Leman sits down at a table. His expression is frozen. Each movement is like an instruction on a plan he has only recently committed to memory. He surveys the crowded room. He makes out rows of chairs filled with what he assumes are members of the press. Perhaps they are Russians masquerading, drafted in to provide an audience. Facing him on the table are banks of microphones. He looks around for faces he might recognize. If there are any he cannot see them. It is at that moment that his expression changes. He feels waves of unspoken hostility sweep up through the auditorium towards him. (Is it real or in his mind?) Once more he looks round, calculating the distance between the dais and the door, wondering if he can make good his escape. The Hungarian officer whispers something in his ear and then gets to his feet.
‘Comrades,’ he says, ‘Mr Leman wishes to read a statement.’
The room leans forward in anticipation, concentrating on the small figure sitting at the table. The film shows the attentive faces of the audience in the small auditorium, the tension in the row of news cameramen at the back of the room as they check their viewfinders. Leman clears his throat, looks nervously across at the colonel who nods. It is time to begin.
(‘Wishing to cleanse his conscience of the wrongs perpetrated on him by the lies of Western propaganda, Leman reveals the extent of the subversive activities of Western agencies and their plans to sabotage a democratic socialist state,’ declaims the haughty newsreel commentary.)
Leman speaks quietly in English. His voice is hoarse, disembodied, bereft of expression. He makes no attempt to imbue his text with any emphasis. He pronounces the words slowly and carefully in a monotone, as if they are unfamiliar and he is trying desperately to discover their meaning as he reads them for the first time. Is he drugged, or ill? Or so frightened he can hardly speak? Once or twice he stumbles over the words. Each time his head nods in irritation and he reads the text again. He appears puzzled, mystified by the nature of the connection between himself and the statement he is reading. He does not once look up at his audience. Perhaps he thinks that if he cannot see them they might not exist.
The commentator says nothing because there is no need to speak. Leman is saying everything that is necessary. The camera holds him in unbroken close-up. The downcast eyes give his pale face the appearance of a death mask.
He and other agents of the West, he says, conspired to enter Hungarian territory covertly, with the express intention of bringing military help to local fascist elements to assist in the overturning of the democratically elected government of a sovereign state. What he did was wrong, he knows that now. Why did he commit this crime? The West is a corrupt system, he explains. His presence in Budapest is evidence of its corruption. He was wilfully misled by those he worked for, the British Government and its Secret Intelligence Service. They told him that the country was ready for counter-revolution, that he would be greeted with open arms by revolutionaries and that the Soviet army was in a weakened state, ready to be brushed aside by a local insurrection.
(A frame-by-frame analysis of the film reveals that what had passed for a nervous tic on Leman’s part was in fact a frequent eye movement to his left, seeking signals of approbation from the Hungarian colonel that he is doing what is required of him.)
He now knows he was mistaken. In direct contradiction to the lies he has been told, he has found a contented country, a happy people, no foundation for the talk of insurrection, a thriving economy and welfare system; indeed all the components of a successful socialist state. A country grateful to its powerful neighbour for the strength of their protection against the continual aggression of the West. There is no foundation for the rumour of insurrection from within Hungary’s own borders.
What the edited version does not show is that twice during his presentation Leman comes to a complete stop. He appears unable to read the words in his prepared text. He looks up helplessly, in his eyes a silent appeal to his audience. He is confused, desperate, lost. The Hungarian colonel distracts him by handing him a glass of water which Leman drinks. He starts again. The second time the colonel has to tap his wrist with his pencil. Leman awakes. He drags himself reluctantly back to the present from his brief moment of retreat in the depths of his soul. He lowers his eyes once more, gathers himself and the monotone continues.
He wishes to put on record his sincere apologies to the Hungarian people for the wrongs he has done them and their Soviet friends. He criticizes himself for believing the lies he was told. He condemns his former employers for their threat of unprovoked aggression towards a peaceable country in the Soviet sphere of influence. He and others like him were wrong to come to Hungary with the intention of wrecking the great achievements of socialism in that country. He bitterly regrets the errors that led him to impede the victory of the working class. He wishes publicly to disown his former self.
‘I accept my guilt,’ Leman reads. ‘I will put my trust in the Hungarian legal system and the historically progressive role of the workers’ state to find an appropriate punishment for the crimes I have committed.’
(‘Broken by the moral burden of his crimes,’ the Soviet commentator remarks, ‘the subversive Leman throws himself on the mercy of his patriotic hosts, the Hungarian people themselves.’)
Only then does he look up to face the cameras. His eyes are dead, his face without expression. There is no life left in him. His audience sees that they have been listening to a corpse.
‘Thank you for your attention.’
