Plays Political

by Dan Laurence

  DEACONESS. But I assure you, that does not matter. There is a technique you have not learnt.

  SIR O. What! More techniques! Madam: before your arrival, I was accused of having a technique. Can we not keep on the plain track of commonsense?

  DEACONESS. But this one is so simple. You have spites. You have hatreds. You have bad tempers. All you have to do is to bring them to Jesus. He will relieve you of them. He will shew you that they are all imaginary. He will fill your hearts with love of Himself; and in that love there is eternal peace. I know so many cases. I know by my own experience.

  SECRETARY. You are an amiable lady; and no doubt there are, as you say, other cases—

  DEACONESS. Oh, I was not an amiable lady. I was a perfect fiend, jealous, quarrelsome, full of imaginary ailments, as touchy as Mr Battler, as bumptious as Signor Bombardone—

  BATTLER. Pardon. What does touchy mean?

  BBDE. I am unacquainted with the word bumptious. What am I to understand by it?

  DEACONESS. Look within, look within, and you will understand. I brought it all to Jesus; and now I am happy: I am what the gentleman is kind enough to describe as amiable. Oh, why will you not do as I have done? It is so simple.

  BBDE. It is made much simpler by the fact that you are protected by an efficient body of policemen with bludgeons in their pockets, madam. You have never had to govern.

  DEACONESS. I have had to govern myself, sir. And I am now governed by Jesus.

  JUDGE. Allow the lady the last word, Mr Leader. Proceed, Mr Secretary.

  SECRETARY. No: I have said enough. You know now what an impossible job I have here as secretary to the League of Nations. To me it is agony to have to listen to all this talk, knowing as I do that nothing can come of it. Have pity on me. Let us adjourn for lunch.

  JUDGE. Oh, it is not lunch time yet, Mr Secretary. We have been here less than an hour.

  SECRETARY. It seems to me twenty years.

  JUDGE. I am sorry, Mr Secretary. But I am waiting for the arrival of a defendant who has not yet appeared, General Flanco de Fortinbras, who is accused of having slaughtered many thousands of his fellow countrymen on grounds that have never been clearly stated.

  BBDE. But he has not yet been elected Leader. He is a mere soldier.

  COMMISSAR. Half Europe describes him as your valet.

  BBDE. I do not keep valets. But in so far as Flanco is striving to save his country from the horrors of Communism he has my sympathy.

  COMMISSAR. Which includes the help of your guns and soldiers.

  BBDE. I cannot prevent honest men from joining in a crusade, as volunteers, against scoundrels and assassins.

  JUDGE. You also, Mr Battler, sympathize with General Flanco?

  BATTLER. I do. He has accepted my definite offer to Europe to rid it of Bolshevism if the western states will co-operate.

  JUDGE. And you, Sir Midlander, can of course assure General Flanco of British support?

  SIR O. [rising] Oh, no, no, no. I am amazed at such a misunderstanding. The British Empire has maintained the strictest neutrality. It has merely recognized General Flanco as a belligerent.

  BBDE. Flanco will not come. I have not authorized him to come.

  General Flanco de Fortinbras enters at the door. He is a middle aged officer, very smart, and quite conventional.

  FLANCO. Pardon. Is this the International Court?

  JUDGE. It is.

  FLANCO. My name is Flanco de Fortinbras—General Flanco de Fortinbras. I have received a summons.

  JUDGE. Quite so, General. We were expecting you. You are very welcome. Pray be seated.

  The secretary places a chair between the judge and Bombardone. Flanco crosses to it.

  JUDGE [before Flanco sits down] You know these gentlemen, I think.

  FLANCO [sitting down carelessly] No. But I have seen many caricatures of them. No introduction is necessary.

  THE JUDGE. You recognize also the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Orpheus Midlander.

  Flanco immediately rises; clicks his heels; and salutes Sir Orpheus with a distinguished consideration that contrasts very significantly with his contemptuous indifference to the two leaders. Sir Orpheus, as before, waves a gracious acknowledgment of the salute. Flanco resumes his seat.

  FLANCO. I have come here because it seemed the correct thing to do. I am relieved to find that His Excellency the British Foreign Secretary agrees with me.

  BBDE. In what capacity are you here, may I ask?

  FLANCO. Do I seem out of place between you and your fellow talker opposite? A man of action always is out of place among talkers.

  BBDE. Inconceivable nothingness that you are, do you dare to class me as a talker and not a man of action?

  FLANCO. Have you done anything?

  BBDE. I have created an empire.

  FLANCO. You mean that you have policed a place infested by savages. A child could have done it with a modern mechanized army.

  BBDE. Your little military successes have gone to your head. Do not forget that they were won with my troops.

  FLANCO. Your troops do fairly well under my command. We have yet to see them doing anything under yours.

  BBDE. Ernest: our valet has gone stark mad.

  FLANCO. Mr Battler may be a useful civilian. I am informed that he is popular with the lower middle class. But the fate of Europe will not be decided by your scraps of Socialism.

