TRAFALGAR AND THE RED LAMP
Though assuredly not with fear, nor with any sense of impending
dissolution, the officers and men of the _Pathshire_--and, perhaps, of
the whole Navy--regarded war with Germany, in more than one respect,
as they regarded death, and assumed that the same certitude existed in
their shipmates’ minds; so that the end of peace was no more questioned
than the end of life, but only the manner of that end and the hour
of its coming. Moreover, as from men’s ordinary speech speculation
concerning the after-life is excluded, so these seamen did not speak,
and seldom thought, of the time that would come when the war was over.
The tale that German officers toasted “The Day” produced in the British
Navy sentiments altogether different from those with which it inspired
British civilians. In Service messes they smiled the national smile
at this effusiveness of foreigners, just as they would have smiled
at the gesticulations of Frenchmen or the exceeding politeness of
Japanese. To them it seemed pompous and laughable to drink solemnly to
War; they would as soon have been ceremonious concerning a Gunlayers’
Test. But this German proceeding aroused in them neither fear nor the
resentment that springs from fear. They regarded the Germans who were
said to drink this toast, not as wicked men rejoicing in the prospect
of wickedness, but as professional men who overstepped somewhat the
boundaries of “good form” in their too dramatic attitude towards their
profession.
So long as they remained in or near their ships--that is, within the
atmosphere of which Mr. Alter had spoken, and beyond the influence of
their civilian friends--naval officers saw the coming war with such
concentration on its professional aspect that observant visitors were
amazed and sometimes shocked. War would come; Germany would be the
enemy and the aggressor; but the certainty of this aggression seemed no
better reason for bitterness than a chess opponent’s initial move of
his King’s Pawn. It was attractive to wonder whether the King’s Pawn
would be moved or whether some other opening would be selected. It
was delightful to suggest the defence that Jellicoe and Prince Louis
would adopt. But, just as chess players are careful for the game’s
intricacies and not for stakes, so naval officers thought of the war
in terms of manœuvred battle squadrons and destroyer flotillas
rather than of the destinies of nations. And they assumed that German
officers, being likewise professional men, were no more interested than
they were in those aspects of war that were not strictly professional.
They imputed to the Ober-Leutnant as he stood, wine-glass in hand, no
motive more sinister than a desire to prove professional superiority;
and, being themselves convinced that they could outmanœuvre and
out-gun him, they were unperturbed that he should drink to his
sentimental heart’s content.
On the China Station the naval officer’s concern with war was, perhaps,
more exclusively technical than elsewhere. In home waters the Germans
were as unfamiliar as bogey-men, and the English newspapers were near
at hand. A speech or leading article was potent to awake, even in the
naval mind, some of those vague misgivings concerning Wilhelmshaven
upon which vulgar opinion on foreign affairs was at that time based.
But the newspapers that reached China were stale and little read;
and--most powerful antidote for political animosity--the German Fleet
was a familiar sight, and its officers were frequent guests.
The field of thought concerning war was thus circumscribed. When
the time came, the China Squadron would fight its own independent
battle in its own waters. The chess-board was set. The opposing force
was known and visible. Many a time in Wardroom and Gunroom were the
_Scharnhorst_, _Gneisenau_, _Leipzig_, and _Nürnberg_ compared,
knot for knot, gun for gun, armour for armour, torpedo-tube for
torpedo-tube, with the _Pathshire_ and her comrade ships. No doubt the
Germans made similar calculations; no doubt they, too, cast their eyes
sometimes towards Japan. But, in a subtle manner, the very closeness
of the association of those who were ultimately to be enemies robbed
that association of bitterness. The Germans were excellent seamen, and
pleasant companions at dinner. They danced well, drank well, laughed
well, and could sing a good song. When Fate ended both dance and song
the ensuing duel would be a gentlemanly trial of skill, intensely
interesting, a settling of knotty arguments, a test, for instance,
of what the Engineer-Commander could do with his main engines. The
gun-fire silent at last, the survivors would be picked up and given
whisky, or, if the weather was cold, sloe gin. The battle, important
to civilians for its effects upon trade-routes, Eastern prestige, and
a vast complexity of political issues, would be to those who took part
in it a thrilling conclusion to a technical work which for many weary
years had been hard reading.
It would be a conclusion, an end of a book to which no sequel had been
planned. After it, as after death, would be but that blank fly-leaf
whose whiteness is more emphatic than the written word FINIS. A man
whose whole life has been devoted to one object scarce dares to look
beyond its attainment. The business man speaks uneasily of the years
that are to follow his retirement; the historian wonders how he will
occupy his time when his great work has gone to press; the mother turns
from contemplation of the hour in which her child, made man by her pain
and endeavour, goes from her into the world. And the naval officer
looked infrequently and with reluctance beyond the crowning of his work.
But there were moments when it was difficult so conveniently to
restrict the vision of the future. Rumours of war were continual
reminders of war’s imminence, and, therefore, pointers towards the
years of undefined purpose that would succeed it. As each rumour was
proved false, it was impossible, in the days of reaction, to avoid some
speculation as to the results which would have ensued had the rumour
been well-founded; just as it is impossible for a man who has survived
an attack of that disease by which he knows his end must come not to
look a little wistfully beyond the gates of death. And soon after that
night on which John had, for other reasons, asked himself to what end
his present life was directed, there came whisperings of war to make
the question more insistent. Once again the rumour was seen to lack
foundation; a leaf in the great technical volume was turned excitedly;
but not yet had that page been reached upon which was written CHAPTER
THE LAST. But John knew, as did they all, that they were near the end
now--very near the end.
