advance of his wife's, descended first to the kitchen, where, in the
continued and regretted absence of their housekeeper, he struggled
valiantly with the making of breakfast while Griselda finished her
packing. The meal so prepared fell short of complete success; coffee as
brewed by William was not the same beverage as coffee prepared by Madame
Peys, nor were its tepid attractions enhanced by the absence of their
usual and plentiful ration of milk. Thanks to the defection of the Peys
family, they were not only milkless but eggless; and such remains of
bread and butter as they could find in the cupboard were the only
accompaniment to William's suggestion of coffee. In the circumstances
there was but little temptation to risk the loss of the Brussels train
by lingering over the table and less than five minutes sufficed for
their simple meal. Having despatched it, they strapped their hold-alls
and stepped out briskly on their way to the station and home--the sun
still low on the eastward ridge of the valley and the dew still heavy on
the grass. They hardly turned to look back at the cottage, so glad were
they to leave it behind them; and in the elation of their spirits they
sped down the path with a quite unnecessary haste. They were escaping
from nature and solitude, and their hearts sang cheerily of Bloomsbury.
When they rounded the bend in the path that brought them within sight of
the farm their first thought was that the missing family had returned;
for outside the gate were three horses, standing riderless and with
heads near together. There was something reassuring in the sight of the
beasts as they stood in the sunlight shifting and flicking their tails,
something that gave the lie to the terrors of the night before; the
presence of horses betokened the presence of men, and the presence of
men dissipated the sense of mystery that had brooded over an empty house
with a nameless grave in its garden. Griselda drew a comfortable breath
of relief as she supposed they had time to call in and settle the last
week's bill with Madame Peys.
"I do wish," she pondered regretfully, "that I could understand what she
says. I must say I should like to know what the explanation is--about
that grave ... I suppose they've come back to fetch away the rest of the
furniture, and things--those aren't their horses, though!"
"No," William assented, considering the sleek strong beasts, "they have
only got cart-horses ... I wonder." ...
A man stepped suddenly out from behind the shifting horses--so suddenly
that they both started. He had been standing by the gate with the
bridles gathered in his hand, hidden by his charges from William and
Griselda as they had been hidden from him. When, hearing their voices,
he stepped into sight, he stood with his heels together, very erect and
staring at them--a young man squarely and sturdily built, with under his
helmet a reddish face and a budding black moustache. He was clad in a
tight-fitting greyish uniform, and a sword hung by his side. He stared
and the pair stared back at him--curiously but not quite so openly.
"It's a soldier," Griselda commented--adding, like William, "I
wonder----" They both wondered so much that they hesitated and
slackened their pace; the presence of a military man but complicated the
problem of the farm. Coupled with the absence of the Peys family, it
revived their suspicions of the night before, their suspicions of crime
and a hasty flight from justice ... and involuntarily their eyes turned
to the garden, and sought the outline of the grave beyond the gooseberry
bushes.
"It really does look," Griselda whispered, "as if there was
something--not right."
As she whispered the soldier rapped out a loud monosyllable; it was
enunciated so curtly and sharply that they started for the second time
and came to an involuntary halt. For the space of a second or two they
stood open-mouthed and flustered--and then Griselda, recovering from the
shock, expressed her indignant opinion.
"How rude!" she said. "What does he shout at us like that for?"
"I suppose," her husband conjectured, "he wants us to stop."
"Well," said Griselda, "we have stopped." Her tone was nettled and
embittered. It annoyed her to realize that, involuntarily and
instinctively, she had obeyed an official order; it was not, she felt
what her Leaders would expect from a woman of her training and calibre.
It was that and not fear that disconcerted her--for, after the first
shock of surprise at the man's rough manner, neither she nor her husband
were in the least overawed; on the contrary, as they stood side by side
with their baggage in their hands, gazing into the sunburnt face of the
soldier, something of the contempt they felt for his species was
reflected in their light-blue eyes. Of the two pairs of light-blue eyes
William's perhaps were the more contemptuous: his anti-militarism was
more habitual and ingrained than Griselda's.
