Richard sat next to Jaz. Jaz was very still, very still indeed, seated with his hands in his lap.
“ Will there be many diggers here?” Lovat asked.
“ Oh, yes. There’s quite a crowd over there, with Jack.”
And Richard looked quickly, and saw Jack. He knew Jack had seen him. But now he was looking the other way. And again, Richard felt afraid of something.
It was a packed hall, tense. There was plenty of noise and interruption, plenty of homethrusts at the speakers from the audience. But still, that sense of sardonic tolerance, endurance. “What’s the odds, boys?”
Willie Struthers gave the main speech: on the solidarity of Labour. He sketched the industrial situation, and elaborated the charge that Labour was cutting its own throat by wrecking industry and commerce.
“ But will anyt
