The Message Part 13

XV

SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON

"Ah," they cry, "Destiny, Prolong the present!

Time, stand still here!"

The prompt stern G.o.ddess Shakes her head, frowning; Time gives his hour-gla.s.s Its due reversal; Their hour is gone.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I stayed to 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 the cheaper 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 pa.s.sed 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 Cla.s.s Music Halls" had taken their share in the progress, by breaking down much of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the respectable middle cla.s.s. 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 s.e.xes who filled the streets, and impeded traffic at all crossings, the cla.s.s which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a cla.s.s which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its decorous and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A man we met in _The Times_ office 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 at _The Times_ office 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 a.s.sistant editor of _The Ma.s.s_, 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 a.s.sistance 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 of _The 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 of _The Times_ on 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 that _The Times_ supported the generally accepted hoax theory.

And we found that all the daily 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 depots 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 provoking panic. 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 its _practical_ effect, 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 repertoire 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 our friend. "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 pa.s.sed out into the crowded streets, Constance Grey said to me:

"Thank G.o.d, _The Times_ managed 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, ma.s.sive 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 gra.s.s, and narrow Fleet Street echoed to the monstrous din 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, d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs.

Yet I was still the a.s.sistant editor of _The Ma.s.s_--Clement Blaine's right hand.

XVI

A PERSONAL REVELATION

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

BYRON.