In High Places

‘Yes,’ Howden acknowledged. ‘There is an "unless".’ He glanced at the others, then faced Perrault squarely. His voice was strong. ‘All that I have described will occur inevitably unless we choose, without delay, to merge our nationhood and sovereignty with the nationhood of the United States.’

Reaction came swiftly.

Adrian Nesbitson was struggling to his feet. ‘Never! Never! Never!’ His face brick-red, the old man spluttered angrily.

Cawston’s expression was shocked. ‘The country would throw us out!’

Douglas Martening, startled into response, said, ‘Prime Minister, have you seriously…’ The sentence was never finished.

‘Silence!’ The hamlike fist of Lucien Perrault smashed down upon the table. Startled, the other voices stopped. Nesbitson subsided. Below his black locks, Perrault’s face scowled. Well, Howden thought, I’ve lost Perrault and with him goes any hope I had of national unity. Now Quebec – French Canada – would stand alone. It had before. Quebec was a rock – sharp-edged, immovable – on which other governments had foundered in the past.

He could carry the others today, or most of them; that much he still believed. Anglo-Saxon logic in the end would see what had to be seen, and afterwards English-speaking Canada alone might still provide the strength he needed. But division would be deep, with bitterness and strife, and scars which would never heal. He waited for Lucien Perrault to walk out.

Instead, Perrault said, ‘I wish to hear the rest.’ He added darkly: ‘Without the chattering of crows.’

Again James Howden wondered. But he wasted no time.

‘There is one proposal which, in event of war, could change our situation. That proposal is perfectly simple. It is the movement of United States missile bases – ICBM and short-range missiles – to our own Canadian North. If it were done, a good deal of radioactive fallout which I have spoken of would occur over uninhabited land.’

‘But there are still winds!’ Cawston said.

‘Yes,’ Howden acknowledged. ‘If winds were from the north, there is a degree of fallout we would not escape. But remember that no country will come unscathed through a nuclear war. The best we can hope for is reduction of its worst effect.’

Adrian Nesbitson protested, ‘We have already cooperated…’

Howden cut the ageing Defence Minister short. ‘What we have done are half-measures, quarter-measures, temporizing! If war came tomorrow our puny preparations would be insignificant!’ His voice rose. ‘We are vulnerable and virtually undefended, and we should be overwhelmed and overrun as Belgium was overrun in the great wars of Europe. At best we should be captured and subjugated. At worst we should become a nuclear battleground, our nation destroyed utterly and our land laid waste for centuries to come. And yet this need not be. The time is short. But if we are swift, honest and above all realistic, we can survive, endure, and perhaps beyond find greatness as we have not dreamed of.’

The Prime Minister stopped, his own words stirring him. Momentarily he had a sense of breathlessness, of excitement at his own leadership, at the looming pattern of great events to come. Perhaps, he thought, this was the way Winston Churchill felt when he had impelled others to destiny and greatness. For a moment he considered the parallel between Churchill and himself. Was it so obscure? Others, he supposed, might fail to see it now, though later they might not.

‘I have spoken of a proposal, made to me forty-eight hours ago, by the President of the United States.’ James Howden paused. Then, clearly and with deliberation: ‘The proposal is for a solemn Act of Union between our two countries. Its terms would include total assumption of Canadian defence by the United States; disbandment of the Canadian armed forces and their immediate recruitment by the US forces under a joint Oath of Allegiance; the opening of all Canadian territory as part of the manoeuvring arena of the US military; and -most important – the transfer, with every possible speed, of all missile-launching bases to the Far North of Canada.’

‘My God!’ Cawston said. ‘My God!’

‘One moment,’ Howden said. ‘That is not quite all. The Act of Union, as proposed, would provide also for customs union and the joint conduct of foreign affairs. But outside those areas, and the others I have named specifically, our national entity and independence would remain.’

He moved forward, bringing his hands from behind and placing their fingertips upon the oval table. Speaking for the first time with emotion he said, ‘It is, as you will see at once a proposal both awesome and drastic. But I may well tell you that I have weighed it carefully, envisaging consequences, and, in my opinion, it is our only possible course if we are to emerge, as a nation, from a war to come.’

‘But why this way?’ Stuart Cawston’s voice was strained. The Finance Minister had never seemed more troubled or perplexed. It was as if an old, established world were crumbling about him. Well, Howden thought, it’s crumbling for all of us. Worlds had a way of doing that, even though each man thought his own world was sure.

‘Because there is no other way and no other time!’ Howden rapped out the words like the crackle of machine guns. ‘Because preparation is vital and we have three hundred days and perhaps – God willing – a little more, but not much more. Because action must be sweeping! Because the time for timidity has gone! Because until now, in every council of joint defence, the spectre of national pride has haunted us and paralysed decision, and it will haunt and paralyse us still if we attempt more compromise and patching! You ask me – why this way? I tell you again – there is no other!’

Now, quietly, in his best mediator’s voice, Arthur Lexington spoke. ‘The thing, I imagine, most people would want to know is whether we could remain a nation under such a covenant or if we would be merely an American satellite – a sort of unregistered fifty-first state. Once our control of foreign policy was surrendered, as would happen of course whether we spelled it out or not, a good deal would need to be taken on trust.’

