"My God!" and "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less

representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and

staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And,

piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory

yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?"

"'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly

disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? Not arf!" "Anything to sell the

papers, you know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" "Johnny get yer gun,

get yer gun!" "Some one must be punished for this. Might have caused a

panic, you know." "True? Good Lord, no! What would our Navy be doing?"

"Well, upon my word, I don't know." "Nice business for the fish trade!"

"Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to their Aunt

Rebecca's." "Wot price Piccadilly an' Regent Street to-night?" "Come

along, my dear; let's get home out of this." "Absolute bosh, my dear

boy, from beginning to end--doing business with 'em every day o' my

life!" And then a hoarse snatch of song: "'They'll never go for

England'--not they! What ho! 'Because England's got the dibs!'"

Suddenly then, above and across the thousand-voiced small talk, came the

trained notes of the voice of the President of the Local Government

Board.

"My friends, the whole story is a most transparent fraud. It's a

shameful hoax. I tell you the thing is physically and morally

impossible. It couldn't have been done in the time; and it is all a lie,

anyhow. I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our chairman

for----"

The crowd had listened attentively enough to the old agitator's comment

on the news. They liked his assurances on that point. But they were in

no mood for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling across the

grass toward Marble Arch and down to Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's

further words were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause, cheers,

laughter, shouts of "Are we downhearted?" raucous answers in the

negative, and cries of "Never mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good

fellow!"

In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to have been stripped naked,

and the few vehicles, tables, and little platforms which had formed the

centre of the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree suddenly

bereft of foliage, looking curiously small and bare. I am told that

restaurants and refreshment places did an enormous trade during the next

few hours. When the public-houses opened they were besieged, and, in

many cases, closed again after a few hours, sold out.

For my part, I made at once, and without thinking, for Constance Grey's

flat in South Kensington. The crowds in the streets were not only much

larger, but in many ways different from the usual run of Sunday crowds.

The people wore their Sunday clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday

manners and air. There was more of a suggestion of Saturday night in the

streets; the suggestion that a tremendous number of people were going to

enjoy a "spree" of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, combined with a

general desire for cigars, drinks, singing, and gaiety, seemed to be

ruling the people.

At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band was blaring out the air

of "The Holy City," and people stood about in groups laughing and

chatting noisily. The newspaper boys had some competitors now, and the

Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was added to by a number of lads and

girls who had appeared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless

commodities for sale, such as peacocks' feathers, paper fans, and

streamers of coloured paper.

Why these things should have been wanted I cannot say; but their

sellers knew their business very well. The demand was remarkably brisk.

Indeed, I noticed one of three young men, who walked abreast, purchase

quite a bunch of the long feathers, only to drop them beside the curb a

few moments later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them, and sold

them again. I suppose that by this time the vast majority of the people

had no doubt whatever about the news being a monstrous hoax; but there

was no blinking the fact that the public had been strongly moved.

It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned from a servant

that Miss Grey was at home--had just come in, as a matter of fact. It

was as though I had some important business to transact with this girl

from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes, and alert, thoughtful

expression. I felt that it would have been serious if she should have

been away, if I had missed her. It was not until I heard her step

outside the door of the little drawing-room into which I had been shown,

that I suddenly became conscious that I had no business whatever with

Constance Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty-eight hours

of my dining there, might perhaps be adjudged a piece of questionable

taste.

A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the matter at all, I

should have known that Constance Grey wasted no time over any such petty

considerations. She entered to me with a set, grave face, taking my hand

mechanically, as though too much preoccupied for such ceremonies.

"What do you think of the news?" she said, without a word of

preliminary greeting. I felt more than a little abashed at this; for,

truth to tell, I really had given no serious thought to the news. I had

observed its reception by the public as a spectator might. But, in the

first place, I had been early warned that it was all a hoax; and then,

too, like so many of my contemporaries, I was without the citizen

feeling altogether, so far as national interests were concerned. I had

grown to regard citizenship as exclusively a matter of domestic politics

and social progress, municipal affairs, and the like. I never gave any

thought to our position as a people and a nation in relation to foreign

Powers.

"Oh, well," I said, "it's an extraordinary business, isn't it? I have

just come from the Demonstration in Hyde Park. It was practically

squashed by the arrival of the special editions. The people seemed

pretty considerably muddled about it, so I suppose those who arranged it

all may be said to have scored their point."

"So you don't believe it?"

"Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a gigantic hoax, is it

not?"

"But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how--how wonderful English people are! You,

your own self; what do _you_ think about it? But forgive me for

heckling. Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the study? Aunt is

in there."

We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room, with low wicker chairs,

and a big, littered writing-table.

"Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance Grey, when I had shaken

hands with her aunt.

"Doesn't he?" said that strong, plain-spoken woman. "Well, I fancy there

are a good many more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their eyes

opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow."

"Then you take the whole thing seriously?" I asked them.

Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in the presence of these

women, and were racing over everything that I had seen and heard that

day, from the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise, in Holborn.

"I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs. Van Homrey, with

laconic emphasis. "Do you?" she added.

"Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your view. My first word of it

was just before dawn this morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and,

somehow--well, you know, the general idea seems to be that the whole

thing is an elaborate joke worked up by the Navy League, or somebody, as

a counter-stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration--to teach us a lesson,

and all that, you know."

I had to remind myself that I was addressing two ladies who were sure to

be whole-hearted supporters of the Navy League and all other Imperialist

organizations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be appraising me. I

fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were looking right into me with

grave criticism, and discovering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the

thought. I should have been more distressed had not a vague, futile

anger crept into my mind. After all, I thought, what right had this girl

from South Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew England better

than she did. I was a journalist of experience. Bah! My twopenny

thoughts drooped and fainted as they rose.

"But perhaps you are better informed?" I said, weakly. "Perhaps you have

other information?"

Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I recall her gaze now, it

was almost maternal in its yearning gravity.

"I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she said. "What cuts me

to the heart is the fear that it may have come too late."

Never have I heard such gravity in a young woman's voice. Her words

overpowered me almost by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them.

They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a fount of inspiration.

"We haven't any special information," said Mrs. Van Homrey. "We have

only read, like every one else, that East Anglia is occupied by German

soldiers, landed last night; that the East Anglian Pageant has been made

the cloak of most elaborate preparations for weeks past; that the

Mediterranean incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw the

Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dreadful business has succeeded

so far, like--like perfect machinery; like the thing it is: the outcome

of perfect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We have heard no

more; but the only hoaxing that I can see is done by the purblind people

who have made the public think it a hoax--and that is not conscious

hoaxing, of course; they are too bemuddled with their disarmament farce

for that."

"More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid," said Constance Grey. And

then, turning to me, she said: "We lunched at General Penn Dicksee's

to-day; and they have no doubt about the truth of the news. The General

has motored down to Aldershot. They will begin some attempt at

mobilizing at once, I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into

touch with headquarters. All the War Office people are away for the

week-end. In fact, they say the Minister's in Ipswich, and can't get

away. General Penn Dicksee says they have practically no material to

work with for any immediate mobilization purposes. He says that under

the present system nothing can be done in less than a week. He thinks

the most useful force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks. But I

should suppose they would be wanted for the ships--if we have any ships

left fit for sea. The General thinks there may be a hundred thousand

German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of London by to-morrow."

"Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, "it doesn't seem easy to take it any other

way than seriously; not if one's on the British side. And, for the

matter of that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty

seriously in East Anglia, and--and in Berlin."

And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra Sunday work for

Wardle, and the way they had started selling peacocks' feathers and

things, in the streets!

XV

SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON

. . .

"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,

Prolong the present!

Time, stand still here!"

The prompt stern Goddess

Shakes her head, frowning;

Time gives his hour-glass

Its due reversal;

Their hour is gone.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I stayed to dinner at the flat in South Kensington, and after dinner,

when I spoke of leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to

accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call at Printing House

Square, and ascertain what further news had arrived. The implied

intimacy and friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasurable

thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement for me, and compensated

for much. Constance Grey's views of me had in some way become more

important to me than anything else. I was even now more concerned about

that than about the news.

