Laurence Inman eavesdrops on talk of justification.

All right Col ?

Ah, all right Den.

Shirl okay ?

Yeah, great. What about Kel ?

Oh, you know.

Busy ?

And the rest! You know that war I started last week ?

Yeah.

On the first day I had a hundred killed.

Ours or theirs ?

Ours! Mine! A kin ‘undred!

Oh mate, that’s bloody ridiculous! You must feel terrible.

And it’s worse than that.

Worse ? How ?

Well, it only turns out that we needn’t have started it in the first place, and that a solution to the conflict can be implemented immediately. I’m quoting now.

So your problems are over.

No, they’ve only just begun.

How d’you make that out ?

Well, it’s not enough that I have to tell a hundred mothers, a hundred fathers, four hundred grandparents, countless children, friends and assorted others that their loved one has been blown to bits, but now…..

I’m ahead of you, Col.

You see my position ?

If you stop the war, those hundreds of people will say that their loved one died for nothing.

So hundreds more have to die if they are to feel that their loved one died for something.

Kin ‘ell mate.

And then there’s the memorials. The stories in the papers about our heroes. The poppies.

I don’t want to sound funny, but why did you start the bloody thing in the first place ?

If we don’t kill people over there, they’ll come and kill people over here.

Right.

And democracy.

Yeah.

We’ve got to defend that.

Got to.