is true. Society is based on the humanities. What do you imagine the anthropologists and psychologists and sociologists are doing?”
Then he hastened off to his laboratory.
“A thought strikes me,” he said and was gone, while Greta laughed.
“His subconscious mind often works like that,” she said. “It is busy on one thing while he is chattering about another. He assured me once that he often reaches quite valuable results with his ‘subconscious’ while his ‘conscious’ is dead asleep and resting.”
“A weird being and seldom to be found in such a human mood as to-night. I wish I had been more to him than just a cog in the machinery of Cliff, but that is all I ever was, or anybody else for that matter,” declared Ernest.
“Sometimes I’m sorry for all he misses,” she answered, “and wish he shared his life with other people; but that’s foolish. He misses nothing that matters to him.”
They walked and watched two destroyers, black against the moonlight, forging down channel; then Trensham lamented his approaching departure.
“It’s been heaven — a month of you,” he said, “though it’s hard to believe a whole month has passed.”
She returned to a former remark.
“I’ve always hated his callous indifference to you,” declared Greta. “If ever there was a man capable of winning other people by your power of entering into their interests it is you; and whatever else he may have missed in his life, he was a fool to miss the chance of making you his friend.”
“I am his friend: never think I’m not. I feel nothing but friendship as far as it can go without being returned.”
“He might have made you come to look on Cliff as home,” she said, “and he never tried to. The idea never occurred to him that a man of your sensibilities depends on his environment largely for his comfort and happiness. He knows you are my life and, where you are, there is my home, but he long ago ruined my old home for me.”
“Such subtleties are beyond him,” said Ernest, “and don’t let them trouble you, darling. Every word you say is true; but the end will soon be in sight. Your place here he can never fill again, but there will be thousands of good men equal to the filling of mine.”
“Have you ever thought what you will do when you are free to do it?” she asked. “I often have. There will be no need for you to do anything except love me; but you are not the man to dawdle into middle-age with no hobby but your old business. You should be turning things over, my treasure.”
“Curious you should say that,” he replied. “Very much more curious than you can imagine, Greta. But the snag is that I can’t tell you how curious. Seldom enough that any problem rises in my mind you don’t share instantly, but this one cannot be shared — for the reason that its exact terms of reference don’t yet exist. The challenge — so to call it — may evaporate and vanish. Only time can throw any light on that. That it will vanish I hope and believe, and then nothing remains for your attention; while, on the other hand, I may find something face me not to be ignored, in which case you’ll have to know.”
“What have I said that brought such a mystery to your mind?” she asked, and he hesitated so long before answering that she repeated her question. Then he laughed and replied.
“You suggested the grim idea that I might dawdle into middle-age with no more laudable hobby than criminal investigation. That was a deplorable picture yet, by a freak of chance, only too apposite to the passing moment. For this reason, because just now a strange and exceedingly horrible mystery is concerning me. Nothing to do with my work at Scotland Yard, though there are plenty of mysteries beggaring our combined wits in London; but a queer thing that has come to my notice entirely outside daily routine.”
“Here? But, darling! How extraordinary!” cried Greta.
“So extraordinary that I am not going to think of it again while in your blessed company,” he promised. “The result of any future investigation will doubtless be good riddance to the whole matter; but should the result prove otherwise, then, of course, I’ll bring it to you.”
“I never heard of anything so mad,” she said.
“I certainly never thought of anything so mad,” he assured her.
“And where will these future investigations take place?”
Again he took some time to decide his answer, then begged her not to put any more questions.
“Leave it,” he said. “The moonshine must have affected me to have said even this much, but it arose so naturally out of our talk concerning the future. Be sure of this: the moment there is anything further to say that looks as though you should hear it, I shan’t need to come down but will write to you fully and at length. If there is nothing to say and the phantom has disappeared, then we need never return to it; if I must speak, then it will only be to you.”
“Very fantastic and far-fetched, dearest.”
“I hope so. A fantasy is all I could wish for, and in that case a fantasy you can no more share than a nightmare.”
“Do say a little more, since you’ve said so much. I hate secrets. Tell me at least that it has nothing to do with us.”