What William looked at was a creature (the soldier) of whom he knew
little and talked much; his experience of the man of war was purely
insular, and his attitude towards him would have been impossible in any
but a native of Britain. He came of a class--the English lower
middle--which the rules of caste and tradition of centuries debarred
from the bearing of arms; a class which might, in this connection, have
adapted to its own needs the motto of the House of Rohan. "Roi ne puis;
prince ne daigne; Rohan je suis," might have been suitably englished in
the mouths of William's fellows as, "Officer I cannot be; private I will
not be; tradesman or clerk I am." Further, he had lived in surroundings
where the soldier was robbed of his terrors; to him the wearer of the
king's uniform was not only a person to whom you alluded at Labour
meetings with the certainty of raising a jeer, but a target at whom
strikers threw brickbats and bottles with energy and practical impunity.
Should the target grow restive under these attentions and proceed to
return them in kind, it was denounced in Parliament, foamed at by the
Press, and possibly court-martialled as a sop to indignant Labour. Thus
handicapped it could hardly be looked on as a formidable adversary ...
and William, without a thought of fear, stared the field-grey horseman
in the eyes.
The field-grey horseman, on his side, stared the pair of civilians up
and down--with a glance that matched the courtesy of his recent manner
of address--until, having surveyed them sufficiently, he called over his
shoulder to some one unseen within the house. There was something in
his face and the tone of his loud-voiced hail that made the temper of
Griselda stir within her; and for the second time that morning she
wished for a command of the language of the country--this time for the
purposes of sharp and scathing rebuke. As a substitute she assumed the
air of cold dignity with which she had entered the taxi on the night of
her protest at the meeting.
"Come on, William," she said. "Don't take any notice of him, dear."
The advice, though well meant, was unfortunate. As William attempted to
follow both it and his wife, the soldier moved forward and struck him a
cuff on the side of the head that deposited him neatly on the grass.
Griselda, who--in order to convey her contempt for official authority
and disgust at official insolence--had been pointedly surveying the
meeting of hill and horizon, heard a whack and scuffle, a guttural grunt
and a gasp; and turned to see William, with a hand to his cheek, lying
prone at the feet of his assailant. She rounded on the man like a lion,
and perhaps, with her suffragette training behind her, would have landed
him a cuff in his turn; but as she raised her arm it was caught from
behind and she found herself suddenly helpless in the grasp of a second
grey-clad soldier--who, when he heard his comrade's hail, had come
running out of the house.
"Let me go," she cried, wriggling in his grasp as she had wriggled
aforetime in the hands of a London policeman, and kicking him deftly on
the shins as she had been wont to kick Robert on his. For answer he
shook her to the accompaniment of what sounded like curses--shook her
vehemently, till her hat came off and her hair fell down, till her teeth
rattled and the landscape danced about her. When he released her, with
the final indignity of a butt with the knee in the rear, she collapsed
on the grass by her husband's side in a crumpled, disreputable heap.
There for a minute or two she lay gasping and inarticulate--until, as
her breath came back and the landscape ceased to gyrate, she dragged
herself up into a sitting position and thrust back the hair from her
eyes. William, a yard or two away, was also in a sitting position with
his hand pressed against his cheekbone; while over him stood the
assailants in field-grey, apparently snapping out questions.
"I don't understand," she heard him protest feebly, "I tell you I don't
understand. Griselda, can't you explain to them that I don't speak
French?"
"Comprends pas," said Griselda, swallowing back tears of rage.
"Comprends pas--so it's not a bit of good your talking to us. Parlez
pas francais--but that won't prevent me from reporting you for this
disgraceful assault. You cowards--you abominable cowards! You're worse
than the police at home, which is saying a good deal. I wonder you're
not ashamed of yourselves. I've been arrested three times and I've
never been treated like this."
At this juncture one of the men in field-grey seized William by the
collar and proceeded to turn out his pockets--extracting from their
recesses a purse, a pipe, a handkerchief, a fountain pen, and a
green-covered Cook's ticket. He snapped back the elastic on the Cook's
ticket, and turned the leaves that remained for the journey home.
