Casement:

#10, October 14, 2003

Interrogare (Act 1)

This play is set in 1916 at the time of the Easter Rising in Ireland. It focuses on the interrogation and trial of Sir Roger Casement, which ended in his execution at the end of that year. There has been much debate about the Casement trial and execution, about whether it was a miscarriage of justice, and about whether the diaries that were produced for American consumption were forged by British intelligence in order to ensure that Casement’s execution would not cause an outcry of indignation in the United States (thereby diminishing the likelihood that the Americans would join the British Empire in its war against Germany). This play brings a couple of new elements to this debate. First, it focuses on the fact that the person who interrogated Casement, Basil Thomson, was an anthropologist of some renown in his own right. Thus, in light of Casement’s earlier work in the Congo and Putumayo studying conditions of workers in the face of colonial capitalist exploitation, the interrogation can be imagined as the coming together of two competing anthropological perspectives of empire. Second, it draws attention to the fact, never previously noted before, that the person who had the means and ability to forge sections of and insert passages into the diaries (which I strongly suspect to be the case, since the British intelligence took pride in their ability to do just this kind of thing), had himself demonstrated a peculiar fascination for native sexual practices, inserting into his study of Fiji passages that had to be written in Latin to get around obscenity laws. The fact that Thomson would later be charged with public indecency for exposing himself in Hyde Park a few years after the end of the war suggests that such speculation about his role in the potential forging of the diaries is not unwarranted.

Regarding the play format: “Interrogare” is an experiment in approaching historical writing through a medium seldom used by the historian. Insofar as it might be considered for production, it is most likely something that might transfer easily to the radio, but would need further development with regard to stage production.

Scene 1. Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard and Sir Reginald, Hall head of Naval Intelligence, waiting impatiently together in a Scotland Yard office. The telephone rings. Thomson picks up the receiver and listens to the person on the other end.

Thomson:- No, really? What a surprise!... Good. Thank you. We look forward to welcoming him in the morning. [Replacing the receiver and turning to Sir Reginald] Our bird has not flown. We have him, and we have the arms shipment too. Well done, Sir Reginald. You should congratulate the code breakers down in Room 40 O.B.

Hall:- Why did you act so surprised on the phone, Basil? We’ve been expecting the man for weeks. We’ve decoded every message the Germans have sent out.

Thomson:- I know. It’s just we can never be sure who is a German spy, and we don’t want anyone outside our small circle knowing that we are able to break all the German codes. That would give the game away, wouldn’t you say. Anyway, I think all is prepared. We have the man’s trunk in our possession, and we have several men working through those diaries. It is just lucky that we haven’t needed them before now.

Hall:- Yes, how is that work going? It must be difficult forging diaries – surely Casement’s whereabouts on each day can be testified to by the people he met. Will they not be skeptical about the revelations?

Thomson:- Well, we have certain things going for us. First, all our work around here is based on the premise that people are gullible. Intelligence really cannot achieve its goals unless it can play upon people’s ignorance. If we can get Americans to believe our forged documents showing that the Germans were engaging in virtual cannibalism in Belgium, we can do a small thing like revealing a homosexual predator to the public. Moreover, we will control how the information is released – we are in a war and official secrets laws allow us to limit access to the documents. Will they be believed? Everyone thinks that Casement is an upstanding gentleman, so on the face of it one would think that the revelations will be rejected out of hand. But there is that reserve of the real gentleman. He is a loner, and so there are many times when people have no idea what he is up to. When a man walks off into the bush accompanied only by a native boy, it isn’t hard to trigger a rumor or two. We will just be filling in the blanks in people’s imaginations. And, don’t forget, Casement does appear to have an interest in matters of sex. We have that book that he brought back from Putumayo in our hands, and it’s providing us with some helpful passages for insertion into the diaries. Remember, Sir Reginald, there is no smoke without fire; Casement has created some smoke, we only have to produce the fire.

Hall:- But, Basil, do you not have qualms about doing this? It’s hardly cricket really, is it?