  JUDGE. May I recall you to the business of the court, gentlemen. General: you are charged with an extraordinary devastation of your own country and an indiscriminate massacre of its inhabitants.

  FLANCO. That is my profession. I am a soldier; and my business is to devastate the strongholds of the enemies of my country, and slaughter their inhabitants.

  NEWCOMER. Do you call the lawfully constituted democratic government of your country its enemies?

  FLANCO. I do, sir. That government is a government of cads. I stand for a great cause; and I have not talked about it, as these two adventurers talk: I have fought for it: fought and won.

  JUDGE. And what, may we ask, is the great cause?

  FLANCO. I stand simply for government by gentlemen against government by cads. I stand for the religion of gentlemen against the irreligion of cads. For me there are only two classes, gentlemen and cads: only two faiths: Catholics and heretics. The horrible vulgarity called democracy has given political power to the cads and the heretics. I am determined that the world shall not be ruled by cads nor its children brought up as heretics. I maintain that all spare money should be devoted to the breeding of gentlemen. In that I have the great body of public opinion behind me. Take a plebiscite of the whole civilized world; and not a vote will be cast against me. The natural men, the farmers and peasants, will support me to a man, and to a woman. Even the peasants whom you have crowded into your towns and demoralized by street life and trade unionism, will know in their souls that I am the salvation of the world.

  BBDE. A Saviour, no less! Eh?

  FLANCO. Do not be profane. I am a Catholic officer and gentleman, with the beliefs, traditions, and duties of my class and my faith. I could not sit idly reading and talking whilst the civilization established by that faith and that order was being destroyed by the mob. Nobody else would do anything but read seditious pamphlets and talk, talk, talk. It was necessary to fight, fight, fight to restore order in the world. I undertook that responsibility and here I am. Everybody understands my position: nobody understands the pamphlets, the three volumes of Karl Marx, the theories of idealists, the ranting of the demagogues: in short, the caddishness of the cads. Do I make myself clear?

  BBDE. Am I a cad? Is Ernest here a cad?

  FLANCO. You had better not force me to be personal.

  BBDE. Come! Face the question. Are we cads or gentlemen? Out with it.

  FLANCO. You are certainly not gentlemen. You are freaks.

  BATTLER. Freaks!

  BBDE. What is a freak?

  JUDGE. An organism so extraordinary as to defy classifica
tion.

  BBDE. Good. I accept that.

  BATTLER. So do I. I claim it.

  JUDGE. Then, as time is getting on, gentlemen, had we not better come to judgment?

  BATTLER. Judgment!

  BBDE. Judgment!

  BATTLER. What do you mean? Do you presume to judge me?

  BBDE. Judge me if you dare.

  FLANCO. Give judgment against me and you pass out of history as a cad.

  BATTLER. You have already passed out of history as a Catholic: that is, nine tenths a Jew.

  BBDE. The bee in your bonnet buzzes too much, Ernest. [To the Judge] What is the law?

  JUDGE. Unfortunately there is no law as between nations. I shall have to create it as I go along, by judicial precedents.

  BATTLER. In my country I create the precedents.

  BBDE. Well said, Ernest. Same here.

  JUDGE. As you are not judges your precedents have no authority outside the operations of your police. You, Mr Battler, are here to answer an accusation made against you by a Jewish gentleman of unlawful arrest and imprisonment, assault, robbery, and denial of his right to live in the country of his birth. What is your defence?

  BATTLER. I do not condescend to defend myself.

  JEW. You mean that you have no defence. You cannot even find a Jewish lawyer to defend you, because you have driven them all from your country and left it with no better brains than your own. You have employed physical force to suppress intellect. That is the sin against the Holy Ghost. I accuse you of it.

  JUDGE. What have you to say to that, Mr Battler?

  BATTLER. Nothing. Men such as I am are not to be stopped by academic twaddle about intellect. But I will condescend to tell this fellow from the Ghetto that to every superior race that is faithful to itself a Messiah is sent.

  DEACONESS. Oh, how true! If only you would accept him!

  JUDGE. I understand you to plead divine inspiration, Mr Battler.

  BATTLER. I say that my power is mystical, not rational.

  BBDE. Ernest: take care. You are walking on a razor’s edge between inspiration and the madness of the beggar on horseback. We two are beggars on horseback. For the credit of leadership let us ride carefully. Leadership, we two know, is mystical. Then let us not pretend to understand it. God may choose his leaders; but he may also drop them with a crash if they get out of hand. Tell yourself that every night before you get into bed, my boy; and you may last a while yet.

  Loud applause from the British section.

  BATTLER. Physician, cure yourself. You need not prescribe for me.

  JUDGE. This is very edifying, gentlemen; and I thank you both in the name of all present. May I ask whether this divine guidance of which you are conscious has any limits? Does it not imply a world State with Mr Battler or Signor Bombardone or the British Foreign Office at its head?

  FLANCO. Certainly not in my country. A frontier is a frontier, and there must be no monkeying with it. Let these gentlemen manage their own countries and leave us to manage ours.

  JUDGE. Is that your view, Mr Battler?