The edited version of the film allows Leman’s face to dissolve slowly into images taken by a moving camera as it travels around a ghost town, of ruined houses, devastated streets, doors blasted from their hinges, shutters and glass torn from windows. Broken crockery and scorched clothes lie scattered carelessly over every surface; a clock without hands has been discarded in the street, its spring twisted around it. Rubble is strewn everywhere. It is chaos. The only ordered image is that of the neat lines of corpses covered in makeshift shrouds of rugs or overcoats, any material that can be pressed into service. Only their feet, some booted, some bare, remain visible. The camera slows as it glides past the smaller corpses of children and babies. The few survivors stand by, their stricken faces bemused and lost in their grief, the men silently vengeful, the women screaming with horror at the loss of their families.
Over the succession of moving images, the voice of the commentator intones.
‘… scenes of the devastation caused by the unprovoked attack by imperialist agents on the innocent population. Only minutes before this community had been going about its labours. Returning from the fields at the end of the day, feeding their children before bed, preparing the evening meal. Then, unprovoked, the shells rained down on them, killing them where they stood, men, women and children …’
In the auditorium the Hungarian colonel stands up to speak. He holds in his hand a stick like a conductor’s baton.
‘I will now present the evidence of what Leman and his imperialist saboteurs have done to our country.’
He asks for the overhead lights in the room to be dimmed. From the back a beam of light from a slide projector illuminates the screen behind him. For a moment he stands in its path and his image is thrown on to the screen, a demonic characterization that is greeted with brief laughter. Then he ducks away and the first slide is illuminated. It is in black and white and shows a ruined house, its roof gone, a few charred beams describing where it had once been, what remain of its window frames without glass, a pile of rubble outside the entrance to the house. The main door now leans against a damaged wall at a sharp angle, scarred black by fire.
More houses. More devastation. Slide after slide. The colonel’s voice unemotionally describes the damage, using a pointer to highlight his text.
‘… living quarters of the people utterly destroyed by heavy weapons, small howitzers, mortar bombs …’
Hearing only the voice of his superiors in his head, the Hungarian colonel is unable to catch the spreading restlessness among a few
of his audience. He fails to pick up the growing mood of scepticism and anger as his listeners become aware of the scale of the deception that is being played on them. He is unprepared for the questions that are thrown at him the moment the lights go up.
What happened in the auditorium was witheld from the world’s view.
‘What size of force caused that damage, Colonel?’
‘I’m sorry.’ The colonel puts on the earphones for simultaneous translation. ‘Would you repeat the question, please?’
‘How large was the force that created such devastation?’
‘What you have seen was the work of Leman and his co-conspirators.’
‘Colonel,’ the questioner says, his English heavily accented. He is the representative of a Swiss newspaper. ‘You are showing us pictures of a wide area of devastation. You are asking us to believe that a small force, a few men, a few well-armed mercenaries was the phrase you used, have caused this destruction. My question to you is, what kind of force was it? How many tanks? How many field guns? How many men? Would you say it was a battalion?’
‘It was a large force, yes.’ Without a script the colonel is much less assured. His nervousness is communicated rapidly to his audience.
‘It would have to be to cause so much damage.’
‘That is correct.’
‘We are agreed, then, that a sizeable, heavily armed force caused this level of damage.’
‘Yes.’
‘This was unprovoked aggression by a military force against the sovereign state of Hungary?’
‘Yes. That is correct.’
‘Then why was a civilian like Leman put in charge of it? If the West meant business, surely they’d have appointed a leader with some military capability, not a civilian with none. How do you answer that?’
The room is filled with laughter. Somewhere, perhaps, in a dusty can, the echoes of that sceptical laughter are waiting to be discovered and to be heard once more.
4
‘I was wilfully misled by those I worked for, the British Government …’
‘I’m not watching any more of this rubbish. It’s all bloody communist lies.’ Watson-Jones stormed out of the room where Margaret had set up a projector and a special screen so he could watch the Leman newsreel.
Pountney hurried out after him. Watson-Jones was losing his rag and his bottle at the first sniff of a crisis, and he didn’t seem to care who knew it.
‘He’s sunk to the gutter, Gerry. How can he bring himself to betray his own country? Is he incapable of distinguishing right from wrong? The man’s a gutless bastard. He should be shot.’
‘Perhaps he had no choice.’ Why the hell was he taking Leman’s side? He disliked what he’d seen as much as Watson-Jones. ‘Perhaps he was forced to make that confession.’
‘We all have choices to make.’ Watson-Jones was shouting. ‘That’s what life is about. Yes and no is a choice. You learn that in the cradle.’ He was pacing up and down, furious.
‘The Soviets employ brutal methods when it suits them to do so.’
Again the unexpected defence of Leman. Why?
‘That bastard’s a filthy traitor. We should wash our hands of him and have done with it. There are bigger and more important fish to fry.’
‘He’s one of ours,’ Pountney said quietly. ‘We can’t leave him to rot.’
Whose phrase was that? Margaret’s?
‘I despise men without backbone, men who give in to playground bullies at the first shove. So do the British people. We expect more of ourselves because of what we are, who we are, our history, our culture.’ Watson-Jones was already at the despatch box, converting his anger into a political position. ‘We’re not cowards, Gerry, and we don’t take kindly to those who are. That’s the point I want to make.’