Thomson:- It is all for the larger good. We are in a war, damn it, struggling to survive as a race, a nation, and an empire; these are the exigencies of war. We are in his majesty’s service, and we are only doing what the Germans would be doing if they had the gumption. Remember, it is they who are funding the likes of Casement and all those California Sikhs. We cannot allow a rebellion to bring down our empire, while we are trying to uphold decency against the German threat.

Hall:- Well, it does seem as though we are in good shape. We should reconvene tomorrow and give this fellow a warm reception.

Scene 2: Casement alone in a cell on a corner of the stage.

Casement:- Why is it that I don’t remember the words to those songs anymore? How did it go? [attempts to sing an Irish ballad] But that sounds more like a London Music Hall song? Or am I borrowing it from a German waltz? [turns song into German ballad]. Well, there’s a choice we’ve left ourselves – betrayal by the King, or betrayal by the Kaiser. But then, I suppose, I will be seen as the one who has betrayed his King. They have dragged me to this godforsaken prison, taking me from my own country, where they found me, to another jurisdiction, and they will accuse me of betraying my country. But, my country is Ireland. I can be judged only by a jury of my peers – and they are all Irish. Let us see how the Lord Chancellor deals with that conundrum. Ah! (after reflection) but he is our friend Smith, the celebrated Lord Birkenhead; he knows a good tune or two from the Battle of the Boyne – but they will have an Orange flavor to them. What were those songs I used to sing as I marched through the Congo, as I walked to the mines of Putumayo? They seemed to flow from inside me then. But even if I can recall them now, they will only reach to the walls of this infernal cell.

Scene 3: Thomson and Hall stand welcoming a handcuffed prisoner into the room. The policeman releases the handcuffs, and Thomson beckons Casement to be seated. Policeman exits.

Thomson:- Sir Roger Casement, I presume. This is Sir Reginald Hall, chief of Naval Intelligence, and I am Chief Inspector Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard. Welcome to our humble abode. I hope you have found everything to your taste.

Casement:- Quite adequate, thank you. Though we might have met under more pleasant circumstances.

Hall:- Sir Roger,...

Casement:- (interrupting) Before we continue, you should know that I swore off my peerage after the Home Rule debacle.

Thomson:- Well you seem to have been using that moniker in your travels around America and Europe.

Casement:- Indeed, one can get more attention from the Americans as "Sir Roger", rather than as a plain old mister – especially when one is competing with so many lords and ladies who fan out from the British Embassy to besot the unsuspecting natives. It would have been so much better had the Americans developed their own aristocracy; then they wouldn’t have become so enamored of yours. Just look at the way they lap up those lies peddled by Lord Bryce. No doubt, the Americans will be dragged into the war merely so that they can grovel for the kinds of trinkets that a second-tier aristocrat would leave out as a boxing-day present for the community poor.

Hall:- I don’t…

Casement:- Anyway, the work I did to earn my knighthood cannot be taken away from me, whatever your Special Branch has undertaken to besmirch my name. My work in the Congo and Putumayo will be remembered, whatever you choose to call me now.

Hall:- Well, I must say, Sir Edward Grey, your former employer at the Foreign Office, has shown us a delightful letter from you thanking him for the knighthood. That is surely less than four years old.

Casement:- Well a lot has happened in the last four years, and I feel that I have used my retirement from the consular service to best advantage under the circumstances. Since my days in the Foreign Office giving unwanted advice to the likes of Sir Edward I have been in many a foreign office.

Thomson:- You willingly admit, then, that your work has been treasonous, Sir Roger. A knighted servant of the crown working with the King’s enemies to bring down the British Empire.

Casement:- That would be your interpretation, no doubt. I see it somewhat differently, Sir…or is it not Sir Basil yet?

Hall:- No, my esteemed colleague has yet to find himself in the New Year’s honor’s list, but one can only imagine that as our much celebrated spycatcher, he will be honored forthwith. After all, you are here largely owing to his tireless efforts.

Casement:- Much obliged, I’m sure. But I would imagine that the purpose of your interrogation is to find out what exactly I was doing before I got here, and what my view of it all was, even if you do stick to your charge that I am a traitor when you haul me before the court.

