In High Places

‘Four o’clock,’ Howden said. He had a sense of finality, as if somewhere a door were closing.

The President’s voice came softly through the phone. ‘Jim.’

‘Yes, Tyler?’

‘Things are no better internationally; you know that.’

‘If anything,’ Howden said, ‘I’d say they’re worse.’

‘You remember what I said: that I’m praying for the gift of a year before the fighting starts. It’s the best we can hope for.’

‘Yes,’ Howden said. ‘I remember.’

There was a pause, with heavy breathing, as if a moment of emotion were being controlled. Then the voice said quietly, ‘This is a good thing we are doing, Jim. The very best… for the-children… their children yet to come…’

For a moment there was silence. Then, with a click, the line went dead.

When he had replaced the red telephone James Howden stood meditatively in the silen4›book-lined study. A portrait of Sir John A. Macdonald, founder of Canadian confederation, statesman, bon-vivctnt, and tippler extraordinary, looked down upon him.

This was a moment of triumph, Howden supposed. A moment ago the President had been jocular in his concession of the Alaska plebiscite, but it must have been bitter medicine to take and, except for Howden’s own toughness in negotiations, the concession would never have been won. Now, as well as the other benefits for Canada, there was a single big red apple in return for the loss of a large part of Canadian sovereignty. He thought inconsequentially: A is for Apple; A is for Alaska.

There was a single tap upon the study’s double doors. ‘Yes,’ he called.

It was Yarrow, the steward. The soft-footed, ageing major-domo of Number 24 announced, ‘Mr Cawston is here, sir. He informs me it’s very urgent.’ Behind Yarrow, in the upstairs hallway, Howden could see the Finance Minister, wearing a heavy overcoat and scarf, homburg hat in hand.

He called, ‘Come in, Stu.’

Entering the study, Cawston shook his head as Yarrow moved to take his outer clothing. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes;

I’ll leave these here.’ He slipped off the overcoat, folding it over a chair, the hat and scarf beside it. Turning, he smiled automatically, rubbed a hand across his balding head, then, as the door closed behind the steward, his face became sombre. ‘I’ve bad news,’ he announced tersely. ‘About as bad as it can be.’

Howden waited.

Cawston said heavily, ‘The Cabinet is split – right down the middle.’

James Howden allowed the words to sink in before replying.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I was under the impression-‘

‘So was I,’ Cawston affirmed. ‘I thought you had them sold – all of us.’ He gestured deprecatingly. ‘Except for one or two who might have resigned after tomorrow.’

Howden nodded. Since his return from Washington there had been two full cabinet sessions on the Act of Union. The first had followed the pattern of the Defence Committee on Christmas Eve. At the second, enthusiasm had started to generate as advantages to Canada had begun to be seen. There had, of course, been a few dissidents; that was to be expected. He had foreseen, too, the inevitability of one or two resignations – they would have to be accepted and the subsequent disturbance weathered. But not a major cabinet split…

He commanded crisply, ‘Give me the details.’

‘There are nine involved.’

‘Nine!’ So Cawston had not exaggerated when he said ‘down the middle’. It was more than a third of the Cabinet.

‘It wouldn’t have been as many, I’m sure,’ Smiling Stu stated apologetically, ‘if it hadn’t been for the leadership…’

‘Leadership!’ Howden snapped. ‘What leadership?’

‘This is going to surprise you.’ Cawston hesitated, as if anticipating the Prime Minister’s anger. ‘The leader of the revolt is Adrian Nesbitson.’

Stunned, incredulous, James Howden stared.

As if anticipating, Cawston said, ‘There’s no mistake; it’s Adrian Nesbitson. He began two days ago. He persuaded the others.’

‘The fool! That old, useless fool!’

‘No.’ Cawston shook his head firmly. ‘That won’t do. You can’t dismiss him like that.’

‘But we had an agreement. We made a deal.’ The arrangement on the aeroplane had been clear. The Governor Generalship, and in return the ageing Defence Minister’s support…

Cawston declared decisively, ‘Whatever deal you had has gone by default.’

The two men were still standing. Grimly, the Prime Minister asked, ‘Who are the others?’

‘Borden Tayne, George Yhorkis, Aaron Gold, Rita Buchanan…’ Smiling Stu ran quickly through the remaining names. ‘But Adrian is the one who counts. He’s holding them together.’

‘Lucien Perrault is still with us?’ He thought quickly of Quebec: the important French Canadian support.

Cawston nodded.

It was like a bad dream, Howden thought; a nightmare in which ridiculous things had ousted sanity. After a while he would wake up.

There was a knock on the hallway door and Yarrow entered. He announced, ‘Your car is waiting, sir. It’s time to leave for the airport.’

Cawston said urgently, ‘Adrian has become a changed man. It’s almost as if…’ He struggled for a metaphor ‘… as if a mummy had been given blood and come to life. He’s talked with me and I can tell you-‘

‘Don’t tell me!’ This had gone far enough. ‘I’ll talk to him myself.’

James Howden calculated rapidly. Time was ebbing away; there were few remaining hours between now and four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

‘Adrian knows he has to-see you,’ Cawston said. ‘He’s holding himself available.’

‘Where?’

‘The whole group is in Arthur Lexington’s office. I came from there. Arthur’s talking to them; not getting anywhere,

I’m afraid.’

