I
He approached Penny Green and realised for the first time the hard pace
at which he had been riding. And realised also the emotions which
subconsciously had been driving him along. All the way he had been
saying "War!" What he wanted, most terribly, was to say it aloud to some
one. He wanted to say it to Mabel. He had a sudden great desire to see
Mabel and tell her about it and talk to her about it. He felt a
curiously protective feeling towards her. For the first time in his life
he pedalled instead of free-wheeling the conclusion of the ride. He ran
into the house and into the morning room. Mabel was not there. It was
almost dinner time. She would be in her room. He ran upstairs. She was
standing before her dressing table and turned to him in surprise.
"Whatever--"
"I say, it's war!"
She echoed the word. "War?"
"Yes, war. We've declared war!"
"Declared war?"
"Yes, declared war. We've sent Germany an ultimatum. It ends to-night.
It's the same thing. It means war."
He was breathless, panting. She said, "Good gracious! Whatever will
happen? Have you brought an evening paper? Do you know the papers didn't
come this morning till--"
He could not hear her out. "No, I didn't wait. I simply rushed away."
He was close to her. He took her hands. "I say, Mabel, it's war." His
emotions were tumultuous and extraordinary. He wanted to draw her to him
and kiss her. They had not kissed for longer than he could have
remembered; but now he held her hands hard and desired to kiss her. "I
say, it's war."
She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "You are excited. I've never seen
you so excited. Your collar's undone."
He dropped her hands. He said rather stupidly, "Well, it's war, you
know," and stood there.
She turned to her dressing table. "Well, I do wish you'd stayed for a
paper. Now we've got to wait till to-morrow and goodness only knows--"
She was fastening something about her throat and held her breath in the
operation. She released it and said, "Just fancy, war! I never thought
it would be. What will happen first? Will they--" She held her breath
again. She said, "It's too annoying about those papers coming so late.
If they haven't arrived when you go off to-morrow you can tell Jones he
needn't send them any more. He's one of those independent sort of
tradesmen who think they can do just what they like. Just fancy actually
having war with Germany. I can't believe it." She turned towards him and
gave her sudden laugh again. "I say, aren't you ever going to move?"
He went out of the room and along the passage. As he reached his own
room he realised it again. "War--" He went quickly back to Mabel. "I
say--" He stopped. His feelings most frightfully desired some vent. None
here. "Look here. Don't wait dinner for me. You start. I'm going round
to Fargus to tell him."
At the hall door he turned back and went hurriedly into the kitchen. "I
say, it's war!"
"Well, there now!" cried High Jinks.
"Yes, war. We've sent an ultimatum to Germany. It ends to-night."
Low Jinks threw up her hands. "Well, if that isn't a short war!"
"Girl alive, the ultimatum ends, not the war. Don't you know what an
ultimatum is?"
Outside he ran down the drive and ran to Fargus's door. It stood open.
In the hall the eldest Miss Fargus appeared to be maintaining the last
moment before dinner by "doing" a silver card salver.
"Hullo, Miss Fargus. I say, is your father about? I say, it's war. We've
declared war!"
The eldest Miss Fargus lifted her head to another Miss Fargus also
"doing" something on the stairs above her, and in a very high voice
called, "Papa! War!"
The staircase Miss Fargus took it up immediately. "Papa! War!" and Sabre
heard it go echoing through the house, "Papa! War! Papa! War! Papa!
War!"
"How terrible, how dreadful, how frightful, how awful," said the eldest
Miss Fargus. "You must excuse me shaking hands, but as you see I am over
pink plate powder. I'm not surprised. We were discussing it only at
breakfast; and for my part, though Julie, Rosie, Poppy and Bunchy were
against me, I--" She broke off to turn and take her portion in a new
chorus now filling the house. Sounds of some one descending the stairs
at break-neck speed were heard, and the chorus shrilled, "Papa, take
care! Papa, take care! Papa, take care!"
Mr. Fargus's grey little figure came terrifically down the last flight
and up the hall, a cloud of female Farguses in his wake. He ran to Sabre
with hands outstretched and grasped Sabre's hands and wrung them.
"Sabre! Sabre! What's this? Really? Truly? War? We've declared war?
Well, I say, thank God! Thank God! I was afraid. I was terribly afraid
we'd stand out. But thank God, England is England still.... And will be,
Sabre; and will be!" He released Sabre's hands and took out a
handkerchief and wiped his eyes. "I prayed for this," he said. "I prayed
for God to be in Downing Street last night."
The chorus, unpleasantly shocked at the idea of God being asked to go to
Downing Street, said in a low but stern tone, "Papa, hush. Papa, hush.