Hall:- I’m not sure you really need to be teaching us how to do our work, Mr. Casement. But, it is true, you certainly do have a lot of explaining to do. Take Germany, for example. We have been informed of your efforts to raise an Irish battalion from prisoners of war to fight for the Germans against us. I am not sure how that can be construed other than as giving aid and comfort to his majesty’s enemies. What say you to that?

Casement:- I am sure that your sources have indeed kept you well informed. I have been shadowed around the United States, you have attempted to have me killed in Sweden, and even in Germany it was obvious that you had me under surveillance – Americans were they?

Thomson:- [interrupting Hall] I am sure we are not going to divulge our methods to you, Sir Roger. If you are a German spy, as we think you are, then anyone who comes to visit you as you await trial will be able to acquire some useful information. Besides, we want you to account for yourself; we know quite well what we’ve been up to.

Casement:- Well, I have little reason to account for my work in Germany. I am sure my lawyers will acquit themselves in my defense, and you will no doubt find out from them. But I will just say this. Everything that I have done is defensible within the context of Ireland, and her people’s rights within the British Empire. I endeavored to secure troops and weapons for an Irish Brigade, soldiers who would stand up to the Ulster Volunteers and a British armythat showed its willingness to mutiny against the Crown and Parliament’s laws back in ’14. In those terms, I am the patriot, for Ireland of course, but within certain parameters, for the Empire too. The traitors may be found in high office, turning English, Scottish and Irish workers into manure for the pock-marked fields of Flanders. But I have said too much already.

Thomson:- Now I think we are much obliged – both for the information, and for your intimation that we ourselves are the traitors. I think Sir Reginald and I will find that of great amusement later.

Casement:- And I care for your amusement? You tire me gentlemen, I have no more to say at this juncture. You have brought me from Ireland against my wishes, virtually kidnapping me from my own country…

Hall:- You, Sir, were endeavoring to invade part of the British Empire. It matters not where we take you for interrogation within that empire. I suggest we terminate these proceedings. There will be time for us to find out all we need to know. Guards! [they enter] Please show Sir Roger to his quarters. Make sure that everything is hung, drawn, and quartered to his specifications.

Casement:- I am glad that you two old-boys find so much to amuse yourselves in your battle to save your empire. I am sure I have much to look forward to from your kindnesses. Goodbye.

Scene 4: Casement in his cell asleep. A man [Lord Bryce] is seated behind a semi-transparent screen. Casement begins to sleep talk and while doing so, rises from the bed in animated conversation with Bryce, who, as the screen lifts, emerges from his dream.

Bryce:- Where did you lose your way, Roger? You always seemed to be on the right side of history.

Casement:- You are Irish, Bryce. It is you who have lost your way.

Bryce:- I have seen the alternative to the British, Roger. It is a lot of innocent civilians, killed or raped by the marauding Hun. You know what that is all about, Roger. You’ve seen it in the Congo. Those Belgians were close to the Teutonic mindset in their handling of the natives. Everyone is an inferior as far as the Germans are concerned. At least the English have shared their Empire with us.

Casement:- Shared!! Shared!! You fool. You have been taken in by so many lies with regard to Belgium. Don’t you know that you have just become a mouthpiece for the British Government. Better, you’ve been played by the Special Branch until you don’t even know what the tune is. You, whose works are considered among the most authoritative histories in the English language; you who embodies for historians their claim to be pursuing Truth; you who have for twenty years now represented the decency of the British to the Americans. Don’t you see why you were chosen to head the damn commission on Belgian atrocities in the first place? You were the person who could make those falsehoods seem palatable. And, inasmuch as you have been sucked in, so your friends Roosevelt and that arch-Presbyterian in his White House will be also.

Bryce:- I assure you, Roger, that I used the same methods in ascertaining the truth about Belgium, as you used in the Putumayo. Where on earth, in God’s name, do you think I learned how to do that work? From you, old chap.

