From the time our Lady's actual reign began, we saw the ruined land
stir into being. For money she gave us "Queen's promises," that is
to say, the old coins of the realm, which her Majesty vowed to redeem
at their former value. With these coins, after she made proclamation
on the thirteenth of the Terror, wages were earned and paid, the
traffic moved again, shops opened for trade, and factories went to
work. It was all done in a timid way at first, then with more
confidence, and at last in full flood of recovery.
For those still out of work, her Majesty founded the Administration
of Hope. To the municipal councils she granted powers for seizure of
provisions, employment of workers, and service of rations to them and
to their families. So the dead were buried, the streets and roads
were cleared, ships were discharged, the markets stocked with produce
from the shires, and London was fortified.
She founded the Administration of Succour, opening pawnshops for the
loan of money, hospitals for the sick, camps for the destitute, and a
service of military transport.
So daily, hourly, the Queen's dominion spread until the three
kingdoms rang from end to end with feverish industry and courageous
life.
It was all so gallantly done, and so hopeless. Nothing but the
instant peril of invasion could have bound the people together while
they were starving. The dying realm lived by her surgery, was
healed, was saved, but then the price must be paid--and three armies
were marching against the Capital. Our Lady's flotilla of rams
shattered their covering fleets--but even etheric vessels could not
charge battleships of the line without being injured; caught in the
bursting magazines, they were racked to pieces. The fleets of the
League were destroyed, but of the three rams which survived not one
could float again.
Four shires, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex, were laid waste,
changed into desert where all the water was poisonous, but the armies
of the invasion were only delayed until they could add tanks to their
transport. Then the armies came against the outer defences of
London--a web of hedges, ditches and canals, a labyrinth of suburbs
which swallowed brigade after brigade, and sent back only wreckage of
lost regiments. Our Imperial army was--ever since the beginning of
the Twentieth Century--an army of marksmen--sharp-shooters who mowed
down the poor conscripts of Europe, even as the swaths of wheat fell
at the harvesting.
Behind her chain of fortresses our Lady was arming her people for
defensive war; mines, mills, and factories, villages and towns sent
their contingents of men to be drilled in her camps; the Midlands
seethed with preparation of arms, and explosives; and every weapon
capable of use added a man's strength to the great defence.
As Margaret called in her outposts, garrison troops came in daily
from Halifax, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and were sent with their guns to
the front.
France and Germany called up their fleet reserves, but the
Mediterranean Squadron dealt with the French above Rouen, and turning
eastward, caught the Germans in Hanover.
So the battle raged for weeks, over land and sea, but the vortex of
this dread Armageddon was Margaret's Capital. The French army was in
the outer southern suburbs, the Russians held the northern suburbs,
the Germans were in the east, and the marshals of the invasion slowly
mile by mile forced their way to the westward, closing down upon
London. Another week would see the Metropolis surrounded, and the
siege commenced. We knew that the end was near.
It was the bombardment of the East End which brought the council of
war to plead with her Majesty for the desperate policy of retreat.
They begged her to withdraw westward, to evacuate London, and, laying
the land waste, fall back upon the Midlands.
"Fall back!" said Margaret bitterly. "Gentlemen, I cannot understand
your military terms, but if that means run--I won't!"
"Madam," Lord Fortescue had a valued gift of persuasion. "We want to
run away, leading the enemy inland until we catch him in a trap."
"That sounds well," said our Lady, pursing her lips doubtfully. "Are
the traps always far inland?"
"Madam, if we are caught here in London, it means surrender."
"London, then, is a trap?"
"A perfect death-trap."
"A perfect death-trap." Margaret repeated the words doubtfully;
then, like a flash--"If any army is caught in London, it means
surrender!"
"Good gracious, madam!" exclaimed the Commander-in-Chief.
"Let me feel my way--perhaps it is nonsense. A million people are
being shelled--murdered in the East End. Suppose we clear the East
End--here, see on this map--from Stratford say, to Aldgate. I could
send the women and children to Windsor Forest--they need a holiday,
poor things. Any way we could spare that district to the Germans.
Then there's the City and this West-Central district up to Charing
Cross--a heap of ruins. We could spare all that to the
Germans--enough room for them to lose their whole army. They would
rush in to capture our main positions on the Hampstead and Sydenham
Hills. They would find themselves in a low valley blocked with
ruins, under the fire of a thousand guns, every line of escape
blocked by our barricades, the river on their left too broad to swim.
Then they would try to get back to their camps--and find their camps
fortified with their own guns against them!"
"Madam!"
"My lord, have these Germans any mercy on my poor women and children?
I want to capture their army."
"We couldn't possibly feed two hundred thousand prisoners."