We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a cab, as in duty bound,

but, doubtless with a thought of my finances, my companion insisted upon

the cheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but found them at

last on a motor omnibus bound for Whitechapel. The streets were densely

crowded, and the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before was now

general, and much more marked.

"It reminds me exactly of 'Mafeking Night,'" I said, referring to that

evening of the South African war during which London waxed drunk upon

the news of the relief of Mafeking.

"Was it as bad even then?" said my companion. And her question showed

me, what I might otherwise have overlooked, that a good deal of water

had passed under the bridges since South African war days. We had been a

little ashamed of our innocent rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We

had become vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I think

the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken their share in the progress, by

breaking down much of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the

respectable middle class. But, of course, one sees now that the rapid

growth among us of selfish irresponsibility and repudiation of national

obligations was the root cause of that change in public behaviour which

I saw clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by Constance

Grey's question.

I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy promenaders of both

sexes who filled the streets, and impeded traffic at all crossings, the

class which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and

that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a

class which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its

decorous and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned

afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A

man we met in _The Times_ office told us of this, and my companion's

comment was:

"Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them than their pleasure;

and, with religion a dead letter, the spirit that won Trafalgar and

armed the Thames against Napoleon, must be dead and buried."

The news we received at _The Times_ office was extraordinary. It seemed

there was no longer room for the smallest doubt that a large portion of

East Anglia was actually occupied by a German army. Positive details of

information could not be obtained.

"The way the coastal districts have been hermetically sealed against

communication, and the speed and thoroughness with which the occupation

has been accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amazing episode

in the history of warfare," said the solemn graybeard, to whom I had

been presented by Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the

assistant editor of _The Mass_, I doubt if this Mr. Poole-Smith would

have consented to open his mouth in my presence. But my obscurity and

his importance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with confidence

as the friend of a respected contributor.)

"Already we know enough to be certain that the enemy has received

incalculably valuable assistance from within. I am afraid there will

presently be only too much evidence of the blackest kind of treachery

from British subjects, members of one or other among the anti-National

coteries. But in the meantime, we hear of extraordinary things

accomplished by aliens employed in this country, many of them in

official capacities. We have learned through the Great Eastern Railway

Company, and through one or two shipping houses, of huge consignments of

stores, and, I make very little doubt, of munitions of war. The thing

must have been in train on this side for many months--possibly for

years. Here, for instance, is an extraordinary item, which is hardly

likely to be only coincidence: Out of one hundred postmasters within a

sixty-mile radius of Harwich, eighty-one have obtained their positions

within the last two years, and of those sixty-nine bear names which

indicate German nationality or extraction. But that is only one small

item. An analysis of the Eastern Railway employees, and of the larger

business firms between here and Ipswich, will tell a more startling

tale, unless I am greatly mistaken."

But to me, I think the part of the news we gathered which seemed most

startling was the fact that a tiny special issue of _The Times_, then

being sold in the streets, contained none of the information given to

us, but only a cautiously worded warning to the public that the news

received from East Anglia had been grossly exaggerated, and that no

definite importance should be attached to it, until authoritative

information, which would appear in the first ordinary issue of _The

Times_ on Monday, had been considered. It was all worded very pompously,

and vaguely, in a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader to

conclude that _The Times_ supported the generally accepted hoax theory.

And we found that all the daily papers of repute and standing had

issued similar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our grave

informant stroked his whiskers, and alluded distantly to "policy decided

upon in consultation with representatives of the Crown."

"For one thing, you see, London is extraordinarily full of Germans,

though we have already learned that vast numbers of them went to swell

the attendance at the East Anglian Pageant, and may now, for all we

know, be under arms. Then, too, anything in the nature of a panic on a

large scale, and that before the authorities have decided upon any

definite plan of action, would be disastrous. Unfortunately our reports

from correspondents at the various southern military depots are all to

the effect that mobilization will be a slow business. As you know, the

regulars in England have been reduced to an almost negligible minimum,

and the mobilization of the 'Haldane Army' involves the slow process of

drawing men out of private life into the field. What is worse, it means

in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves at Aldershot, and

south-country men reporting themselves in the north. And then their

practical knowledge so far leaves them simply men in the street.

"But the great trouble is that the Government and the official heads of

departments have been at loggerheads this long time past, and now are

far from arriving at any definite policy of procedure. Of course, the

majority of the leaders are out of town. You will understand that every

possible precaution must be taken to avoid unduly alarming the public,

or provoking panic. We hope to be able to announce something definite

in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with

us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this

entirely unprovoked invasion."

"And what do you think will be the practical effect and use of their

sympathy, Mr. Poole-Smith?" asked Constance Grey.

"Well," said our solemn friend, caressing his whiskers, "as to its

_practical_ effect, my dear Miss Grey, why, I am afraid that in such

bitter matters as these the practical value of sympathy, or of

international law, is--er--cannot very easily be defined."

"Quite so. Exactly as I thought. It would not make one pennyworth of

difference, Mr. Poole-Smith. The British public is on the eve of

learning the meaning of brave old Lord Roberts's teaching: that no

amount of diplomacy, of 'cordiality,' of treaties, or of anything else

in the repertoire of the disarmament party, can ever counterbalance the

uses of the rifle in the hands of disciplined men. Their

twentieth-century notions will avail us pitifully little against the

advance of the Kaiser's legions. The brotherhood of man and the sacred

arts of commerce and peace will have little in the way of reply to

machine guns. If only our people could have had even one year of

universal military training! But no; they would not even pay for the

maintenance of such defence force as they had when it took three years

to beat the Boers; and now--didn't some man write a book called 'The

Defenceless Isles'? We live in them."

"But that is not the worst, Miss Grey," said our friend. "These are now

not only defenceless, but invaded isles."

"Ah! How long before they become surrendered isles, Mr. Poole-Smith?"

"The answer to that is with a higher Power than any in Printing House

Square, Miss Grey. But, let me say this, in strict confidence, please.

You wonder, and perhaps are inclined to condemn our--well, our reticence

about this news. Do you know my fear? It is that if, in its present

mood, suddenly, the British public, and more especially the London

public, were allowed to realize clearly both what has happened in East

Anglia, and the monumental unfitness of our authorities and defences to

meet and cope with such an emergency--that then we should see England

torn in sunder by the most terrible revolution of modern times. We

should see statesmen hanging from lamp-posts in Whitehall; 'The

Destroyers' would be destroyed; the Crown would be in danger, as well as

its unworthy servants. And the Kaiser's machine-like army would find it

had invaded a ravaged inferno, occupied by an infuriated populace

hopelessly divided against itself, and already in the grip of the

deadliest kind of strife. That, I think, is a danger to be guarded

against, so far as it is possible, at all or any cost."

One could not but be impressed by this rather pompous, but sincere and

earnest man's words.

"I see that very clearly, Mr. Poole-Smith," said Constance Grey. "But

can the thing be done? Can the public be deluded for more than a few

hours?"

"Not altogether, my dear young lady, not altogether. But, as we learn

early in journalism, life is made up of compromises. We hope to school

them to it, and give them the truth gradually, with as little shock as

may be."

Soon after this we left the great office, and, as we passed out into the

crowded streets, Constance Grey said to me:

"Thank God, _The Times_ managed to win clear of the syndicate's clutches

when it did. There is moral and strength of purpose there now. I think

the Press is behaving finely--if only the public can be made to do as

well. But, oh, 'The Destroyers'--what a place they have cut out for

themselves in history!"

But for the glorious summer weather, one could have fancied Christmas at

hand from the look of Ludgate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look

up at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the evening sky. But

between it and us was a seething crowd, promenading at the rate of a

mile an hour, and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless

trifles and fruit, and so forth.

Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to the steps of an

omnibus, was a band of youths linked arm in arm, and all apparently

intoxicated. There must have been forty in a line. As they advanced,

cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in something like

unison, the melancholy music-hall refrain:

"They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs."

The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up grass, and narrow Fleet

Street echoed to the monstrous din of their singing. I began to feel

anxious about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out of the

fourteen people on the top of our omnibus were noticeably and noisily

tipsy.

"Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British reserve? How I hate that

beloved word cosmopolitan!"

She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her of something.