Casement:- Do not imagine they are connected in any way. Your work had all the form of mine and none of its substance. I tramped into all corners of the Congo and the Putumayo; I interviewed all the witnesses myself; I learned of the hardships directly, and saw the severed limbs, the freshly marked graves. I saw the horror myself, Bryce. You have never been anywhere near Belgium, not since the war started anyway. You peddled in second hand reports provided to you for the British authorities. Nice job writing it all up, though; even the Irish in America were convinced that there was some truth to the stories.

Bryce:- Look, I admit to some artistic license. But the underlying truth of the report – I will stand by that. The Germans committed atrocities.

Casement:- Come now, Bryce, you weren’t even just a little bit suspicious of those diaries taken from the bodies of German soldiers.

Bryce:- They were authenticated.

Casement:- By whom? Wasn’t it just a little convenient that all the bodies that had diaries on them detailed so nicely all that debauchery you were looking for?

Bryce:- The Germans encourage their troops to keep diaries.

Casement:- For what purpose? Bryce, Bryce, Bryce! Can you not imagine it? The German officer visiting the barracks after the soldiers have committed all these atrocities, so that he can remind them not just to commit them to memory, but to make sure that they put everything down on paper – for the Fatherland!

Bryce:- Well, I am still certain that they committed the atrocities we detailed.

Casement:- The Germans were an invading army. By such standards, they showed remarkable restraint. The British army has recorded far worse atrocities than anything the Germans actually did in Belgium. You know perfectly well about everything that happened in South Africa. What about China, what about 1857 in India?

Bryce:- Those were colonial wars, fighting against nationalists who were perfectly capable of undertaking acts of barbarism against us. This is the heart of Europe where the Germans are doing their foul deeds.

Casement:- That is a nice distinction, which shows that you learned nothing of the horrors in Putumayo. We were representing innocent people that the American and British capitalists had reduced to slavery. It is about people, Bryce. It matters not whether they are in Brussels or Leopoldville. And, are we Irish not in Europe anyway? The English have committed their acts of barbarism against us for centuries.

Bryce:- Well, your view of the British Empire has changed, has it not, since your days in the service? You may have always felt yourself to be an Irish patriot, as I do, but you saw the value of what the empire was bringing – order, development, civilization. I have studied empires, and there is no empire that compares with our own in attempting to serve all its subjects. Compared to the Romans, certainly compared to the Bosch, we are a benevolent empire.

Casement:- I might have agreed with you ten years ago, after the Congo, when we were able to do so much to improve the lot of the Congolese. But I certainly do not now. The British empire did not really want to bring about reform in Putumayo. That would have affected the bottom line – the desire to increase British markets in South America. President Taft, even, showed more interest in my work than Sir Edward Grey.

Bryce:- A meeting that I secured for you, in my official capacity, I might add.

Casement:- [ignoring the interruption] And the Irish Home Rule debacle showed the reality of the situation – benevolent empire is an oxymoron. Ask the Indians, ask an Irishman who is being honest with himself, one who has not been sucked in by English propaganda. You were a man, Bryce; now you are a simpering Lord – go back to your house…

Bryce:- You are a lost cause, Casement. I can no longer save you from yourself. The English will devise a way of getting you. You can be sure of that. And they have my blessing. There is a war on. We must silence you; we are in the right; and right must win. Right must win….

Scene 4: Thomson, Hall, and Casement in the second interrogation.

Hall:- Well, it seems as though you are a lucky man, Sir Roger. Had we not captured you when we did, and we had done so a few days later, we would have been able merely to stand you up against the wall and shoot you.

Casement:- I am sure that I won’t disappoint you in the future, Sir Reginald. I am sure that you and Mr. Thomson will devise some method to execute your will. But, this must mean there have been developments in Ireland. What is the news?

Thomson:- Rather good, actually. For us at least. Your friends rebelled and managed to take over the Dublin Post Office, committing ghastly atrocities in the process, I might add – shooting innocent women and children who didn’t rally to their cause…

Casement:- [aside] Not that nonsense again.