"London," he ejaculated suddenly, pronouncing the vowels in un-English
fashion as O's.
"London!" his companion echoed him--and then, as if moved by a common
impulse, they called on the name of Heinz.
There was an answering hail from the farmhouse kitchen, whence issued
promptly a fattish young man with a mug in his hand, and a helmet tilted
on his nose. With him the assailants of William and Griselda entered
into rapid and throaty explanations; whereat Heinz nodded assentingly as
he advanced down the garden path to the gate, surveying the captives
with interest and a pair of little pigs'-eyes. Having reached the gate
he leaned over it, mug in hand, and looked down at William and Griselda.
"English," he said in a voice that was thicker than it should have been
at so early an hour of the morning; "English--you come from London? ...
I have been two years in London; that is why I speak English. I was
with a hairdresser in the Harrow Road two years; and I know also the
Strand and the Angel and Buckingham Palace and the Elephant." (He was
plainly proud of his acquaintance with London topography.) "All of them
I know, and when we arrive in London I shall show them all to my
friends." He waved his hand vaguely and amiably to indicate his
grey-clad companions. "You come from London, but you shall not go back
there, because you are now our prisoners. I drink your damn bad health
and the damn bad health of your country and the damn bad health of your
king."
He suited the action to the word and drained his mug; and having drained
it till it stood upright upon his nose, proceeded to throw it over his
shoulder to shatter on the brick path. Whether from natural good temper
or the cheering effect of potations his face was wreathed in an amiable
smile as he crossed his arms on the bar of the gate and continued to
address his audience--
"We shall take you to our officer and you will be prisoners, and if you
are spies you will be shot."
There was something so impossible about the announcement that William
and Griselda felt their courage return with a rush. Moreover, though
the words of Heinz were threatening the aspect of Heinz was not; his fat
young face with its expansive and slightly inebriated smile was
ridiculous rather than terrifying, even under the brim of a helmet.
William, thankful for the English acquired during the two years'
hairdressing in the Harrow Road, admonished him with a firmness intended
to sober and dismay.
"This is not a time for silly jokes. I am afraid that you do not
realize the seriousness of the situation. I shall feel it my duty to
make a full report to your superiors--when you will find it is no
laughing matter. My wife and I, proceeding quietly to the station, have
been grossly and violently assaulted by your two companions. We gave
them no provocation, and the attack was entirely uncalled for. I
repeat, I shall feel it my duty to report their conduct in the very
strongest terms."
He felt as he spoke that the reproof would have carried more weight had
it been delivered in a standing position; but his head still reeled from
the stinging cuff it had received and he felt safer where he was--on the
ground. It annoyed him that the only apparent effect of his words upon
Heinz was a widening of his already wide and owlish smile.
"Oh, you'll report their conduct, will you?" he repeated pleasantly and
thickly. "And who will you report it to, old son?"
William stiffened at the familiarity, and the tone of his reply was even
colder and more dignified than that of the original rebuke.
"To the nearest police authority; I shall not leave Belgium until my
complaint has been attended to. If necessary I shall apply for redress
to the British Consul in Brussels."
The expansive smile on the face of Heinz was suddenly ousted by an
expression of infinite astonishment. His fat chin dropped, his little
eyes widened, and he pushed back his helmet, that he might stare the
better at William.
"Say it again," he demanded--slowly and as if doubtful of his ears, "You
shall apply to the British Consul--the British Consul at Brussels?"
"Certainly," William assured him firmly; and Griselda echoed
"Certainly." The threat they judged had made the desired impression,
for so blank and disturbed was the countenance of Heinz that his two
companions broke into guttural questioning. The former hairdresser
checked them with a gesture and addressed himself once more to William.
"I think," he announced, "you are balmy on the crumpet, both of you.
Balmy," he repeated, staring from one to the other and apparently
sobered by the shock of his own astonishment. Suddenly a gleam of
intelligence lit up his little pig's-eyes--he leaned yet further over
the gate, pointed a finger and queried--
"You do not read the newspapers?"
"As a rule I do," William informed him, "but we have not seen any
lately--not since we left England."
