face. It was like a flower, like a star; it was beautiful. Ultimus
could not take his eyes off it. Her eyes smiled back at his amazed
curiosity. He stood and reeled and said:
“I love you.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the little chambermaid.
“My father said the Fattish were false. I asked them to send me the
most beautiful woman in the land and they sent me a hideous old
creature.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah! Why did they not send you? We could have gone away at once, away,
away, where there are no old women, no battleships, no beds.”
The little chambermaid by this time was fascinated, and she stayed with
Ultimus all night, while he talked and told her how he had desired to
see a woman and was now satisfied and never wished to see another, and
how when he had seen the war he and she would retire to the island.
“Oh, sir,” said the little chambermaid. “And shall I be a Queen? And
won’t the Fatters ever be able to get near the island? They all say the
Fatters do awful things to women.”
Ultimus took her to his breast and they were joined in the mystical
union of a kiss; and for many hours no word passed between them.
In the morning they were disturbed by Siebenhaar, who came in
unsuspectingly, saw what had happened and withdrew discreetly, gave
orders to the management that Mr. Samways was not to be disturbed, and
went out to see Bondon in war-time.
XI: HIGH POLITICS
The streets were full of young men in uniform. In the parks were young
men without uniform being drilled. Except for policemen, hall-porters,
street-scavengers, the town was empty, and when Siebenhaar asked a
policeman why it was so, he was informed that everybody had gone to
look at the island.
Said the constable: “There was nothing like it since I was a boy, when
the war began.”
Siebenhaar was taken aback.
“How long?” he said.
“Well! It’ll be a matter of fifteen years now, though it’s difficult to
remember. It goes on. Things get quiet in the winter. Then it begins
again with the fine weather, with a new list of Fatter atrocities. Then
there’s a new promise from the Emperor of Grossia; then we have another
rally of the Empire and things become livelier.”
“I am astonished,” said Siebenhaar, “that a great free nation like the
Fattish should tolerate such a state of affairs.”
“Bless you,” said the policeman, “I’ve forgotten what peace was like.
There’s a few old gentlemen hold meetings to talk about it, but we’re
used to it by now. I remember there used to be scares about our being
invaded, but they soon came to an end. We all take our spell at the
fighting, and, if we come home, settle down to work of one sort or
another. There’s no doubt about it, the Fatters would make a nasty mess
of things if we didn’t keep them bottled up.”
Siebenhaar protested: “Surely you yourselves are making a nasty mess of
things?”
“Oh!” replied the policeman. “That’s over the water. You soon forget
about it when you get back home. It would be funny, sir, if that there
island were to put a stop to the war. We’d hardly know what to do with
our young men.”
Siebenhaar’s blood boiled. A great nation, with a tradition of freedom,
could acquiesce in such arrest of its life, such wanton sacrifice of
its youth!
He visited the Lord High Chief and found him just out of his bed in a
suit of blue silk pajamas. Breakfast was laid before him and he offered
Siebenhaar coffee. It was refused.
“I am come, sir, to tell you that the island will not be used to assist
you. It will be used to stop the war.”
“Stop the----?”
“As I say.”
“Come, come, sir. The war cannot be stopped until all parties to it
agree to our terms of settlement. It is a matter of high politics,
which it takes an expert to understand. We have the matter well in
hand. The country was told at the beginning that it was to be a long
war. It will be finished when our terms are agreed upon and not before.”
“And those terms are----?”
“They are known to my colleagues and myself. When the settlement is
concluded they will be laid before the country.”
“And have you, sir, during the last fifteen years ever risked your life
on land or sea? Have you suffered in pocket or in health? Have you been
deprived of even a luxury?”
“For fifteen years I have been the hardest worked man in the country.
I have practically lived in this office. When things were going badly
with us I made speeches up and down the country.”
“Asking young men to give their lives and thank God for the privilege
of dying before they had tasted the full sweetness of life.”
“It is their country’s life against theirs.”
“You say so.”
“The Fatters will make an end of us if they don’t.”
“Have you made an end of the Fatters?”
“No. But we will before we have done.”
“Are the Fatter women all stricken with barrenness?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then you cannot make an end of the race.”
