About three o’clock the next morning Thomson was awakened by a light
touch upon his shoulder. He sprang up from the couch upon which he had
thrown himself. Ambrose was standing over him. He was still in his room
at the War Office, and fully dressed.
“Mr. Gordon Jones has rung up from Downing Street, sir,” he announced.
“He is with the Prime Minister. They want to know if you could step
across.”
“I’ll go at once,” Thomson agreed,--“just sponge my eyes and have a
brush up. Nothing else fresh, Ambrose?”
“Nothing at all sir,” the young man replied. “All the newspapers in
London have rung up but of course we have not answered any of them.
You’ll be careful outside, please? There isn’t a single light anywhere,
and the streets are like pitch. A man tried to use an electric torch on
the other side of the way just now, and they shot him. There’s a double
line of sentries all round from Whitehall corner.”
“No flares this time, eh?” Thomson muttered. “All right, Ambrose, I
think I can feel my way there.”
He descended into the street but for a few moments he found himself
hopelessly lost at sea. So far as he could see there was no light nor
any glimmer of one. He reached the corner of the street like a blind
man, by tapping the kerbstone with his cane. Arrived here, he stood for
a moment in the middle of the road, bareheaded. There was not a breath
of wind anywhere. He made his way carefully down towards Downing Street,
meeting few people, and still obliged to grope rather than walk. Along
Downing Street he made his way by the railings and rang the bell at last
at the Premier’s house. He was shown at once into the council room. The
four or five men who were seated around a table, and who looked up at
his entrance, bore every one of them, household names. The Premier held
out his hand.
“Good evening, Major Thomson,” he began. “Please sit down and join us
for a moment.”
Thomson was a little surprised at the gathering.
“You’ll forgive my suggesting that this is likely to be a marked spot
to-night,” he said.
The Premier smiled.
“Well, you could scarcely expect us to hide, could you, Major Thomson?”
he remarked. “In any case, there is not one of us who is not prepared
to share what the other citizens of London have to face. The country
for the women and children, if you please. We gather, sir, that it
is chiefly through you that we are in the fortunate position of being
prepared to-night.”
“It was through my action in a matter which I understand has been
subjected to a great deal of criticism,” Thomson replied.
“I admit it frankly,” the statesman acknowledged. “That particular
matter, the matter of your censorship of a certain letter, has been
the subject of a grave and earnest conference here between us all. We
decided to send for you. We telephoned first of all to the Chief but he
told us that you were entirely head of your department and responsible
to no one, that you had been--forgive me--a brilliant success, and that
it was his intention to interfere in no possible way with any course you
chose to take. I may say that he intimated as much to me when I went to
him, simply furious because you had removed a certain person from the
list of those whose correspondence is free from censorship.”
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Thomson asked.
“Listen to us while we put a matter to you from a common-sense point of
view,” Mr. Gordon Jones begged. “You see who we are. We are those upon
whose shoulders rests chiefly the task of ruling this country. I want to
tell you that we have come to a unanimous decision. We say nothing about
the moral or the actual guilt of Sir Alfred Anselman. How far he may
have been concerned in plotting with our country’s enemies is a matter
which we may know in the future, but for the present--well, let’s make a
simple matter of it--we want him left alone.”
“You wish him to continue in his present high position?” Thomson said
slowly,--“a man who is convicted of having treasonable correspondence
with our enemy?”
“We wish him left alone,” Mr. Gordon Jones continued earnestly, “not
for his own sake but for ours. When the time comes, later on, it may be
possible for us to deal with him. To-day, no words of mine could explain
to you his exact utility. He has a finger upon the money-markets of the
world. He has wealth, great wealth, and commands great wealth in every
city. Frankly, this man as an open enemy today could bring more harm
upon us than if any neutral Power you could name were to join the Triple
Alliance. Remember, too, Major Thomson, that there may be advantages
to us in this waiting attitude. Since your warning, his letters can
be admitted to censorship. You have the control of a great staff of
military detectives; the resources of Scotland Yard, too, are at your
service. Have him watched day and night, his letters opened, his every
movement followed, but don’t provoke him to open enmity. We don’t want
him in the Tower. The scandal and the shock of it would do us enormous
harm, apart from the terrible financial panic which would ensue. We
will see to it that he does no further mischief than he may already
have done. We make an appeal to you, all of us here to-night. Be guided
entirely by us in this matter. You have rendered the country great
service by your discovery. Render it a greater one, Major Thomson, by
keeping that discovery secret.”
