Page 148 of The Gathering Storm

‘I can’t tell if that was approval or irony,’ Oliver said.

‘Oh, approval. Anything but war. It’s all right for old fellows like you. I’m forty-six, still within range for being called up.’

‘May I remind you that conscription went up to fifty-five in the last war? And that there was no practical limit for the Medical Corps?’

‘May I remind you that I don’t practise medicine any more? They’d chuck me in the Poor Bloody Infantry, and that’d be the end of me.’

Avis came in, spotted them, ordered whisky-and-soda, and came over to sit down. ‘Well!’ he said.

Kit nodded. ‘That’s exactly what we said.’

‘I’ve been talking in the corridor to young Elphinstone from the War Office. They’re still hoping a deal can be done with Hitler over the Polish Corridor and Danzig: let him have his route to the sea and he’ll leave Poland alone. But just in case …’ His whisky came. ‘Just a splash,’ he told the waiter with the siphon. When he’d gone, Avis gulped some of his drink as though he’d needed it. ‘Now we’ve made this pact, if Hitler does move against Poland, that will be that.’

‘We need time,’ Oliver said.

‘Exactly,’ said Avis. ‘The French are in a mess, nobody knows which way the USSR will jump, the Dominions are wobbling, and you can’t rely on the USA giving up its neutrality. And Halifax believes it’s by no means certain that Hitler will move against Poland. Elphinstone said the Americans think he’ll invade Holland.’

‘Which makes much more sense,’ said Kit. ‘Nice and handy for jumping to Blighty. In any case, what’s Poland to us? We didn’t object to the wee moustached one taking over Czechoslovakia.’

‘That’s because France wouldn’t defend the Czechs but she will defend the Poles,’ said Oliver. He intercepted Kit’s raised eyebrow. ‘I talk to people too. Why do you think I have all those dinner parties?’

‘To be sure of getting decent grub,’ said Kit, promptly. ‘But Belmont here just said the French were in a mess.’

‘Yes, but they’re arming as hard as they can go,’ Avis said.

‘They have more to fear than us,’ Oliver noted.

‘And they still have twice as many men under arms as we do,’ Avis concluded. ‘In the end, they’re the only Allies we can count on.’

‘All the more reason not to go to war,’ Kit said.

Avis nodded. ‘You can be sure Chamberlain will do anything he can to avoid it, whatever Churchill and his friends say.’

They drank in silence for a moment. Then Kit said, ‘So, what now?’

‘Well, the die is cast,’ said Oliver. ‘We’ll have to go all out for rearmament.’

‘That’s what Elphinstone told me,’ said Avis. ‘Apparently the order’s already gone out to double the size of the Territorial Army. And they’re planning to have in place an expeditionary army of two corps – four divisions – ready to go to France at the outbreak of war.’

‘And when,’ Kit asked with delicate irony, ‘will that be?’

‘God knows,’ said Avis. He drained his glass. ‘Another?’