by Tom Stoppard
Wagner Are you offering that, sir?
Mageeba I would consider a referendum. But of course that would depend on an immediate withdrawal from his present aggressive positions.
Wagner The Malakuangazi mines.
Mageeba I don’t think Geoffrey would accept anything less.
Carson He did rather come in without knocking.
Mageeba And of course there is the question of uninvited foreigners. At this moment on Kambawe soil we have Russians, Cubans, Yemeni and Libyans. We even have a few Czech and German mechanics, I’m told. The American Ambassador asked me if I would let the United Nations come in. I said, half of them are already here – working for Shimbu.
Wagner Is there any UN presence in Kamba City yet?
Mageeba No.
Wagner I see. And what if Shimbu doesn’t come to the table and doesn’t withdraw?
Mageeba Then, Mr Wagner, you may call it a war.
Wagner When may I do that, sir?
Mageeba Would ten o’clock suit you?
Wagner grins, drains his glass and holds it out to Carson.
Wagner (to Carson) May I …? (to Mageeba) Do you have what you need to win the war?
Mageeba If it’s a short war.
Wagner And if it’s not? Are you looking to us and the Americans?
Mageeba I’d be a fool to do that. Your record of cowardice in Africa stretches from Angola to Eritrea.
Carson Lobby basis, Dick.
Mageeba No – no – I don’t believe in that. They asked me if they could appoint a lobby correspondent in KC. I said, fine, tell him to go and sit in the Sheraton, it’s the most comfortable lobby in town. I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of their traditional freedoms while giving the reader as much of the truth as they think is good for him. I have some experience of the British press. When you granted us our independence – as the rules of hospitality oblige me to refer to the military victory of the Nationalist Front – the Kambawe paper was the property of an English gentleman. Isn’t that so, Geoffrey?
Carson Well, not exactly, sir –
Mageeba Not exactly a gentleman, no, but a rich Englishman with a title. So there we were, an independent country, and the only English newspaper was still part of a British Empire – a family empire – a chain of newspapers – a fleet of newspapers, shall I say? Yes, that’s very good, not a chain but a fleet of newspapers. That’s good, isn’t it, Mr Wagner?
Wagner Yes … you mean like a convoy?
‘Ruth’ He means like Fleet Street, you fool.
Mageeba Fleet Street –
Wagner Oh yes – very good –
Mageeba Of course, we had many businesses controlled by overseas interests, we still have many, and we have many more partnerships – even the Kambawe Mining Corporation is such a partnership and you can see from that, can you not, Mr Wagner, that we have no prejudice against English gentlemen as such – but a newspaper, a newspaper is not like a mine, or a bank, or an airline; it is the voice of the people and the Kambawe paper was the voice of an English millionaire.
Wagner Which one?
Carson Yours, Dick.
Wagner Oh … somewhat before my time, sir.
Mageeba Nothing personal, Mr Wagner.
Wagner Good God, I hold no brief for him.
Mageeba I realize of course that you are only an able-seaman on the flag-ship.
Wagner Well, sir, we’ve come a long way since we were galley slaves. Northcliffe could sack a man for wearing the wrong hat. Literally. There was a thing called the Daily Mail hat and he expected his reporters to wear it. Until he got interested in something else. Aeroplanes or wholemeal bread … Those days are gone.
Mageeba Indeed, Mr Wagner, now the hat is metaphorical only.
Wagner With respect, sir, you underestimate the strength of the organized workers – the journalists. I admit that even when I started in newspapers a proprietor could sack any reporter, who, as it were, insisted on wearing the wrong hat, but things are very different now.
Ruth Now the union can sack him instead.
Wagner I see that young Milne has been bending your car.
Ruth Young Milne? (She doesn’t quite hide her anger.) Yes, I suppose you can afford to patronize him now.
Carson Perhaps we’re getting a little off the President’s point.
Mageeba And perhaps not. I’m most interested in what you have to say, Mr Wagner.
