Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—And what should they know of England who only England know?—The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English flag.Rudyard Kipling.
Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—And what should they know of England who only England know?—The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English flag.
Rudyard Kipling.
Aswas usually the case on the day following one of Beatrice's "fluffy" evenings, I descended to my never very tempting lodging-house breakfast on that Sunday morning feeling the reverse of cheerful, and much inclined to take the gloomiest view of everything life had to offer me.
Sunday was generally a melancholy day for me. It was my only day out of Fleet Street, and, though I had long since taken such steps as I thought I could afford toward transforming my bedroom into a sitting-room, there was nothing very comfortable or homelike about it. I had dropped the habit of churchgoing after the first few months of my London life, without any particular thought or intention, but rather, I think, as one kind of reflex action—a subconscious reflection of the views and habits of those among whom I lived and worked.
Hearing a newsboy crying a "special" edition of some paper, I threw up the window and bought a copy, across the area railings. It was the paper for which Wardle worked. I found in it no particular justification for any special issue, and, as a fact, the probability is the appearance of this edition was merely a device to increase circulation, suggested mainly by the fact that the ordinary issue had been delayed by the East Anglian telegraphic breakdown. Regarding this, I found the following item of editorial commentary:
"As is explained elsewhere, a serious breakdown of telegraphic communication has occurred between London and Harwich, Ipswich and East Anglia generally, as a result of which our readers are robbed of special despatches regarding last night's conclusion of the East Anglian Pageant. It is thought that the breakdown is due to some electrical disturbance of the atmosphere resulting in a fusion of wires.
"But as an example of the ridiculous lengths to which the national defence cranks will go in their hatching of alarmist reports, a rumour was actually spread in Fleet Street at an early hour this morning that this commonplace accident to the telegraph wires was caused by an invading German army. This ridiculouscanardis reminiscent of some of the foolish scares which frightened our forefathers a little more than a century ago, when the Corsican terrorized Europe. But our rumour-mongers are too far out of date for this age. It is unfortunate that the advocates of militarism should receive parliamentarysupport of any kind. The Opposition is weakly and insignificant enough in all conscience, without courting further unpopularity by floating British public feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks among its following to bring ridicule upon the country.
"The absurdcanardto which we have referred is maliciously ill-timed. It will doubtless be reported on the Continent, and may injure us there. But we trust our friends in Germany will do us the justice of recognizing at once that this is merely the work of an irresponsible and totally unrepresentative clique, and in no sort a reflection of any aspect of public feeling in this country. We are able to state with certainty that last Tuesday's regrettable incident in the Mediterranean has been satisfactorily and definitely closed. Admiral Blennerhaustein displayed characteristic German courtesy and generosity in his frank acceptance of the apology sent to him from Whitehall; and the report that our Channel Fleet had entered the Straits of Gibraltar is incorrect. A portion of the Channel Fleet had been cruising off the coast of the Peninsula, and is now on its way back to home waters. Our relations with His Imperial Majesty's Government in Berlin were never more harmonious, and such acanardas this morning's rumour of invasion is only worthy of mention for the sake of a demonstration of its complete absurdity. If, as was stated, the author of this puerile invention is a Navy League supporter, who reached London in a motor-car from Harwich soon after daylight this morning, our advice to him is to devote the restof the day to sleeping off the effects of an injudicious evening in East Anglia."
Failing the East Anglian Pageant, the paper's "first feature," I noticed, consisted of a lot of generously headed particulars regarding the big Disarmament Demonstration to be held in Hyde Park that afternoon. It seemed that this was to be a really big thing, and I decided to attend in the interests ofThe Mass. The President of the Local Government Board and three well-known members on the Government side of the House were to speak. The Demonstration had been organized by the National Peace Association for Disarmament and Social Reform, of which the Prime Minister had lately been elected President. Delegates, both German and English, of the Anglo-German Union had promised to deliver addresses. Among other well-known bodies who were sending representatives I saw mention of the Anti-Imperial and Free Tariff Society, the Independent English Guild, the Home Rule Association, the Free Trade League, and various Republican and Socialist bodies. The paper said some amusement was anticipated from a suggested counter demonstration proposed by a few Navy League enthusiasts; but that the police would take good care that no serious interruptions were allowed.
