Assurances Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by J. O. Morgan

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Preface

  Assurances

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  A war-poem both historic and frighteningly topical, Assurances begins in the 1950s during a period of vigilance and dread in the middle of the Cold War: the long stand-off between nuclear powers, where the only defence was the threat of mutually assured destruction.

  Using a mix of versed and unversed passages, Morgan places moments of calm reflection alongside the tensions inherent in guarding against such a permanent threat. A work of variations and possibilities, we hear the thoughts of those involved who are trying to understand and justify their roles. We examine the lives of civilians who are not aware of the impending danger, as well as those who are. We listen to the whirring minds of machines; to the voice of the bomb itself. We spy on enemy agents: always there, always somewhere close at hand.

  Assurances is an intimate, dramatic work for many voices: lyrical, anxious, fragmentary and terrifying; a poem about the nuclear stalemate, the deterrent that is still in place today: how it works and how it might fail, and what will vanish if it does.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J.O. Morgan lives on a small farm in the Scottish Borders. He is the author of five collections of poetry, each a single book-length poem: Natural Mechanical (2009), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, its sequel, Long Cuts (2011), shortlisted for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Award, At Maldon (2013), shortlisted for the Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year Award, In Casting Off and Interference Pattern, shortlisted for the 2016 T.S. Eliot Prize.

  ALSO BY J. O. MORGAN

  Natural Mechanical

  Long Cuts

  At Maldon

  In Casting Off

  Interference Pattern

  ASSURANCES

  J. O. Morgan

  … have I then done so grievously amiss that by no means it may be amended?

  Thomas Wyatt

  During the early years of the Cold War my father, in his capacity as an R.A.F. officer, was involved in that aspect of bomber-command which dealt with maintaining the Airborne Nuclear Deterrent, as it then was. The following takes what I’ve gleaned of his role over those years and represents it here as a work of variations and possibilities. The scenario itself may be one of routine and repetition, but what I’ve chosen to draw from it is the undercurrent of waiting, in the ever-present awareness of what is lost when such a waiting is permitted to play out.

  J.O.

  Born from a need to counteract the threat.

  Now that such a threat.

  For threats have been made.

  Now that the enemy has shown that they.

  And in sailing so close.

  In having simply sailed.

  That they could even consider.

  That their so-called threats.

  That they might launch, and in so launching.

  As such a clear need has arisen.

  And in its rising.

  In its staying up.

  A need to negate, to nullify, to rule out.

  By our having in place.

  By our simply having.

  Because if the enemy did.

  If the enemy chose.

  If, at some point, at length, the enemy.

  Because whatever they might send our way.

  It wouldn’t take long for it to.

  From the precise moment of notification.

  It wouldn’t be.

  It would soon be.

  It wouldn’t.

  Four minutes is all we could really expect as.

  That’s not sufficient for any.

  In four minutes there’s not enough.

  In such a small window there isn’t.

  Hardly even to get out of. Let alone.

  From that initial alarm. From our hearing.

  So any counteracting measure must by needs balance out.

  And our own force, already deployed, would.

  Each and every, at the merest drop.

  Always a few on rotation, openly.

  Just circling. Waiting to.

  Not wanting. But ready to.

  In doing so the enemy will know.

  And they can be sure that if ever they determined.

  And, if so they did, then we too.

  And their knowing this will ensure that.

  And this in turn will dissuade them from ever.

  And they must not think that we would never.

  All that’s needed is to hold in place.

  At all hours of. At all days of.

  For weeks at. For however many years.

  Till the threat itself.

  For so long as such a threat.

  In order that such threats might be maintained.

  So if indeed it came to pass.

  And if it was decreed. If it was done.

  Then of those procedures we have.

  It would all be ready.

  The decision itself would already.

  And it would all be over in a flash.

  In any case it just wouldn’t do to be so reliant on automated missile dumps. Each clutch of them tightly siloed, static, and all of their noses upturned. It’s far too tempting a target.

  (as with matchsticks

  lying snug in their box

  their smooth pink heads

  together seeming to yearn

  for just one spark to descend

  and set them all ablaze)

  Keeping the bombs on the move may be easy enough. Effective delivery is quite a separate matter. Conventional aircraft can’t sneak in that close, below radar, at speed, without wrenching their wings. What’s needed is something to force those lower harder airs apart. Something all wing.

  (as with an axe-head

  its lump-iron worked

  into a simple solid wedge

  that digs its edge between

  the wet fibres of wood

  to drive them apart)

  This then is left to the Vulcans. The last of the big V-bombers. The undisputed starlets of the show. Though they can’t complete their act all on their own. They have their earnest accomplices, their fawning entourage.