“Probably nothing to do with us, or anybody else — just a twopenny-halfpenny legacy left by the dead and of no earthly interest to anybody alive.”
“Impossible to concern us in any case?”
He shook his head.
“Under certain conditions abominably certain to concern both of us.”
Disturbed, but too proud to probe for an answer he was unprepared to give, Greta changed the subject and many months passed before her husband returned to it. His holiday ended, he went back to London next morning and, after he was gone, Faraday heard another complaint from his sister and a wish that he would show somewhat more consideration for Ernest’s feelings.
“He is more sensitive than you appear to think,” she said, “and, while so indifferent to other people’s emotions, you might, for my sake, remember he is my husband and not a piece of household furniture.”
Surprised at the rebuke he made an apology.
“Getting too self-centred I fear. The work on my hands makes me forget my obligations and everything else, including my fellow-creatures, seems of such minor importance. Ask him down again when he can come and I’ll try to be more considerate.”
Gratified by this urbane response, she informed Ernest of it and resolved to remind Faraday before they met again; but six months later, at the moment when Ernest could return for a day or two, he found himself alone at Cliff, for Faraday was suddenly summoned to London, and Greta also unexpectedly called to the bedside of a sick friend by telegram. The nature of their friendship was such that she could suffer nothing to stay her. She left a letter declaring her grief at missing Ernest and her hope to meet him instead later in London. She dwelt on the dire peril in which her friend lay and that her chance of recovery was small; while, finally, she mentioned a trifle bearing on his comfort at Cliff and her assurance that he would not mind it. To her this accident was unfortunate, but meant nothing; while for the man it signified much. Greta’s words found themselves strangely linked into other matters beyond her ken — the mystery to which he had alluded in time past.
Ernest kept in touch by telephone daily with his wife, remained at Cliff for three days and lingered long enough to spend an evening with Faraday on his return from town. He found himself greeted with increased amity and responded to it gladly enough. Indeed, he displayed sympathy at his brother-in-law’s news, for the date of Faraday’s departure to America was fixed.
“One hoped to dodge it when victory drew near in Europe.” he said, “but America doesn’t yet see victory in sight on the Pacific. It’s just as certain there as here, and she thinks to hasten it materially, given a little more united brain power as to details. But I should be far better employed in my own workshop.”
“The change of air will be worth while anyway and you look as though you needed a change,” suggested Ernest.
“Atomic bombs should shorten this war and perhaps prevent all future wars,” said Faraday. “I would rather see them fall on the Hun than the Jap, if they have to fall; but exactly what they are going to do remains a question. What looks prodigious in mathematical terms on paper may confound our calculations in practice. Some very clever men think it quite possible the mountain may produce a mouse. Only actual experiment can show. For my part I believe that, if we use them, they will do all that is hoped. In any case, they won’t be on a very colossal scale — merely feelers to learn the extent of the energy’s destructive power. We don’t yet know how hard it can hit.”
“Do you remember those curious explosions on Dartmoor some years ago now?” asked Trensham. “If they represented experiments on a small scale, is it possible to suppose that they had anything to do with atomic energies?”
“I remember them and felt interested in them at the time,” replied the other. “It was a nice riddle for a scientist and I took some pains to solve it, but failed. They might have been the result of bombs dropped by aeroplanes flying beyond our eyesight, or they might have been laid by night and exploded with electricity. I sometimes thought our own War Office was behind the experiment and purposely kept it dark. As to whether atomic energy in some shape, and bottled by some means unknown to British science, was involved, I should say that was out of the question. A new explosive might have been tried, but why in England if not by English?”
“And were any such explosive in the wind, you would have heard of it?”
“Most certainly. Science must have been concerned in the experiment, and if our science, then I should have heard all about it.”
“One of those queer things only to be explained when the war is over perhaps,” suggested Ernest.
He left Cliff early on the following morning and, before she returned home, Greta spent a day with him in London and heard of her brother’s approaching journey.
“They go by air,” so her husband told her, “and you will probably have to see to respectable clothes for him to go in. I never met a man of science yet who thought of what he looked like.”