"I want no prisoners, I want rifles for my reserves, Lord Fortescue,
rifles and powder, and all the provisions in the German camps. As to
the----"
"Madam," said Strangford, "a couple of hundred thousand German
prisoners sent as a present into the hungry Russian lines
might,--well, Russia loves Germany none too well as it is."
But Lord Fortescue objected, protesting that "London was full of
foreign spies, and that we could never conceal our preparations."
"Permit me, madam," cried Strangford, eagerly. "My dear Lord
Fortescue, here we have the complete plans for the evacuation of
London. I could get the papers sold privately to the French, and we
could so shape our preparations as to make the Allies believe we were
in full retreat to the Midlands. Afterwards we shall have both
Russians and Germans accusing the French of treachery. We shall
split the League!"
There is no need to tell again the story of our Lady's stratagem.
During the five days of its preparation, the armies of the League
closing down through the western suburbs, cut off all hope of
retreat, all chance of succour. No help could reach us from the
outer world, and lost in the valley of death, we could send no word
to salve the fear of England, or to restrain despair. So much we
lost.
Then came the thirty-ninth of the Terror, when the German forces, a
hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched into the capital.
From the Palace towers we watched the red sun rise, heard the first
gun, and waited minute after minute until the silence became agony.
Then came a sudden blaze from a thousand guns, the Palace reeled
under the crash, and over the ruins of central London went up a cloud
of dust. Of the German forces, thirty-one thousand men are supposed
to have perished in that cloud, fifteen thousand escaped in panic
flight, a hundred and four thousand prisoners were released starving
into the hungry Russian lines.
Our Lady was pleased to dine that night with the Bodyguard. The
tables, for lack of room elsewhere, had been set in the guardroom
upon the alabaster stairs, and in her Majesty's honour we twined
garlands of rose and laurel about the lamps, brought out the gold
plate, and used some of that old, gracious pageantry which graced the
bygone times. Outside, the guns were firing a salute, the bells of
London pealed for victory, and our trumpets pealed as we rose to
drink to the Queen. Then Sir Myles Strangford came, attended by his
staff, and from the upper stairway read the report of our triumph.
"A hundred and fourteen thousand stand of arms, the German siege
train, Woolwich Arsenal, three thousand wagons of military stores,
twenty-two million rations----"
The harsh call of a bugle cut short his words, a quick, imperative
summons at the very gates of the Palace. No English bugle was
sounded in such a place.
When an attendant had been sent to make inquiries, Sir Myles went on
reading the proclamation of victory, news that would bring comfort to
the besieged, hope to all Britain. His voice was fervent in
thanksgiving; a storm of cheering drowned his closing words.
Standing with drawn swords we sang the National Anthem, thinking most
of us of the women folk at home, our mothers and sisters in danger,
and our dread sovereign Lady whom we served. Then the song died on
our lips, our swords drooped, and there was silence while a vague
fear gripped us at the throat.
A Russian general officer had come up the stairway attended by a
trooper bearing the white flag on a lance.
"Gentlemen," he said, in broken English, "I have the honour--I bear a
letter to her Britannic Majesty."
His eyes followed ours as we directed him, and perhaps, after all,
the Russians pleaded for an armistice. The Allies were ready to fly
at each other's throats, there was hatred within the League more than
against ourselves. And yet the Russian's bearing boded no good to
us, and as our Lady read we saw her face turn grey.
She beckoned the envoy to retire--told him to await her pleasure at
the gates, kept silence until he was gone.
"Strangford!" she cried, "Strangford! Come here!"
She thrust the paper into Strangford's hand, and we saw him too grow
cold before our eyes.
"Madam," he groaned, "I fear this is the end."
"Gentlemen," our Lady lay back in her chair very faint and ill.
"Gentlemen of the Guard, you who have never failed me--never failed
me," she started up, a new thought lighting her face. "You're the
only men in the Empire who have not failed me. I appeal to you--I
want ships--I want a squadron of ships. Help me! help me!"
Not a man moved, for how could we find her ships? We had given our
yachts, those who had them, and had not failed her when our lives
were needed--but ships! At the beginning the Channel Fleet was lost,
but the fleets of the League were destroyed by etheric rams. The
reserve fleets of France and Germany had been defeated by the
Mediterranean Squadron. Victorious in a hundred aerial fights, the
ships which remained to England were on guard, lest the French and
Germans attempt a last attack. We dared not withdraw one cruiser
lest our enemies take the air again--and that meant ruin. There was
no squadron left even for the Queen's most vital need--or else the
siege of London had been impossible. There were no ships.
A slow tear trickled down our Lady's face.
"We dared to hope," she said, "to hold out until Mr. Brand comes
back--as he will come back! Oh, must he come too late?"
That was the most piteous thing of all, that our Lady still believed
Brand would come back.