THE CLUB
The vast "morning-room" of the Monumental Club (pre-eminent among
clubs for its architecture) was on the whole tonically chilly. But
as one of the high windows stood open, and there were two fires
fluttering beneath the lovely marble mantelpieces, between the fires
and the window every gradation of temperature could be experienced by
the curious. On each wall book-shelves rose to the carved and gilded
ceiling. The furlongs of shelves were fitted with majestic volumes
containing all the Statutes, all the Parliamentary Debates, and
all the Reports of Royal Commissions ever printed to narcotise the
conscience of a nation. These calf-bound works were not, in fact,
read; but the magnificent pretence of their usefulness was completed
by carpeted mahogany ladders which leaned here and there against the
shelfing, in accord with the theory that some studious member some day
might yearn and aspire to some upper shelf. On reading-stands and on
huge mahogany tables were disposed the countless newspapers of Great
Britain and Ireland, Europe and America, and also the files of such
newspapers. The apparatus of information was complete.
G.J. entered the splendid apartment like a discoverer. It was empty.
Not a member; not a servant! It waited, content to be inhabited,
equally content with its own solitude. This apartment had made an
adjunct even of the war; the function of the war in this apartment
was to render it more impressive, to increase, if possible, its
importance, for nowhere else could the war be studied so minutely day
by day.
A strange thing! G.J.'s sense of duty to himself had been quickened
by the defection of his valet. He felt that he had been failing to
comprehend in detail the cause and the evolution of the war, and that
even his general ideas as to it were inexcusably vague; and he had
determined to go every morning to the club, at whatever inconvenience,
for the especial purpose of studying and getting the true hang of the
supreme topic. As he sat down he was aware of the solemnity of the
great room, last fastness of the old strict decorum in the club. You
might not smoke in it until after 10 p.m.
Two other members came in immediately, one after the other. The first,
a little, very old and very natty man, began to read _The Times_ at
a stand. The second, old too, but of larger and firmer build, with a
long, clean-shaven upper lip, such as is only developed at the Bar,
on the Bench, and in provincial circles of Noncomformity, took an
easy-chair and another copy of _The Times_. A few moments elapsed, and
then the little old man glanced round, and, assuming surprise that
he had not noticed G.J. earlier, nodded to him with a very bright and
benevolent smile.
G.J. said:
"Well, Sir Francis, what's your opinion of this Ypres business. Seems
pretty complicated, doesn't it?"
Sir Francis answered in a tone whose mild and bland benevolence
matched his smile:
"I dare say the complications escape me. I see the affair quite
simply. We are holding on, but we cannot continue to hold on. The
Germans have more men, far more guns, and infinitely more ammunition.
They certainly have not less genius for war. What can be the result?
I am told by respectable people that the Germans lost the war at the
Marne. I don't appreciate it. I am told that the Germans don't realise
the Marne. I think they realise the Marne at least as well as we
realise Tannenberg."
The slightly trembling, slightly mincing voice of Sir Francis denoted
such detachment, such politeness, such kindliness, that the opinion it
emitted seemed to impose itself on G.J. with extraordinary authority.
There was a brief pause, and Sir Francis ejaculated:
"What's your view, Bob?"
The other old man now consisted of a newspaper, two seamy hands and
a pair of grey legs. His grim voice came from behind the newspaper,
which did not move:
"We've no adequate means of judging."
"True," said Sir Francis. "Now, another thing I'm told is that the War
Office was perfectly ready for the war on the scale agreed upon for
ourselves with France and Russia. I don't appreciate that either. No
War Office can be said to be perfectly ready for any war until it has
organised its relations with the public which it serves. My belief
is that the War Office had never thought for one moment about the
military importance of public opinion and the Press. At any rate, it
has most carefully left nothing undone to alienate both the public and
the Press. My son-in-law has the misfortune to own seven newspapers,
and the tales he tells about the antics of the Press Bureau--" Sir
Francis smiled the rest of the sentence. "Let me see, they offered the
Press Bureau to you, didn't they, Bob?"
_The Times_ fell, disclosing Bob, whose long upper lip grew longer.
"They did," he said. "I made a few inquiries, and found it was nothing
but a shuttlecock of the departments. I should have had no real
power, but unlimited quantities of responsibility. So I respectfully
refused."
Sir Francis remarked:
"Your hearing's much better, Bob."
