The Shrapnel Academy by Fay Weldon

Author:Fay Weldon [Weldon, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781858035
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

22

After dinner the guests moved to the big drawing-room, where more coffee and brandy was served. The guests stood and talked, or sat and talked, or moped (Murray) as their natures and circumstances suggested. Have I properly described this room to you? I doubt it: it is so uninteresting. You know what these large reception rooms in country houses are like! They are designed to suit everyone and offend no one, and end up having no identity at all, like a woman with too placatory a nature. The occasional tables are highly polished and upon them stand tall blue and white ceramic vases, vaguely oriental, on which the eye prefers not to linger – though they can sometimes fetch amazing prices at the auction room. The sofas and chairs, grouped uneasily about the room, are slip-covered with chintz (Bella chose to sit in the one exotic armchair the Shrapnel Academy boasted – and that was wonderfully deep and redly velvet), and the rugs on the parquet floors are undistinguished, although there will sometimes be some really pleasant watercolours on the walls. The only remarkable things about the drawing-room of the Shrapnel Academy were the large and striking portrait of the three world leaders at Yalta above the fireplace and, during the course of the evening, the size of the fire in the grate as Joan Lumb tried, and failed, to drive back and out unusual and rather unpleasant cooking smells which kept back-blowing down the chimney.

Joan Lumb pressed the General to give a brief résumé of his forthcoming lecture, and he obliged. His thesis was that World War II, contrary to common belief, had not been a mishmash of events, but had progressed to its ending through a series of decisive battles. He cited in particular the USA field artillery shoot against Kwajalein Island in the Pacific: a relatively small target, 4,500,000 square yards; 65,000 105mm and 155mm shells were laid upon it – that is to say one shell burst for every sixty-nine square yards. Yet 20 per cent of its population survived, only a little hurt or shocked – being in trenches, dugouts or concrete emplacements.

Mew interrupted to ask if this massacre counted as a battle, and the General said in his view yes. The population referred to was for the most part soldiery, and attempting to fight back: that made it definitely a battle. A decisive battle was one in which much was sacrificed, but something of supreme importance saved – whether it was Greek Wisdom, Roman Virtue, Saxon Bravery, French Democracy – or, as at Kwajalein, American World Dominance. If Mew would remain quiet he would deal with these matters in due course. Click! Click! went Mew, when Muffin wasn’t looking. ‘“America seeks world domination,” says Nato General.’ Click! Click!

The General went on to cite what even he called the Massacre of Dieppe, rather than the Battle of Dieppe. (Sometimes slaughter awes even those who organise it.) But even that had brought about a long-term blessing. The sacrifice had not been in vain.

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