Wagner We have a mutual friend who believes that the freedom of the journalist is safer in the hands of the proprietors than in the hands of his fellow journalists.
Ruth Well, of course it is, you fool. Even Northcliffe could only sack you from his own newspapers, and nowadays he’d be answerable to one of those industrial tribunals which make banks compensate their sacked embezzlers … and he’d have to think twice if you were anything special because he’d know that in short order you would be working for the competition. But you’d better be damned careful if you cross your fellow journalists because they would stop you working for any newspaper in the land, no matter how good a reporter you are; and they are answerable to nobody.
Wagner They are answerable to a democratically elected body representing the membership.
Ruth Wagner, are you completely daft?
Carson Ruth …
Ruth In your utopia will the burglars be answerable to a democratically elected body of safe crackers?
Mageeba (enjoying this) Ha! Mr Wagner?
Wagner Well, without the democracy, that was very much the situation when rich and powerful men in commerce were only answerable to rich and powerful men in the establishment. I’m with the President on this one, if I may say so. I believe that a newspaper, although it is a business, is too important to be merely somebody’s property. And I’m not talking about protecting my job but my freedom to report facts that may not be congenial to, let us say, an English millionaire.
Mageeba Mrs Carson?
Ruth I think I’ll have that drink after all.
Carson goes to get it for her.
I have difficulty in controlling myself when I’m completely sober.
Carson This comes of having journalists in the house, I suppose … I didn’t know you felt so passionately about newspapers, Ruth. Against them, perhaps.
Ruth I’m against cant. ‘Congenial to English millionaires!’ The whole country is littered with papers pushing every political line from Mao to Mosley and back again, and I bet even Allie could work out for himself that it is the very free-for-all which guarantees the freedom of each. You don’t have to be a millionaire to contradict one. It isn’t the millionaires who are going to stop you, it’s the Wagners who don’t trust the public to choose the marked card.
Wagner I’m talking about national papers. It’s absurd to equate the freedom of the big battalions with the freedom of a basement pamphleteer to challenge them.
Ruth You are confusing freedom with ability. The Flat Earth News is free to sell a million copies. What it lacks is the ability to find a million people with four pence and a conviction that the earth is flat. Freedom is neutral. Free expression includes a state of affairs where any millionaire can have a national newspaper, if that’s what it costs. A state of affairs where only a particular, approved, licensed and supervised non-millionaire can have a newspaper is called, for example, Russia.
Mageeba Or, of course, Kambawe.
‘Ruth’ (shouts) Geoffrey!
Carson I’m sorry, sir – I know Ruth didn’t mean –
Mageeba (placatingly) Please!
Ruth No – of course not – I mean, the Daily Citizen isn’t state-controlled.
Mageeba Please don’t concern yourself. I enjoy a free and open debate. It is a luxury which a man in my position can seldom afford. And I admit that by the highest ideals the Daily Citizen is open to criticism. But you must remember it is the only English language paper we have. The population cannot yet support a number of
competing papers offering a natural balance of opinion.
Carson Exactly.
Mageeba At the time of independence the Daily Citizen was undoubtedly free. It was free to select the news it thought fit to print, to make much of it, or little, and free to make room for more and more girls wearing less and less underwear. You may smile, but does freedom of the press mean freedom to choose its own standards?
Carson Absolutely.
Mageeba Mrs Carson?
Ruth What’s the alternative?
Mageeba That was the question. Easy enough to shut the paper down, as I would have been obliged to do had it not been burned down during the state of emergency which followed independence. But what to put in its place? The English millionaire folded his singed tents and stole away the insurance money, which didn’t belong to him since I had nationalized the paper well before the fire was out. Never mind – the field was open. I did not believe a newspaper should be part of the apparatus of the state; we are not a totalitarian society. But neither could I afford a return to the whims of private enterprise. I had the immense and delicate task of restoring confidence in Kambawe. I could afford the naked women but not the naked scepticism, the carping and sniping and the public washing of dirty linen which represents freedom to an English editor. What then? A democratic committee of journalists? – a thicket for the editor to hide in. No, no – freedom with responsibility, that was the elusive formula we pondered all those years ago at the LSE. And that is what I found. From the ashes there arose, by public subscription, a new Daily Citizen, responsible and relatively free. (He leans towards Wagner.) Do you know what I mean by a relatively free press, Mr Wagner?