Papa, hush"; but Sabre had come for this excited wringing of his hands
and for this emotion. It was what he had been seeking ever since Pike's
notice board had swung the news before his eyes. When presently he left
he carried with him that which, when his mind would turn to it, caused
his heart to swell enormously within him. Through the evening, and gone
to bed and lying awake long into the night, he was at intervals caught
up from the dark and oppressive pictures of his mind by surging onset of
the emotions that came with Mr. Fargus's emotion. War.... His spirit
answered, "England!"
II
Lying awake, he thought of Nona. He had not written the letter to her.
The appointed day was past and he had not written. He would have said,
during that unutterable darkness in which he had awaited it, that not
the turning of the world upside down would have prevented him writing;
but the world _had_ turned upside down. It was not a board Pike's men
had swung around in that appalling moment when he had watched them
appear on the balcony. It was the accustomed and imponderable world,
awfully unbalanced. Nona would understand. Nona always understood
everything. He wondered how she had maintained this terrific day. He was
assured that he knew. She would have felt just as he had felt. He
thought, with a most passionate longing for her, that he would have
given anything to have been able to turn to her when he had exclaimed,
"My God, war", and to have caught her hands and looked into her
beautiful face. To-morrow he would send the letter. To-morrow? Why, yes,
to-day, like all to-days in the removed and placid light of all
to-morrows, would be shown needlessly hectic. Ten to one something would
have happened in the night to make to-day look foolish. If nothing had
happened, if it still was war, it could only be a swiftly over business,
a rapid and general recognition of the impossibility of war in modern
conditions.
Disturbingly upon these thoughts appeared the face of Otway, the little
beads of perspiration about his nose.
His consciousness stumbled away into the mazy woods of sleep, and
turned, and all night sought to return, and stumbled sometimes to its
knees among the drowsy snares, and saw strange mirages of the round
world horrifically tilted with "War" upon its face, of Nona held away
and not approachable, of intense light and of suffocating darkness; and
rousing and struggling away from these, and stumbling yet, rarely
succumbing.
III
When he went down into Tidborough in the morning it was to know at once
that this to-morrow gave no lie to its precedent day. It intensified it.
The previous day foreshadowed war. The new day presented it.
The papers, as it happened, did not arrive before he left, and Mabel had
more to say of her annoyance with the insufferable Jones than of what
his withheld wares might contain. Her attitude towards the international
position was--up to this point of its development--precisely this: she
had been following the crisis day by day with appreciation of its
sensational headlines while these were in the paper before her, but
without further interest when the paper was read. She folded up the
thrones, the chancelleries, the councils, the armies and the peoples and
put them away in the brass newspaper rack in the morning room and
proceeded about her duties and her engagements. But she liked unfolding
them and she was thoroughly annoyed with the insufferable Jones for
preventing her from unfolding them. She said she would come down into
Tidborough and speak to Jones herself.
"Yes, do," said Sabre. "There'll be things to see."
There were things to see. As he rode into the town people were standing
about in little groups, excitedly talking; every one seemed to have a
newspaper. In a row, as he approached the news agent's, were hugely
printed contents bills, all with the news, in one form or another, "War
Declared."
It _was_ war. Yesterday no dream. He could not stop to rest his bicycle
against the curb. He leant it over and dropped it on the pavement with a
crash and hurried into the shop and bought and read.
War.... He looked out into the street through the open doorway. All
those knots of people standing talking. War.... A mounted orderly passed
down the street at a brisk trot, his dispatch bag swaying and bumping
across his back. Every one turned and stared after him, stepped out into
the roadway and stared after him. War.... He bought all the morning
papers and went on to the office. Outside a bank a small crowd of people
waited about the doors. They were waiting to draw out their money. Lloyd
George had announced the closing of the banks for three days; but they
didn't believe it was real. Was it real? He passed Hanbury's, the big
grocer's. It seemed to be crammed. People outside waiting to get in.
They were buying up food. A woman struggled her way out with three tins
of fruit, a pot of jam and a bag of flour. She seemed thoroughly well
pleased with herself. He heard her say to some one, "Well, I've got
mine, anyway." He actually had a sense of reassurance from her grotesque
provisioning. He thought, "You see, every one knows it can't last long."
IV
No one in the office was pretending to do any work. As in the street,
all were in groups eagerly talking. The clerks' room resounded with
excited discussion. Everybody wanted to talk to somebody. He went into
Mr. Fortune's room. Mr. Fortune and Twyning and Harold were gathered
round a map cut from a newspaper, all talking; even young Harold giving
views and being attentively listened to. They looked up and greeted him
cordially. Everybody was cordial and communicative to everybody. "Come
along in, Sabre." He joined them and he found their conversation
extraordinarily reassuring, like the woman who had sufficiently
provisioned with three tins of fruit, a pot of jam and a bag of flour.
They knew a tremendous lot about it and had evidently been reading
military articles for days past. They all showed what was going to be
done, illustrating it on the map. And the map itself was extraordinarily
reassuring: as Twyning showed--his fingers covering the whole of the
belligerent countries--while the Germans were delivering all their power
down _here_, in Belgium, the Russians simply nipped in _here_ and would
be threatening Berlin before those fools knew where they were!
