Night Journey Read Free

The colonel sipped his whisky. “And any number of refugees of unimpeachable character and long records of oppression in their own country have betrayed the country that accepted them because of fear for their relatives. If you do not obey the commands of the Führer your mother or your brother or your sister or your wife will disappear into Auschwitz. Many cases have come to our notice in the last few months alone.”
    â€œI see that. But I think you must know that I have no near relative in Austria whom I need fear for.”
    â€œCertainly we do—and did. But to intern one alien to protect him so that he cannot obey the Nazis is not usually quite sufficient. Enough people must be interned with him so that no suspicion arises that he has told the truth to the authorities. Otherwise the threatened relative may suffer all the worse.”
    â€œIt’s obliging of you to explain this. I see the difficulties …”
    â€œBut this does not explain your arrest last week?”
    â€œI should like to think it did.”
    He laughed. “ You’re a younger man than I expected to meet, Dr Mencken.”
    â€œI’m thirty-one. You must know that.”
    â€œI do. I mean in manner. For your academic distinction, thirty-one is in any case very young.”
    â€œIt somewhat depends how you start. Most people spend seven years as children on general subjects; a liberal education they call it. I started very early on what interested me. Therefore I knew quite a bit on some subjects—on others virtually nothing at all.”
    He leaned back in his big leather chair—so slim that another could have sat beside him. “Would it surprise you to know that of the seventy-three thousand three hundred Germans and Austrians in this country, you are the only one who was re-arrested last week?”
    I shifted uneasily. All this friendliness and lack of ceremony.… What action of mine recently could possibly have been misinterpreted? That letter I wrote to Giiligan at the Royal Society? My demands to the electricians for extra power points? My telephone call to Leeds?
    He was watching me closely. “ This work you are doing. It’s of national importance, I understand.”
    â€œAmong other things, I am working on a process for utilising sisal in submarines.”
    â€œWould you say that is of vital national importance?”
    â€œI don’t quite understand. All such processes are of exceptional value in wartime. This not more so than many others. Not less so either.”
    â€œWould you consider yourself indispensable to the country’s effort—say for a couple of months? I understand there are other men working on the same idea. Professor Martin, for instances of Edinburgh.”
    â€œYou know him? Then you must know as much about all this as I do.”
    â€œYou think Professor Martin is likely to succeed independently of yon?”
    â€œI have not seen him since May. He’s a clever man and has better facilities.”
    â€œMore whisky, Dr Mencken?”
    â€œThank you; I’ve not finished this yet.”
    He looked out of the window, his blue eyes [??? Page No.16] as if temporarily he was thinking of something else. “Would it be true to say you were an expert on the subject of poison gas?”
    I thought this out. The alien problem, sisal waste, and now gas. Even for a chat over after-dinner port it seemed a little disconnected. “No. I would not call myself anything like an expert.”
    â€œBut you gave a course of three lectures on various gases at London University the first winter you were here.”
    â€œThose,” I said, “were ionised gases.”
    He paused. “I didn’t know. I thought …”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    There was nothing absent-minded about his eyes now. Someone was going to get into big trouble for that mistake.
    â€œThose lectures,” I said. “In any case they were not