Wagner Not exactly, sir, no.
Mageeba I mean a free press which is edited by one of my relatives.
He throws back his head and laughs. Wagner joins in uncertainly. Ruth smiles nervously. Carson looks scared. Mageeba brings the weighted end of his stick down on Wagner’s head.
(Shouting) So it doesn’t go crawling to uppity niggers! – so it doesn’t let traitors shit on the front page! – so it doesn’t go sucking up to liars and criminals! ‘Yes sir, Colonel Shimbu, tell us about the exploitation of your people! – free speech for all here, Colonel Shimbu, tell us about the wonderful world you’re going to build in that vulture’s garbage dump you want to call a country’ – yes, you tell us before you get a machine-gun up your backside and your brains coming down your nostrils! – who’s going to interview you then, Colonel, sir!
Mageeba has stood up and moved away from Wagner. Wagner’s head is bleeding slightly above the hairline.
(Evenly) I’ll give him equal space. Six foot long and six foot deep, just like any other traitor and communist jackal.
Guthrie has entered. He is somewhat the worse for wear. He glances round the room and then ignores everybody and walks diagonally right downstage to where Wagner is. His words are only for Wagner.
Guthrie Dick. Jacob’s dead.
Carson (in response to Mageeba’s glance of enquiry) This is Mr Guthrie, Your Excellency, he is also from – er – London –
Guthrie crosses to Mageeba and stands close to him.
Guthrie Are you the President of this shit-house country?
Wagner George …
Guthrie Is it you runs that drunken duck-shoot calls itself an army?
Wagner and Carson are moving in on him. Wagner grabs Guthrie and starts pulling him away.
(Shouts) I don’t call that a fucking cease-fire! I hope they blow their fucking heads off!
Wagner has got Guthrie back down into a chair, and holds him down. Ruth comes forward and kneels on the floor by Guthrie and talks straight into his face.
Ruth Where’s Jacob?
Guthrie In the jeep.
Ruth In the jeep? What’s he doing there?
Guthrie Not a lot.
Ruth starts to leave.
(Sharply) Don’t turn him over – he’ll come away in your hand.
Ruth moans and sinks down where she is.
Wagner Jesus.
Carson I’m sorry. What happened?
Guthrie We never got to Shimbu.
Mageeba Your messenger, Geoffrey?
Carson Yes. (to Guthrie) Have you got the letter?
Guthrie Jake had it. I suppose it’s still in his bag.
Carson leaves the room.
(To Wagner) You’ve got blood on your head.
Mageeba Well, Mrs Carson. I must say goodnight. Thank you for your gracious hospitality. (to Wagner) I will remember what you said, Mr Wagner.
Wagner What was that … sir?
Mageeba Why, that my determined stand against communist imperialism is being watched with admiration by the British people.
Wagner Oh, yes.
Mageeba I enjoyed our discussion. I’m sorry if I was rude about your hat. (He leaves.)
Guthrie He hit you? Because he didn’t like your hat?
Wagner That’s right. What happened to Jacob?
Guthrie It was right outside Malakuangazi. Just getting dark. It took us twice as long to get there as Geoffrey said. Mageeba’s pass worked but it worked slowly. Everybody scared stiff of getting their ears chopped off for letting us through, and also for not letting us through. Same thing round here, I mean the road to the house. There’s soldiers behind every tree. A real back-up to the peace initiative.
Wagner Yeah, he was going to have Shimbu for breakfast all right.
Guthrie These are the good guys. We get accredited by the good guys.
