Declarations of War - Len Deighton

Declarations of War

Author: Len Deighton

Release: October 21, 1971

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd

Genre: Fiction, War, Short Stories

ISBN-10: 0224006010
ISBN-13: 978-0224006019

Synopsis: A collection of short stories on war.

Declassified by Agent Palmer: Declarations of War by Len Deighton: Classic Deighton but Shorter

Quotes and Lines

‘Wealth is just energy,’ said Stephens. ‘You know; power stations, hydroelectric stuff, plant and factories … even muscle power. Wealth is just energy.’

‘Wealth is time…. It’s the only thing you can’t buy, apart from good health,’ said Wool.

When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war.

The lower windows were shuttered, but the upper ones reflected the bleached sky, their grimy panes glinting dully like fake diamonds in a pawned tiara.

Only half an hour ago he’d been sure that you can’t kill a man with a sheet of paper; now he wasn’t so sure.

‘…It’s tragic the way government after government ignores the warnings that the experts give them.’
There was a long silence. Gerrard said, ‘You’re looking for a deus ex machina.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Brent, his flat voice indicating that he had no curiosity about it.
‘It’s a device that writers use for making their plots end well.’
Brent grunted.
‘An improbable device,’ added Gerrard, ‘for bad writers and unlikely plots.’

There was a long silence. Gerrard said, ‘You’re looking for a deus ex machina.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Brent, his flat voice indicating that he had no curiosity about it.
‘It’s a device that writers use for making their plots end well.’
Brent grunted.
‘An improbable device,’ added Gerrard, ‘for bad writers and unlikely plots.’

‘…Nowadays the investor has too many ways of losing his money and not enough to make more.’

Both armies were ardent novices, stumbling about in confusion and dying by the hundreds because the didn’t know enough about war to know it was time to run away.

And what newspapermen didn’t see, never happened.

“There’s too much to do to waste time hating half the world,’ I said. ‘Too much to build, to mend, to discover. We should have been working together all this time, instead of the two halves of the world rattling swords at each other.’

‘Of course it is, we’re all neurotic. The way I see it, Ben, if you weren’t neurotic you wouldn’t be alert enough to do the job you do.’

Palmer had a Mons Star and had fought from 1914 until 1918. He was a quiet man who said everything in the tone of doleful prayer. Strange, thought Brand, the varying effects of war upon man’s character. It made some men into maniacs and some into monks,

Here was poor dead Palmer, killed on the Somme in 1916, who had continued to parade and be paid and stand unremarked among his live comrades ever since. Palmer was the best shot, but would he aim?