If some uncomplex minded and even moderately articulate man or woman,
living in some small, ordinary respectable London house and going about
his or her work in the customary way, had been prompted by chance upon
June 29th, 1914, to begin to keep on that date a day-by-day diary of his
or her ordinary life, the effects of huge historic events, as revealed
by the every-day incidents to be noted in the streets, to be heard in
his neighbours' houses as well as among his fellow workers, to be read
in the penny or half-penny newspapers, would have resulted--if the
record had been kept faithfully and without any self-conscious sense of
audience--between 1914 and 1918 in the gradual compiling of a human
document of immense historical value. Compared with it, the diaries of
Defoe and Pepys would pale and be flavourless. But it must have been
begun in June, 1914, and have been written with the casualness of that
commonplace realism which is the most convincing realism of all. It is
true that the expression of the uncomplex mind is infrequently
articulate, but the record which would bring home the clearest truth
would be the one unpremeditatedly depicting the effect produced upon the
wholly unprepared and undramatic personality by the monstrous drama, as
the Second Deluge rose for its apparent overwhelming, carrying upon its
flood old civilisations broken from anchor and half submerged as they
tossed on the rising and raging waves. Such a priceless treasure as
this might have been the quite unliterary and unromantic diary of
any--say, Mr. James Simpson of any house number in any respectable side
street in Regents Park, or St. Johns Wood or Hampstead. One can easily
imagine him, sitting in his small, comfortable parlour and bending over
his blotting-pad in unilluminated cheerful absorption after his day's
work. It can also without any special intellectual effort be imagined
that the record might have begun with some such seemingly unprophetic
entry as follows:--
"June 29th, 1914. I made up my mind when I was at the office to-day that
I would begin to keep a diary. I have thought several times that I
would, and Harriet thinks it would be a good thing because we should
have it to refer to when there was any little dispute about dates and
things that have happened. To-night seemed a good time because there is
something to begin the first entry with. Harriet and I spent part of the
evening in reading the newspaper accounts of the assassination of the
Austrian Archduke and his wife. There seems to be a good deal of
excitement about it because he was the next heir to the Austrian throne.
The assassination occurred in Bosnia at a place called Sarajevo.
Crawshaw, whose desk is next to mine in the office, believes it will
make a nice mess for the Bosnians and Servians because they have been
rather troublesome about wanting to be united into one country instead
of two, and called Greater Serbia. That seems a silly sort of reason for
throwing bombs and killing people. But foreigners have a way of thinking
bombs settle everything. Harriet brought out her old school geography
and we looked up Sarajevo on the map of Austria-Hungary. It was hard to
find because the print was small and it was spelt Saraievo--without any
j in it. It was just on the line between Bosnia and Servia and the
geography said it was the chief city in Bosnia. Harriet said it was a
queer thing how these places on maps never seemed like real places when
you looked them up and just read their names and yet probably the people
in them were as real to themselves as we were, and there were streets in
them as real as Lupton Street where we were sitting, finding them on the
map on the sitting-room table. I said that bombs were pretty real things
and the sound of this one when it exploded seemed to have reached a long
way to judge from the newspapers and the talk in London. Harriet said my
putting it like that gave her a queer feeling--almost as if she had
heard it and it had made her jump. Somehow it seemed something like it
to me. At any rate we sat still a minute or two, thinking it over. Then
Harriet got up and went into the kitchen and made some nice toasted
cheese for our supper before we went to bed."
Men of the James Simpson type were among the many who daily passed
Coombe House on their way to and from their office work. Some of them no
doubt caught sight of Lord Coombe himself as he walked or drove through
the entrance gates. Their knowledge of him was founded upon rumoured
stories, repeated rather privately among themselves. He was a great
swell and there weren't many shady things he hadn't done and didn't know
the ins and outs of, but his remoteness from their own lives rendered
these accepted legends scarcely prejudicial. The perfection of his
clothes, and his unusual preservation of physical condition and good
looks, also his habit of the so-called "week-end" continental journeys,
were the points chiefly recalled by the incidental mention of his name.
