EDWIN ASHTON
And why have you come here, if you don't mind my asking? After all, this is hardly the first place you'd come when you return to England.

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
It's, uh, difficult to explain, Mr. Ashton. I haven't come to tell you things. I haven't come with facts. I've come to, uh, explain something...something Philip asked me to explain to you.

EDWIN
Do you know him well?

MICHAEL
Uh, yes.
(accepting a drink from Edwin)
Thank you. Yes, in a way, we're the same kind of person.

EDWIN
(dismissive)
Except you didn't fight. Now, look, Michael, before you go on, you're sure he's all right? You're not trying to hide something, to soften the blow at all.

MICHAEL
No. He's in no more danger than anybody else in Germany at this time. You see, it isn't a very nice place to be. You can't help but see...
(gesturing)
Oh, uh, the guilt is as much mine as anybody's.

EDWIN
Is it? Don't forget, you were a conscientious objector.

MICHAEL
Yes, but that doesn't let me out, Mr. Ashton. But it's the... It's the shock of actually seeing what we did...all of us.

EDWIN
Well, damn it, we had to. We had no option. You can't just sit back and watch your nation...uh, people...overrun!

MICHAEL
Oh, I know you can't, and we didn't. But when you see the results...
(gasping)
...you start to question it again.

EDWIN
Yes, I know.

MICHAEL
No, you don't.

EDWIN
(forcefully)
Yes, I do, son. I can see how you feel, but it's just that I'm older than you are, and I look at things in a different way.

MICHAEL
But how can you? You haven't seen the famine, the destruction of those people.

EDWIN
I saw the twenties and the thirties...the General Strike. I saw what that did to people...my own family, lad. By God, I lived through that.

MICHAEL
I know, but you haven't seen the bodies rotting in the streets.

EDWIN
(frustrated)
Well, what are...
(composing himself)
Look, Michael, I'm trying to understand, but I'm... I'm trying to see it in things I know.

MICHAEL
I know, I know. Well, anyway, Philip's out there, and the last time I saw him he asked me to explain to you that he wouldn't be coming back.

EDWIN
(stunned)
Not coming back?

MICHAEL
No, not for some time.

EDWIN
Well, we were hoping... I mean, we had a letter some weeks ago.

MICHAEL
Well, it's not the sort of thing you put in a letter, is it?

EDWIN
(angrily)
Well, I'd rather hear that from Philip!

MICHAEL
Well, so... You can see why he should want to stay there.

EDWIN
Yes, I can see, but I'm trying to weigh up my own personal feelings as a father against the interests of millions of strangers.

MICHAEL
There's no comparison. The sum doesn't even exist.

EDWIN
(resentfully)
Are you sure of that, Michael? Not whether it exists or not. Whether it's up to you to judge.

MICHAEL
He's doing what he feels is right...what he thinks he has to do. And he's taking our guilt...everybody's guilt...for us.

EDWIN
(laughing at that remark)
Everybody's guilt! What...for defending ourselves, our own lives?

MICHAEL
Of course.

EDWIN
Well, what the devil do you expect us to do? Let the Nazis cross the Channel, set up camp over here, and lie down and accept it?

(Michael stands up, realising that his visit has been a mistake.)

MICHAEL
I'm sorry, Mr. Ashton. I didn't mean to get involved in this argument. I'm simply here to tell you how Philip feels.

EDWIN
Well, I can see why he wants to stay over there and help people. It's a natural human instinct.
(sternly)
But I'm his father, and as such, I want him back. He's my son.

MICHAEL
I think he'd hoped you'd understand in a different way...understand that he's living up to his principles...
(pointing an accusatory finger)
...the principles that you taught him to believe in.

EDWIN
(confrontationally)
Shall I tell you where those principles came from? I spent the early part of my life fighting oppression. In the end, it got the better of me. But don't you see, that’s why we fought this war...to stamp out an even more violent form of oppression.

MICHAEL
And in the process, we became the oppressors ourselves.

(Edwin scoffs at that notion.)

MICHAEL
Because that's what we are out there...oppressors. And that's why Philip wants to stay and help the Germans...because to him they're not Germans anymore. They're people, like us.

EDWIN
But that doesn't mean that we've done wrong.

MICHAEL
(fervently)
Oh, but it does! Churchill, Hitler... Hitler called it the Third Reich, we called it the British Empire. What's the difference, in the end?

 

(from "A Faint Refrain" by Jonathan Powell)