"Forgive my familiarity," she said. "John Crondall spoke of you as Dick

Mordan. It's rather a way we have--out there."

I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned me the friendly short

name from her for the future; and, with England tumbling about our ears,

for aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously happy. But it was

none the less with a sigh of relief that I handed her in at the outer

door of the mansions in which their flat was situated. We paused for a

moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy we had known

that evening, and the last, I thought, with a recollection of Mrs. Van

Homrey waiting in the flat above.

I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full to bursting. Perhaps the

great news of that day affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I

had no words, or very few. I remember I touched the sleeve of her dress

with my finger-tips. What I said was:

"You know I am--you know I am at your orders, don't you?"

And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth, while the light of

grave watching never flickered in her eyes.

"Yes, Dick; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs.

Yet I was still the assistant editor of _The Mass_--Clement Blaine's

right hand.

XVI

A PERSONAL REVELATION

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree

I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

BYRON.

That Sunday night was not one of London's black nights that have been so

often described. The police began to be a little sharp with the people

after nine or ten o'clock, and by midnight the streets were getting

tolerably clear. For the great majority, I believe it had been a day of

more or less pleasurable excitement and amusement. For the minority, who

were better informed, it was a day and night of curious bewilderment and

restless anxiety.

I looked in at several newspaper offices on my way home from South

Kensington, but found that subordinate members of the staffs had no

information to give, and that their superiors maintained an attitude of

strict reticence. As I passed the dark windows of my own office I

thought of our "feature" for the coming week: the demand for

disarmament, in order that naval and military expenditure might be

diverted into labour reform channels; Herr Mitmann's voluble assurances

of the friendliness of the German people; of the ability and will of the

German Socialists to make German aggression impossible, for the sake of

their brother workers in England.

I thought of these things, and wished I could spurn under foot my

connection with _The Mass_. Then, sitting at the window of my little

bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, I looked into my petty finances. If I

left Clement Blaine I had enough to subsist upon for six or eight weeks.

It was a risky business. Then I pictured myself casually mentioning to

Constance Grey that I was no longer connected with _The Mass_. I fancied

that I saw the bright approval in her eyes. Before blowing my light out,

I had composed the little speech to Blaine which, in the morning, should

set a period to our connection.

And then I thought of Beatrice. It was barely twenty-four hours since we

had parted beside Battersea Park (though it seemed more like twenty-four

days), and recollection showed me Beatrice in her rather rumpled finery,

with the bleakness of the gray hour that follows such pleasures as most

appealed to her, beginning to steal over her handsome face, sapping its

warm colour, thinning and sharpening its ripe, smooth contours. Beatrice

would pout when she heard of my leaving her father. The thought showed

me her full red lips, and the little even white teeth they so often

disclosed.

The curves of Beatrice's mouth were of a kind that have twisted many

men's lives awry; and those men have thought straightness well lost for

such red lips. Yes, Beatrice was good to look upon. She had a way of

throwing her head back, and showing the smooth, round whiteness of her

throat when she laughed, that had thrilled me time and again. And how

often, and how gaily she laughed.

In the midst of a picture of Beatrice, laughing at me across a

restaurant table with a raised glass in her hand, I had a shadowy vision

of Constance Grey beside the foot of the stairs in South Kensington.

There was no laughter in her face. I had gathered, when I dined there,

that Constance did not care for wine. She had said: "I don't care for

anything that makes me feel as though I couldn't work if I wanted to."

How Beatrice would have scoffed at that! And then, how Constance would

have smiled over Beatrice's ideals--her "fluffy" evenings--in a kind of

regretful, wondering way; almost as she had smiled when she first called

me "Dick," in asking what had become of our staid English reserve; as

she watched the noisy crowd in Fleet Street, singing its silly doggerel

about England's security and England's "dibs."

And then, suddenly, my picture-making thoughts swept out across low

Essex flats to the only part of East Anglia with which I was familiar,

and gave me a vision of burning farmhouses, and terror-smitten

country-folk fleeing blindly before a hail of bullets, and the pitiless

advance of legions of fair-haired men in long coats of a kind of

roan-gray, buttoned across the chest with bright buttons arranged to

suggest the inward curve to an imaginary waist-line. The faces of the

soldiers were all the same; they all had the face of Herr Mitmann of

Stettin. And a hot wave of angry resentment and hatred of these

machine-like invaders of a peaceful unprotected countryside pulsed

through my veins. Could they dare--here on English soil? My fists

clenched under the bed-clothes. If it was true, by heavens, there was

work for Englishmen toward!

My blood was hot at the thought. It was perhaps the first swelling of a

patriotic emotion I had known; the first hint of any larger citizenship

than that which claims and demands, without thought of giving. And,

immediately, it was succeeded by a sharp chill, a chill that ushered me

into one of the bitterest moments of humiliation that I can remember.

The thought accompanying that chill was this:

"What can you do? What are you fit for? What boy's part, even, can you

take, though the roof were being burned over your mother's head? What of

Constance, or Beatrice? Could you strike a blow for either? Work for

Englishmen, forsooth! Yes, for those of them who have ever learned a

man's part in such work. But you--you have never had a gun in your hand.

What have you done? You have poured out for your weekly wage so many

thousands of words; words meaning--what? Why, they have meant what the

roadside beggar means: 'Give! Give! Give!' They have urged men to demand

more from the State, and give the State nothing; to rob the State of

even its defences, for the sake of adding to their own immediate ease.

And you have ridiculed, as a survival of barbarous times, the efforts of

such men as the brave old Field Marshal who gave his declining years to

the thankless task of urging England to make some effort of preparation

to fend off just that very crisis which has now come upon her, and

found her absolutely unprepared. That is how you have earned your right

to live, a citizen of the freest country in the world, a subject of the

greatest Empire the world has ever seen. And when you have had leisure

and money to spend, you have devoted it to overeating and drinking, and

helping to fill the tills of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your

part. And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you, whose

qualification is that you can wield the pen of a begging letter-writer,

who is also scurrilous and insolent--you lie in bed and clench your

useless hands, and prate of work for Englishmen!"

That was the thought that came to me with a sudden chill that night; and

I suppose I was one of the earliest among millions doomed to writhe

under the impotent shame of such a thought. I shall never forget that

night in my Bloomsbury lodging. It was my ordeal of self-revelation. I

suppose I slept a little toward morning; but I rose early with a kind of

vague longing to escape from the company of the personality my thought

had shown me in the night.

It is natural that the awakening of an individual should be a more

speedy process than the awakening of a people--a nation. I regard my

early rising on that Monday morning as the beginning of my first real

awakening to life as an Englishman. I had still far to go--I had not

even crossed the threshold as yet.

XVII

ONE STEP FORWARD

Thy trust, thy honours, these were great; the greater now thy shame,

for thou hast proved both unready and unfit, unworthy offspring of a

noble sire!--MERROW'S _Country Tales_.

Five minutes after Clement Blaine reached the office of _The Mass_ that

morning, he had lost the services of his assistant editor, and I felt

that I had taken one step upward from a veritable quagmire of

humiliation.

Blaine was almost too excited about the news of the day to pay much heed

to my little speech of resignation. The morning paper to which he

subscribed--a Radical journal of pronounced tone--had observed far less

reticence than most of its contemporaries, and, in its desire to lend

sensational interest to its columns, had not minimized in any way the

startling character of such intelligence as it had received.

"The bloodthirsty German devils!" said Blaine, the erstwhile apostle of

internationalism and the socialistic brotherhood of man. "By God, the

Admiralty and the War Office ought to swing for this! Here are we taxed

out of house and home to support their wretched armies and navies, and

German soldiers marching on London, they say, with never a sign of a

hand raised to oppose 'em--damn them! Nice time you choose to talk of

leaving. By God, Mordan, you may be leaving from against a wall with a

bullet through your head, next thing you know. These German devils don't

wear kid gloves, I fancy. They're not like our tin-pot army. Army!--we

haven't got one--lot of gold-laced puppets!"

That was how Clement Blaine was moved by the news. Last week: "Bloated

armaments," "huge battalions of idle men eating the heart out of the

nation through its revenues." This week, we had no army, and because of

it the Admiralty and the War Office ought to "swing." In Blaine's

ravings I had my foretaste of public opinion on the crisis.