Ruth I want to know what happened.
Mageeba’s car has been heard to leave. Carson enters.
Guthrie We eventually got to the front, which is where the cover runs out. You could see Malakuangazi across a strip of open land, no dead ground. We had the headlights on, acting friendly, and a white handkerchief tied to the aerial, but it was just about dark, they couldn’t see what was coming. We got a couple of hundred yards, and they put up a flare. That was OK. But somebody behind us got nervous and let off a few rounds. You know – shooting at a town with a rifle – that sort of discipline. So that gets somebody else excited, and pretty soon there’s a cross-fire, and another flare, and we’re the only moving object in sight. There’s only one smart thing to do and the driver knows it. He stops the jeep and runs and I shouted to Jake to run and I got fifty yards and when I looked back he’s in the driving seat trying to turn the jeep round. He got it round, and then he was hit. Knocked him into the back seat. I should have looked after him better. Stupid sod. Up ’til then he was having a good time.
Wagner You went back to the jeep.
Guthrie I didn’t know if he was dead. Engine was OK. Only the windscreen smashed. So I killed the lights and drove it back. But he was dead all right. A whole burst, head and shoulders. Heavy machine-gun, I should think, just spraying around. He didn’t know anything about it anyway.
Carson Where’s Francis?
Guthrie He ran the other way, towards Shimbu.
Carson Why?
Guthrie I don’t know. Maybe he knew something.
Carson My God. You were taking a hell of a chance, going in after dark.
Guthrie We were already six hours behind.
Carson Shimbu was a long shot anyway.
Guthrie Not Shimbu. The Globe is a Sunday paper. If you miss it by an hour you’ve missed it by a week. Story could be dead as a – I mean – (to Wagner) he wanted to go in, Dick. It wasn’t just me.
Wagner nods. Carson touches Ruth’s shoulder.
Carson I’ve got to follow Mageeba to KC. There’s nothing to worry about. He needs to talk to me about the mines, doesn’t want to bomb the bits that matter. (to Wagner) I’m taking the helicopter. I’ll dump you two at the airport, but after that you’re on your own. Get on any plane you can, and with luck you’ll be out of the country before Mageeba has time to think about you. He’s got bigger problems at the moment.
Wagner I want to file from here.
Carson I’m already sticking my
neck out for you. You’ve got time to get out and file.
Wagner No, I don’t like that – planes can be late. Let me think.
Guthrie You can file first from KC. Get an AP wire. You have to risk that. And then a plane. Gives you two chances.
Wagner Yes, that’s good. OK. What about Jake?
Carson There’s no proper morgue in Jeddu. I’ll take the body to KC. Do you know anything about his family? Who to tell?
Wagner Only the Globe. I’d better let them know that at least. All right?
Carson You can try.
Wagner goes to the telex and switches it on, and taps some keys.
We’ll take the jeep down to the compound.
Wagner (over his shoulder to Guthrie) Jeep picture?
Guthrie pats his camera bag.
Guthrie I shot a couple of rolls before starting back. It was an artillery war when I left.
Carson (to Wagner) If you can’t get straight through you’ll have to leave it.
Wagner All my stuff’s at the hotel.
Carson Forget it.
Wagner And the car?
Carson I’ll get it picked up some time.
Guthrie It’s my car. I want it.
Wagner leaves the telex and comes back to Guthrie.
Wagner What do you mean?
Guthrie is putting rolls of exposed film into linen envelopes which are pre-prepared, labelled.
Guthrie Here. The guy in the AP office is called Chamberlain. Ask him to print up this one – I marked it – and wire anything which looks worthwhile. Tell him to push it to eight hundred and bugger the grain, I was using moonlight and flares. This one is for the London plane if you can get a pigeon.
Carson I don’t think you understand. Mageeba is unpredictable. He may decide he was amused by your effrontery and give you a decoration, or he may feed you to the crocodiles. If I were you I wouldn’t take the chance. He can always post you the decoration.