  BATTLER. No. I believe that the most advanced race, if it breeds true, must eventually govern the world.

  JUDGE. Do you agree, Sir Midlander?

  SIR O. With certain reservations, yes. I do not like the term “advanced race.” I greatly mistrust advanced people. In my experience they are very difficult to work with, and often most disreputable in their private lives. They seldom attend divine service. But if you will withdraw the rather unfortunate word “advanced” and substitute the race best fitted by its character—its normal, solid, everyday character—to govern justly and prosperously, then I think I agree. JUDGE. Precisely. And now may we have your opinion, Signor Leader?

  BBDE. In principle I agree. It is easy for me to do so, as my people, being a Mediterranean people, can never be subject to northern barbarians, though it can assimilate and civilize them in unlimited numbers.

  JUDGE. Has the Russian gentleman anything to say?

  COMMISSAR. Nothing. These gentlemen talk of their countries. But they do not own their countries. Their people do not own the land they starve in. Their countries are owned by a handful of landlords and capitalists who allow them to live in it on condition that they work like bees and keep barely enough of the honey to keep themselves miserably alive. Russia belongs to the Russians. We shall look on whilst you eat each other up. When you have done that, Russia—Holy Russia—will save the soul of the world by teaching it to feed its people instead of robbing them.

  FLANCO. Did your landlords ever rob the people as your bureaucracy now robs them to build cities and factories in the desert and to teach children to be atheists? Your country is full of conspiracies to get the old order back again. You have to shoot the conspirators by the dozen every month.

  COMMISSAR. That is not many out of two hundred million people, General. Think of all the rascals you ought to shoot!

  JUDGE. Pray, gentlemen, no more recriminations. Let us keep to the point of the superior race and the divine leadership. What is to happen if you disagree as to which of you is the divinely chosen leader and the superior race?

  BBDE. My answer is eight million bayonets.

  BATTLER. My answer is twelve million bayonets.

  JUDGE. And yours, Sir Midlander?

  SIR O. This sort of talk is very dangerous. Besides, men do not fight with bayonets nowadays. In fact they do not fight at all in the old sense. Mr Battler can wipe out London, Portsmouth, and all our big provincial cities in a day. We should then be obliged to wipe out Hamburg and all the eastern cities from Munster to Salzburg. Signor Bombardone can wipe out Tunis, Nice, Algiers, Marseilles, Toulouse, Lyons, and every city south of the Loire, and oblige the French, headed by the British fleet, to wipe out Naples, Venice, Florence, Rome, and even Milan by return of post. The process can go on until the European stock of munitions and air pilots is exhausted. But it is a process by which none of us can win, and all of us must lose frightfully. Which of us dare take the responsibility of dropping the first bomb?

  BATTLER. Our precautions against attack from the air are perfect.

  SIR O. Ours are not, unfortunately. Nobody believes in them. I certainly do not. You must allow me to doubt the efficiency of yours.

  JUDGE. And your precautions, Signor? Are they efficient ?

  BBDE. They do not exist. Our strength is in our willingness to die.

  JUDGE. That seems to complicate murder with suicide. However, am I to take it that you are all provided with the means to effect this destruction, and to retaliate in kind if they are used against you?

  SIR O. What else can we do, sir?

  JUDGE. I find myself in a difficulty. I have listened to you all and watched you very attentively. You seem to me to be personally harmless human beings, capable of meeting one another and chatting on fairly pleasant terms. There is no reason why you should not be good neighbors. So far, my work of building up a body of international law by judicial precedent would seem to be simple enough. Unfortunately when any question of foreign policy arises you confront me with a black depth of scoundrelism which calls for nothing short of your immediate execution.

  The Leaders and the British contingent, except the Newcomer, rise indignantly.

  NEWCOMER. Hear hear! Hear hear! Hear hear! SIR O. Scoundrelism! BATTLER. Execution! BOMBARDONE. You are mad.

  JUDGE. If you dislike the word execution I am willing to substitute liquidation. The word scoundrelism and its adjectives I cannot withdraw. Your objective is domination: your weapons fire and poison, starvation and ruin, extermination by every means known to science. You have reduced one another to such a condition of terror that no atrocity makes you recoil and say that you will die rather than commit it. You call this patriotism, courage, glory. There are a thousand good things to be done in your countries. They remain undone for hundreds of years; but the fire and the poison are always up to date. If this be not scoundrelism what is scoundrelism? I give you up as hopeless. Man is a failu
re as a political animal. The creative forces which produce him must produce something better. [The telephone rings]. Pardon me a moment. [Changing countenance and holding up his hand for silence] I am sorry to have to announce a very grave piece of news. Mr Battler’s troops have invaded Ruritania.

  General consternation. All rise to their feet except Battler, who preserves an iron calm.

  JUDGE. Is this true, Mr Battler?

  BATTLER. I am a man of action, not a dreamer. While you have been talking my army has been doing. Bardo: the war for the mastery of the world has begun. It is you and I, and, I presume, our friend Fortinbras, against the effete so-called democracies of which the people of Europe and America are tired.