“I hope it comes,” he said to Hartington, “before we leave China. Out
here it will be on a smaller scale. We shall be able to see the whole
battle at once, and it will be _our_ battle. It will be simpler, more
clearly cut than that vast affair in the North Sea.”
“Do you look forward to war?”
“What else is there to which we can look forward? It’s our training.
It’s what we are here for.”
“It means untold suffering--mourning, poverty, bitterness for years to
come.”
“That may be,” said John, “but it’s our job.”
“You are a queer fellow--an idealist one moment and a shouting
militarist the next.”
“No, I’m not a militarist, though I do say I want war. I shouldn’t want
war if there was anything else on God’s earth that I could want with
a reasonable hope of obtaining it. I should take no pleasure in war
itself apart from the momentary excitement of the thing; and certainly
I’m not dreaming of political gains through war, which is the part of
the genuine militarist. I want it just as one wants a thunderstorm to
break quickly that one knows must break some time. I’m sick of the
tension, of wasting precious years in preparing and waiting. If the
end of all our work is to be ‘mourning, poverty, and bitterness for
years to come,’ if that’s what we are living for, I want an end of it.
I don’t know what is beyond. I don’t care. But, at any rate, it will
be a clean sheet--a clean sheet to spoil may be, but a chance to make
a fresh start.”
“A chance for you to make a fresh start?”
“I mean--I mean the world in general.”
“But you?”
“Oh, I’m a naval officer for good and all. It’s different for me.”
“Our trade’s going to be an odd one after the war. It may become more
or less superfluous. There may be a great pensioning-off.”
“I’ve thought about that--‘after the war.’ But I dare say there’ll be
work for us to do.”
“Yes,” said Hartington, “but work with what object? Think of it: the
work we do from day to day gives precious little satisfaction in
itself. I suppose everyone--no matter in what line of business--has
one supreme ambition that overshadows all other ambitions. But in most
lives, while a man waits for his Great Attainment he is kept going by
smaller successes, intermediate achievements that have at least some
of the qualities of permanence. The statesman waiting to pass his
Great Reform passes smaller measures that are _something_--something
that stands. Or the novelist writing his intermediate novels, or the
architect designing the houses that are to precede his Great Design, or
the shopkeeper, even, opening a new branch here and a new branch there,
stepping-stones to the Great Store of his dream, but each a substantial
achievement in itself; all these people know that, even if the Great
Dream comes to naught, they have constructed something more durable
than themselves. But the naval officer accomplishes nothing by the way.
I suppose Guns is glad if a battle practice goes well, but it all ends
in a round of drinks; no one is the happier for it. No one is a whit
the happier for anything we do.”
“The practical economists would tell you that we are indirectly
constructive because we protect commerce,” John said.
“The boy who frightens birds with his clacker is constructive in
that sense. So is the hangman with his rope. No, that’s too shallow
a foundation on which to build comfort. All our eggs are in one
basket. War is everything to us. And when the war is over and we can
say there will not be another war for fifty years, perhaps a hundred
years--certainly not in our time, what then? How are we going to live
through routine? What heart shall we put into preparation for a remote
possibility?”
“And we shall still be young men.”
“We shall have all our lives before us.”
John rested his head on his hand as if he were tired. “And even now,”
he said, “when at least this wonderful achievement of ours is in the
future and not in the past, it seems a poor thing to me. I may be
a Sub when it comes, or I may be a Lieutenant--anyhow, a cog in the
machine.”
“The Lord knows when it’s coming. We may be Admirals by then.”
John thought. He was perceiving a revealing truth. “I don’t want to be
an Admiral,” he said.
“But that, in a naval officer, is heresy and disaster,” Hartington
answered, with a hidden smile. “You ought to want to be an Admiral. At
the age of twelve you promised, as it were, to love, honour, and obey.”
“I did want to be an Admiral--then.”
“But you must want it now. You must make yourself want it.”
“Because there’s nothing else to want?”
“Just that.” Hartington was determined that, for his own sake, John
must be made to see his position with perfect clearness. “But in time
of war,” he went on, “an Admiral’s position is different from his
position now.”
“The chances are heavily against his having a command.”
“Oh, for that matter, the chances are heavily against success in
anything. To reckon on that basis is hopeless. It’s no good to count
on failure.... Imagine you have absolute success, and reckon backwards
from that, if you like. Imagine that there is war. You are the Admiral
commanding the Home Fleet. You have--you have the destinies of the
world in your hands: it would be little less than that. Doesn’t there
seem something fine----”
“Assuming, for the sake of comparison, an equivalent success elsewhere,
I’d rather shape destiny with other tools.”
“As Prime Minister?”
John smiled for a moment. Then he said seriously: “Or write a great
book. Or--oh, there are dozens of better implements.”
“But suppose--and this is the ultimate test--suppose you won a
Trafalgar?”
John looked up quickly, realizing whither he had been led. Their eyes
met. “I don’t think Trafalgar would make me happy,” he said.
He picked up the red lamp that was swinging within a few inches of the
cabin floor and placed it on his knees. Hartington settled himself
deeply in his great wicker chair.
“If that’s so,” he said, “you ought not to be in the Service. You ought
to get out of it, and try to write that great book.”
John put the lantern from him hurriedly and rose. “Do you think I don’t
know that?” he demanded, with a tremor in his voice.
“You didn’t know it sixty seconds ago.”
“I did. Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
John paused with one foot outside the cabin door.
“Do you want to be an Admiral yourself?” he challenged.
“That question does not arise,” Hartington answered.
Because he could not trust himself to speak again John went out, his
eyes aching as before a storm of tears.