If James Simpson, on his way home to Lupton Street with his friend
Crawshaw, chanced to see his lordship's car standing before his door a
few days after the bomb throwing in Sarajevo, he might incidentally have
referred to him somewhat in this wise:--
"As we passed by Coombe House the Marquis of Coombe came out and got
into his car. There were smart leather valises and travelling things in
it and a rug or so, as if he was going on some journey. He is a fine
looking man for one that's lived the life he has and reached his age. I
don't see how he's done it, myself. When I said to Crawshaw that it
looked as if he was going away for the week end, Crawshaw said that
perhaps he was taking Saturday to Monday off to run over to talk to the
Kaiser and old Franz Josef about the Sarajevo business, and he might
telephone to the Czar about it because he's intimate with them all, and
the whole lot seem to be getting mixed up in the thing and writing
letters and sending secret telegrams. It seems to be turning out, as
Crawshaw said it would, into a nice mess for Servia. Austria is making
it out that the assassination really was committed to stir up trouble,
and says it wasn't done just by a crazy anarchist, but by a secret
society working for its own ends. Crawshaw came in to supper and we
talked it all over. Harriet gave us cold beef and pickled onions and
beer, and we looked at the maps in the old geography again. We got quite
interested in finding places. Bosnia and Servia (it's often spelled
Serbia) are close up against Austria-Hungary, and Germany and Russia are
close against the other side. They can get into each other's countries
without much travelling. I heard to-day that Russia will have to help
Servia if she has a row with Austria. Crawshaw says that will give
Germany the chance she's been waiting for and that she will try to get
through Belgium to England. He says she hates England. Harriet began to
look pale as she studied the map and saw how little Belgium was and that
the Channel was so narrow. She said she felt as if England had been
silly to let herself get so slack and she almost wished she hadn't
looked at the geography. She said she couldn't help thinking how awful
it would be to see the German army marching up Regent Street and camping
in Hyde Park, and who in goodness' name knew what they might do to
people if they hated England so? She actually looked as if she would
have cried if Crawshaw and I hadn't chaffed her and made her laugh by
telling her we would join the army; and Crawshaw began to shoulder arms
with the poker and I got my new umbrella."
In this domesticated and almost comfortable fashion did the greatest
tragedy the human race has known since the beginning of the world
gradually prepare its first scenes and reveal glimpses of itself, as the
curtain of Time was, during that June, slowly raised by the hand of
Fate.
This is not what is known as a "war story." It is not even a story of
the War, but a relation of incidents occurring amidst and resulting from
the strenuousness of a period to which "the War" was a background so
colossal that it dwarfed all events, except in the minds of those for
whom such events personally shook and darkened or brightened the world.
Nothing can dwarf personal anguish at its moment of highest power; to
the last agony and despairing terror of the heart-wrung the cataclysm
of earthquake, tornado, shipwreck is but the awesome back drop of the
scene.
Also--incidentally--the story is one of the transitions in, and
convulsive changes of, points of view produced by the convulsion itself
which flung into new perspective the whole surface of the earth and the
races existing upon it.
The Head of the House of Coombe had, as he said, been born at once too
early and too late to admit of any fixed establishment of tastes and
ideals. His existence had been passed in the transition from one era to
another--the Early Victorian, under whose disappearing influences he had
spent his youth; the Late Victorian and Edwardian, in whose more rapidly
changing atmosphere he had ripened to maturity. He had, during this
transition, seen from afar the slow rising of the tidal wave of the
Second Deluge; and in the summer days of 1914 he heard the first low
roaring of its torrential swell, and visualised all that the
overwhelming power of its bursting flood might sweep before it and bury
forever beneath its weight.
He made seemingly casual crossings of the Channel and journeys which
were made up of the surmounting of obstacles, and when he returned,
brought with him a knowledge of things which it would have been unwise
to reveal carelessly to the general public. The mind of the general
public had its parallel, at the moment, in the temperature of a patient
in the early stages of, as yet, undiagnosed typhoid or any other fever.