“We can smash their Empire.”
“A word. Can you smash a word? You seem to me, sir, to talk and act as
though a nation were an abstraction instead of a collection of human
beings, bound together by language, manners, and religion.”
“It is a matter of high politics.”
“It seems to me, sir, that war is the logical outcome of your view
of national life, and that a nation without a war is not a nation. I
should imagine that a war greatly facilitates the task of government.
The rich can always be trusted to look after themselves, but the
poor are rendered impotent. I cannot raise a hand to support either
such a view or such a condition. You have attained the ideal of high
politics, the sacrifice of domestic affairs to international relations.
I congratulate you. I decline all further hospitality at your hands.
My young friend has already realized one of his ambitions. I shall
request the Emperor of Fatterland to satisfy the other. We shall go
to Fatterland to-morrow and see the war which you have been able to
confine to other countries.”
“Herr Siebenhaar,” shouted the Lord High Chief, “you shall do no such
thing. The public has taken the island to its heart. You will consider
yourself under arrest.”
Siebenhaar smiled sweetly:
“I have seen the Fattish public take Mr. George Samways to its heart
and I have seen it reject him. I do not think you will arrest me, for,
before leaving the island we arranged an explosion to take place
two days from now in case of our non-return. Such an explosion would
project thousands of tons of rock over your city.”
XII: THE PUBLIC
Ultimus refused to be separated from the lady of his choice, and when
Siebenhaar said he must return to the island the little chambermaid
declared her willingness to go if she could be married first.
“You need not worry about that,” grumbled Siebenhaar. “There will be no
other women on the island, no one to care whether you are married or
no, no one to bully you if you have dispensed with the ceremony, and
Ultimus has no relations except his aunt, who will never forgive him
for his frankness. I warn you that on our island you will find none of
the excitements of the great hotel, neither the advantages of society
nor its disadvantages.”
“I will come,” said the little chambermaid, “if you will let me tell my
mother that I am married. It would kill her if she thought I was not.”
“A lie more or less in a community is no great matter, since its
existence depends upon lies,” said Siebenhaar.
So the chambermaid wrote to her mother, packed her belongings in her
tin box, and with Siebenhaar and Ultimus was driven in the royal
motor-car to the docks. The last few miles they drove through enormous
cheering crowds, men, women, and children, singing as they went.
“Won’t I kiss you when you come back home,
My soldier boy!
For my heart is with you as you cross the foam,
My soldier boy!
You are big and you are brave,
From the Huns our homes to save,
Or to find a hero’s grave.
Won’t I kiss you when you come back home!”
A motor launch took them swiftly out to the island and there Ultimus
was proud to show the little house he had built and the gardens he had
made.
In the afternoon they went up to the top of the mountain, where an
amazing sight met their eyes. Through the smoke loomed the towers and
domes and chimneys of the great city, and on the banks of the river for
miles stretched the crowds of people, and others came along the roads,
pouring in on foot, in carts, and wagons. Ultimus was seized with
nausea, which soon gave place to rage and he stamped his foot on the
ground and cried:
“There are too many of them. Let me destroy them.”
But Siebenhaar wept and said:
“Rather destroy those heartless men who herd them like cattle and
rob them of the fruits of their labour and bid them believe in a God
whom they deny, a national idea which they can maintain only by the
destruction of life and the ruin of the nation. Destroy those who
sacrifice beauty to their pleasures, and love to their obstinate pride.
See, the city must be empty now, destroy it.”
Ultimus moved his hand and in one moment the domes, towers and chimneys
of the city disappeared. The island moved and the crowd, seeing that
which they had come to see, clapped their hands and shouted until the
island disappeared.
XIII: THE EMPEROR
In a few hours they were off the coast of Fatterland, and had
blocked up the harbour where the Fatter fleet lay in hiding from the
overwhelming superiority of the Fattish. The Emperor himself, who had
already heard of the destruction of Bondon, came out to greet them. He
had information as to Siebenhaar’s previous career and he decorated him
at sight with a Silver Eagle. To Ultimus he handed an Iron Cross.
The Emperor was dressed in a large brass helmet, a white suit with a
steel cuirass, and enormous shining boots. He was a little man and very
pompous.