As the Demonstration was fixed for three o'clock in the afternoon, I decided to go up the river by steamboat to Kew after my late breakfast. It was a gloriously fine morning, and on the river I began to feel a little more cheerful. As we passed Battersea Park I thought of Beatrice, who always sufferedfrom severe depressions after her little outings. Her spirits were affected; in my case, restaurant food, inferior wine, and the breathing of vitiated air was paid for by nothing worse than a headache and a morning's discomfort.
(One of the curses of the time, which seemed to grow more acute as the habit of extravagance and the thirst for pleasure increased, was the outrageous adulteration of all food-stuffs, and more particularly of all alcoholic liquors, which prevailed not alone in the West End of London, but in every city. Home products could only be obtained in clubs and in the houses of the rich. Their quantity was insufficient to admit of their reaching the open markets. In the cities we lived entirely upon foreign products, and their adulteration had reached a most amazing limit of badness.)
My thought of Beatrice was brief that morning, but I continued during most of my little excursion to dwell upon my new friends in South Kensington. I wondered how Constance Grey spent Sunday in London, and whether the confinement of the town oppressed her after the spacious freedom of the South African life she had described to me. I remembered that I had promised to call upon her and her aunt very soon, and wondered whether that afternoon, after the Demonstration, would be too soon. I mentally decided that it would, but that I would go all the same.
And then, suddenly, as the steamer passed under Hammersmith Bridge, a thought went through me like cold steel:
"She will very soon return to that freer, wider life out there in South Africa."
How I hated the place. South Africa! I had always associated it with Imperialism, militarism—"empireism," as I called it in my own mind: the strange, outside interests, which one regarded as opposing home interests, social reform, and the like. Though I did not know that any political party considerations influenced me one atom, I was in reality, like nearly every one else at that time, mentally the slave and creature of party feeling, party tradition, party prejudice. But now I had a new cause for hating those remote uplands of Empire, those outside places.
Sitting under a tree in Kew Gardens, I had leisure in which to browse over the matter, and, upon reflection, I was astonished that this sudden thought of mine should have struck so shrewdly, so violently, into my peace of mind. I tried to neutralize its effect by reminding myself that I had met Constance Grey only twice; that she was in many ways outside my purview; that she was the intimate friend of people who had helped to make history, the special contributor toThe Times, with her introductions to ex-Cabinet Ministers in England and her other relations with great people; that such a woman could never play an intimate part in my life. Her friendliness could not be the prelude to friendship with the assistant editor ofThe Mass; it probably meant no more than a courteous deference to John Crondall's whim, I told myself. But I would call at the South Kensington flat, certainly; it would be boorish to refrain,and—there was no denying I should have been mightily perturbed if any valid reason had appeared against my going to see Constance Grey after doing my duty by the Demonstration.
The newsboys were putting a good deal of feeling into their crying of special editions when I reached the streets again; but I was not inclined to waste further pence upon theSunday News'moralizings over the evolution ofcanards. I took a mess of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant in Notting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Bloomsbury before the Demonstration. The waiter—either a Swiss or a German—asked me:
"Vad you sink, sare, of ze news from ze country?"
I asked him what it was, and he handed me a fresh copy of theSunday News, headed: "Special Edition. Noon."
"By Jove!" I thought; "no Sunday dinner for Wardle! They couldn't have printed this in the small hours."
But the only new matter in this issue was a short announcement, headed in poster type, as follows:
"EAST ANGLIA'S ISOLATIONRAILWAY COMMUNICATION STOPPEDSTRANGE SUPPORT OF INVASION CANARDIS THIS A TORY HOAX?(SPECIAL)
"The preposterous rumour of a German invasion of England is receiving mysterious support. We hear from a reliable source that some Imperialist and NavyLeague cranks have organized a gigantic hoax by way of opposition to the Disarmament Demonstration. If the curious breakdown of communication with the east coast does prove to be the work of political fanatics, we think, and hope, that these gentry may shortly be convinced, in a manner they are never likely to forget, that, even in this land of liberty, the crank is not allowed to interfere with the transaction of public business.