‘In the unlikely event that such an agreement were ever ratified,’ Lucien Perrault said slowly, his dark brooding eyes fixed upon Howden, ‘it would, of course, have a specific term.’

‘The period suggested is twenty-five years,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘There would, however, be a clause that the Act of Union could be dissolved by mutual agreement, though not by one country acting alone. As to the point about taking good deal on trust – yes, we would certainly have to do that. The question is: where would you prefer your trust to be – in a vain hope that war may not occur, or in the pledged word of a neighbour and ally whose concept of international ethics is somewhat as our own”

‘But the country!’ Cawston said. ‘Could you ever convince the country?’

‘Yes,’ Howden responded. ‘I believe we could.’ He proceeded to tell them why: the approach he had devised; the opposition to be expected; the election on the issue which they must fight and win. The talk moved on. An hour passed, two hours, two and a half. Coffee had been brought in, but except for a brief moment discussion had not stopped. The paper napkins with the coffee had a design of holly, Howden noticed. It seemed a strange reminder – that Christmas was only hours away. The birthday of Christ. What he taught us was so simple, Howden thought: that love is the only worth-while emotion – a teaching sane and logical, whether you believed in Christ the Son of God, or Jesus, a saintly mortal man. But the human animal had never believed in love – pure love – and never really would. He had corrupted the word of Christ with prejudice, and his churches had obfuscated it; and so we are here, Howden thought, doing what we are on Christmas Eve.

Stuart Cawston was refilling his pipe for what was probably the tenth time. Perrault had run out of cigars and was smoking Douglas Martening’s cigarettes. Arthur Lexington – like the Prime Minister a non-smoker – had opened a window behind them for a while, but later had shut it because of the draught. A pall of smoke hung over the oval table, and, like the smoke, a sense of unreality. What was happening, it seemed, was impossible; it could not be true. And yet, slowly, James Howden could feel reality taking hold, conviction settling on the others as it had settled upon himself.

Lexington was with him; to the External Affairs Minister none of this was new. Cawston was wavering. Adrian Nesbit-son had been mostly silent, but the old man didn’t count. Douglas Martening had seemed shocked at first, but after all he was a civil servant and eventually would do as he was told. Lucien Perrault remained – his opposition to be expected, but so far undeclared.

The Clerk of the Privy Council said, ‘There would be several constitutional problems. Prime Minister’ His voice was disapproving, but mildly so, as if objecting to some minor procedural change.

‘Then we will solve them,’ Howden said decisively. ‘I, for one, do not propose to accept annihilation because certain courses are closed off in the rule book.’

‘Quebec,’ Cawston said. ‘We’d never carry Quebec’

The moment had come.

James Howden said quietly, ‘I will admit that the thought had already occurred to me.’

Slowly the eyes of the others swung round to Lucien Perrault – Perrault, the chosen; the idol and spokesman of French Canada. As others had before him – Laurier, Lapointe, St Laurent – he alone in two elections past had swung the strength of Quebec behind the Howden government. And behind Perrault were three hundred years of history: New France, Champlain, the Royal Government of Louis XIV, the British conquest – and French Canadians’ hatred of their conquerors. Hatred had gone in time, but mistrust – two-sided -had never vanished. Twice, in twentieth-century wars involving Canada, their disputations had divided the country. Compromise and moderation had salvaged uneasy unity. But now…

‘There would appear no need to speak,’ Perrault said dourly. ‘It seems that you, my colleagues, have a pipeline to my mind.’

‘It’s hard to ignore facts,’ Cawston said. ‘Or history either.’ ‘History,’ Perrault said softly, then slammed down his hand. The table shook. His voice boomed angrily. ‘Has no one told you that history moves; that minds progress and change; that divisions do not last for ever? Or have you slept – slept while better minds matured?’

The change in the room was electric. The startling words had come like a thunderclap., ‘How do you consider us – we of Quebec?’ Perrault raged. ‘For ever as peasants, fools, illiterates? Are we unknowing; blind and oblivious to a changing world? No, my friends, we are saner than you, and less bemused by what is past. If this must be done, it will be done with anguish. But anguish is not new to French Canada; or realism either.’

‘Well,’ Stuart Cawston said quietly, ‘you can never tell which way the cat will jump.’

It was all that was needed. Tension, as if by magic, dissolved in a howl of laughter. Chairs scraped back. Perrault, tears of mirth streaming, cuffed Cawston vigorously across the shoulders. We are a strange people, Howden thought: an unpredictable admixture of mediocrity and genius, with now and then a flash of greatness.

‘Perhaps it will be the end of me.’ Lucien Perrault shrugged, a Gallic gesture of indifference. ‘But I will support the Prime Minister, and perhaps I can persuade others.’ It was a masterpiece of understatement and Howden felt a surging gratitude.

Adrian Nesbitson alone had remained silent in the last exchange. Now/his voice surprisingly strong, the Defence Minister said, ‘If that’s the way you feel, why stop at half" measures? Why not sell out to the United States completely?’ Simultaneously five heads had turned towards him.