“But they say the civil world is not an army: it’s the will of the people,” cried Somers.
“Will of my grandmother’s old tom-cat. They’ve got no will, except to stop anybody else from having any.”
“I know.”
“Look at Australia. Absolutely fermenting rotten with politicians and the will of the people. Look at the country—going rottener every day, like an old pear.”
“All the democratic world the same.”
“Of course it’s the same. And you may well say Australian soil is waiting to be watered with blood. It’s waiting to be watered with our blood, once England’s got too soft to help herself, let alone us, and the Japs come down this way. They’d squash us like a soft pear.”
“I think it’s quite likely.”
“What?”
“Likely.”
“It’s pretty well a certainty. And would you blame them? If you was thirsty, wouldn’t you pick a ripe pear if it hung on nobody’s tree? Why, of course you would. And who’d blame you.”