"No trains have reached Liverpool Street from the northeast this morning, and communication cannot be established beyond Chelmsford. Whatever the cause of this singular breakdown may be, our readers will soon know it, for, in order finally to dispel any hint of credence which may be attached in some quarters to the absurd invasion report, we have already despatched two representatives in two powerful motor-cars, northeastward from Brentwood, with instructions to return to that point and telegraph full particulars directly they can discover the cause of the stoppage of communication.
"Further special editions will be issued when news is received from East Anglia."
"Yes," I said to the waiter; "it's a curious affair."
"You believe him, sare—zat Shermany do it?"
"Eh? No; certainly not. Do you?"
"Me? Oh, sare, I don' know nozzing. Vaire shstrong, sare, ze Sherman Armay."
The fellow's face annoyed me in some way. It, and his grins and gesticulations, had a sinister seeming. My trade brought me into contact with somany low-class aliens. I told myself I was getting insular and prejudiced, and resumed my meal with more thought for myself and my tendencies and affairs than for the East Anglian business. I have wondered since what the waiter thought about while I ate; whether he thought of England, Germany, and of myself, as representing the British citizen. But, to be sure, for aught I know, his thoughts may have been ordered for him from Berlin.
The Demonstration drew an enormous concourse of people to Hyde Park. The weather being perfect, a number of people made an outing of the occasion, and one saw whole groups of people who clearly came from beyond Whitechapel, the Borough, Shepherd's Bush, and Islington. As had been anticipated, a few well-dressed people endeavoured to run a counter-demonstration under a Navy League banner; but their following was absurdly small, and the crowd gave them nothing but ridicule and contempt.
The President of the Local Government Board received a tremendous ovation. For some minutes after his first appearance that enormous crowd sang, "He's a jolly good fellow!" with great enthusiasm. Then, when this member of the Government at last succeeded in getting as far as: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen," some one started the song with the chorus containing the words: "They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs." This spread like a line of fire in dry grass, and in a moment the vast crowd was rocking to the jingling rhythm of the song, the summer air quivering to the volume of its thousand-throated voice.
The President of the Local Government Board had been rather suspected of tuft-hunting recently, and his appearance in the stump orator's rôle, and in the cause of disarmament, was wonderfully popular. In his long career as Labour agitator, Socialist, and Radical, he had learned to know the popular pulse remarkably well; and now he responded cleverly to the call of the moment. His vein was that of the heavy, broad bludgeoning sarcasm which tickles a crowd, and his theme was not the wickedness, but the stupidity and futility of all "Jingoism," "spread-eagleism," "tall-talk," and "gold-lace bunkcombe."
"I am told my honourable friends of the opposition," he said, with an ironical bow in the direction of the now folded Navy League banner, "have played some kind of a practical joke in the eastern counties to-day. Well, children will be children; but I am afraid there will have to be spankings if half that I hear is true. They have tried to frighten you into abandoning this Demonstration with a pretended invasion of England. Well, my friends, it does not look to me as though their invasion had affected this Demonstration very seriously. I seem to fancy I see quite a number of people gathered together here. (It is estimated that over sixty thousand people were trying to hear his words.) But all I have to say on this invasion question is just this: If our friends from Germany have invaded East Anglia, let us be grateful for their enterprise, and, as a nation of shopkeepers should, let us make as much as we can out of 'em. But don't let us forget our hospitality.If our neighbours have dropped in in a friendly way, why, let's be sure we've something hot for supper. Perhaps a few sausages wouldn't be taken amiss. (The laughter and applause was so continuous here that for some moments nothing further could be heard.) No, my friends, this invasion hoax should now be placed finally upon the retired list. It has been on active service now since the year 1800, and I really think it's time our spread-eagle friends gave us a change. Let me for one moment address you in my official capacity, as your servant and a member of the Government. This England of ours is about as much in danger of being invaded as I am of becoming a millionaire, and those of you——"
The speaker's next words never reached me, being drowned by a great roar of laughter and applause. Just then I turned round to remonstrate with a man who was supporting himself upon my right shoulder. I was on the edge of the one narrow part of the crowd, against some iron railings. As I turned I noticed a number of boys tearing along in fan-shaped formation, and racing toward the crowd from the direction of Marble Arch. My eyes followed the approaching boys, and I forgot the fellow who had been plaguing me. The lads were all carrying bundles of papers, and now, as they drew nearer, I could see and hear that they were yelling as they ran.