Thomson:- But we have reestablished order. I am afraid, however, that most of your friends have been lined up and shot. This was the passion of the moment, of course, and in response to the crimes of murder, so I don’t think the Americans will kick up too much of a stink.

Casement:- Is it not remarkable that patriots lie dead, with bullets lodged in their brains, and the English are the only ones who haven’t committed atrocities? It is like your propaganda; you never undertake any, but for some reason you are the only ones able to get out your message. But this is bad news indeed, though not unexpected.

Thomson:- So you admit then that you were to arrive in Ireland with guns to aid in this rebellion.

Casement:- Actually, no. The Germans were not forthcoming with the guns and I was arriving hoping to stop the uprising. There was no way of winning under the circumstances, and we were all likely to end up dead without much profit. But, I suppose a martyr or two has been created owing to your benevolent treatment of these patriots, and that will be a genie even you cannot return to its bottle.

Hall:- Well, we do not care too much about your genies, Sir Roger. Our police forces have withstood greater threats than any that cowardly Irish and Indian nationalists have thrown at us. After the war, it is unlikely that we will be dislodged from our empire by a rabble of volunteers.

Casement:- Think what you will. But there will be ghosts that return from this confrontation.

Thomson:- Our concern really, is not with the long term. Right now we have to deal with the traitor who sits before us. We need to bring you to justice, so that you can receive a sentence worthy of your hideous crime. The men who were shot were fighting for a cause, and they died in a battle, honorably, shall we say. But you worked to bring down the empire from within, using the license and advantages provided to you by your king to achieve your unworthy ends.

Hall:- However, I think our guest will quite understand that we have to shorten our session today. We have learned that he knew that the rising would occur, and that reveals his guilt. But, you will quite understand, Sir Roger, that we must go now to other pressing matters relating to this ghastly business. It is quite likely that you and I will not meet again; I will leave you in the Chief Inspector’s capable hands.

Casement:- Well I am just glad that I have been able to see your smirk from two days ago wiped from your face. You can leave me; but be assured that I am the one who sees a brighter future for my people, and a world in which the British naval officer is not ruler of all that he surveys. God’s speed take you to hell, Sir Reginald.

Thomson:- Guards! [lights]

Scene 5: Lights come up on Basil Thomson and Sir Roger Casement, the former seated at his desk, the latter opposite him. Casement is continually moving and fidgeting, slouching in his chair, waving his arms for emphasis, while Thomson sits stock still, quite calm, almost at attention, except for the scribbling of his pencil.

Casement:- I think it comes down to this: you see the carnal desires of the natives and you claim to abhor them. This is what the empire is bringing to these benighted souls, in your opinion, rescue from the sexual looseness of the primitives, civilization in a four-poster bed, women demur and virginal.

Thomson:- That was what I saw in the Pacific, yes!

Casement:- I will go farther: for you, the British Empire stands and falls, is erect or flaccid, to the degree (45 degrees or above) that it can stamp out this sexual disease, as if something akin to a venereal disease will infect not just Britain’s finest at the Front, but the last woman and child standing on the street corner waiting for the tram. The fact that the Anglo-Saxons carry sexual infection wherever they go is lost on you. [Thomson lifts his head, as if to respond] Yes, I know that Raleigh brought the clap back with him from the American natives, along with tobacco and the potato (and what delightful histories they have had also), but the English and Spanish took along their diseases to trade – and if the clap is a small piece of revenge for the decimation of whole populations, and for their replacement by the Bantu and Hindu laborers, then Europeans will still see that as a bargain. I, on the other hand, have seen what peoples do in Africa and South America and have come to believe that there is an alternative to lying back and thinking of England; we can stand up and fuck it into oblivion.

Thomson:- Very eloquent I am sure, Sir Roger (and [continuing to sit bolt upright, pleased with himself, and now taking notes furiously] quite handy really as we contemplate your treachery). But do you not feel that we have made some advances in our civilization over that of the natives?