  (as with the narrowmindedness of combine harvesters

  how steadily they keep their line

  along the five-mile-field they’ve been assigned

  never slowing never wavering

  while little trucks and tractors

  at regular intervals

  rush by to tend to their needs

  easing them of their grain-loads

  loading up straw bales flopped out in their wake)

  It’s like that with the Vulcans, but reversed. First there are the Victors, old bombers themselves, now fitted for refuelling their sleeker sprightlier counterparts, lumbering in and out to top them up. And then there are the Argosies, repurposed from cargo to hauling comms equipment, skulking at the fringes to relay the codes.

  (as with a long-distance runner

  who just keeps going and going

  even when down to the dregs

  the fumes of reserve energy

  whose team idles out at

  a pre-agreed checkpoint

  with flasks of essential fluid

  to be clutched at and guzzled

  the cartons discarded

  left far behind as the runner

  goes wearily endlessly galloping on)

  They all have their roles. Each is in some way vital to the work they’ve been given to do. Though the Vulcans take the most acclaim. They’re the ones w
ho deliver the bombs. They’re the ones least likely to come back.

  She has an easy unassuming job:

  taking their dictations, filing papers,

  making strong tea on request. She sets down

  her tray amid a hush of deep discussion

  that rises again as soon as she’s pulled the door to,

  ensuring they never can tell

  if or when she might linger.

  (… the draughtsman, with only

  a few charcoal scratches

  summons the sense of a shape)

  So commonplace within their staff,

  so meek, so diligent. They choose

  to trust her with more sensitive documents.

  Thick buff folders stamped in red,

  their trailing ribbons only loosely tied.

  (… the wine-cork presented,

  an offhand sniff, a nod,

  a measure poured out)

  She holds the combination for the safe.

  She has the knack. Can tick the dial round

  with precision and haste, as effortlessly

  as if she were spinning pennies on a plate.

  They’ve been lax. They leave her

  for hours alone in the office.

  (… at the heart of the village

  the beat of the blacksmith,

  never missing his mark)

  The warden knows her well enough

  on site not to ask for her pass.

  Her landlady always ensures

  she eats a good breakfast,

  doesn’t want her fading away,

  doesn’t bother her when she sits

  all evening cooped up in her room

  pen poised over postcards:

  her simplified reports, condensed

  to fit within the space.

  (… perched on the lip of the nest

  the fledglings tease the air

  with feathers soft and wet)

  They make it too easy for her. They know

  she is somebody they can rely on,

  allowing her to attend the early tests,

  lending her a pair of powerful binoculars,

  leaving her to type up detailed observations.

  Still she is cautious. Still she makes sure

  she cannot be found out.

  (… emerging from

  the bitter molasses,

  the brittle sugar-cube)

  An open address to an aunt in the city.

  Her words to be explained away

  as fanciful, as mere frivolity.

  No envelope for them to steam,

  no microdot beneath the postage stamp.

  She slips the card between the red lips

  of the pillar-box in early morning,

  ignoring the clink-fingered milkman

  collecting the empties, who gazes,

  who smiles at her as she draws near.

  (… when no more cuts

  can better its brilliance

  then may the sapphire be set)

  No close friends. No one her age nearby.

  Only children or the very old.

  And her lying long on cool summer evenings

  amid the daisied grasses of the hill,

  listening to the valley fill

  with the rip and howl of a jet

  passing by at low level.

  Of the fleet there will always be five or six up. On manoeuvres. On continuation. Very high above the Arctic. Though not much to manoeuvre around at thirty thousand feet. And it’s far too simplistic to think of them merely circling.

  (like a column of unblinking vultures

  drifting on tombstone wings

  waiting for the moment to swoop in

  to engage in one quick heavy dive

  then to pick at whatever may be left)

  Because it’s never quite like that. To soar suggests slowness and big jets don’t do lazy spirals. They cut their sky-line at eight miles a minute. The only curve they hold to is that of the earth.

  (like waterfowl like ducks

  with their wide turning-circles

  a constant furious flapping being

  all that keeps them up or else like swans

  in their hard metal whiteness

  high fliers pushing on and out

  from the cool dark ripply wake

  of their runway lake)

  From point to point, though the pilot sees nothing but sky. The fellow behind, the maps-man with pencil and pad, who tells the pilot where to go. The craft muscled sharply onto a new cut at each invisible marker.

