The New Men by Charles Percy Snow

Author:Charles Percy Snow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The New Men
ISBN: 9780755120161
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

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23: ‘Events Too Big for Men’

I was in suspense during the last days of the German war. The scientific teams in Germany had reported, months before, that the Germans had got nowhere with their pile; but now, when one could count days to the surrender, I kept thinking could there have been one hidden? In terms of reason, I told myself, it was impossible, it was superstitious nonsense – but during those last few days I became nervous when I heard an aircraft.

It was not until the formal end that I could go to my flat and sleep twelve hours in anticlimax and relief. It was because the anticlimax stayed with me, because I did not want to share the sadness of the first weeks of peace, that I saw nothing of my Barford friends that May. Later I wished that I had heard them talk, immediately the German war finished. All I heard in fact was that the new laboratories were being built ready for the second attempt in June: that Sawbridge was a good deal better, and that Luke was now definitely expected to live.

Then came the morning of Pearson’s news.

The rain had just stopped; through the windows of Rose’s room drifted the smell of wet leaves from the Park. It was right at the end of May, and the kind of dark warm morning which brought back days of childhood, waiting at the county ground for the umpires to come out again. Instead, Rose was meeting his five senior colleagues on a problem of reconstruction – ‘an untidy one’, he said. We were getting towards the end of the morning, when his personal assistant brought in a note for Rose. He read it, and passed it to me. It said:

Dr Pearson has just arrived back from Los Alamos, and says he wants to see the Perm Sec at once. He says it can’t wait.

Rose glanced at me under his lids. Himself the most ceremonious of men in dealing with others’ dignity, he never stood on his own.

He said: ‘I really am most apologetic, but this is something I probably ought to attend to, and perhaps we’ve got nearly as far as we can go today. I do apologize.’ He asked me to stay, and, when the others had left, Rose and I sat looking out over the rain-washed trees. Just once Rose, who did not spare time for useless speculation, remarked: ‘I wonder if there really is anything in the wind, or whether this man has just dropped in to pass the time of day.’

As soon as the girl brought Pearson in, Rose was on his feet, bowing, showing Pearson the armchair opposite mine, hoping that he had had a pleasant journey.

‘As pleasant as flying the Atlantic in bumpy weather can be,’ said Pearson.

‘When did you actually arrive?’

‘I wanted to get rid of this commission’ (‘commission’ was one of their formal words, and simply meant that he had been asked to give news by word of mouth), ‘so I came straight here.

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