“I will not make conditions with you,” Thomson replied gravely. “I will
say at once that I am perfectly willing to yield to your judgement in
this matter. In return I ask something. I have more serious charges
still to bring against Sir Alfred’s nephew. Will you leave the matter of
dealing with this young man in my hands?”
“With pleasure,” the Premier agreed. “I think, gentlemen,” he added,
looking around the table, “that we need not detain Major Thomson any
longer? We others have still a little business to finish.”
It was all over in those few minutes and Thomson found himself in the
street again. He guided his way by the railings into Whitehall. The
blackness seemed to him to be now less impenetrable. Looking fixedly
eastward he seemed to be conscious of some faint lightening in the sky.
He heard the rumbling of carts in the road, the horses mostly being led
by their drivers. Here and there, an odd taxicab which had escaped the
police orders came along with one lamp lit, only to be stopped in a few
yards and escorted to the edge of the pavement. All the way up Whitehall
there was one long line of taxicabs, unable to ply for hire or find
their way to the garages until daylight. The unusualness of it all was
almost stimulating. At the top of the broad thoroughfare, Thomson turned
to the left through the Pall Mall Arch and passed into St. James’s Park.
He strolled slowly along until he came to the thoroughfare to the
left, leading down to the Admiralty. There he paused for a moment, and,
turning around, listened intently. He was possessed of particularly keen
hearing and it seemed to him as though from afar off he could hear the
sound of a thousand muffled hammers beating upon an anvil; of a strange,
methodical disturbance in the air. He grasped the railing with one
hand and gazed upward with straining eyes. Just at that moment he saw
distinctly what appeared to be a flash of lightning in the sky,
followed by a report which sounded like a sharp clap of thunder.
Then instinctively he covered his eyes with his hands. From a dozen
places--one close at hand--a long, level stream of light seemed to shoot
out towards the clouds. There was one of them which came from near
the Carlton Hotel, which lit up the whole of the Pall Mall Arch with
startling distinctness, gave him a sudden vision of the Admiralty roof,
and, as he followed it up, brought a cry to his lips. Far away, beyond
even the limits of the quivering line of light, there was something
in the sky which seemed a little blacker than the cloud. Even while he
looked at it, from the Admiralty roof came a lurid flash, the hiss and
screech of a shell as it dashed upwards. And then the sleeping city
seemed suddenly to awake and the night to become hideous. Not fifty
yards away from him something fell in the Park, and all around him lumps
of gravel and clods of earth fell in a shower. A great elm tree fell
crashing into the railings close by his side. Then there was a deafening
explosion, the thunder of falling masonry, and a house by the side of
the arch broke suddenly into flames. A few moments later, a queer sight
amongst all these untoward and unexpected happenings, a fire engine
dashed under the arch, narrowly missing the broken fragments of brick
and stone, swung around, and a dozen fire-hoses commenced to play upon
the flaming building.
The darkness was over now, and the silence. There were houses on the
other side of the river on fire, and scarcely a moment passed without
the crash of a falling bomb. The air for a second or two was filled with
piteous shrieks from somewhere towards Charing-Cross, shrieks drowned
almost immediately by another tremendous explosion from further
north. Every now and then, looking upwards in the line of the long
searchlights, Thomson could distinctly see the shape of one of the
circling airships. Once the light flashed downwards, and between him and
Buckingham Palace he saw a great aeroplane coming head foremost down,
heard it strike the ground with a tremendous crash, heard the long
death cry, a cry which was more like a sob, of the men who perished with
it....