On the previous day I had listened to a prominent Member of Parliament

urging that our children should be preserved from the contamination of

contact with those who taught the practice of the "hellish art" of

shooting.

The leading daily papers of this Monday morning admitted the central

fact that England had been invaded during Saturday night, and even

allowed readers to assume that portions of the eastern counties were

then occupied by "foreign" troops. But they used the word "raid" in

place of "invasion," and generally qualified it with such a word as

"futile." The general tone was that a Power with whom we had believed

ourselves to be upon friendly terms had been guilty of rash and

provocative action toward us, which it would speedily be made to regret.

It was an insult, which would be promptly avenged; full atonement for

which would be demanded and obtained at once. It was even suggested that

some tragic misunderstanding would be found to lie at the root of the

whole business; and in any case, things were to be set right without

delay. One journal, the _Standard_, did go so far as to say that the

British public was likely to be forced now into learning at great cost a

lesson which had been offered daily as a free gift since the opening of

the century, and as steadily repudiated or ignored.

"Two things it should teach England," said this journal; "never to

invite insult and contempt by a repetition of Sunday's Disarmament

Demonstration or enunciation of its fallacious and dangerous teaching;

and the necessity for paying instant heed to the warnings of the

advocates of universal military training for purposes of home defence."

But at that time the nicknames of the "The Imperialist Banner" and "The

Patriotic Pulpit," applied by various writers and others to this great

newspaper, were scornful names, applied with opprobrious intent; and

London was still full of people whose only comment upon this

sufficiently badly-needed warning would be: "Oh, of course, the

_Standard_!"

But the policy of reticence, though I have no doubt that it did save

London from some terrible scenes of panic, was not to be tenable for

many hours. Within half an hour of noon special editions of a halfpenny

morning paper, and an evening paper belonging to the same proprietors,

were issued simultaneously with a full, sensational, and quite

unreserved statement of all the news obtainable from East Anglia. A

number of motor-cyclists had been employed in the quest of

intelligence, and one item of the news they had to tell was that

Colchester had offered resistance to the invaders, and as a result had

been shelled and burned to the ground. A number of volunteers and other

civilians had been found bearing arms, and had been tried by drum-head

court martial and shot within the hour, by order of the

Commander-in-Chief of the German forces.

Another sensational item was a copy of a proclamation issued by the

German Commander-in-Chief. This proclamation was dated from Ipswich, and

I think it struck more terror into the people than any other single item

of intelligence published during that eventful day. It was headed with

the Imperial German Arms, and announced the establishment of German

military jurisdiction in England. It announced that the penalty of

immediate death would be inflicted without any exception upon any

British subject not wearing and being entitled to wear British military

uniform who should be found:

1. Taking arms against the invaders.

2. Misleading German troops.

3. Injuring in any manner whatever any German subject.

4. Injuring any road, rail, or waterway, or means of communication.

5. Offering resistance of any kind whatsoever to the advance and

occupation of the German Army.

Then followed peremptory details of instructions as to the supplies

which every householder must furnish for the German soldiers quartered

in his neighbourhood, and an announcement as to the supreme and

inviolable authority of the German officer in command of any given

place.

Nothing else yet published brought home to the public the realization of

what had happened as did this coldly pompous and, in the circumstances,

very brutal proclamation. And no item in it so bit into the hearts of

the bewildered Londoners who read it as did the clear incisive statement

to the effect that a British subject who wore no military uniform would

be shot like a dog if he raised a hand in the defence of his country or

his home. He must receive the invader with open arms, and provide him

food, lodging, and assistance of every kind, or be led out and shot.

There were hundreds of thousands of men in London that day who would

have given very much for the right to wear a uniform which they had

learned almost to despise of late years; a uniform many of them had

wished to abolish altogether, as the badge of a primitive and barbarous

trade, a "hellish art."

We had talked glibly enough of war, of its impossibility in England, and

of the childish savagery of the appeal to arms; just as, a few years

earlier, before the naval reductions, we had talked of England's

inviolability, secured her by her unquestioned mastery of the sea. We

had written and spoken hundreds of thousands of fine words upon these

subjects; and, within the last forty-eight hours, we had demonstrated

with great energy the needlessness of armed forces for England. For and

against, about it and about, we had woven a mazy network of windy

platitudes and catch-phrases, all devised to hide the manifest and

manly duties of citizenship; all intended to justify the individual's

exclusive concentration upon his own personal pleasures and

aggrandizement, without waste of time or energy upon any claims of the

commonwealth.

And now, in a few score of short, sharp words, in a single brief

document, peremptorily addressed to the fifty million people of these

islands, a German soldier had brought an end to all our vapourings, all

our smug, self-interested theories, and shattered the monstrous fabric

of our complaisance, as it were, with a rattle of his sword-hilt. Never

before in history had a people's vanity been so shaken by a word.

In the early afternoon an unavoidable errand took me to a northeastern

suburb. I made my return to town as one among an army of refugees. The

people had begun flocking into London from as far north and east as

Brentwood. The Great Eastern Railway was disorganized. The northern

highways leading into London were occupied by unbroken lines of people

journeying into the city for protection--afoot, in motor-cars, on

cycles, and in every kind of horse-drawn vehicle, and carrying with them

the strangest assortment of personal belongings.

At the earliest possible hour I made my way toward South Kensington. I

told myself there might be something I could do for Constance Grey.

Beyond that there was the fact that I craved another sight of her, and I

longed to hear her comment when she knew I had finished with _The Mass_.

A porter on the Underground Railway told me that the Southwestern and

Great Western termini were blocked by feverish crowds of well-to-do

people, struggling, with their children, for places in trains bound

south and west. Huge motor-cars of the more luxurious type whizzed past

one in the street continuously, their canopies piled high with bags,

their bodies full of women and children, their chauffeurs driving hard

toward the southern and western highways.

Outside South Kensington station I had my first sight of a Royal

Proclamation upon the subject of the invasion. Evidently the Government

realized that, prepared or unprepared, the state of affairs could no

longer be hidden from the public. The King was at Buckingham Palace that

day I knew, and it seemed to me that I read rather his Majesty's own

sentiments than those of his Cabinet in the Proclamation. I gathered

that the general public also formed this impression.

There is no need for me to reproduce a document which forms part of our

history. The King's famous reference to the Government--"The

Destroyers"--"Though admittedly unprepared for such a blow, my

Government is taking prompt steps for coping in a decisive manner,"

etc.; and again, the equally famous reference to the German Emperor, in

the sentence beginning: "This extraordinary attack by the armed forces

of my Royal and Imperial nephew." These features of a nobly dignified

and restrained Address seemed to me to be a really direct communication

from their Sovereign to the English people. Whatever might be said of

the position of "The Destroyers" in Whitehall, it became evident, even

at this early stage, that the Throne was in no danger--that the

sanctity pertaining to the person of the Monarch who, as it were in

despite of his Government, had done more for the true cause of peace

than any other in Europe, remained inviolate in the hearts of the

people.

For the rest, the Proclamation was a brief, simple statement of the

facts, with an equally simple but very heart-stirring appeal to every

subject of the Crown to concentrate his whole energies, under proper

guidance, upon the task of repelling "this dastardly and entirely

unprovoked attack upon our beloved country."

I heard many deeply significant and interesting comments from the circle

of men and women who were reading this copy of the Proclamation. The

remarks of two men I repeat here because in both cases they were typical

and representative. The first remark was from a man dressed as a navvy,

with a short clay pipe in his mouth. He said:

"Oh, yus; the King's all right; Gawd bless un! No one 'ld mind fightin'

for 'im. It's 'is blighted Gov'nment wot's all bloomin' wrong--blast

'em!"

The reply came from a young man evidently of sedentary occupation--a

shop-assistant or clerk:

"You're all right, too, old sport; but don't you forget the other

feller's proclamation. If you 'aven't got no uniform, your number's up

for lead pills, an' don't you forget it. A fair fight an' no favour's

all right; but I'm not on in this blooming execution act, thank you.

Edward R. I. will have to pass me, I can see."

