Mr. Britling, with an understanding much quickened by Hugh's letters,
went about Essex in his automobile, and on one or two journeys into
Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, and marked the steady conversion of the
old pacific countryside into an armed camp. He was disposed to minimise
Hugh's criticisms. He found in them something of the harshness of youth,
which is far too keen-edged to be tolerant with half performance and
our poor human evasion of perfection's overstrain. "Our poor human
evasion of perfection's overstrain"; this phrase was Mr. Britling's. To
Mr. Britling, looking less closely and more broadly, the new army was a
pride and a marvel.
He liked to come into some quiet village and note the clusters of sturdy
khaki-clad youngsters going about their business, the tethered horses,
the air of subdued bustle, the occasional glimpses of guns and
ammunition trains. Wherever one went now there were soldiers and still
more soldiers. There was a steady flow of men into Flanders, and
presently to Gallipoli, but it seemed to have no effect upon the
multitude in training at home. He was pleasantly excited by the evident
increase in the proportion of military material upon the railways; he
liked the promise and mystery of the long lines of trucks bearing
tarpaulin-covered wagons and carts and guns that he would pass on his
way to Liverpool Street station. He could apprehend defeat in the
silence of the night, but when he saw the men, when he went about the
land, then it was impossible to believe in any end but victory....
But through the spring and summer there was no victory. The "great
offensive" of May was checked and abandoned after a series of
ineffective and very costly attacks between Ypres and Soissons. The
Germans had developed a highly scientific defensive in which
machine-guns replaced rifles and a maximum of punishment was inflicted
upon an assaulting force with a minimum of human loss. The War Office
had never thought much of machine-guns before, but now it thought a good
deal. Moreover, the energies of Britain were being turned more and more
towards the Dardanelles.
The idea of an attack upon the Dardanelles had a traditional
attractiveness for the British mind. Old men had been brought up from
childhood with "forcing the Dardanelles" as a familiar phrase; it had
none of the flighty novelty and vulgarity about it that made an "aerial
offensive" seem so unwarrantable a proceeding. Forcing the Dardanelles
was historically British. It made no break with tradition. Soon after
Turkey entered the war British submarines appeared in the Sea of
Marmora, and in February a systematic bombardment of the Dardanelles
began; this was continued intermittently for a month, the defenders
profiting by their experiences and by spells of bad weather to
strengthen their works. This first phase of the attack culminated in the
loss of the _Irresistible_, _Ocean_, and _Bouvet_, when on the 17th of
March the attacking fleet closed in upon the Narrows. After an interlude
of six weeks to allow of further preparations on the part of the
defenders, who were now thoroughly alive to what was coming, the Allied
armies gathered upon the scene, and a difficult and costly landing was
achieved at two points upon the peninsula of Gallipoli. With that began
a slow and bloody siege of the defences of the Dardanelles, clambering
up to the surprise landing of a fresh British army in Suvla Bay in
August, and its failure in the battle of Anafarta, through incompetent
commanders and a general sloppiness of leading, to cut off and capture
Maidos and the Narrows defences.... Meanwhile the Russian hosts, which
had reached their high-water mark in the capture of Przemysl, were being
forced back first in the south and then in the north. The Germans
recaptured Lemberg, entered Warsaw, and pressed on to take Brest
Litowsk. The Russian lines rolled back with an impressive effect of
defeat, and the Germans thrust towards Riga and Petrograd, reaching
Vilna about the middle of September....
Day after day Mr. Britling traced the swaying fortunes of the conflict,
with impatience, with perplexity, but with no loss of confidence in the
ultimate success of Britain. The country was still swarming with troops,
and still under summer sunshine. A second hay harvest redeemed the
scantiness of the first, the wheat crops were wonderful, and the great
fig tree at the corner of the Dower House had never borne so bountifully
nor such excellent juicy figs....
And one day in early June while those figs were still only a hope, Teddy
appeared at the Dower House with Letty, to say good-bye before going to
the front. He was going out in a draft to fill up various gaps and
losses; he did not know where. Essex was doing well but bloodily over
there. Mrs. Britling had tea set out upon the lawn under the blue cedar,
and Mr. Britling found himself at a loss for appropriate sayings, and
talked in his confusion almost as though Teddy's departure was of no
significance at all. He was still haunted by that odd sense of
responsibility for Teddy. Teddy was not nearly so animated as he had
been in his pre-khaki days; there was a quiet exaltation in his manner
rather than a lively excitement. He knew now what he was in for. He knew
now that war was not a lark, that for him it was to be the gravest
experience he had ever had or was likely to have. There were no more
jokes about Letty's pension, and a general avoidance of the topics of
high explosives and asphyxiating gas....
Mr. and Mrs. Britling took the young people to the gate.
"Good luck!" cried Mr. Britling as they receded.
Teddy replied with a wave of the hand.
Mr. Britling stood watching them for some moments as they walked towards
the little cottage which was to be the scene of their private parting.
"I don't like his going," he said. "I hope it will be all right with
him.... Teddy's so grave nowadays. It's a mean thing, I know, it has
none of the Roman touch, but I am glad that this can't happen with
Hugh--" He computed. "Not for a year and three months, even if they
march him into it upon his very birthday....
"It may all he over by then...."