"It is," answered Bob. "The fact is, I got hold of a marvellous feller
at Birmingham." He laughed sardonically. "I hope to go down to history
as the first judge that ever voluntarily retired because of deafness.
And now, thanks to this feller at Birmingham, I can hear better than
seventy-five per cent of the Bench. The Lord Chancellor gave me a hint
I might care to return, and so save a pension to the nation. I told
him I'd begin to think about that when he'd persuaded the Board of
Works to ventilate my old Court." He laughed again. "And now I see
the Press Bureau is enunciating the principle that it won't permit
criticism that might in any way weaken the confidence of the people in
the administration of affairs."
Bob opened his mouth wide and kept it open.
Sir Francis, with no diminution of the mild and bland benevolence of
his detachment, said:
"The voice is the Press Bureau's voice, but the hands are the hands
of the War Office. Can we reasonably hope to win, or not to lose, with
such a mentality at the head? I cannot admit that the War Office has
changed in the slightest degree in a hundred years. From time to time
a brainy civilian walks in, like Cardwell or Haldane, and saves it
from becoming patently ridiculous. But it never really alters. When I
was War Secretary in a transient government it was precisely the same
as it had been in the reign of the Duke of Cambridge, and to-day it is
still precisely the same. I am told that Haldane succeeded in teaching
our generals the value of Staff work as distinguished from dashing
cavalry charges. I don't appreciate that. The Staffs are still wide
open to men with social influence and still closed to men without
social influence. My grandson is full of great modern notions
about tactics. He may have talent for all I know. He got a Staff
appointment--because he came to me and I spoke ten words to an old
friend of mine with oak leaves in the club next door but one. No
questions asked. I mean no serious questions. It was done to oblige
me--the very existence of the Empire being at stake, according to
all accounts. So that I venture to doubt whether we're going to hold
Ypres, or anything else."
Bob, unimpressed by the speech, burst out:
"You've got the perspective wrong. Obviously the centre of gravity
is no longer in the West--it's in the East. In the West, roughly,
equilibrium has been established. Hence Poland is the decisive field,
and the measure of the Russian success or failure is the measure of
the Allied success or failure."
Sir Francis inquired with gentle joy:
"Then we're all right? The Russians have admittedly recovered from
Tannenberg. If there is any truth in a map they are doing excellently.
They're more brilliant than Potsdam, and they can put two men into the
field to the Germans' one--two and a half in fact."
Bob fiercely rumbled:
"I don't think we're all right. This habit of thinking in men is
dangerous. What are men without munitions? And without a clean
administration? Nothing but a rabble. It is notorious that the
Russians are running short of munitions and that the administration
from top to bottom consists of outrageous rascals. Moreover I see
to-day a report that the Germans have won a big victory at Kutno. I've
been expecting that. That's the beginning--mark me!"
"Yes," Sir Francis cheerfully agreed. "Yes. We're spending one million
a day, and now income tax is doubled! The country cannot stand it
indefinitely, and since our only hope lies in our being able to stand
it indefinitely, there is no hope--at any rate for unbiased minds.
Facts are facts, I fear."
Bob cried impatiently:
"Unbiased be damned! I don't want to be unbiased. I won't be. I had
enough of being unbiased when I was on the Bench, and I don't care
what any of you unbiased people say--I believe we shall win."
G.J. suddenly saw a boy in the old man, and suddenly he too became
boyish, remembering what he had said to Christine about the war not
having begun yet; and with fervour he concurred:
"So do I."
He rose, moved--relieved after a tension which he had not noticed
until it was broken. It was time for him to go. The two old men were
recalled to the fact of his presence. Bob raised the newspaper again.
Sir Francis asked:
"Are you going to the--er--affair in the City?"
"Yes," said G.J. with careful unconcern.
"I had thought of going. My granddaughter worried me till I consented
to take her. I got two tickets; but no sooner had I arrayed myself
this morning than she rang me up to say that her baby was teething
and she couldn't leave it. In view of this important creature's
indisposition I sent the tickets back to the Dean and changed my
clothes. Great-grandfathers have to be philosophers. I say, Hoape,
they tell me you play uncommonly good auction bridge."
"I play," said G.J. modestly. "But no better than I ought."
"You might care to make a fourth this afternoon, in the card-room."
"I should have been delighted to, but I've got one of these
war-committees at six o'clock." Again he spoke with careful unconcern,
masking a considerable self-satisfaction.