He let the question hang in the air.
‘Why are we fighting? Who’s got an answer for me?’
‘Poland,’ shouted a brave voice from the back.
‘Poland,’ the speaker repeated, thoughtfully. ‘Who’s been to Poland? Raise your hand.’
I looked around, a sea of swivelling heads as everyone did the same. No hands raised.
‘Raise your hand if you’ve got a Polish friend, or a Polish relative,’ he said.
Still no hands.
He walked to the front of the stage. I checked my wristwatch. The debate was due to end at half seven.
‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. He lowered his voice. Whereas before he’d been projecting, performing even, now he sounded like it was a chat between friends. ‘War makes money,’ he said. ‘My colleague told you how many shells his company fired before a big push. Who paid for those shells?’ Another pause, for effect. ‘We did. The people. Everything we bought, someone was making a profit. Every scrap of bacon, every mouthful of bully beef, every shell, every bullet. Huge fortunes were made in the last war. Ask yourself who made those fortunes. Men with foreign-sounding names like Rothschild. Men who don’t claim allegiance to this country, or to any other. Men who control your lives without you even knowing they exist.’
‘This is what the Soviet revolution was about,’ he said, raising his voice steadily. He paced back and forth. ‘Taking the capital back from these international financiers and giving it to the people. Creating a country where the people who do the work end up with the money, and the class of people who exist solely to profit from your work are cut out of the system. That’s the future for England.’
‘What about the royal family?’ Mrs Spratt called out.
‘What work do they do?’ the flamboyant man asked. ‘Why should they lord it over us, when we’re the ones producing the food and working in the factories?’
‘Go back to Russia and leave us alone,’ shouted someone, I couldn’t see who it was.
He’d over-egged it. He’d had the sympathy of the audience until he’d turned on the royal family. Not surprising in my experience – a lot of fanatics are good at drawing you in with their logical arguments, but their fanaticism keeps pushing them, the gleam in their eyes gives them away. They don’t want to make small changes, they want to burn it all down.
18
We stood in the late-evening sun outside the church hall as the good people of Uckfield filed out, many of them muttering to each other. Had either of the debaters won over any new members to their respective causes? Vaughn had seemed slightly more persuasive, but I could imagine his opponent’s bit about financiers ruining the economy had hit a few marks. A lot of people had lost their farms in the thirties. There’d been headlines about the gold standard and dark stories told about international finance. When the opponent emerged, a couple of young men rushed up to him, recent converts perhaps. He hurried off, talking excitedly to his new disciples.
Vaughn was the last out. He saw me, and strolled over, unhurried. I noticed his limp had vanished, presumably an act aimed at generating sympathy from the crowd.
He held out his hand and we shook.
‘Vaughn Matheson,’ he said. ‘I believe we’ve met.’
He turned to look at Margaret with an intense gaze that bordered on insolent.
‘Mags,’ he said, ‘you look ravishing as always.’
He hugged her, then held her at arm’s length for a further inspection.
‘Vaughn,’ she said, ‘this is John Cook. John, this is Vaughn. Old friend of the family.’
I gave Margaret a look. I had the feeling I’d been duped somehow.
‘Did Cook tell you about our adventure last night?’ he asked.
Margaret was confused.
‘Quite the team,’ Vaughn said. ‘Defending Sussex against the invasion.’
‘The parachutist I told you about,’ I said to Margaret. ‘Vaughn was there.’
‘Cook was rather convinced I was the recipient,’ Vaughn said.
‘Were you?’ I asked.