"Another special edition," I thought. "No sort of a Sunday for poor Wardle."
The President of the Local Government Board had resumed his speech, and I could hear his clean-cut words distinctly. He had a good incisive delivery.Across his words now the hoarse yell of an approaching newsboy smote upon my ears:
"Extry speshul! Sixpence! German Army Corps in England! Speshul! Invashen er Sufferk! Speshul—sixpence! German Army Corps—sixpence! Invashen!"
"By Jove!" I thought. "That's rough on our disarmament feature from Herr Mitmann!"
I very well remember that that precisely was my thought.
He could not hear Death's rattle at the door,He was so busy with his sottishness.Turner.
He could not hear Death's rattle at the door,He was so busy with his sottishness.
Turner.
Thechance of my position on the edge of the crowd nearest to Marble Arch caused me to be among those who secured a paper, and at the comparatively modest price of sixpence. Two minutes later, I saw a member of the committee of the Demonstration hand over half-a-crown for one of the same limp sheets, all warm and smeary from the press. And in two more minutes the newsboys (there must have been fifty of them) were racing back to Marble Arch, feverishly questing further supplies, and, I suppose, reckoning as they ran their unaccustomed gains.
The news, mostly in poster type, was only a matter of a few lines of comment, and a few more lines of telegraphic despatch from Brentwood:
"Telegraphic communication with Chelmsford has now been cut off, but one of our special representatives, who succeeded in obtaining a powerful six-cylinder motor-car, has reached Brentwood, after a racing tour to the northeastward. We publish his despatch under all possible reserve. He is a journalist of high repute, but we venture to say with confidencethat he has evidently been imposed upon by the promoters of the most abominably wicked hoax and fraud ever perpetrated by criminal fanatics upon a trusting public. We have very little doubt that a number of these rabid advocates of that spirit of militarism to which the British public will never for one moment submit, will be cooling their heated brains in prison cells before the night is out."
And then followed the despatch from Brentwood, which said:
"Roads, railways, communication of all kinds absolutely blocked. Coastal regions of Suffolk and South Norfolk, and possibly Essex, are occupied by German soldiers. A cyclist from near Harwich says the landing was effected last evening, the most elaborate preparations and arrangements having been made beforehand. My car was fired at near Colchester. Chelmsford is now occupied by German cavalry, cyclist and motor corps. Have not heard of any loss of life, but whole country is panic-stricken. Cannot send further news. Telegraph office closed to public, being occupied in official business."
That was all. As my eyes rose from the blurred surface of the news-sheet the picture of the crowd absorbed me, like a stage-spectacle. There were from forty to sixty thousand people assembled, of all ages and classes. Among them were perhaps one thousand, perhaps two thousand, copies of the newspaper. Some ten thousand people were craning necks and straining eyes to read those papers. The rest were making short, hoarse, frequently meaningless ejaculations.
I saw one middle-aged man, who might have been a grocer, and a deacon in his place of worship, fold up his paper after reading it and thrust it, for future reference, in the tail-pocket of his sombre Sunday coat. But his neighbours in the crowd would not have that. A number of outstretched hands suddenly surrounded him. I saw his face pale. "Give us a look!" was all the sense I grasped from a score of exclamations. The grocer's paper was in fragments on the grass ten seconds later, and its destroyers were reaching out in other directions.
"It's abominable," I heard the grocer muttering to himself; and his hands shook as though he had the palsy.
But in other cases the papers passed whole from hand to hand, and their holders read the news aloud. I think the entire crowd had grasped the gist of it inside of four minutes; and their exclamatory comments were extraordinary, grotesque.