‘Are you a coward if you cooperate when someone holds a pistol to your head?’
‘The man’s as good as dead, so what difference would pulling the trigger make?’
‘I’m not sure I would have the courage to say no if I was on my knees, hands tied behind my back, knowing that my life – as about to end if I didn’t agree to what I was being asked to do.’
Push him as far as he’ll go. Try to make him see there’s another side to this.
‘We’re not in a university debating chamber here, Gerry.’ Watson-Jones’s anger was only just under control. ‘This is real life. These are real issues. If one of our people betrays his own side, why should we lift a finger to help him? He’s better off where he is, in bed with his Soviet friends.’
‘He doesn’t want to live with the Russians. He wants to come home.’
That was a mistake. Never fall for direct confrontation. Take him from the flanks, where he’s more vulnerable. Watson-Jones turned towards him to make their confrontation physical. He could be an impressive man when he stretched to his full height.
‘Leman chose to shit on his own side. He didn’t have to do so. It was a voluntary action. His choice. By fulfilling the requests of his captors, he has ruled himself beyond our reach. There are no votes in working one’s arse off to save traitors like Leman. Do I make myself clear?’
Pountney left him to it. Any further argument was pointless. If he’d stayed longer he might have said things he would have regretted later. The process of politics remained an enigma he would never fathom, however hard he tried. Somehow your weaknesses didn’t inhibit you from aspiring to a senior position in government, even though you might possess few of the qualities required. It was clear to anyone who worked with him that Watson-Jones was wholly unsuited for the responsibilities he craved, yet even though his shortcomings were common knowledge in Westminster, the press and his Party took his ambitions seriously. (‘Surely a candidate for the leadership of the Tory Party one day.’) It was an upside-down world.
‘The Minister would like his tea,’ Pountney said to Margaret as he met her in the corridor. ‘Make sure you mix it with hemlock.’
‘Archie Randall’s on the telephone,’ she said, stopping him in his tracks. ‘He wants to speak to you now.’
‘I’ll take it in my office.’
Randall’s temper was little better than Watson-Jones’s. ‘Gutless bastard. Making us a laughing stock. Christ, we all feel sick here, I can tell you. A real kick in the balls. Nobody wants to help the little shit. We’d like to see him fry.’
‘I understand your anger.’ Pountney the conciliator, years of training with Harriet coming into their own. ‘We share your mood here. Everyone’s very unhappy. Of course it’s a dreadful thing Leman’s done. We can’t imagine what could have come over him. But until he declares for the other side, we have to see Leman as one of ours.’
‘The bastard’s already changed sides.’ The telephone line crackled in sympathy.
‘That’s not true, Archie. Not true at all. What we saw was a Soviet propaganda exercise. It’s up to all of us to keep a cool head on this one. We mustn’t lose our judgement, whatever the provocation. That’s what the Soviets want us to do. We have to deny them the pleasure.’
Silence while Randall took this in. ‘How’s London taking it?’ he asked.
‘With gritted teeth. No one’s happy. We’re worried about the trial. We see this present business as a curtain-raiser.’
‘What does the Minister say?’
He’s spitting blood, wants to let the man stew.
‘We’re working on a response. Watson-Jones wants you to keep close to him,’ Pountney lied.
‘You’re asking a lot, Gerry. You know that, don’t you?’
‘You and your people are up to it, Archie. Don’t let us down on this one. The stakes are high here too. Just remember that, and count to ten when the going gets rough.’
He put the telephone down, feeling statesmanlike. How unlike him this was. He was decisive, conciliatory, consoling, far-sighted (dare he use the word ‘vision’? Probably not). Why? Surely he should be devastated by events? Instead, he was taking control. What was happening to him?
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*
‘I keep asking myself the same question over and over again,’ Anna Livesey said, less than an hour later. ‘Why did he do it? I can never find an answer, not one that makes sense.’
She was pale and drawn, but she hadn’t broken down when they’d shown her the newsreel footage. When she’d asked for a glass of water, her voice had betrayed no signs of stress. Her self-control was impressive, as he’d expected it to be.
‘I’m sure we’d all like to know the answer to that. It’s probably best not to speculate,’ Pountney said.
‘It didn’t sound like Joe. Could he have been drugged?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘The language was all wrong, as if someone was speaking through him. That’s not the way Joe speaks.’
‘His script was written by the Soviets. They find characterization outside their own demonology very difficult.’
‘He read out his text mechanically.’ She’d watched Leman’s performance closely. ‘When it didn’t appear to make sense, he stumbled over the words. He never looked up once, did he?’
‘His behaviour suggests this wasn’t a voluntary confession,’ Pountney replied.
‘His face was so pale. His eyes have sunk into his head.’ She wasn’t listening to his answers, he knew that. She was in the grip of the questions and impressions that were racing round her head. He couldn’t blame her, not when she was showing more restraint than Watson-Jones. ‘I hardly recognized him. He’s changed so much. Something terrible must have happened since his arrest.’
Secret Kingdom Page 27