Restless excitement and spasmodic heats and discomforts prompted and
ruled it. Its tendency was to nervous discontent and suspicious
fearfulness of approaching, vaguely formulated, evils. These risings of
temperature were to be seen in the very streets and shops. People were
talking--talking--talking. Ordinary people, common people, all kinds of
classes. The majority of them did not know what they were talking
about; most of them talked either uneducated, frightened or blustering
nonsense, but everybody talked more or less. Enormous numbers of
newspapers were bought and flourished about, or pored over anxiously.
Numbers of young Germans were silently disappearing from their places in
shops, factories and warehouses. That was how Germany showed her
readiness for any military happening. Her army was already trained and
could be called from any country and walk in life. A mysterious unheard
command called it and it was obliged to obey. The entire male population
of England had not been trained from birth to regard itself as an
immense military machine, ready at any moment for action. The James
Simpson type of Englishman indulged in much discussion of the pros and
cons of enforced military training of youth. Germany's well known
contempt of the size and power of the British Army took on an aspect
which filled the James Simpsons with rage. They had not previously
thought of themselves as martial, because middle-class England was
satisfied with her belief in her strength and entire safety. Of course
she was safe. She always had been. Britannia Rules the Waves and the
James Simpsons were sure that incidentally she ruled everything else.
But as there stole up behind the mature Simpsons the haunting
realization that, if England was "drawn in" to a war, it would be the
young Simpsons who must gird their loins and go forth to meet Goliath in
his armour, with only the sling and stone of untrained youth and valour
as their weapon, there were many who began to feel that even
inconvenient drilling and discipline might have been good things.
"There is something quite thrilling in going about now," said Feather to
Coombe, after coming in from a shopping round, made in her new electric
brougham. "One doesn't know what it is, but it's in the air. You see it
in people's faces. Actually shop girls give one the impression of just
having stopped whispering together when you go into a place and ask for
something. A girl who was trying on some gloves for me--she was a thin
girl with prominent watery eyes--had such a frightened look, that I said
to her, just to see what she would say--'I wonder what would happen to
the shops if England got into war?' She turned quite white and answered,
'Oh, Madam, I can't bear to think of it. My favourite brother's a
soldier. He's such a nice big fellow and we're so fond of him. And he's
always talking about it. He says Germany's not going to let England keep
out. We're so frightened--mother and me.' She almost dropped a big tear
on my glove. It _would_ be quite exciting if England did go in."
"It would," Coombe answered.
"London would be crowded with officers. All sorts of things would have
to be given for them--balls and things."
"Cannon balls among other things," said Coombe.
"But we should have nothing to do with the cannon balls, thank
goodness," exhilaration sweeping her past unpleasant aspects. "One would
be sorry for the Tommies, of course, if the worst came to the worst. But
I must say army and navy men are more interesting than most civilians.
It's the constant change in their lives, and their having to meet so
many kinds of people."
"In actual war, men who are not merely 'Tommies' actually take part,"
Coombe suggested. "I was looking at a ball-room full of them the night
after the news came from Sarajevo. Fine, well-set-up youngsters dancing
with pretty girls. I could not help asking myself what would have
happened to them before the German army crossed the Channel--if they
were not able to prevent the crossing. And what would happen to the
girls after its crossing, when it poured over London and the rest of
England in the unbridled rage of drunken victory."
He so spoke because beneath his outward coldness he himself felt a
secret rage against this lightness which, as he saw things, had its
parallel in another order of trivial unawareness in more important
places and larger brains. Feather started and drew somewhat nearer to
him.
"How hideous! What do you mean! Where was the party?" she asked.
"It was a small dance given by the Duchess, very kindly, for Robin," he
answered.
"For Robin!" with open eyes whose incredulity held irritation. "The old
Duchess giving parties to her 'useful companion' girl! What nonsense!
Who was there?" sharply.
"The young fellows who would be first called on if there was war. And
the girls who are their relatives. Halwyn was there--and young Dormer
and Layton--they are all in the army. The cannon balls would be for them
as well as for the Tommies of their regiments. They are spirited lads
who wouldn't slink behind. They'd face things."