"And how long is it since you left England?"
William told him it was over three weeks.
"Three weeks," the other repeated, "three weeks without newspapers ...
and I think you do not speak French, eh?"
"My wife," William answered, "understands it--a little. But we neither
of us speak it." His manner was pardonably irritated, and if he had not
judged it imprudent he would have refused point-blank to answer this
purposeless catechism. Nor was his pardonable irritation lessened when
amusement once more gained the upper hand in Heinz. Suddenly and
unaccountably he burst into hearty laughter--rocked and trembled with
it, holding to the gate and wiping the tears from his cheeks. Whatever
the joke it appealed also to his comrades, who, once it was imparted
between Heinz's paroxysms, joined their exquisite mirth to his own. The
three stood swaying in noisy merriment, while Griselda, whitefaced and
tight-lipped, and William with a fast disappearing left eye awaited in
acute and indignant discomfort some explanation of a jest that struck
them as untimely. It came only when Heinz had laughed himself out.
Wiping the tears once more from his eyes, and with a voice still
weakened by pleasurable emotion, he gave them in simple and unpolished
language the news of the European cataclysm.
"I tell you something, you damn little ignorant silly fools. There is a
war since you came to Belgium."
Probably they thought it was a drunken jest, for they made no answer
beyond a stare, and Heinz proceeded with enjoyment.
"A War. The Greatest that ever was. Germany and Austria--and Russia
and France and Belgium and England and Servia."
He spoke slowly, dropping out his words that none might fail of their
effect and ticked off on a finger the name of each belligerent.
"Our brave German troops have conquered Belgium and that is why we are
here. We shall also take Paris and we shall also take Petersburg and we
shall also take London. We shall march through Regent Street and
Leicester Square and over Waterloo Bridge. Our Kaiser Wilhelm shall
make peace in Westminster Abbey, and we shall take away all your
colonies. What do you think of that, you damn little fools?"
There are statements too large as there are statements too wild for any
but the unusually imaginative to grasp at a first hearing. Neither
William nor Griselda had ever entertained the idea of a European War; it
was not entertained by any of their friends or their pamphlets. Rumours
of war they had always regarded as foolish and malicious inventions set
afloat in the interest of Capitalism and Conservatism with the object of
diverting attention from Social Reform or the settlement of the Woman
Question; and to their ears, still filled with the hum of other days,
the announcement of Heinz was even such a foolish invention. Nor, even
had they given him credence, would they in these first inexperienced
moments have been greatly perturbed or alarmed; their historical
ignorance was so profound, they had talked so long and so often in terms
of war, that they had come to look on the strife of nations as a
glorified scuffle on the lines of a Pankhurst demonstration. Thus
Griselda, taught by _The Suffragette_, used the one word "battle" for a
small street row and the fire and slaughter of Eylau--or would have so
used it, had she known of the slaughter of Eylau. And that being the
case, Heinz's revelation of ruin and thunder left her
calm--disappointingly so.
"I think," she said loftily, in answer to his question, "that you are
talking absolute nonsense."
There are few men who like to be balked of a sensation and Heinz was not
among them. He reddened with annoyance at the lack of success of his
bombshell.
"You do not believe it," he said. "You do not believe that our brave
German troops have taken Belgium and will shortly take Paris and London?
Very well, I will teach you. I will show you. You shall come with us
to our officer and you shall be shot for spies."
He came through the gate and clambered into his saddle, his companions
following suit; William and Griselda instinctively scrambled to their
feet and stood gazing up in uncertainty at the three grey mounted men.
"Get on," said Heinz with a jerk of his head down the valley; and as
William and Griselda still stood and gazed his hand went clap to his
side and a sword flashed out of its sheath. Griselda shrieked in terror
as it flashed over William's head--and William bawled and writhed with
pain as it came down flat on his shoulder.