"My God!" and "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?" "'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? Not arf!" "Anything to sell the papers, you know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" "Johnny get yer gun, get yer gun!" "Some one must be punished for this. Might have caused apanic, you know." "True? Good Lord, no! What would our Navy be doing?" "Well, upon my word, I don't know." "Nice business for the fish trade!" "Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to their Aunt Rebecca's." "Wot price Piccadilly an' Regent Street to-night?" "Come along, my dear; let's get home out of this." "Absolute bosh, my dear boy, from beginning to end—doing business with 'em every day o' my life!" And then a hoarse snatch of song: "'They'll never go for England'—not they! What ho! 'Because England's got the dibs!'"
Suddenly then, above and across the thousand-voiced small talk, came the trained notes of the voice of the President of the Local Government Board.
"My friends, the whole story is a most transparent fraud. It's a shameful hoax. I tell you the thing is physically and morally impossible. It couldn't have been done in the time; and it is all a lie, anyhow. I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our chairman for——"
The crowd had listened attentively enough to the old agitator's comment on the news. They liked his assurances on that point. But they were in no mood for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling across the grass toward Marble Arch and down to Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's further words were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause, cheers, laughter, shouts of "Are we downhearted?" raucous answers in the negative, and cries of "Never mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good fellow!"
In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to have been stripped naked, and the few vehicles, tables, and little platforms which had formed the centre of the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree suddenly bereft of foliage, looking curiously small and bare. I am told that restaurants and refreshment places did an enormous trade during the next few hours. When the public-houses opened they were besieged, and, in many cases, closed again after a few hours, sold out.
For my part, I made at once, and without thinking, for Constance Grey's flat in South Kensington. The crowds in the streets were not only much larger, but in many ways different from the usual run of Sunday crowds. The people wore their Sunday clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday manners and air. There was more of a suggestion of Saturday night in the streets; the suggestion that a tremendous number of people were going to enjoy a "spree" of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, combined with a general desire for cigars, drinks, singing, and gaiety, seemed to be ruling the people.
At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band was blaring out the air of "The Holy City," and people stood about in groups laughing and chatting noisily. The newspaper boys had some competitors now, and the Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was added to by a number of lads and girls who had appeared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless commodities for sale, such as peacocks' feathers, paper fans, and streamers of coloured paper.
Why these things should have been wanted I cannotsay; but their sellers knew their business very well. The demand was remarkably brisk. Indeed, I noticed one of three young men, who walked abreast, purchase quite a bunch of the long feathers, only to drop them beside the curb a few moments later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them, and sold them again. I suppose that by this time the vast majority of the people had no doubt whatever about the news being a monstrous hoax; but there was no blinking the fact that the public had been strongly moved.
It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned from a servant that Miss Grey was at home—had just come in, as a matter of fact. It was as though I had some important business to transact with this girl from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes, and alert, thoughtful expression. I felt that it would have been serious if she should have been away, if I had missed her. It was not until I heard her step outside the door of the little drawing-room into which I had been shown, that I suddenly became conscious that I had no business whatever with Constance Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty-eight hours of my dining there, might perhaps be adjudged a piece of questionable taste.
A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the matter at all, I should have known that Constance Grey wasted no time over any such petty considerations. She entered to me with a set, grave face, taking my hand mechanically, as though too much preoccupied for such ceremonies.
"What do you think of the news?" she said, withouta word of preliminary greeting. I felt more than a little abashed at this; for, truth to tell, I really had given no serious thought to the news. I had observed its reception by the public as a spectator might. But, in the first place, I had been early warned that it was all a hoax; and then, too, like so many of my contemporaries, I was without the citizen feeling altogether, so far as national interests were concerned. I had grown to regard citizenship as exclusively a matter of domestic politics and social progress, municipal affairs, and the like. I never gave any thought to our position as a people and a nation in relation to foreign Powers.
"Oh, well," I said, "it's an extraordinary business, isn't it? I have just come from the Demonstration in Hyde Park. It was practically squashed by the arrival of the special editions. The people seemed pretty considerably muddled about it, so I suppose those who arranged it all may be said to have scored their point."
"So you don't believe it?"
"Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a gigantic hoax, is it not?"
"But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how—how wonderful English people are! You, your own self; what doyouthink about it? But forgive me for heckling. Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the study? Aunt is in there."