Every moment the uproar became more deafening. From all sorts of
unsuspected places and buildings came the lightning quiver of the guns,
followed by the shrieking of the shells. Right on to the tops of the
houses between where he was standing and the Carlton, another aeroplane
fell, smashing the chimneys and the windows and hanging there like a
gigantic black bat. There was not a soul anywhere near him, but by the
occasional flashes of light Thomson could see soldiers and hurrying
people in the Admiralty Square, and along the Strand he could hear the
patter of footsteps upon the pavement. But he himself remained alone,
a silent, spellbound, fascinated witness of this epic of slaughter and
ruin.
Then came what seemed to him to be its culmination. High above his head
he was suddenly conscious of a downward current of air. He looked
up. The shouting voices, apparently from the falling clouds, voices
unfamiliar and guttural, warned him of what was coming. The darkness
which loomed over him, took shape. He turned and ran for his life. Only
a little way above his head a storm of shrapnel now was streaming
from the lowered guns of the Admiralty. Turning back to look, he saw,
scarcely fifty yards above him, the falling of a huge Zeppelin. He felt
himself just outside its range and paused, breathless. With a crash
which seemed to split the air, the huge structure fell. The far end of
it, all buckled up, rested against the back of the Admiralty. The other
end was only a few yards from where Thomson stood, at the bottom of the
steps leading up into Pall Mall. A dozen searchlights played upon it.
Men suddenly appeared as though from underneath. Some of them stood for
a moment and swayed like drunken men, others began to run. Round the
corner from the Admiralty Square a little company of soldiers came with
fixed bayonets. There was a shout. Two of the men ran on.
Thomson heard the crack of a rifle and saw one of them leap into the air
and collapse. The other one staggered and fell on his knees. A dozen of
them were there together with their hands stretched to the skies. Then
Thomson was conscious that one of the oil-clad figures was coming in his
direction, making for the steps, running with swift, stealthy gait. A
flash of light gleamed upon the fugitive for a moment. He wore a hat
like a helmet; only his face, blackened with grease, and his staring
eyes, were visible. He came straight for Thomson, breathing heavily.
“Hands up!” Thomson cried.
The man aimed a furious blow at him. Thomson, who quite unconsciously
had drawn a revolver from his pocket, shot him through the heart,
watched him jump up and fall, a senseless, shapeless heap upon the
bottom of the steps, and, with a queer instinct of bloodthirstiness,
ran down the line of the wrecked Zeppelin, seeking for more victims. The
soldiers were coming up in force now, however, and detachments of them
were marching away their prisoners. Another company was stationed all
around the huge craft, keeping guard. Thomson walked back once more
towards the Admiralty. The sky was still lurid with the reflection of
many fires but the roar of the guns had diminished, and for several
minutes no bomb had been thrown. With the revolver in his hand still
smoking, he ran into a man whom he knew slightly at the Admiralty.
“Thomson, by God!” the man exclaimed. “What are you doing with that
revolver?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve just shot one of those fellows from
the Zeppelin. How are things going?”
“There are six Zeppelins down in different parts, and a couple of dozen
aeroplanes,” the other replied. “Woolwich is safe, and the Houses
of Parliament and Whitehall. Heaps of reports to come in but I don’t
believe they’ve done much damage.”
Thomson passed on. It was lighter now and the streets were thronged with
people. He turned once more towards the Strand and stood for a moment
in Trafalgar Square. One wing of the National Gallery was gone, and the
Golden Cross Hotel was in flames. Leaning against the Union Club was
another fallen aeroplane. Men and women were rushing everywhere in wild
excitement. He made his way down to the War Office. It seemed queer to
find men at work still in their rooms. He sent Ambrose for an orderly
and received a message from headquarters.
“Damage to public buildings and property not yet estimated. All
dockyards and arsenals safe, principal public buildings untouched. Only
seventeen dead and forty injured reported up to five minutes ago.
Great damage done to enemy fleet; remainder in full retreat, many badly
damaged. Zeppelin just down in Essex, four aeroplanes between here and
Romford.”
Thomson threw down his revolver.
“Well,” he muttered to himself, “perhaps London will believe now that we
are at war!”