"Well, 'e won't lose much, matey, when all's said. But you're English,

anyway; that seems a pity. Why don't yer run 'ome ter yer ma, eh?"

"Go it, old sport. You're a blue-blooded Tory; an Imperialist, aren't

you?"

"Not me, boy; I'm only an able-bodied man."

"What ho! Got a flag in your pocket, have you? You watch the Germans

don't catch you fer sausage meat."

And then I passed on, heading for Constance Grey's flat. I reflected

that I had done my share toward forming the opinions, the mental

attitude of that young clerk or shop-assistant. The type was familiar

enough. But I had had no part nor lot in the preservation of that

navvy's simple patriotism. Rather, by a good deal, had the tendency of

all I said and wrote been toward weakening the sturdy growth, and

causing it to be deprecated as a thing archaic, an obstacle in the way

of progress.

Progress! The expounding of Herr Mitmann of Stettin! That Monday was a

minor day of judgment for others beside myself.

XVIII

THE DEAR LOAF

A third of the people, then, in the event of war, would immediately

be reduced to starvation: and the rest of the thirty-eight million

would speedily be forced thither.--L. COPE CORNFORD'S _The

Defenceless Islands_ (London, 1906).

I saw Constance Grey only for a few minutes during that day. She had

passed the stage of shocked sorrow and sad fear in which I had found her

on Sunday, and was exceedingly busy in organizing a corps of assistant

nurses, women who had had some training, and were able to provide a

practical outfit of nursing requisites. She had the countenance of the

Army Medical authorities, but her nursing corps was to consist

exclusively of volunteers.

The organizing ability this girl displayed was extraordinary. She spared

five minutes for conversation, and warmed my heart with her appreciation

of my severance of _The Mass_ connection. And then, before I knew what

had happened, she had me impressed, willingly enough, in her service,

and I was off upon an errand connected with the volunteer nursing corps.

News had arrived of some wounded refugees in Romford, unable to proceed

on their way into London; and a couple of motor-cars, with nurses and

medical comforts, were despatched at once.

Detailed news of the sacking of Colchester showed this to have been a

most extraordinarily brutal affair for the work of a civilized army. The

British regular troops at Colchester represented the whole of our forces

of the northeastern division, and included three batteries of artillery.

The regiments of this division had been reduced to three, and for

eighteen months or more these had been mere skeletons of regiments, the

bulk of the men being utilized to fill other gaps caused by the

consistently followed policy of reduction which had characterized "The

Destroyers'" regime.

A German spy who had been captured in Romford and brought to London,

said that the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in England had

publicly announced to his men that the instructions received from their

Imperial master were that the pride of the British people must be struck

down to the dust; that the first blows must be crushing; that the

British people were to be smitten with terror from which recovery should

be impossible.

Be this as it may, the sacking of Colchester was a terrible business. A

number of citizens had joined the shockingly small body of regulars in a

gallant attempt at defence. The attempt was quite hopeless; the German

superiority in numbers, discipline, metal, and material being quite

overwhelming. But the German commander was greatly angered by the

resistance offered, and, as soon as he ascertained that civilians had

taken part in this, the town was first shelled and then stormed. It was

surrounded by a cordon of cavalry, and--_no prisoners were taken_.

The town was burned to the ground, though many valuable stores were

first removed from it; and those of the inhabitants who had not already

fled were literally mown down in their native streets, without parley or

quarter--men, women, and children being alike regarded as offenders

against the edict forbidding any civilian British subject, upon pain of

death, to offer any form of resistance to German troops. I myself spoke

to a man in Knightsbridge that evening who had definite news that his

nineteen-year-old daughter, a governess in the house of a Colchester

doctor, was among those shot down in the streets of the town while

endeavouring to make her escape with two children. The handful of

British regulars had been shot or cut to pieces, and the barracks and

stores taken over by the Germans.

As I left Constance Grey's flat that evening I passed a small baker's

shop, before which an angry crowd was engaged in terrifying a small boy

in a white apron, who was nervously endeavouring to put up the window

shutters. I asked what the trouble was, and was told the baker had

refused to sell his half-quartern loaves under sevenpence, or his

quartern loaves under a shilling.

"It's agin the law, so it is," shouted an angry woman. "I'm a

policeman's wife, an' I know what I'm talking about. I'll have the law

of the nasty mean hound, so I will, with his shillin' for a fivepenny

loaf, indeed!"

Long before this time, and while Britain still held on to a good

proportion of her foreign trade, it had been estimated by statisticians

that in the United Kingdom some ten to twelve million persons lived

always upon the verge of hunger. But since then the manufacturers of

protected countries, notably Germany and the United States, had, as was

inevitable in the face of our childish clinging to what we miscalled

"free" trade, crowded the British manufacturer out of practically every

market in the world, except those of Canada. Those also must of

necessity have been lost, but for the forbearing and enduring loyalty of

the Canadian people, who, in spite of persistent rebuffs, continued to

extend and to increase their fiscal preference for imports from the

Mother-country.

But, immense as Canada's growth was even then, no one country could keep

the manufacturers of Britain busy; and I believe I am right in saying

that at this time the number of those who lived always on the verge of

hunger had increased to at least fifteen millions. Cases innumerable

there were in which manufacturers themselves had gone to swell the ranks

of the unemployed and insufficiently employed; the monstrous legion of

those who lived always close to the terrifying spectre of hunger.

If the spirit of Richard Cobden walked the earth at that time, even as

his obsessions assuredly still cumbered it, it must have found food for

bitter reflection in the hundreds of empty factories, grass-grown

courtyards, and broken-windowed warehouses, which a single day's walk

would show one in the north of England.

You may be sure I thought of those things as I walked away from that

baker's shop in South Kensington. A journalist, even though he be only

the assistant of a man like Blaine, is apt to see the conditions of life

in his country fairly plainly, because he has a wider vision of them

than most men. Into Fleet Street, each day brings an endless stream of

"news items," not only from all parts of the world, but from every town

and city in the kingdom. And your journalist, though he may have scant

leisure for its digestion, absorbs the whole of this mass of

intelligence each day in the process of conveying one-tenth part of it,

in tabloid form, to the public.

If one assumes for the moment that only twelve million people in Great

Britain were living on hunger's extreme edge at that time, the picture I

had of the sullen, angry crowd outside the baker's shop remains a

sufficiently sinister one. As a matter of fact, I believe that

particular baker was a shade premature, or a penny or two excessive, in

his advance of prices. But I know that by nightfall you could not have

purchased a quartern loaf for elevenpence halfpenny within ten miles of

Charing Cross. The Bakers' Society had issued its mandates broadcast.

Shop-windows were stoned that night in south and east London; but

twenty-four hours later the price of the quartern loaf was 1s. 3d., and

a man offering 1s. 2d. would go empty away.

And with the same loaf selling at one-third the price, twelve million

persons at least had lived always on the verge of hunger. I mention the

staple food only, but precisely the same conditions applied to all other

food-stuffs with the exception of dairy produce, the price of which was

quadrupled by Tuesday afternoon, and fish, the price of which put it at

once beyond the reach of all save the rich, and all delicacies, the

prices of which became prohibitive. Twelve million persons had lived on

the verge of hunger, before, under normal conditions, and when the

country's trade had been far larger and more prosperous than of late.

Now, with the necessities of life standing at fully three times normal

prices, a large number of trades employing many thousands of work-people

were suddenly shut down upon, and rendered completely inoperative.

It must be borne in mind that we had been warned again and again that

matters would be precisely thus and not otherwise in the event of war,

and we had paid no heed whatever to the telling.

Historians have explained for us that the primary reason of the very

sudden rise to famine rates of the prices of provisions was the

persistent rumour that the effective bulk of the Channel Fleet had been

captured or destroyed on its way northward from Spanish waters. German

strategy had drawn the Fleet southward, in the first place, by means of

an international "incident" in the Mediterranean, which was clearly the

bait of what rumour called a death-trap. Once trapped, it was said,

German seamanship and surprise tactics had done the rest.