We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room, with low wicker chairs, and a big, littered writing-table.
"Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance Grey, when I had shaken hands with her aunt.
"Doesn't he?" said that strong, plain-spoken woman. "Well, I fancy there are a good many more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their eyes opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow."
"Then you take the whole thing seriously?" I asked them.
Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in the presence of these women, and were racing over everything that I had seen and heard that day, from the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise, in Holborn.
"I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs. Van Homrey, with laconic emphasis. "Do you?" she added.
"Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your view. My first word of it was just before dawn this morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and, somehow—well, you know, the general idea seems to be that the whole thing is an elaborate joke worked up by the Navy League, or somebody, as a counter-stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration—to teach us a lesson, and all that, you know."
I had to remind myself that I was addressing two ladies who were sure to be whole-hearted supporters of the Navy League and all other Imperialist organizations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be appraising me. I fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were looking right into me with grave criticism, and discovering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the thought. I should have been more distressed had nota vague, futile anger crept into my mind. After all, I thought, what right had this girl from South Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew England better than she did. I was a journalist of experience. Bah! My twopenny thoughts drooped and fainted as they rose.
"But perhaps you are better informed?" I said, weakly. "Perhaps you have other information?"
Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I recall her gaze now, it was almost maternal in its yearning gravity.
"I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she said. "What cuts me to the heart is the fear that it may have come too late."
Never have I heard such gravity in a young woman's voice. Her words overpowered me almost by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them. They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a fount of inspiration.
"We haven't any special information," said Mrs. Van Homrey. "We have only read, like every one else, that East Anglia is occupied by German soldiers, landed last night; that the East Anglian Pageant has been made the cloak of most elaborate preparations for weeks past; that the Mediterranean incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw the Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dreadful business has succeeded so far, like—like perfect machinery; like the thing it is: the outcome of perfect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We have heard no more; but the only hoaxing that I can see is done by the purblind people who havemade the public think it a hoax—and that is not conscious hoaxing, of course; they are too bemuddled with their disarmament farce for that."
"More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid," said Constance Grey. And then, turning to me, she said: "We lunched at General Penn Dicksee's to-day; and they have no doubt about the truth of the news. The General has motored down to Aldershot. They will begin some attempt at mobilizing at once, I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into touch with headquarters. All the War Office people are away for the week-end. In fact, they say the Minister's in Ipswich, and can't get away. General Penn Dicksee says they have practically no material to work with for any immediate mobilization purposes. He says that under the present system nothing can be done in less than a week. He thinks the most useful force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks. But I should suppose they would be wanted for the ships—if we have any ships left fit for sea. The General thinks there may be a hundred thousand German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of London by to-morrow."
"Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, "it doesn't seem easy to take it any other way than seriously; not if one's on the British side. And, for the matter of that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty seriously in East Anglia, and—and in Berlin."
And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra Sunday work for Wardle, and the way they had started selling peacocks' feathers and things, in the streets!
"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,Prolong the present!Time, stand still here!"The prompt stern GoddessShakes her head, frowning;Time gives his hour-glassIts due reversal;Their hour is gone.Matthew Arnold.
"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,Prolong the present!Time, stand still here!"
The prompt stern GoddessShakes her head, frowning;Time gives his hour-glassIts due reversal;Their hour is gone.
Matthew Arnold.
I stayedto dinner at the flat in South Kensington, and after dinner, when I spoke of leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call at Printing House Square, and ascertain what further news had arrived. The implied intimacy and friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasurable thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement for me, and compensated for much. Constance Grey's views of me had in some way become more important to me than anything else. I was even now more concerned about that than about the news.
We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a cab, as in duty bound, but, doubtless with a thought of my finances, my companion insisted upon thecheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but found them at last on a motor omnibus bound for Whitechapel. The streets were densely crowded, and the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before was now general, and much more marked.
"It reminds me exactly of 'Mafeking Night,'" I said, referring to that evening of the South African war during which London waxed drunk upon the news of the relief of Mafeking.