“God,” he said, “has blessed you.”
“How do you know?” asked Siebenhaar.
“God,” said the Emperor, “has preserved the Fatterland, through me.”
“On this island,” retorted Siebenhaar, “we are accustomed to talk
sense. There would have been no need for God or anybody else to defend
Fatterland if you had not so wantonly destroyed peaceful relations with
other countries.”
The Emperor removed his helmet.
“What a relief!” he said. “No one has ever talked sensibly to me
before. You don’t know how sick I am of being an Emperor with everybody
assuming that I don’t wish to think of anything but my own dignity. I
am not allowed to think or talk of anything else.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Siebenhaar, “that a dignity which
requires over a million soldiers to maintain it is hardly worth it?
Have you ever thought that the million soldiers are maintained not for
your dignity, but because their housing, their feeding, their equipment
are all exceedingly profitable to a few men?”
“I have often thought that,” replied the Emperor, “but I have never
found a soul willing to discuss it with me. When I meet other Emperors
the same dreadful thought haunts all of us, but none of us dare speak
of it, for we are watched night and day, and what we are to say to
each other is written by young men in the Government Offices.”
The Emperor began to cry.
“Four million men have been killed since the war began, and everybody
says it is my fault. I didn’t make the war, I didn’t, indeed I didn’t.
It was not in my power to make war, any more than it is in my power to
stop it. Horrible things have been done by the soldiers.”
“Poor wretches!” said Siebenhaar. “How can they be anything but
bestial, deprived as they are of all that makes life sweet?”
“How, indeed?” asked the Emperor. “Thousands have died of dysentery,
or cholera, and enteric and typhoid. Hundreds of thousands more of
starvation and exposure. It is impossible, I tell you, impossible to
prevent organisation breaking down. Contractors!” He shook his fists.
“Ah! There is nothing contractors will not do, from sending bad food
to insisting on being paid for food they have never sent. Ah! the
villains! the villains! And to think that my name is being execrated
throughout the world.”
The Emperor looked about him uneasily.
“And now, Herr Siebenhaar, what am I to tell them on my return? That
your marvellous island is the gift of God to the Fatter people?”
“Say nothing,” replied Siebenhaar, “except that Mr. Ultimus Samways
wishes to see the war. We are neutral territory. If we have damaged
Bondon we have in coming here cleared your minefields and we propose
to keep your fleet bottled up and shall destroy it unless Mr. Samways
returns in safety within a week.”
“We have had a delightful talk and it has been refreshing to me to
discover a philosopher who is greater than an Emperor.”
Siebenhaar laughed and said he looked forward to the day when
capitalists and contractors discovered that the world contained a power
greater than their own.
“I also,” said the Emperor, “possess an island. I shall be happy when
the war is over and I can retire to it and live in peace and devote
myself to the delightful and harmless pursuit of painting bad pictures.”
He promised that an airship should be sent for Ultimus, and said
good-bye cordially and regretfully. As he put his helmet on he said:
“I have to wear this infernal thing, though it always gives me a
headache.”
“Now,” said Siebenhaar to Ultimus, “you have seen the unhappy
individual who is called the man-eater of Europe.”
“Was that the Emperor?” asked the chambermaid. “Why, they told me he
had a tail and always walked about with bleeding baby’s legs in his
hands!”
XIV: WAR
The airship was a great delight to the inventive genius of Ultimus.
He had it brought to earth on the shore and examined the engines and
propellers, and its ingenious steering apparatus. The officer in
charge of it was discreet and silent, a stiff martial gentleman whose
intelligence and humanity were completely hidden by his uniform. He
had brought a declaration to be signed by Ultimus, saying that he was
a non-belligerent and did not represent any newspaper. For Siebenhaar
he had brought a bundle of newspapers of every country so that he might
read what the nations were saying of each other.
At last Ultimus’ curiosity was satisfied, and he stepped into the
observation car, the engines started purring and the great fish-shaped
balloon rose into the air.
Ultimus was surprised to see how little his island was and when they
passed over into Fatterland he cried:
“Why, there is room for everybody! How wrong I was to hate the Fattish
for being so many! Why do not some of them come and live here if there
is no room for them on their island?”