Feather had already forgotten her moment's shock in another thought.
"And they were invited to meet Robin! Did they dance with her? Did she
dance much? Or did she sit and stare and say nothing? What did she
wear?"
"She looked like a very young white rose. She danced continually. There
was always a little mob about her when the music stopped. I do not think
she sat at all, and it was the young men who stared. The only dance she
missed--Kathryn told her grandmother--was the one she sat out in the
conservatory with Donal Muir."
At this Feather's high, thin little laugh broke forth.
"He turned up there? Donal Muir!" She struck her hands lightly together.
"It's too good to be true!"
"Why is it too good to be true?" he inquired without enthusiasm.
"Oh, don't you see? After all his mother's airs and graces and running
away with him when they were a pair of babies--as if Robin had the
plague. I was the plague--and so were you. And here the old Duchess
throws them headlong at each other--in all their full bloom--into each
other's arms. I did not do it. You didn't. It was the stuffiest old
female grandee in London, who wouldn't let _me_ sweep her front
door-steps for her--because I'm an impropriety."
She asked a dozen questions, was quite humorous over the picture she
drew of Mrs. Muir's consternation at the peril her one ewe lamb had been
led into by her highly revered friend.
"A frightfully good-looking, spoiled boy like that always plunges
headlong into any adventure that attracts him. Women have always made
love to him and Robin will make great eyes, and blush and look at him
from under her lashes as if she were going to cry with joy--like Alice
in the Ben Bolt song. She'll 'weep with delight when he gives her a
smile and tremble with fear at his frown.' His mother can't stop it,
however furious she may be. Nothing can stop that sort of thing when it
once begins."
"If England declares war Donal Muir will have more serious things to do
than pursue adventures," was Coombe's comment. He looked serious himself
as he said the words, because they brought before him the bodily
strength and beauty of the lad. He seemed suddenly to see him again as
he had looked when he was dancing. And almost at the same moment he saw
other scenes than ball-rooms and heard sounds other than those drawn
forth by musicians screened with palms. He liked the boy. He was not his
son, but he liked him. If he had been his son, he thought--! He had been
through the monster munition works at Essen several times and he had
heard technical talks of inventions, the sole reason for whose presence
in the world was that they had the power to blow human beings into
unrecognisable, ensanguined shreds and to tear off limbs and catapult
them into the air. He had heard these powers talked of with a sense of
natural pride in achievement, in fact with honest and cheerful self
gratulation.
He had known Count Zeppelin well and heard his interesting explanation
of what would happen to a thickly populated city on to which bombs were
dropped.
But Feather's view was lighter and included only such things as she
found entertaining.
"If there's a war the heirs of great families won't be snatched at
first," she quite rattled on. "There'll be a sort of economising in that
sort of thing. Besides he's very young and he isn't in the Army. He'd
have to go through some sort of training. Oh, he'll have time! And
there'll be so much emotion and excitement and talk about parting
forever and 'This may be the last time we ever meet' sort of thing that
every boy will have adventure--and not only boys. When I warned Robin,
the night before she went away, I did not count on war or I could have
said more--"
"What did you warn her of?"
"Of making mistakes about the men who would make love to her. I warned
her against imagining she was as safe as she would be if she were a
daughter of the house she lived in. I knew what I was talking about."
"Did she?" was Coombe's concise question.
"Of course she did--though of course she pretended not to. Girls always
pretend. But I did my duty as a parent. And I told her that if she got
herself into any mess she mustn't come to me."
Lord Coombe regarded her in silence for a moment or so. It was one of
the looks which always made her furious in her small way.
"Good morning," he said and turned his back and walked out of the room.
Almost immediately after he had descended the stairs she heard the front
door close after him.
It was the kind of thing which made her feel her utter helplessness
against him and which enraged all the little cat in her being. She
actually ground her small teeth.
"I was quite right," she said. "It's her affair to take care of herself.
Would he want her to come to _him_ in any silly fix? I should like to
see her try it."