Casement:- Advances? And who will measure such things. The Archbishop? The Prime Minister? Perhaps his lovely wife? The missionary? No, my dear Thomson, I have seen enough of these people and those to whom they minister to know that, with regards to sex at least, nothing changes. The missionary has access to his harem, while his wife and daughters remain trembling beside the pulpit. All we have been doing, and perhaps this is the true meaning of the word “civilization”, is learning new ways to deceive ourselves that we are pure. We only deceive ourselves [latin translation].

Thomson:- Deceive ourselves! I think not!

Casement:- And, of course, while we borrow from the classical languages we should remember that you yourself are a wonderful case in point. Fiji, wasn’t it? Wonderful book really, though I wonder whether it will be remembered after this War. Perhaps you should have moved on to Oxford or Cambridge after you arranged for the annexation of all those Pacific islands. I suppose all those annexations were in the name of civilization, or were your interventions merely for the benefit of the new science of anthropology – you are a puppet dangling on the strings of one or the other, that at least is clear? What was the book’s subtitle? “A study of the decay of custom,” I believe.

Thomson:- [now not moving and looking rather shocked] Your memory serves you well, even if you do become its slave.

Casement:- [very pleased to have found a target, but slows his movement as if to take aim] You argued, if I recall correctly, that the coming of civilization to these isolated islands was inevitably going to destroy indigenous customs, and that what was important under the circumstances, was that we, the British, should put something firmly in their place. All very tidy, and terribly convenient, coming from a budding colonial official, what? Oh, and of course, the primitiveness of the customs needing to be replaced was embodied most clearly in the sexual proclivities of these natives. Several long passages on that, were there not?

Thomson:- I think ten to fifteen lines of Latin hardly qualifies.

Casement:- So you may want to think, Mr. Thomson. So you must think, if you are to conform to the current levels of hypocrisy. But those lines were merely the ejaculation, shall we say. The foreplay on which the whole edifice rested built to the climax as truly as if you were masturbating in front your polite readership. How many copies of your book have been found in the bathhouses of the city?

Thomson:- [no longer writing] You go too far, I think, Sir Roger.

Casement:- Au contraire. Not far enough, dear Mr. Thomson. Of course, I think the readership of the average bathhouse may be a little too proletarian to be capable of instantaneous and meaningful translation. But what about the reading room at the Carlton or the Reform Clubs – [mischievous] there’s a reason why all those workers wanted to break down the doors to get into the clubs during the riots of ’86 [?], after all. What about the book shelves of our innocent and unsuspecting Oxbridge students – the cream of our future colonial officials. Go forth to the empire, and, what was it.? “Crura feminae levat atque trahit donex nates in suis femoribus jacent Crura tua levavit!” – something like “lift the women’s legs until her buttocks rest on your thighs” – it seems to me that the empire will not come to rest in that position.

Thomson:- [clearly agitated] And you remembered all this from when you read it in over eights years ago?

Casement:- Oh no, Mr. Thomson. In my travels through the United States plotting and scheming, as you see it, I came across a copy in a small college library (a women’s college no less). I had learned of your position in the Special Branch from some Irish comrades who, being chased around the northeastern states by British agents, felt that they at least might be learning something in the process. On reading your name in their list, I instantly remembered you. I had been following your work since the publication of your book on Fiji, while I was working in Putumayo, and while somewhat disturbed by some of your analysis, felt that you were largely on target – that if the right imperialists (in other words, anyone but King Leopold) controlled the colonies, and if they were scrupulous about conforming to the rule of law, then it was in the interests of everyone concerned to let this happen. My job, of course, was to protect the rule of law, and minimize the hardships experienced by the Congolese or Putomayans. Actually, when Conrad wrote his novel on Congo, (largely based on my experiences, I might add), I didn’t agree with Kurtz’s exhortation – “the horror” and all that. Needless to say, my opinion has changed somewhat.

Thomson:- [impatient] I think you digress. You were talking about how you came upon my work in the United States. [with measured humor] Let us get our priorities straight here.

Casement:- [annoyed] Well, I had been reading Lord Bryce and all those English aristocrats floating around the United States, who, with their lavish parties, were managing to purchase American foreign policy and place it at the service of his majesty.

