Introduction

An Apocalypse in St. James's Park

I have never before been surprised by an apocalyptic dream, quite simply because I have never, if my waking memory serves me aright, had one. The surprise came during the dream, which started ordinarily enough; as commonplace in their dreaminess, my dreams, as to be indistinguishable in my memory, one from another. Sleeping in arborial Connecticut, I found myself dreaming in urban England, a country I very rarely visit although I was once a native. Sherry had been served on silver salvers to a middle-aged group of us standing around rather formally in a drawing room in Queen Anne's Gate (a street, in spite of its name, that backs on to St. James's Park in London). Large French windows opened onto a terrace which overlooked a walled garden and the Park beyond. A ceremonial group stood in the garden, some of them in uniform. Is this an Embassy I am in? I wondered. For I was conscious, in addition to the stiffness and formality of everyone, that they seemed as unacquainted with one another as I was with any of them. Why that should have suggested a diplomatic atmosphere I cannot say, but that was my impression. Perhaps it was their artificial conviviality?--that and that so many of the men wore uniforms. Unable to find anyone I knew, I ventured out onto the terrace to get a closer look at the ceremonial group in the garden. To my surprise I saw two Buddhist monks in saffron robes standing on either side of a great gong. The semi-circle of uniformed and formally attired men faced the two monks with an expectant air, as if waiting for the music to start, or a speech to be made. But silence was intervening; not a soul seemed to have anything to say. In the distance, across the corner of St. James's Park, a parade seemed to be taking place. One heard the tuck of drums and the thin shriek of a Guard's Sergeant-Major carried on the breeze. His command was followed by the skirl of bagpipes and the hesitating tread of the slow-march. It was a sad tune, a pibroch or a dirge. I remembered that beyond the Horse Guards' parade ground, which I could just see through the wintry trees, lay the Cenotaph, the memorial for Britain's dead in two World Wars. As if to confirm a modest piece of deduction I looked around to see if anyone had red poppies in their button-holes, and, yes indeed, some had.

So it was Armistice Day, November 11th, the day it was All Quiet on the Western Front in the War to End Wars, also used by the British to commemorate the lesser carnage of 1939-45. But why the Buddhist monks? There were no other Orientals present. The rest of the gathering seemed to be polyglot Western European. Just then the music in the distance stopped and the monk to the right of the gong looked up at us on the terrace. His face was of a Mongolian cast, he might have been Sikkimese or Thai. It was a serene face, almost smiling, in odd contrast to each of the Caucasian faces around us, who seemed to be suffering from some internal pain, as does a person {orced to hold their breath for too long. He gazed around at us reassuringly and raised his arms to show us the staff with which he was about to strike the gong. I looked back into the room at the erstwhile sherry drinkers. They were standing in little knots, eagerly holding out their empty glasses to waiters who offered more sherry, or stronger stuff-whiskey or gin. Then came the sound of the staff hitting the gong, the first of twelve well-spaced strokes. The drinkers seemed to shrink from the sonorous notes, as if from unseen blows. They shuffled away from the windows towards the back of the room; but facing the light, the hazy sunlight of the wintry afternoon in the Park. I had still spoken to no one. But now I went up to one of the middle-aged English ladies in her Sunday best, hatted and shod as if for a Buck House garden party. "Aren't you having a drink?" she asked me, in some astonishment, before I could speak. "Why do the drinks seem so important to everyone?" I asked rather rudely, but obsessed, suddenly, with the mystery of these urgent drinkers, on an occasion, which, while always melancholy, had never seemed to call for desperate drinking; nor for this mood of agonized suspense that I sensed in everyone. "You mean you don't think they'll do it?" she asked, incredulously. "They?" I was quite at sea. "Good Heavens, man! The Russians. It's been seven weeks now."