"Was it as bad even then?" said my companion. And her question showed me, what I might otherwise have overlooked, that a good deal of water had passed under the bridges since South African war days. We had been a little ashamed of our innocent rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We had become vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I think the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken their share in the progress, by breaking down much of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the respectable middle class. But, of course, one sees now that the rapid growth among us of selfish irresponsibility and repudiation of national obligations was the root cause of that change in public behaviour which I saw clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by Constance Grey's question.
I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy promenaders of both sexes who filled the streets, and impeded traffic at all crossings, the class which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a class which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its decorousand decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A man we met inThe Timesoffice told us of this, and my companion's comment was:
"Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them than their pleasure; and, with religion a dead letter, the spirit that won Trafalgar and armed the Thames against Napoleon, must be dead and buried."
The news we received atThe Timesoffice was extraordinary. It seemed there was no longer room for the smallest doubt that a large portion of East Anglia was actually occupied by a German army. Positive details of information could not be obtained.
"The way the coastal districts have been hermetically sealed against communication, and the speed and thoroughness with which the occupation has been accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amazing episode in the history of warfare," said the solemn graybeard, to whom I had been presented by Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the assistant editor ofThe Mass, I doubt if this Mr. Poole-Smith would have consented to open his mouth in my presence. But my obscurity and his importance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with confidence as the friend of a respected contributor.)
"Already we know enough to be certain that the enemy has received incalculably valuable assistance from within. I am afraid there will presently be only too much evidence of the blackest kind of treachery from British subjects, members of one or other among the anti-National coteries. But in the meantime,we hear of extraordinary things accomplished by aliens employed in this country, many of them in official capacities. We have learned through the Great Eastern Railway Company, and through one or two shipping houses, of huge consignments of stores, and, I make very little doubt, of munitions of war. The thing must have been in train on this side for many months—possibly for years. Here, for instance, is an extraordinary item, which is hardly likely to be only coincidence: Out of one hundred postmasters within a sixty-mile radius of Harwich, eighty-one have obtained their positions within the last two years, and of those sixty-nine bear names which indicate German nationality or extraction. But that is only one small item. An analysis of the Eastern Railway employees, and of the larger business firms between here and Ipswich, will tell a more startling tale, unless I am greatly mistaken."
But to me, I think the part of the news we gathered which seemed most startling was the fact that a tiny special issue ofThe Times, then being sold in the streets, contained none of the information given to us, but only a cautiously worded warning to the public that the news received from East Anglia had been grossly exaggerated, and that no definite importance should be attached to it, until authoritative information, which would appear in the first ordinary issue ofThe Timeson Monday, had been considered. It was all worded very pompously, and vaguely, in a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader to conclude thatThe Timessupported the generally accepted hoax theory. And we found that all thedaily papers of repute and standing had issued similar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our grave informant stroked his whiskers, and alluded distantly to "policy decided upon in consultation with representatives of the Crown."
"For one thing, you see, London is extraordinarily full of Germans, though we have already learned that vast numbers of them went to swell the attendance at the East Anglian Pageant, and may now, for all we know, be under arms. Then, too, anything in the nature of a panic on a large scale, and that before the authorities have decided upon any definite plan of action, would be disastrous. Unfortunately our reports from correspondents at the various southern military depôts are all to the effect that mobilization will be a slow business. As you know, the regulars in England have been reduced to an almost negligible minimum, and the mobilization of the 'Haldane Army' involves the slow process of drawing men out of private life into the field. What is worse, it means in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves at Aldershot, and south-country men reporting themselves in the north. And then their practical knowledge so far leaves them simply men in the street.
"But the great trouble is that the Government and the official heads of departments have been at loggerheads this long time past, and now are far from arriving at any definite policy of procedure. Of course, the majority of the leaders are out of town. You will understand that every possible precaution must be taken to avoid unduly alarming the public, or provokingpanic. We hope to be able to announce something definite in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this entirely unprovoked invasion."
"And what do you think will be the practical effect and use of their sympathy, Mr. Poole-Smith?" asked Constance Grey.
"Well," said our solemn friend, caressing his whiskers, "as to itspracticaleffect, my dear Miss Grey, why, I am afraid that in such bitter matters as these the practical value of sympathy, or of international law, is—er—cannot very easily be defined."
