nightmare days miserably affected his power of composition, his style
and even such matters as punctuation and spelling. Phœbe grew anxious
about him, and recommended a holiday, but he had the wisdom to know that
the only thing that kept him on the safe side of the frontier between
sanity and madness was determined application to work, however poor the
output was. He felt that he might just as well pack his boxes and go
straight to Bedlam instead of making a circuitous journey there _via_
the Malvern Hills.
It was when his condition was at its worst that there gleamed a light
through the tunnel of his despair. The editor of the _Yorkshire
Telegraph_, who wanted another story by the Partingtons, with the
shortest possible delay, wrote to him suggesting in the most delicate
manner that life in New York would present an admirable setting for a
tale, especially since the United States had come into the war, and
offering to pay his passage to that salubrious city if he would
favourably consider this proposal. And all at once Philip remembered
having read in some book of physical geography, studied by him in
happier boyish days, that the Atlantic in certain places was not less
than seven miles deep....
He read this amiable epistle to his wife.
“Upon my word, it sounds a very good plan,” he said brightly. “What do
you say, Phœbe? It will give me the holiday of which you think I stand
in need.”
Phœbe shook her head.
“Do you propose that I should come with you?” she asked. “Why should a
holiday among the submarines do you more good than the Malvern Hills?”
The thought of the deep holes in the Atlantic grew ever more rosy to
Philip’s mind. Even the hideous notion of being torpedoed failed to take
the colour out of it.
“My dear, these are days in which a man must not mind taking risks,” he
said.
She smiled at him.
“I know your fearless nature, darling,” she said; “but what is the point
of running unnecessary risks?”
“Local colour. There is a great deal in Mr. Etherington’s remarks.”
“I don’t agree. I should think with our experience we ought to be able
to describe New York without going there. We didn’t find it necessary to
go to Athens, or Khartoum, or Mexico.”
“True,” said he; “but perhaps my descriptions might have gained in
veracity if we had. That was a tiresome letter to the _Yorkshire
Telegraph_ about the spires on the Acropolis. If we had been there, we
should have known that there weren’t any.”
He fingered the stud-box in his pocket for a moment, and his fingers
itched to drop it over a ship’s side.
“My part of our joint work might gain in true artistic feeling,” he
said, “if I described what I had actually seen. Art holds the mirror up
to nature, you know.”
“Yes, darling; but do you think Shakespeare meant that Art must hold the
mirror up to New York?” asked she. “I fancy there is very little nature
in New York.”
He took a turn or two up and down the room, while the box positively
burned his finger-tips.
“I can’t help feeling as I do about it,” he said. “And, Phœbe, one of
our earliest vows to each other was that each of us should respect the
other’s literary conscience!”
She got up.
“You disarm me, dear,” she said. “Apply for your passport, and if they
give it you, go. I only ask you to respect my feminine weakness and not
make me come with you among all those horrid submarines.”
They sealed their compact with a kiss.
By the time Phœbe had interviewed her cook, her husband had already
written his letter applying for his passport, on the grounds of artistic
necessity in his profession. She read it through with high approval.
“Very dignified and proper,” she said. “By the way, dear, there will be
no work for us this morning. We are going over the factory for
explosives with kind Captain Traill. You and I must observe the
processes very carefully, as we want all the information we can get for
‘The Hero of Ypres.’”
He jumped up with something of his old alacrity.
“Aha, there speaks your artistic conscience,” he said. “And don’t let me
see too many soft glances between you and kind Captain Traill.”
Phœbe looked hugely delighted and returned the compliment.
“And there are some very pretty girls working there,” she observed
slyly.
An hour afterwards they were padding in felt slippers round the room
where bombs were packed with a fatal grey treacle, one spoonful of which
was sufficient to blow them and the whole building into a million
fragments. A new type of bomb was being made there, consisting of a
cast-iron shell fitted with a hole through which the grey treacle was
poured; an iron stopper was then screwed into the hole. There were
hundreds of those empty shells, which slid along grooved ways to where
the treacle was put into them, and they then were passed on to the
girls, who fixed their stoppers. It was all soft, silent, deadly work,
and Philip recorded a hundred impressions on his retentive memory.
Phœbe and Captain Traill were walking just ahead of him, when suddenly a
great light broke, so vividly illuminating his brain that he almost
thought some terrific explosion, seen and not heard, had occurred.
Stealthily he drew from his pocket the stud-case, stealthily he opened
it and took out the razor-blade. Then, bending over an empty bomb-case
as if to examine it, he dropped the blade into it. It fell inside with a
slight chink, which nobody noticed.
A couple of minutes afterwards the bomb-case had passed through the
hands of the dispenser of treacle, and had its stopper screwed in.
“And where are all those little surprise packets going?” asked Philip
airily.
“To aeroplanes on the west front,” said kind Captain Traill. “We’re
sending off a lot to-night. Perhaps that one”--and he pointed to the
identical bomb which Philip had had a hand in filling--“will make a mess
in Mannheim next week.”
“I hope so,” said Philip fervently.
The only thing, now that Philip had disposed of the razor-blade, that
clouded his complete content was the fear that his passport would be
granted him, and that he would have to make a journey to America.
Happily no such unnerving calamity occurred, for a week later he
received a polite intimation from the passport office that the object
for which he wanted to go there did not seem of sufficient importance to
warrant the granting of a permit; so, wreathed in smiles, he passed this
letter over to Phœbe.
“There’s the end of that,” he said.
“Philistines! Barbarians!” she said indignantly.
“I suppose they are acting to the best of their judgment,” said he. “I
dare say they have never heard of me.”
“My dear, don’t be so cynical,” said Phœbe.
“Well, well! Certainly I am bitterly disappointed.”
He took up the morning paper.
“Bitterly!” he said again. “Hallo! Our airmen bombed Mannheim two nights
ago, and dropped three tons of high explosives. Well, that is very
interesting. Captain Traill said that perhaps some of those bombs which
we saw being filled would make a mess in Mannheim. I hope they were
those actual ones.”
“So do I,” said Phœbe. “Was there much damage done?”
“The German account says that there was hardly any, but of course that
is the German account. A few people were wounded and cut by fragments of
the bombs. Cut!”
He got up and could hardly refrain from dancing round the table among
the rushes.
“Some deep cuts, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said.