The crews of the Channel Fleet ships (considerably below full strength)

had been rushed out of shore barracks, in which discipline had fallen to

a terribly low ebb, to their unfamiliar shipboard stations, at the time

of the Mediterranean scare. Beset by the flower of the German Navy, in

ships manned by crews who lived afloat, it was asserted that the

Channel Fleet had been annihilated, and that the entire force of the

German Navy was concentrated upon the task of patrolling English waters.

We know that men and horses, stores and munitions of war, were pouring

steadily and continuously into East Anglia from Germany during this

time, escorted by German cruisers and torpedo-boats, and uninterrupted

by British ships. There was yet no report of the Channel Fleet, the

ships of which were already twenty-four hours overdue at Portsmouth.

Two things, more than any others, had influenced the British Navy during

the Administration of "The Destroyers": the total cessation of building

operations, and the withdrawal of ships and men from sea service. The

reserve ships had long been unfit to put to sea, the reserve crews had,

for all practical purposes, become landsmen--landsmen among whom want of

sea-going discipline had of late produced many mutinous outbreaks.

It had been said by the most famous admiral of the time, and said

without much exaggeration, that, within twelve months of "The

Destroyers'" abandonment of the traditional two-Power standard of

efficiency, the British Navy had "fallen to half-Power standard." The

process was quickened, of course, by the unprecedented progress of the

German Navy during the same period. It was said that at the end of 1907

the German Government had ships of war building in every great dockyard

in the world. It is known that the entire fleet of the "Kaiser" class

torpedo-boats and destroyers was built and set afloat at the German

Emperor's own private expense.

Then there were the "Well-borns," as they were called--vessels of no

great weight of metal, it is true, but manned, armed, officered, and

found better perhaps than any other war-ships in the world; entirely at

the instigation of the German Navy League, and out of the pockets of the

German nobility. The majority of our own wealthy classes preferred

sinking their money in German motor-cars and German pleasure resorts; or

one must assume so, for it is well known that our Navy League had long

since ceased to exert any active influence, because it was unable to

raise funds enough to pay its office expenses.

Our Navy might have had a useful reserve to draw upon in the various

auxiliary naval bodies if these had not, one by one, been abolished. The

Mercantile Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance in this

respect, for our ships at that time carried eighty-seven thousand

foreign officers and men, three parts of whom were Teutons. These facts

were presumably all well known to the heads and governing bodies of the

various trades, and, that being so, the extremely pessimistic attitude

adopted by them, directly the fact of invasion was established, is

scarcely to be wondered at.

In banking, insurance, underwriting, stock and share dealing,

manufacturing, and in every branch of shipping the lead of the bakers

were followed, and in many cases exceeded. The premiums asked in

insurance and underwriting, and the unprecedented advance in the

bank-rate, corresponding as it did with a hopeless "slump" in every

stock and share quoted on the Stock Exchange, from Consols to mining

shares, brought business to a standstill in London on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday entire blocks of offices remained unopened. In business, more

perhaps than in any other walk of life, self-preservation and

self-advancement were at that time, not alone the first, but the only

fixed law. With bread at 1s. 4d. a loaf, great ship-owners in England

were cabling the masters of wheat ships in both hemispheres to remain

where they were and await orders.

This last fact I learned from Leslie Wheeler, whom I happened to meet

hurrying from the City to Waterloo, on his way down to Weybridge. His

family were leaving for Devonshire next morning, to stay with relatives

there.

"But, bless me!" I said, when he told me that friends of his father,

shipping magnates, had despatched such cable messages that morning,

"surely that's a ruffianly thing to do, when the English people are

crying out for bread?"

Leslie shrugged his smartly-clad shoulders. "It's the English people's

own affair," he said.

"How's that?"

"Why, you see it's all a matter of insurance. All commerce is based on

insurance, in one form or another. The cost of shipping insurance to-day

is absolutely prohibitive; in other words, there isn't any. We did have

a permanent and non-fluctuating form of insurance of a kind one time.

But you Socialist chaps--social reform, Little England for the English,

and all that--you swept that away. Wouldn't pay for it; said it wasn't

wanted. Now it's gone, and you're feeling the pinch. The worst of it is,

you make the rest of us feel it, too. I'm thankful to say the dad's

pulling out fairly well. He told me yesterday he hadn't five hundred

pounds in anything British. Wise old bird, the dad!"

My friend's "You Socialist chaps" rather wrang my withers; its sting not

being lessened at all by my knowledge of its justice. I asked after the

welfare of the Wheeler family generally, but it was only as Leslie was

closing the door of the cab he hailed that I mentioned Sylvia.

"Yes, Sylvia's all right," he said, as he waved me good-bye; "but she

won't come away with the rest of us--absolutely refuses to budge."

And with that he was off, leaving me wondering about the girl who had at

one time occupied so much of my mind, but of late had had so little of

it. During the next few hours I wove quite a pretty story round Sylvia's

refusal to accompany her family. I even thought of her as joining

Constance Grey's nursing corps.

The thought of this development of Sylvia Wheeler's character interested

me so much that I wrote to her that evening, tentatively sympathizing

with her determination not to be frightened away from her own place. The

whole thing was a curious misapprehension on my part; but Sylvia's reply

(explaining that it was her particular place of worship she refused to

leave, and that she was staying "with his Reverence's sister"), though

written within twenty-four hours, did not reach me until after many

days--days such as England will never face again.

XIX

THE TRAGIC WEEK

England can never have an efficient army during peace, and she must,

therefore, accept the rebuffs and calamities which are always in

store for the nation that is content to follow the breed of cowards

who usually direct her great affairs. The day will come when she

will violently and suddenly lose her former fighting renown to such

an unmistakable extent that the plucky fishwives will march upon

Downing Street, and if they can catch its usual inmates, will rend

them. One party is as bad as the other, and I hope and pray that

when the national misfortune of a great defeat at sea overtakes us,

followed by the invasion of England, that John Bull will turn and

rend the jawers and talkers who prevent us from being prepared to

meet invasion.--_From a letter written by Lord Wolsley,

ex-Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, to Lord Wemyss, and

published, and ignored by the public, in the year 1906._

It is no part of my intention to make any attempt to limp after the

historians of the Invasion. The Official History, the half-dozen of

standard military treatises, and the well-known works of Low, Forster,

Gordon, and others, have allowed few details of the Invasion to escape

unrecorded. But I confess it has always seemed to me that these writers

gave less attention to the immediate aftermath of the Invasion than that

curious period demanded. Yet here was surely a case in which effect was

of vastly more importance than cause, and aftermath than crisis. But

perhaps I take that view because I am no historian.

To the non-expert mind, the most bewildering and extraordinary feature

of that disastrous time was the amazing speed with which crisis

succeeded crisis, and events, each of themselves epoch-making in

character, crashed one upon another throughout the progress toward Black

Saturday. We know now that much of this fury of haste which was so

bewildering at the time, which certainly has no parallel in history, was

due to the perfection of Germany's long-laid plans. Major-General

Farquarson, in his "Military History of the Invasion," says:

"It may be doubted whether in all the history of warfare anything so

scientifically perfect as the preparations for this attack can be found.

It is safe to say that every inch of General von Fuechter's progress was

mapped out in Berlin long months before it came to astound and horrify

England. The maps and plans in the possession of the German staff were

masterpieces of cartographical science and art. The German Army knew

almost to a bale of hay what provender lay between London and the coast,

and where it was stored; and certainly their knowledge of East Anglia

far exceeded that of our own authorities. The world has never seen a

quicker blow struck; it has seldom seen a blow so crushingly severe; it

has not often seen one so aggressively unjustifiable. And, be it noted,

that down to the last halter and the least fragment of detail, the

German Army was provided with every conceivable aid to success--_in

duplicate_.

"Never in any enterprise known to history was less left to chance. The

German War Office left nothing at all to chance, not even its

conception--a certainty really--of Britain's amazing unreadiness. And

the German Army took no risks. A soldier's business, whether he be

private or Field Marshal, is, after all, to obey orders. It would be

both foolish and unjust to blame General von Fuechter. But the fact

remains that no victorious army ever risked less by generosity than the

invading German Army. Its tactics were undoubtedly ruthless; they were

the tactics necessitated by the orders of the Chief of the Army. They

were more severe, more crushing, than any that have ever been adopted

even by a punitive expedition under British colours. They were

successful. For that they were intended. Swiftness and thoroughness were

of the essence of the contract.