"Get on," Heinz repeated--adding, "damn you!" and worse--as the blade
went up again; and William and Griselda obeyed him without further
hesitation. Their heads were whirling and their hearts throbbing with
rage; but they choked back its verbal expression and stumbled down the
valley path--in the clutch of brute force and with their world crumbling
about them. It was a most unpleasant walk--or rather trot; they were
bruised, they were aching from the handling they had received, and their
breath came in sobs from the pace they were forced to keep up. Did they
slacken it even for an instant and fall level with the walking horses,
Heinz shouted an order to "Hurry, you swine!" and flashed up his
threatening sword; whereupon, to keep out of its painful and possibly
dangerous reach, they forced themselves to a further effort and broke
into a shambling canter. The sweat poured off them as they shambled and
gasped, casting anxious glances at the horses' heads behind them; and
their visible distress, their panting and their impotent anger, was a
source of obvious and unrestrained gratification to Heinz and his jovial
companions. They jeered at the captives' clumsy running and urged them
to gallop faster. When Griselda tripped over a tussock and sprawled her
length on the grass, they applauded her downfall long and joyously and
begged her to repeat the performance. The jeers hurt more than the
shaking, and she staggered to her feet with tears of wretchedness and
outraged dignity running openly down her nose--seeking in vain for that
sense of moral superiority and satisfaction in martyrdom which had
always sustained her en route to the cells of Bow Street. She hated the
three men who jeered at her miseries and could have killed them with
pleasure; every fibre of her body was quivering with wrath and
amazement. Neither she nor William could speak--they had no breath left
in them to speak; but every now and then as they shambled along they
turned their hot faces to look at each other--and saw, each, a beloved
countenance red with exertion and damp with perspiration, a pair of
bewildered blue eyes and a gasping open mouth.... So they trotted down
the valley, humiliated, dishevelled, indignant, but still
incredulous--while their world crumbled about them and Europe thundered
and bled.
*CHAPTER VII*
Looking back on the morning in the month of August, nineteen hundred and
fourteen, when he made his first acquaintance with war as the soldier
understands it, William Tully realized that fear, real fear, was absent
from his heart until he witnessed the shooting of the hostages. Until
that moment he had been unconvinced, and, because unconvinced, unafraid;
he had been indignant, flustered, physically sore and inconvenienced;
but always at the back of his mind was the stubborn belief that the
pains and indignities endured by himself and his wife would be dearly
paid for by the perpetrators. He could conceive as yet of no state of
society in which Law and the bodily immunity of the peaceful citizen was
not the ultimate principle; and even the sight of a long grey battalion
of infantry plodding dustily westward on the road by the river had not
convinced him of war and the meaning of war. They came on the trudging
torrent of men as they debouched from the valley on to the main road;
and their captors halted them on the grass at the roadside until the
close grey ranks had passed. William and Griselda were thankful for the
few minutes' respite and breathing-space; they wiped their hot faces and
Griselda made ineffectual attempts to tidy her tumbled hair. She was
reminded by her pressing need of hairpins that they had left their bags
on the scene of their misfortune, outside the farmhouse gate; they
conversed about the loss in undertones, and wondered if the bags would
be recovered. They were not without hopes, taking into account the
loneliness of the neighbourhood.... When the battalion, with its tail
of attendant grey carts, had passed, Heinz ordered them forward
again--and they moved on, fifty yards or so behind the last of the grey
carts, and trusting that their goal was at hand.
"If they're only taking us as far as the village," Griselda panted
hopefully.
They were--to the familiar little village with its miniature railway
station between the river and the cliff. The column of infantry plodded
dustily through and past it, but Heinz followed the rear-guard only
halfway down the street before he shouted to his prisoners to halt.
They halted--with an alacrity born of relief and a sense of the wisdom
of prompt obedience to orders--before an unpretentious white building
with a sentry stationed on either side of the door. Heinz swung himself
down from his horse and went into the house, leaving William and
Griselda in charge of his comrades and standing at the side of the road.
William and Griselda looked about them. They had passed through the
place several times and were accustomed enough to its usual appearance
to be aware of the change that had come over it. The rumbling grey carts
behind which they had tramped were already at the end of the village;
they could see all the sunlit length of the street and take stock of the
new unfamiliar life which filled it from end to end.