A rash of Nevil Shute

It's like a garden, this place, he said sullenly, It all runs that smooth and rich. An' up there [the North], where Ah come from, there's the workers sweating in the factories. In the half-dark and the rain, and never to see the sun clear, for the sky's that mucky. He eyed me dourly. Conditions what you've never dreamed of. You come up north, and Ah'll show you something.

No. it's not another extract from Hard Times, but from a very different novel: Nevil Shute's So Disdained (1928).    

                                 Nevil Shute (1899-1960)

I had a rash of collecting Shute's books, in Pan paperbacks, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I have ten of them, seven of them written prior to 1950, when the Shute family moved to Australia. Although I have Slide Rule (1954) - his autobiography; The Rainbow and the Rose (1958) and Trustee from the Toolroom (1960); I did not purchase, and have never read, perhaps his most famous novels - A Town Like Alice (1950), On the Beach (1957) or Requiem for a Wren (1953), the former two being made into highly regarded movie films. Nearly fifty years have passed since I read those ten, but I recall enjoying the narrative drive of a good story-teller. 

So Disdained was written before the rise of Hitler and when the major threat to Britain appeared to come from the Soviet Union. Moreover, the General Strike had occurred only a couple of years before and there were suspicions about the infiltration of socialist groups by the Russians. Years later in his The Far Country (1952) and In the Wet (1953), Shute makes clear his dislike of Socialism, which is bleeding England dry. The Nitter brothers, both Communists from Bradford, in So Disdained, are in fact rather different from each other. John, who keeps the hairdressing establishment had been 'softened' by living in the south for a decade, whereas his clever brother, Stephen - all edges and rough corners - was succinctly summed up in the quotation at the top of this blog. Stephen fits naturally into the main theme of the novel - the development of secret weaponry, political and social subversion, espionage and counter espionage.

Peter Moran (who narrates the story), who had flown in the Great War, is now an agent  caring for the estate of Under in West Sussex. One wet night, he picks up a fellow pilot, Maurice Lenden, who is a mercenary who has forced landed his plane nearby. He had taken photographs of a naval construction in Portsmouth Harbour. Moran shelters Lenden and hides his plane. The quandry facing Moran is that which E.M. Forster expressed: If I had to choose between my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.  Lenden is not a friend, but he is part of that comradeship of the skies. Moran, in some ways, betrays both Lenden and his country: he does not report the man but secretly exposes the photographic plates to render them useless.

The story builds to a climax. When Lenden pursues Stephen Nitter and another Communist to Italy, Moran uses the former's aeroplane  to follow. The final scene - an attack on the communists' lair, with the support of local Italian fascists, leads to Lenden's death. He redeems himself by smashing the plates just before dying, not knowing they were already useless. It is telling that, whereas the communists are definitely the 'baddies', the fascists are pictured in a positive light. Winston Churchill was an admirer of Fascism until quite late in the day, as were many other high-ranking British politicians.

Sheila Darle, niece of the owner of the estate, provides what little romance is in the book. However, again, the issue of loyalty is posed. She chooses to support Moran's actions, even though she is soon aware of everything. By the end of the novel, their mutual love declared, it is clear she and Moran will get married. Lady Arner and Mollie, Lenden's wife, play but bit parts. 

The story is quite a slight, simple tale (perhaps spoiled on a couple of occasions by too detailed an account of aircraft engines, for the average reader); but its setting is a very realistic one for 1928. It poses questions about honour, loyalty, friendship and love. Shute is still finding his feet as a novelist, but the story line flows well and coherently.