He thought, "By Jove, yes."
"And granted," said Mr. Fortune--Mr. Fortune was granting propositions
right and left with an amiability out of all keeping with his normal
stubbornness--"and granted that Germany can put into the field the
enormous numbers you mention, Twyning, what use are they to her? None.
No use whatever. I was talking last night to Sir James Boulder. His son
has been foreign correspondent to one of the London papers for years.
He's attended the army manoeuvres in Germany, France, Austria
everywhere. He knows modern military conditions through and through, as
you may say. Well, he says--and it's obvious when you think of it--that
Germany can't possibly use her enormous masses. No room for them. Only
the merest fraction can ever get into action. Where they're coming in is
like crowding into the neck of a bottle. Two thirds of them uselessly
jammed up behind. A mere handful can hold them up--"
Harold put in, "Yes, and those terrific fortresses, sir."
"Precisely. Precisely. Liége, Namur, Antwerp--absolutely impregnable,
all the military correspondents say so. Impregnable. Well, then. There
you are. It's like sending a thousand men to fight in a street. Look
here--" He went vigorously to the window. They all went to the window;
Sabre with them, profoundly impressed. Mr. Fortune pointed into the
street. "There. That's what it is. Here comes your German army down this
way from the cathedral. Choked. Blocked. Immovable mob. How many do you
suppose could hold them up? Thirty, twenty, a dozen. Hold them up and
throw them into hopeless and utter disorder. Pah! Simple, isn't it? I
don't suppose the thing will last a month. What do you say, Sabre?"
Sabre was feeling considerably more at ease. He felt that the first
shock of the thing had made him take an exaggerated view. "I don't see
how it can," he said, "now I'm hearing a bit more about it. I was
thinking just now what a dramatic thing it would be if it lasted--of
course it can't--but if it lasted till next June and the decisive
battle was fought in June, 1915, just a hundred years after Waterloo.
That would be dramatic, eh?"
They all laughed, and Sabre, realising the preposterousness of such a
notion, laughed with them. Twyning said, "Next June! Imagine it! At the
very outside it will be well over by Christmas."
And they all agreed, "Oh, rather!"
V
It was all immensely reassuring, and Sabre gathered up his bundle of
papers and went into his room, feeling on the whole rather pleasurably
excited than otherwise. But as he read, column after column and paper
after paper, measures that had been taken by the Government, orders to
Army and Naval reservists, the impending call for men, the scenes in the
streets of London, and with these the deeply grave tone of the leading
articles, the tremendous statistics and the huge foreshadowing of
certain of the military correspondents, the breathless news already from
the seats of war,--as his mind thus received there returned to it its
earlier sense of enormous oppression and tremendous conjecture. War....
England.... The first sentence of his history, now greatly advanced,
came tremendously into his mind: "This England you live in is
_yours_...." And now at war--challenged--threatened--
It surged enormously within him. He got up. He must go out into the
streets and see what was happening.
The day wore on. He felt extraordinarily shy and self-conscious about
the performance of a matter that had entered his mind with that surging
uplift of his feelings. It was four o'clock in the afternoon before he
took himself to it and then, leaving its place, he unexpectedly
encountered Mabel. She was just going into the station. She had come in,
as she had proposed, and she told him what she had said to Jones and
what Jones had said to her. "Abominably rude man."
Then she asked him, "Was that Doctor Anderson's gate you came out of
just now?"
"Yes."
"Whatever had you been to see him about?"
He flushed. He never could invent an excuse when he wanted one. "I'd
been asking him to have a look at me."
"Whatever for?"
"Oh, nothing particular."
"You couldn't have been to see him for nothing."
"Well, practically nothing. You remember when I increased my life
insurance some time ago they said my heart was a bit groggy and made a
bit of a fuss? Well, I thought I'd just see again so as to get out of
paying that higher premium."
"Oh, that. What nonsense it was. What did he say?"
"Said I had a murmur or some rot. I say, if you're going back now, don't
wait dinner for me to-night. I'll get something here. The _Evening
Times_ is bringing out a special edition at nine o'clock. I'd like to
wait for it."
She assented, "Yes, bring home the paper."
He went into the office. The afternoon post had brought letters to his
desk. He turned them over without interest, then caught up one,--from
Nona.
Marko, this frightful war! I have thanked God on my knees for you
that last week you prevented me. If I had done it with this! Tony
has rejoined the Guards, he was in the Reserve of Officers. And you
see that whatever has been, and is, dear, he's my man to stand by
in this. Marko, it would have been too awful if I couldn't, and I
thank God for you, again and again and again. Nona.
Twyning appeared. "Hullo, old man, heard the latest? I say, you look as
if you're ready to take on the whole world."