"Quite so. Exactly as I thought. It would not make one pennyworth of difference, Mr. Poole-Smith. The British public is on the eve of learning the meaning of brave old Lord Roberts's teaching: that no amount of diplomacy, of 'cordiality,' of treaties, or of anything else in the répertoire of the disarmament party, can ever counterbalance the uses of the rifle in the hands of disciplined men. Their twentieth-century notions will avail us pitifully little against the advance of the Kaiser's legions. The brotherhood of man and the sacred arts of commerce and peace will have little in the way of reply to machine guns. If only our people could have had even one year of universal military training! But no; they would not even pay for the maintenance of such defence force as they had when it took three years to beat the Boers; and now—didn't some man write a book called 'The Defenceless Isles'? We live in them."
"But that is not the worst, Miss Grey," said ourfriend. "These are now not only defenceless, but invaded isles."
"Ah! How long before they become surrendered isles, Mr. Poole-Smith?"
"The answer to that is with a higher Power than any in Printing House Square, Miss Grey. But, let me say this, in strict confidence, please. You wonder, and perhaps are inclined to condemn our—well, our reticence about this news. Do you know my fear? It is that if, in its present mood, suddenly, the British public, and more especially the London public, were allowed to realize clearly both what has happened in East Anglia, and the monumental unfitness of our authorities and defences to meet and cope with such an emergency—that then we should see England torn in sunder by the most terrible revolution of modern times. We should see statesmen hanging from lamp-posts in Whitehall; 'The Destroyers' would be destroyed; the Crown would be in danger, as well as its unworthy servants. And the Kaiser's machine-like army would find it had invaded a ravaged inferno, occupied by an infuriated populace hopelessly divided against itself, and already in the grip of the deadliest kind of strife. That, I think, is a danger to be guarded against, so far as it is possible, at all or any cost."
One could not but be impressed by this rather pompous, but sincere and earnest man's words.
"I see that very clearly, Mr. Poole-Smith," said Constance Grey. "But can the thing be done? Can the public be deluded for more than a few hours?"
"Not altogether, my dear young lady, not altogether.But, as we learn early in journalism, life is made up of compromises. We hope to school them to it, and give them the truth gradually, with as little shock as may be."
Soon after this we left the great office, and, as we passed out into the crowded streets, Constance Grey said to me:
"Thank God,The Timesmanaged to win clear of the syndicate's clutches when it did. There is moral and strength of purpose there now. I think the Press is behaving finely—if only the public can be made to do as well. But, oh, 'The Destroyers'—what a place they have cut out for themselves in history!"
But for the glorious summer weather, one could have fancied Christmas at hand from the look of Ludgate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look up at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the evening sky. But between it and us was a seething crowd, promenading at the rate of a mile an hour, and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless trifles and fruit, and so forth.
Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to the steps of an omnibus, was a band of youths linked arm in arm, and all apparently intoxicated. There must have been forty in a line. As they advanced, cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in something like unison, the melancholy music-hall refrain:
"They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs."
The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up grass, and narrow Fleet Street echoed to the monstrousdin of their singing. I began to feel anxious about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out of the fourteen people on the top of our omnibus were noticeably and noisily tipsy.
"Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British reserve? How I hate that beloved word cosmopolitan!"
She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her of something.
"Forgive my familiarity," she said. "John Crondall spoke of you as Dick Mordan. It's rather a way we have—out there."
I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned me the friendly short name from her for the future; and, with England tumbling about our ears, for aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously happy. But it was none the less with a sigh of relief that I handed her in at the outer door of the mansions in which their flat was situated. We paused for a moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy we had known that evening, and the last, I thought, with a recollection of Mrs. Van Homrey waiting in the flat above.
I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full to bursting. Perhaps the great news of that day affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I had no words, or very few. I remember I touched the sleeve of her dress with my finger-tips. What I said was:
"You know I am—you know I am at your orders, don't you?"
And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth,while the light of grave watching never flickered in her eyes.
"Yes, Dick; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs.
Yet I was still the assistant editor ofThe Mass—Clement Blaine's right hand.