“They’d have a warm time of it if they did,” said the officer.
“Why? Don’t you like the Fattish?”
“They are pirates and thieves. They are jealous of our honest
commercial success. They and they only are responsible for this war.
They have set half the nations of Europe to attack us, but they attack
in vain. We are glorious warriors, but they are only commercial
travellers.”
“In Fatland,” replied Ultimus, “they say that they are glorious
warriors, but you are only machines. And they say that you are jealous
of their Empire, and for years have been planning to destroy their
fleet.”
“What nonsense!” said the officer.
They had been thousands of feet in the air, often above the clouds.
“We are approaching the western frontier.”
They descended. A booming and roaring came up and a queer crackling
sound. There were flashes of light and puffs of smoke, but nowhere were
there signs of any men save far, far away on the roads behind the lines
of smoke and flashes of light.
“That,” said the officer, “is the war.”
“But where are the men who are doing it?”
The officer pointed to black zigzag parallel lines in the ground.
“They are there. Those are trenches. They are impregnable. Years ago,
at the beginning of the war there was some barbarous fighting with
bayonets, but since we took up those positions there is nothing but
what you see. Each year makes those positions stronger, nothing can
move the armies from them. While the war lasts, they will be held. Is
it not splendid? It is just the same on the eastern frontier, though
the line there is a hundred miles longer. Ah! It is the greatest war
the world has ever seen.”
They came lower until they could see into the trenches. There were
men playing cards, others sleeping; another was vomiting. Another was
buttoning up his trousers when his head was blown off. His body stood
for a moment with his hand fumbling at his buttons. Then it collapsed
ridiculously. One of the men who was playing wiped a card on his
breeches and then played it. Another man went mad, climbed out of the
trenches and rushed screeching in the direction whence the missile had
come.
“I have seen enough,” said Ultimus. “Why do they go there?”
“Because if they did not Fatterland would be overrun with the savages
hired by the Fattish.”
“Would that be worse?”
“It would not last so long,” replied the officer, “but we should have
lost our honour as a nation.”
“That,” said Ultimus, “is exactly how the most beautiful woman in
Fatland talks. What is this honour?”
“It is holy,” said the officer with so fatuously fervent an expression
that Ultimus laughed.
“Does your Highness wish to see the eastern frontier?”
“No, thank you. That is enough.”
The airship soared up. It was now night. The stars came out and Ultimus
mused:
“Out of all the planets why should this be tortured with the life of
men? Is it their vast numbers that drive them mad? Or are they so vile
that war is their normal condition and peace only a rest from it?”
For the first time Ultimus responded to the beauty of the world. They
flew low over mountains, and great rivers and wide valleys. The variety
of it all entranced him, accustomed as he was to the monotony of the
sea and the narrow limitations of the island. Apart from the horror of
war it was amazing to him that men should desert such loveliness to
spend their days in holes dug in the ground.
XV: SIEBENHAAR ON SOCIETY
Meanwhile on the island the philosopher and the chambermaid lived
through difficult hours. The girl wept without ceasing and said if
she had known how dull it was going to be she never would have come.
Remembering Arabella’s dissatisfaction, Siebenhaar said:
“Women have no resources within themselves. They take life too
seriously. It is never amusing to them. Society is organised for their
protection and amusement and they take no interest in it, and let men,
who are only worried or irritated by it, bring it to ruin without a
protest. Women are the criminals who are responsible for everything,
for they encourage men in their vanity and weaken them in their power.
They desire safety, and detest originality, intellect, imagination.”
The chambermaid sobbed: “I thought it was going to be fun to be a
Queen, but there is no fun in reigning over sticks and stones.”
“Women,” said Siebenhaar, “want their lovers and their babies and their
fun. When they have to choose between the three, they choose their fun.
No. They are not the criminals; it is men who are that for letting
them have their fun to keep them quiet. Oh! Ultimus, that was a true
instinct of yours to destroy them in their thousands!”
