THE GREAT BATTLE
The news that an open rupture had occurred between the Generals of the
two invading armies was not slow in circulating. The early editions of
the evening papers were full of it. A symposium of the opinions of Dr.
Emil Reich, Dr. Saleeby, Sandow, Mr. Chiozza Money, and Lady Grove was
hastily collected. Young men with knobbly and bulging foreheads were
turned on by their editors to write character-sketches of the two
generals. All was stir and activity.
Meanwhile, those who look after London's public amusements were busy
with telephone and telegraph. The quarrel had taken place on Friday
night. It was probable that, unless steps were taken, the battle would
begin early on Saturday. Which, it did not require a man of unusual
intelligence to see, would mean a heavy financial loss to those who
supplied London with its Saturday afternoon amusements. The matinees
would suffer. The battle might not affect the stalls and dress-circle,
perhaps, but there could be no possible doubt that the pit and gallery
receipts would fall off terribly. To the public which supports the pit
and gallery of a theatre there is an irresistible attraction about a
fight on anything like a large scale. When one considers that a quite
ordinary street-fight will attract hundreds of spectators, it will be
plainly seen that no theatrical entertainment could hope to compete
against so strong a counter-attraction as a battle between the German
and Russian armies.
The various football-grounds would be heavily hit, too. And there was
to be a monster roller-skating carnival at Olympia. That also would be
spoiled.
A deputation of amusement-caterers hurried to the two camps within an
hour of the appearance of the first evening paper. They put their case
plainly and well. The Generals were obviously impressed. Messages
passed and repassed between the two armies, and in the end it was
decided to put off the outbreak of hostilities till Monday morning.
* * * * *
Satisfactory as this undoubtedly was for the theatre-managers and
directors of football clubs, it was in some ways a pity. From the
standpoint of the historian it spoiled the whole affair. But for the
postponement, readers of this history might--nay, would--have been able
to absorb a vivid and masterly account of the great struggle, with a
careful description of the tactics by which victory was achieved. They
would have been told the disposition of the various regiments, the
stratagems, the dashing advances, the skilful retreats, and the Lessons
of the War.
As it is, owing to the mistaken good-nature of the rival generals, the
date of the fixture was changed, and practically all that a historian
can do is to record the result.
A slight mist had risen as early as four o'clock on Saturday. By
night-fall the atmosphere was a little dense, but the lamp-posts were
still clearly visible at a distance of some feet, and nobody,
accustomed to living in London, would have noticed anything much out of
the common. It was not till Sunday morning that the fog proper really
began.
London awoke on Sunday to find the world blanketed in the densest,
yellowest London particular that had been experienced for years. It was
the sort of day when the City clerk has the exhilarating certainty that
at last he has an excuse for lateness which cannot possibly be received
with harsh disbelief. People spent the day indoors and hoped it would
clear up by tomorrow.
"They can't possibly fight if it's like this," they told each other.
But on the Monday morning the fog was, if possible, denser. It wrapped
London about as with a garment. People shook their heads.
"They'll have to put it off," they were saying, when of a
sudden--_Boom!_ And, again, _Boom!_
It was the sound of heavy guns.
The battle had begun!
* * * * *
One does not wish to grumble or make a fuss, but still it does seem a
little hard that a battle of such importance, a battle so outstanding
in the history of the world, should have been fought under such
conditions. London at that moment was richer than ever before in
descriptive reporters. It was the age of descriptive reporters, of
vivid pen-pictures. In every newspaper office there were men who could
have hauled up their slacks about that battle in a way that would have
made a Y.M.C.A. lecturer want to get at somebody with a bayonet; men
who could have handed out the adjectives and exclamation-marks till you
almost heard the roar of the guns. And there they were--idle,
supine--like careened battleships. They were helpless. Bart Kennedy did
start an article which began, "Fog. Black fog. And the roar of guns.
Two nations fighting in the fog," but it never came to anything. It was
promising for a while, but it died of inanition in the middle of the
second stick.
It was hard.
The lot of the actual war-correspondents was still worse. It was
useless for them to explain that the fog was too thick to give them a
chance. "If it's light enough for them to fight," said their editors
remorselessly, "it's light enough for you to watch them." And out they
had to go.
They had a perfectly miserable time. Edgar Wallace seems to have lost
his way almost at once. He was found two days later in an almost
starving condition at Steeple Bumpstead. How he got there nobody knows.
He said he had set out to walk to where the noise of the guns seemed to
be, and had gone on walking. Bennett Burleigh, that crafty old
campaigner, had the sagacity to go by Tube. This brought him to
Hampstead, the scene, it turned out later, of the fiercest operations,
and with any luck he might have had a story to tell. But the lift stuck
half-way up, owing to a German shell bursting in its neighbourhood, and
it was not till the following evening that a search-party heard and
rescued him.
The rest--A. G. Hales, Frederick Villiers, Charles Hands, and the
others--met, on a smaller scale, the same fate as Edgar Wallace. Hales,
starting for Tottenham, arrived in Croydon, very tired, with a nail in
his boot. Villiers, equally unlucky, fetched up at Richmond. The most
curious fate of all was reserved for Charles Hands. As far as can be
gathered, he got on all right till he reached Leicester Square. There
he lost his bearings, and seems to have walked round and round
Shakespeare's statue, under the impression that he was going straight
to Tottenham. After a day and a-half of this he sat down to rest, and
was there found, when the fog had cleared, by a passing policeman.
And all the while the unseen guns boomed and thundered, and strange,
thin shoutings came faintly through the darkness.