"With regard to their humanity or morality I am not here concerned. But

it should always be remembered by critics that British apathy and

neglect made British soil a standing temptation to the invader. The

invasion was entirely unprovoked, so far as direct provocation goes. But

who shall say it was entirely undeserved, or even unforeseen, by

advisers whom the nation chose to ignore? This much is certain: Black

Saturday and the tragic events leading up to it were made possible, not

so much by the skill and forethought of the enemy, which were notable,

as by a state of affairs in England which made that day one of shame and

humiliation, as well as a day of national mourning. No just recorder may

hope to escape that fact."

In London, the gravest aspect of that tragic week was the condition of

the populace. It is supposed that over two million people flocked into

the capital during the first three days. And the prices of the

necessities of life were higher in London than anywhere else in the

country. The Government measures for relief were ill-considered and

hopelessly inadequate. But, in justice to "The Destroyers," it must be

remembered that leading authorities have said that adequate measures

were impossible, from sheer lack of material.

During one day--I think it was Wednesday--huge armies of the hungry

unemployed--nine-tenths of our wage-earners were unemployed--were set to

work upon entrenchments in the north of London. But there was no sort of

organization, and most of the men streamed back into the town that

night, unpaid, unfed, and sullenly resentful.

Then, like cannon shots, came the reports of the fall of York, Bradford,

Leeds, Halifax, Hull, and Huddersfield, and the apparently wanton

demolition of Norwich Cathedral. The sinking of the _Dreadnought_ near

the Nore was known in London within the hour. Among the half-equipped

regulars who were hurried up from the southwest, I saw dozens of men

intercepted in the streets by the hungry crowds, and hustled into

leaving their fellows.

Then came Friday's awful "surrender riot" at Westminster, a magnificent

account of which gives Martin's big work its distinctive value. I had

left Constance Grey's flat only half an hour before the riot began, and

when I reached Trafalgar Square there was no space between that and the

Abbey in which a stone could have been dropped without falling upon a

man or a woman. There were women in that maddened throng, and some of

them, crying hoarsely in one breath for surrender and for bread, were

suckling babies.

No Englishman who witnessed it could ever forget that sight. The Prime

Minister's announcement that the surrender should be made came too late.

The panic and hunger-maddened incendiaries had been at work. Smoke was

rising already from Downing Street and the back of the Treasury. Then

came the carnage. One can well believe that not a single unnecessary

bullet was fired. Not to believe that would be to saddle those in

authority with a less than human baseness. But the question history puts

is: Who was primarily to blame for the circumstances which led up to the

tragic necessity of the firing order?

Posterity has unanimously laid the blame upon the Administration of that

day, and assuredly the task of whitewashing "The Destroyers" would be no

light or pleasant one. But, again, we must remind ourselves that the

essence of the British Constitution has granted to us always, for a

century past at least, as good a Government as we have deserved. "The

Destroyers" may have brought shame and humiliation upon England.

Unquestionably, measures and acts of theirs produced those effects. But

who and what produced "The Destroyers" as a Government? The only

possible answer to that is, in the first place, the British public; in

the second place, the British people's selfish apathy and neglect, where

national duty and responsibility were concerned, and blindly selfish

absorption, in the matter of its own individual interests and

pleasures.

One hundred and thirty-two men, women, and children killed, and three

hundred and twenty-eight wounded; the Treasury buildings and the

official residence of the Prime Minister gutted; that was the casualty

list of the "Surrender Riot" at Westminster. But the figures do not

convey a tithe of the horror, the unforgettable shame and horror, of the

people's attack upon the Empire's sanctuary. The essence of the tragedy

lay in their demand for immediate and unconditional surrender; the

misery of it lay in "The Destroyers'" weak, delayed, terrified response,

followed almost immediately by the order to those in charge of the

firing parties--an order flung hysterically at last, the very

articulation of panic.

No one is likely to question Martin's assertion that Friday's tragedy at

Westminster must be regarded--"not alone as the immediate cause of Black

Saturday's national humiliation, but also as the crucial phase, the

pivot upon which the development of the whole disastrous week turned."

But the Westminster Riot at least had the saving feature of

unpremeditation. It was, upon the one side, the outcry of a wholly

undisciplined, hungry, and panic-smitten public; and, upon the other

side, the irresponsible, more than half-hysterical action of a group of

terrified and incompetent politicians. These men had been swept into

great positions, which they were totally unfitted to fill, by a tidal

wave of reactionary public feeling, and of the blind selfishness of a

decadence born of long freedom from any form of national discipline; of

liberties too easily won and but half-understood; of superficial

education as to rights, and abysmal ignorance as to duties.

But, while fully admitting the soundness of Martin's verdict, for my

part I feel that my experiences during that week left me with memories

not perhaps more shocking, but certainly more humiliating and

disgraceful to England, than the picture burnt into my mind by the

Westminster Riot. I will mention two of these.

By Wednesday a large proportion of the rich residents of Western London

had left the capital to take its chances, while they sought the security

of country homes, more particularly in the southwestern counties. Such

thoroughfares as Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Bond Street were no

longer occupied by well-dressed people with plenty of money to spend.

Their usual patrons were for the most part absent; but, particularly at

night, they were none the less very freely used--more crowded, indeed,

than ever before. The really poor, the desperately hungry people, had no

concern whatever with the wrecking of the famous German restaurants and

beer-halls. They were not among the Regent Street and Piccadilly

promenaders.

The Londoners who filled these streets at night--the people who sacked

the Leicester Square hotel and took part in the famous orgy which

Blackburn describes as "unequalled in England since the days of the

Plague, or in Europe since the French Revolution"; these people were not

at all in quest of food. They were engaged upon a mad pursuit of

pleasure and debauchery and drink. "Eat, drink, and be vicious; but

above all, drink and be vicious; for this is the end of England!" That

was their watchword.

I have no wish to repeat Blackburn's terrible stories of rapine and

bestiality, of the frenzy of intoxication, and the blind savagery of

these Saturnalias. In their dreadful nakedness they stand for ever in

the pages of his great book, a sinister blur, a fiery warning, writ

large across the scroll of English history. I only wish to say that

scenes I actually saw with my own eyes (one episode in trying to check

the horror of which I lost two fingers and much blood), prove beyond all

question to me that, even in its most lurid and revolting passages,

Blackburn's account is a mere record of fact, and not at all, as some

apologists have sought to show, an exaggerated or overheated version of

these lamentable events.

Regarded as an indication of the pass we had reached at this period of

our decadence, this stage of our trial by fire, the conduct of the

crowds in Western London during those dreadful nights, impressed me more

forcibly than the disaster which Martin considers the climax and pivot

of the week's tragedy.

One does not cheerfully refer to these things, but, to be truthful, I

must mention the other matter which produced upon me, personally, the

greatest sense of horror and disgrace.

Military writers have described for us most fully the circumstances in

which General Lord Wensley's command was cut and blown to pieces in the

Epping and Romford districts. Authorities are agreed that the records of

civilized warfare have nothing more horrible to tell than the history

of that ghastly butchery. As a slaughter, there was nothing exactly like

it in the Russo-Japanese war--for we know that there were less than a

hundred survivors of the whole of Lord Wensley's command. But those who

mourned the loss of these brave men had a consolation of which nothing

could rob them; the consolation which is graven in stone upon the Epping

monument; a consolation preserved as well in German as in English

history. Germany may truthfully say of the Epping shambles that no

quarter was given that day. England may say, with what pride she may,

that none was asked. The last British soldier slaughtered in the Epping

trenches had no white flag in his hand, but a broken bayonet, and, under

his knee, the Colours of his regiment.

The British soldiers in those blood-soaked trenches were badly armed,

less than half-trained, under-officered, and of a low physical standard.

But these lamentable facts had little or nothing to do with their

slaughter. There were but seven thousand of them, while the German force

has been variously estimated at between seventy thousand and one hundred

thousand horse and foot, besides artillery. One need not stop to

question who should bear the blame for the half-trained, vilely equipped

condition of these heroic victims. The far greater question, to which

the only answer can be a sad silence of remorse and bitter humiliation,

bears upon the awful needlessness of their sacrifice.

