SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
STRIX
The figures given for the number of•Russian troops still in Czechoslovakia vary widely; but the Red Army contingent which took part in the Warsaw Pact manoeuvres seems never to have been far in excess of 20,000 and to have consisted of specialist units—mainly signals— rather than of field formations. The deploy- ment of these forces has, on the scanty avail- able evidence, been curiously unminatory. If they had requisitioned an airfield, pleading ad- ministrative necessity, the need to keep military traffic off the roads during the holiday season and so on, the Czechs would have had a sort of Trojan Horse on their hands; it would have been impossible to ignore, and difficult not to be unnerved by, the threat of a rapid airborne build-up. But so far the Red Army units have done little more than drag their feet; if they are loitering with intent, it is not easy to see, in military terms, what that intent is.
Some of them have driven off into strategic irrelevance on the long road to the Ukraine which writhes picturesquely over the forest- clad foothills of the Tatra, with ruined castles dominating the passes and geese disputing the right of way through villages; there is vir- tually no traffic on the road and at this time of year the men and women picking cherries from the trees that line it in the valleys rest their ladders on the highway with complete insouciance. The road leads into the Zakar- patskaya region of the Ukraine, a mongrel territory which Czechoslovakia, after gaining it from Hungary after the First World War, 'ceded' to Russia after the Second. The deso- late place at which you cross the frontier is called, rather ominously, Chop.
Night thoughts
To claim that I fall asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow would be only a very slight exaggeration. While cleaning my teeth, how- ever, I always switch the bedside wireless on and, so swift is my transit to the Land of Nod, I quite often fail to switch it off. This means that I freak out to the sound of voices commenting on the news, airing the opinions of citizens in `Listening Post' or describing the day's proceedings in Parliament. One doesn't normally go to sleep while other people are talking, yet for a long time this experience (of which one is less than semi-conscious at the time) has been reminding me of something, - producing that 'I have been here before' feel- ing; and I have just remembered what the something was.
Years ago, at an impressionable age, I spent many nights in small Chinese inns. In these far from commodious establishments the rooms are not sound-proof and, since the Chinese are keen conversationalists, the sound of their voices accompanied one into a coma. I was not proficient in their language but I was struck by the frequency with which the words kwai alien recurred; 'they seem,' I noted at one stage in my diary, 'always to be talking about money.' So, now, do we. Prices and incomes, devaluation, gold and convertible currency re- serves, hire purchase, wage freeze, takeovers— these form the burden of the half-heard, superfluous lullaby which follows me across the threshold of oblivion. Our preoccupation with these (to me) dreary topics is surely a new thing, but I suppose one oughtn't to complain about it. Back in my old haunts, after all, the muleteers are boring each other to death ‘A ith the Thoughts of Chairman Mao.
Mum
It had poured with rain most of the morning, but the sun shone strongly. The French partridge had brought her eight chicks out on to the farm road to dry themselves. I stopped the car as soon as I saw her and she stopped scuttling away from it almost at once. The chicks, about half the size of sparrows, caught up with her, started sunbathing, dusting them- selves and pecking up grit. Wanting to get her off the road out of harm's way, I eased the car gently forward; but she seemed to feel that her brood hadn't had a chance to dry out properly and merely pattered apprehensively farther down the road, closely followed by her retinue.
As in a human family, there was the inevit- able Tail-Arse Charlie, who had wandered off into the grass verge and paid no attention to her discreet but exigent clucks. (Perhaps they were drowned by the strong breeze; because of its capacity to interrupt communications, wind is a great enemy to young game birds, especially when a brood gets scattered in a sudden alarm.) But after an anxious half- minute, Charlie emerged and went pedalling frantically after his brothers and sisters, and they all started sunning themselves again. Then three small boys on bicycles swished past from behind me. The hen flew left into the barley, the chicks went right into the grass. Two minutes later I heard her clucking, and the whole brood filed across the road to join her in the cornfield, making little practice flourishes with their not yet airworthy wings. When they were all out of sight I drove on, marvelling in my simple-minded way at the delicate apparatus of emotion and instinct and intelligence which I had seen at work.
Side-splitting?
A writer is always gratified when another writer seeks his permission to quote from his work. This is particularly so when the first writer is a would-be humorist, while the second is clearly a serious fellow, tackling a serious and universal theme. The wag reminds him- self that there is many a true word spoken in jest and dreams briefly of the same sort of belated recognition that came to the Fool in King Lear when they stopped giving the part to a girL His ego expands. I know mine did when I received a request of this kind last week from a distinguished surgeon in Illinois. I rather wish, though, that be had not revealed the title of the book in which he wishes to include a small slab of my jewelled prose; it is going to be called Abdominal Pain.
The smack of firm government
In the House of Lords last week Lord Beswick announced that, after lengthy con- sideration, 'it has not been found possible [sic] to make any concessions' to book publishers in respect of sEr. The best I can do,' he went on, 'is to say that the Publishers' Association has been told that the Government do not feel precluded from reconsidering the matter when circumstances are more favourable.'
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