Thomson:- We did them a good turn in their Civil War, so I think they’re well aware of our needs and committed to support us.

Casement:- Of course, that is what you are banking on, hoping that I will end up making the drop, no better than the average Molly Maguire. But let us stick to more pleasant thoughts like pornography – you may get more pleasure from that this evening, than those notes you are selectively scribbling! I, too, am versed in eros from the classics. I feel certain, that you have also picked up a copy of Forberg’s “De Figuris Veneris”, the…

Thomson:- Yes, I know, “The Manual of Classical Erotology.” However, I think you have demonstrated that your Latin is deficient somewhat.

Casement:- That may be. But a second-rate Irish public school and all that cramming for the Colonial Office exams, made me expert enough. And, anyway, since the Viscount very conveniently printed the English translation alongside the Latin, one’s learning curve was very steep, shall we say.

Thomson:- You know Viscount Smithson, do you?

Casement:- Better than that, I would have to say; though I know his son still more intimately. But, he did not give me one of the hundred copies – I was fortunate to run across a Liberal Cabinet minister who was a little down on his luck. I won’t ask you how you came across it yourself, since you are in the business of dissimulation, and I doubt it would make its way into your notes. Anyway, I remembered your text and thought reacquainting myself with its delights might come in handy at some time.

Thomson:- [an idea seeming to form] You do not write in this mode yourself then? Latin…pornography?

Casement:- I would have to answer in the negative, I’m afraid. While I take a keen interest in things sexual, I long ago felt that the words would pale in comparison to the acts themselves. I felt action was necessary to change things, even if I quite understand that there is merit in propaganda for the purposes of overthrowing hypocrisy. But, I think recent events have shown quite clearly that our propaganda doesn’t match up to yours, and we should merely continue with our nefarious work, as if it had received the blessing of Pope and King, even if not the Scotch-Irish Presbytery.

Thomson:- Ah! Oh you mean President Wilson.

Casement:- That said, Forberg’s work, and yours too, can become quite powerful as accompaniment for the act itself. Certain passages come into one’s mind, and they stay there taking on the quality of a chant. [not acting out, merely allowing the words to do the work for him] “vagina cadaveris fructu bananae cocto immisso calefacta.” Of course, I have always wondered when it was in your scholarly capacity that you came into contact with natives bearing bananas for this purpose. Were there many sackings of forts during your tenure in Fiji – hadn’t sugar already brought civilization to those peoples before your arrival? However, I don’t suppose you received such interrogations at the Royal Society meetings….But I quibble.

Thomson:- I think we may have exhausted that subject, Sir Roger.

Casement:- Oh, I thought your hand might have recovered from its earlier exertions, Mr. Thomson, and that you might be ready again to take notes! Or is it that you only like to compose when there is someone else providing the melody?

Thomson:- No. There are other matters I have to attend to. But [casually], before I go, we have located a trunk of yours. We would rather not pry it open, but will do so if necessary. Do you have a key?

Casement:- Of course not. Unless you fear for the efficiency of your men in their body searches of captives you would certainly already know the answer that question. I doubt you will find what you are looking for there anyway. You will find only my old diaries, and the Congo and Putumayo do not concern the Foreign Office when there are Irish to execute and Germans to make war upon.

Thomson:- I only thought that I should ask for permission to open them, as one gentleman to another.

Casement:- Gentleman! The only gentlemen left in the British Isles are the Irish. A lowland Scot like yourself, Mr. Basil Thomson, can have no claims to gentlemanly status. We’ve recorded your work on the Irish plantations; we’ve seen you in action in the highland clearances. You’ve made the British Empire your confection, and the few Livingstones you presume to be your brethren, will not save you from the charge that you have fallen well below the status of gentleman. You are a man on the make, and you have molded the empire in your image. Indeed, you have become the idol that you described those primitive Fijians worshipping. At least they had the grace, the civility, to worship something other than themselves!

Thomson:- [rising] Guards! May I show you to the door, Sir Roger?

Casement:- If there isn’t a drop on the other side. [lights]