PHILIP ASHTON
What happened in the pub, then, Dad?

EDWIN ASHTON
Hmm? Oh, nothing. They put that cardstock up there. You know the one. You see them all over the place: "In this house, we're not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist."

PHILIP
So?

EDWIN
What do they take us for, morons?

PHILIP
Do you think Hitler's going to win?

EDWIN
I don't know, but the possibility... Of course it's a possibility. Stalin shaking hands with him, Joe Kennedy warning the Yanks to keep out because we're finished, and half the men in our own government pulling their punches because they'd rather be fighting the Reds.

PHILIP
Do you really believe that?

EDWIN
I don't believe anything anymore. I don't believe the figures they give us about the planes they shoot down. You add them up. We've wiped out the whole Luftwaffe twice over.

PHILIP
(smiling)
I suppose it's good for morale.

EDWIN
Not for mine, it's not. Have you ever read a book called Falsehood in Wartime?

PHILIP
Ponsonby?

EDWIN
That's it...about the lies they told us in the last war. And we fell for it.

(Annoyed by her husband's incessant political talk, Jean walks toward the door.)

JEAN ASHTON
(to Philip)
See? That’s how he goes on.

(She leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.)

EDWIN
What rattles me, Phil, isn't anything the Germans might do. It's what we're doing to ourselves. People have stopped thinking. They just react...like animals. They've smashed up poor old Joe Bracchia's café just because he's an Italian.

PHILIP
Yes, that was bad.

EDWIN
It's as if every twenty years or so we go raving mad like lemmings. But you can't say these things. People will howl you down. They just don't want to listen.

PHILIP
Isn't that understandable, though? I mean, does it really help talking like this? You see, I think it's the wrong time, Dad. I think we ought to finish this job first.

EDWIN
Heh! Is, uh... Is that what you thought when you went down to Spain?

PHILIP
Yes, it was. And I wish a few more people had thought the same, too. See, that's what went wrong in Spain, Dad. Too many people got carried away by side issues, and they all ended up fighting amongst themselves.

EDWIN
If we do that, Hitler will have us where he wants us.

 

(from "If It's Got Your Number on It" by Elaine Morgan)