The steward coughed discreetly. Tonight’s schedule, Howden knew was exceptionally tight. He had a vision of the waiting car; the VIP Vanguard warming up at Uplands Airport; the helicopter standing by at Montreal; a packed expectant audience…

He said decisively, ‘Nesbitson must come with me to Montreal. If he leaves for the airport now, he can be on my plane.’

Cawston nodded swiftly. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ He was already on the telephone as Howden left.

Chapter 3

The Prime Minister’s Oldsmobile drove directly to the waiting aircraft.

The Vanguard’s navigation lights flashed rhythmically in the darkness as ground crew, wrapped in hooded parkas, surrounded it like busy moles. A battery cart – ready for starting motors – was plugged into the fuselage.

The chauffeur opened the car door and the Prime Minister alighted. At the foot of the loading ramp, his coat collar tightly clasped against the wind and drifting snow, Brian Richardson was waiting. He" said, without preliminary, ‘The old boy just got here. He’s in your cabin, strapped in, with a scotch and soda in his hand.’

Howden stopped. He asked, ‘Stu told you?’

Richardson nodded.

‘I’ll try reasoning with him,’ Howden said grimly. ‘I don’t know what else I can do.’

‘Have you considered throwing him out?’ The party director grinned dourly. ‘Say, at five thousand feet.’

Despite his own depression, Howden laughed. ‘That way we’d have two martyrs: one in Vancouver, one here.’ He started up the ramp steps, then called over his shoulder, ‘Besides, after today, the news can only get better.’

‘Good luck, chief!’ the party director shouted. But his words were whipped away by the wind.

In the compact VIP drawing-room, its ordered luxury softly lighted, the short pudgy figure of General Nesbitson was strapped into one of the four deep reclining chairs. As Richardson had said, the Defence Minister was holding a drink which he put down as the Prime Minister entered.

Outside there was a whine as the turbo-prop motors came to life.

The flight-sergeant steward hovered behind Howden, who shook his head. ‘Leave everything,’ he ordered curtly. ‘There’s nothing I need and we’d like to be alone.’ He threw his outdoor clothing over one of the spare chairs and sat down facing the older man. One of the cabin reading lights, he noticed, had been turned on. It shone down on Nesbitson’s balding head and pink-cheeked face like an interrogation lamp above a prisoner. Well, Howden thought, perhaps it was an omen of the line he should take.

‘This is a short flight,’ he said peremptorily, ‘and we have very little time. I believe you owe me an explanation.’

The Vanguard was taxi-ing now and, judging by their motion, moving fast. There was to be little delay. Tonight, How-| den knew, they would have priority over everything else in the air.

Momentarily the old man flushed at Howden’s tone. Then he said with surprising firmness, ‘I should have thought the explanation would be clear. Prime Minister. I intend to resign in protest against what you are planning, and so do others.’

James Howden inquired coolly, ‘Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten? – a compact we made. Here, in this aeroplane, ten days ago?’

The old man’s eyes were steadfast. He said evenly, ‘I am ashamed to remember it. I believe we both should be.’

‘Speak of your own shame,’ Howden flared, ‘not mine. I am trying to save this country. You and your kind, looking backward, would destroy it.’

‘If you are saving Canada, why plan to give it away?’ There was a hint of new strength behind the words. Howden remembered what Stu Cawston had said: ‘Adrian is a changed man.’ Physically he seemed less shrunken, to have more stature than before.

‘If you are speaking of the Act of Union,’ the Prime Minister argued, ‘we shall gain far more than we shall give.’

The old man replied bitterly, ‘Disbanding our armed forces; having the Yanks move in without restraint; letting them run our foreign policy – you call that gaining?’

The aeroplane had stopped briefly, then moved forward, gathering speed for take-off. A pattern of runway lights raced by, then disappeared. Now, they were airborne; a moment later, with a thud, the landing gear came up. The Prime Minister calculated: there would be twenty minutes of flying, perhaps less. It was always the same: so little time.

He declared, ‘We’re facing war, and you’re looking at one side only!’

‘I’m looking at the whole,’ Nesbitson insisted, ‘and I tell you that war or not, your Act of Union would be the beginning of the end. Americans would never stop at partial union; they’d want it complete, and we’d be swallowed whole. We’d lose the British flag, the Queen, traditions…’

‘No,’ Howden argued. ‘Those are things we’d keep.’

The old man snorted. ‘How could we? – with the border wide open and Americans including Negroes, Puerto Ricans, flooding in. Our identity would disappear because we’d be outnumbered and people wouldn’t care. What’s more, we’d have racial problems we never knew before. You’d make Toronto another Chicago; Montreal a New Orleans. We have an Immigration Act which you just got through defending. Why throw it away with all the rest?’

‘We’d throw nothing away!’ Howden said fiercely. ‘We’d merely make adjustments. Oh yes, there’ll be problems, I grant you. But none as great as if we stay helpless and alone.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘In terms of defence,’ the Prime Minister insisted, ‘the Act of Union provides for our survival. And economically Canada will have tremendous opportunities. Have you considered the Alaskan plebiscite, which we shall win – Alaska as a Canadian province?’

Nesbitson said gruffly, ‘I’ve considered that every sellout has its thirty pieces of silver.’

A blazing anger swept over Howden. Controlling it with an effort of will, he declared, ‘Despite what you say, we are not surrendering our sovereignty…’

‘No?’ The tone was withering. ‘What good is sovereignty without the power to maintain it?’

Howden declared angrily, ‘We have no such power now, and have never had, except to defend ourselves against small skirmishes. The United States holds the power. By transferring our military strength and opening the border, we increase American strength, which is our own.’