  (like the workaday mallard

  you never knew was there

  till it bursts from its cover of reeds

  tip-toeing the water to take off

  to make a circuit of the trees

  then softening back to the river

  when nothing is found amiss)

  They’ll do that for hours: sketching their vapoury lines, their giant polygons. Every while topped up by the likewise speeding tankers. Just in case the strike-command comes through. Keeping full-fuelled and alert in the high thin air.

  And two thousand miles south

  or thereabouts: a lonely Argosy

  makes its own wide angular circuits,

  holding well above the ocean clouds.

  Not as sleek, as well-toned, as valued

  as the bomber it acts as a messenger for;

  its four great propellers working hard

  to drag it so fast through the air

  its own ungainliness is forced aloft;

  a mass not permitted to sag,

  to sink back down.

  And in its airy belly: ranks of bulky electronics.

  Radio-transceivers. Decryption-engines. Signal-jammers.

  Tele-printers with their spools of flimsy ticker-tape,

  each rag-edged end poking out.

  Three full sets, set apart, but with

  their diodes flickering in unison.

  One set as a failsafe for the next,

  and the last set again for the first.

  Unless, when that critical code comes through,

  there is, by chance,

  a fault in one of the radios

  where a single valve,

  unseen inside, has popped,

  and elsewhere

  one of the jammers

  has got itself jammed,

  and further down the fuselage

  within the back-up of the back-up

  an auto-decoder has crossed its wires

  and fused a crucial component, releasing

  a brief imperceptible spit of metal-smoke.

  A minor break in each production-line.

  So the ticker-tapes protruding stay unprinted.

  Their tissued cleanliness is left to droop.

  And the sudden surge of orders,

  neither intercepted nor re-sent:

  unnoticed, non-existent, nullified.

  The aircraft sails on none-the-wiser.

  No completion. Nothing to be done.

  They’re never all up at once, of course. Not unless attack is imminent. Just as they’re not all housed in a single spot. Different squadrons, scattered in prime locations. As close as can be to the target, but not too close.

  (as nesting sites found near

  to hunting grounds an inborn need

  to be familiar with the territory

  streamlines shortcuts shadows

  as poachers who hug the borders

  of forbidden fields who lie still

  waiting watching but not too close)

  A different set of codes for each squadron, based on enemy proximity. Double-encrypted, just to be sure. A packet of hastily gauged co-ordinates, sent via high frequency. All speed-of-light stuff, like any radio, but better this way for long distance.

  (each set of ears attuned

  tensed even when lounging

  sleeping off a meal yet still

  ready for that spark of noise

  a prickle
to pierce the calm)

  Not that one can guarantee the bombers will receive it. Not in a single frantic burst of complicated codings. Not directly from control in any case. That’s the problem with high frequency: capricious, twitchy, painfully thin. Yes, it might, it should, go horizontal. Or it might ping straight up into space.

  When he wakes each day he winds his watch.

  The notched crown growing stubborn as

  the hair-thin spring inside is coiled tight.

  A precision piece, special issue for navigators,

  chronographic. Its circular motions divided,

  subdivided, portioned out on separate dials.

  At the back of the briefing room he winds it.

  The webbing unbuckled, slipped from his slender wrist.

  The bright steel poised between his fingertips.

  A five-loop strap in airforce grey, the scratchy nylon

  softened up by sweat, by daily grime.

  He cleans the casing with a cotton bud.

  When there is radio-silence he winds it.

  The backward ratchet tick held up to his ear outdoing

  the thrum of propellers, the hurricane hiss of the air.

  Its sweep-hand zeroed with a double click.

  Its distance-measure matched to universal machinations

  echoed by its dark insides.

  When settling down for bed he winds it,

  glimpsing the sharp green glow of its dials

  in putting out the light.

  Each minute mark, each stuttering hand,

  adorned with dabs of luminescent paint.

  The stored-up brightnesses of day now softly given back.

  Attack plan for the Vulcans is to climb to high level and loiter. Then if the call, the code, the command comes through: to drop below the radar-line for final approach. Returning once more above the clouds. If returning is still possible.

  (high and the world is made

  delicate in its tinyness

  an intricately moving map

  an oil painting all too detailed

  for its features to be resolved

  its speck-shapes separated out)

  In the back of the Argosy the codes-man sits with a cipher book on one knee a puzzle book on the other. Cryptic crosswords, complex equations, translations from Latin or Greek. Anything to keep his mind active, heightened. Just in case his skills are at some point required.

  (low and the realities

  of land and lake and hill

  rush by too fast to be considered

  for more than the briefest of moments

  as quickly ignorable