XVI: PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Ultimus was gone exactly a week, during which time he saw all the
preparations for the war, the countless widows and orphans created by
it, the stoppage of other business, the immense activity at arsenals,
boot factories, and cloth mills, and chemical laboratories, the soup
kitchens for the starving, among whom he was horrified to see thousands
of men who had returned maimed from the trenches. What perhaps appalled
him most was the gaiety of the children.
He mentioned this to Siebenhaar on his return. The philosopher said:
“They have been born since the war began and do not conceive of life
being otherwise.”
“It must end,” said Ultimus, and he sank into a deep reverie. The
strangest result of his experience was that the sight of the little
chambermaid filled him with disgust. When he thought of the peaceful
and profoundly stirring existence out of which he and Siebenhaar had
come he could not but contrast it with the obscene excitement in which
he had found her. That she could accept and welcome his embraces when
she knew, as he did not, the bestiality towards maintaining which the
energies of Europe were devoted, filled him with so bitter an anguish
that he could hardly endure the sight of her. When he thought that he
and she might be bringing another life into a world made so unworthy
of human life, then he thought that he could never forgive her. His
impulse was to escape, to leave the benighted nations to their fate,
but, when he thought of the suffering he had seen, he found that he was
bound to them by more than curiosity. He had seen war and could not
rest until he had done his utmost to expunge it from the minds of men.
He had lived in a pure happiness familiar with all the intellectual
discoveries of the human mind; now he had gained the love of beauty and
a more passionate incentive to live. What room was there now among all
those millions of men for intellect and beauty?
Siebenhaar had made good use of the newspapers.
“It is clear to me,” he said, “that this war happened through stupidity
and jealousy. They all invented excuses for it after the outbreak of
hostilities. There is no reason why it should not end as suddenly as it
began. It is too much to expect men debauched by fifteen years of war
to see reason, but they will understand force. We will use force.”
Together they drew up the following manifesto:
SAMWAYS ISLAND,
OFF EUROPE.
We, the undersigned, lately arrived in Europe, on discovering its
unanimous betrayal of civilisation, hereby declare as follows:
(1) We have destroyed Bondon.
(2) The power which did that will be used against any of the present
belligerents not consenting to lay down their arms.
(3) Upon the declaration of peace the fleets of the hostile nations
are to be collected and sunk, the guns and ammunition of the various
disbanded armies having first been laded in them. Neutral nations
will then be invited by us to destroy their fleets and disband their
armies.
(4) Nations in future will have no high political relations with each
other except through a central government.
(5) Recognising the natural pugnacity of the human race and its
love of spectacular effect, we suggest that in future nations which
arrive at a complete misunderstanding should, with the consent of the
central government, declare war on each other for a period of not
less than one week and not more than one month, the nations to place
in the firing line only the incurably diseased, the incorrigibly
criminal, the lunatic and the imbecile, and all of those convicted of
exploitation and profit-sharing.
(6) Not more than two thousand men are to be employed on either side,
and the sphere of operations is to be narrowly limited. If desired,
and to encourage a knowledge of the horror of war, we suggest that
such wars be paid for by admitting spectators at a price.
(7) Wars are only to take place in August.
(8) Naval war is to be prohibited altogether as too barbarous. The
central government will maintain an armed fleet for the suppression
of pirates.
(9) Weapons and machines designed for the destruction of human life
are only to be manufactured by the central government.
(10) Acknowledging that follies do not die easily and that nations at
war will always desire territory as a trophy, we are willing to place
the island at the service of the central government as the prize to
be fought for. It can always be found by wireless.
(11) We submit that there shall be no discussion of the terms of
settlement until the central government is set up and a proper
tribunal is constituted to deal with all claims. The first step in
the interest of parties is disarmament, and upon that we insist.
(Signed) IGNATZ SIEBENHAAR.
ULTIMUS SAMWAYS.
XVII: PEACE
This manifesto was transmitted by wireless to all parts of the world.
It was published in the newspapers of America, and therefore could
not be suppressed by the various National Committees for Keeping the
Public in the Dark. Ultimus received invitations to all the capitals
of the belligerent nations. He said that if they had anything to say
they could say it by wireless. Meanwhile if nothing was said the Fatter
fleet would be destroyed within a week: the Fattish fleet immediately
after it: and the various ports and capitals would one by one meet the
fate of Bondon.