The circumstances have been described in fullest detail from authentic

records. The stark fact which stands out before the average non-expert

observer is that Lord Wensley was definitely promised reinforcements to

the number of twenty thousand horse and foot; that after the Westminster

Riot not a single man or horse reached him; _and he was never informed

of the Government's forced decision to surrender_.

And thus those half-trained boys and men laid down their lives for

England within a dozen miles of Westminster, almost twelve hours after a

weak-kneed, panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the people

that England would surrender.

That, to my thinking, was the most burning feature of our disgrace;

that, as an indication of our parlous estate, is more terrible than

Martin's "pivot" of the tragic week.

XX

BLACK SATURDAY

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.

WORDSWORTH.

In the afternoon of Black Saturday, General von Fuechter, the

Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in England, took up his quarters,

with his staff, in the residence of the German Ambassador to the Court

of St. James in Carlton House Terrace, and, so men said, enjoyed the

first sleep he had had for a week. (The German Ambassador had handed in

his credentials, and been escorted out of England on the previous

Monday.)

Throughout the small hours of Saturday morning I was at work near

Romford as one of the volunteer bearers attached to Constance Grey's

nursing corps. That is one reason why the memory of the north of London

massacre will never leave me. One may assume that the German Army had no

wish to kill nurses, but, as evidence of the terrible character of the

onslaught on the poor defences of London, I may recall the fact that

three of our portable nursing shelters were blown to pieces; while of

Constance Grey's nurses alone five were killed and fourteen were badly

wounded.

Myself, I had much to be thankful for, my only wound being the ploughing

of a little furrow over the biceps of my right arm by a bullet that

passed out through the back of my coat. But a circumstance for which my

gratitude was more deeply moved was the fact that Constance Grey,

despite a number of wonderfully narrow escapes, was entirely uninjured.

The actual entry of General von Fuechter and his troops into London has

been so often described that nothing remains for me to say about that.

Also, I am unable to speak as an eye witness, since Constance Grey and

myself were among those who returned to London, in the rear of the

German troops, with the ambulances. The enemy's line of communications

stretched now from the Wash to London, and between Brentwood and London

there were more Germans than English. I believe the actual number of

troops which entered London behind General von Fuechter was under

forty-eight thousand; but to the northward, northeast, and northwest the

huge force which really invested the capital was spread in careful

formation, and amply provided with heavy artillery, then trained upon

central London from all such points as the Hampstead heights.

Although a formal note of surrender had been conveyed to General von

Fuechter at Romford, _after_ the annihilation of our entrenched troops,

occasional shots were fired upon the enemy as they entered London.

Indeed, in the Whitechapel Road, one of the General's aides-de-camp,

riding within a few yards of his chief, was killed by a shot from the

upper windows of a provision shop. But the German reprisals were sharp.

It is said that fifty-seven lives paid the penalty for the shooting of

that aide-de-camp. Several streets of houses in northeast London were

burned.

By this time the Lord Mayor of London had been notified that serious

results would accrue if any further opposition were offered to the

German acceptance of London's surrender; and proclamations to that

effect were posted everywhere. But the great bulk of London's

inhabitants were completely cowed by hunger and terror. Practically, it

may be said that, throughout, the only resistance offered to the Army of

the invaders was that which ended so tragically in the trenches beyond

Epping and Romford, with the equally tragical defence of Colchester, and

some of the northern towns captured by the eighth German Army Corps.

In London the people's demand from the first had been for unconditional

surrender. It was this demand which had culminated in the Westminster

Riot. The populace was so entirely undisciplined, so completely lacking

in the sort of training which makes for self-restraint, that even if the

Government had been possessed of an efficient striking force for

defensive purposes, the public would not have permitted its proper

utilization. The roar of German artillery during Friday night and

Saturday morning, with the news of the awful massacre in the northern

entrenchments, had combined to extinguish the last vestige of desire

for resistance which remained in London.

Almost all the people with money had left the capital. Those

remaining--the poor, the refugees from northward, irresponsibles, people

without a stake of any kind; these desired but the one thing: food and

safety. The German Commander-in-Chief was wise. He knew that if time had

been allowed, resistance would have been organized, even though the

British regular Army had, by continuous reductions in the name of

"economy," practically ceased to exist as a striking force. And

therefore time was the one thing he had been most determined to deny

England.

It is said that fatigue killed more German soldiers than fell to British

bullets; and the fact may well be believed when we consider the

herculean task General von Fuechter had accomplished in one week. His

plan of campaign was to strike his hardest, and to keep on striking his

hardest, without pause, till he had the British Government on its knees

before him; till he had the British public--maddened by sudden fear, and

the panic which blows of this sort must bring to a people with no

defensive organization, and no disciplinary training--cowed and crying

for quarter.

The German Commander has been called inhuman, a monster, a creature

without bowels. All that is really of small importance. He was a soldier

who carried out orders. His orders were ruthless orders. The instrument

he used was a very perfect one. He carried out his orders with the

utmost precision and thoroughness; and his method was the surest,

quickest, and, perhaps, the only way of taking possession of England.

At noon precisely, the Lord Mayor of London was brought before the

German Commander-in-Chief in the audience chamber of the Mansion House,

and formally placed under arrest. A triple cordon of sentries and two

machine-gun parties were placed in charge of the Bank of England, and

quarters were allotted for two German regiments in the immediate

vicinity. Two machine-guns were brought into position in front of the

Stock Exchange, and all avenues leading from the heart of the City were

occupied by mixed details of cavalry and infantry, each party having one

machine-gun.

My acquaintance, Wardle, of the _Sunday News_, was in the audience

chamber of the Mansion House at this time, and he says that he never saw

a man look more exhausted than General von Fuechter, who, according to

report, had not had an hour's sleep during the week. But though the

General's cheeks were sunken, his chin unshaven, and his eyes blood-red,

his demeanour was that of an iron man--stern, brusque, taciturn, erect,

and singularly immobile.

Food was served to this man of blood and iron in the Mansion House,

while the Lord Mayor's secretary proceeded to Whitehall, with word to

the effect that the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in England

awaited the sword and formal surrender of the British Commander, before

proceeding to take up quarters in which he would deal with peace

negotiations.

Forster's great work, "The Surrender," gives the finest description we

have of the scene that followed. The Field Marshal in command of the

British forces had that morning been sent for by a Cabinet Council then

being held in the Prime Minister's room at the House of Commons. With

nine members of his staff, the white-haired Field Marshal rode slowly

into the City, in full uniform. His instructions were for unconditional

surrender, and a request for the immediate consideration of the details

of peace negotiations.

The Field Marshal had once been the most popular idol of the British

people, whom he had served nobly in a hundred fights. Of late years he

himself had been as completely disregarded, as the grave warnings, the

earnest appeals, which he had bravely continued to urge upon a

neglectful people. The very Government which now despatched him upon the

hardest task of his whole career, the tendering of his sword to his

country's enemy, had for long treated him with cold disfavour. The

general public, in its anti-national madness, had sneered at this great

little man, their one-time hero, as a Jingo crank.

(As an instance of the lengths to which the public madness went in this

matter, the curious will find in the British Museum copies of at least

one farcical work of fiction written and published with considerable

success, as burlesques of that very invasion which had now occurred, of

the possibility of which this loyal servant in particular had so

earnestly and so unavailingly warned his countrymen.)

Now, the blow he had so often foreshadowed had fallen; the capital of

the British Empire was actually in possession of an enemy; and the

British leader knew himself for a Commander without an Army.

He had long since given his only son to the cause of Britain's defence.

The whole of his own strenuous life had been devoted to the same cause.

His declining years had known no ease by reason of his unceasing and

thankless striving to awaken his fellow countrymen to a sense of their

military responsibilities. Now he felt that the end of all things had

come for him, in the carrying out of an order which snapped his life's

work in two, and flung it down at the feet of England's almost unopposed

conqueror.

The understanding Englishman has forgiven General von Fuechter much, by

virtue of his treatment of the noble old soldier, who with tear-blinded

eyes and twitching lips tendered him the surrender of the almost

non-existent British Army. No man ever heard a speech from General von

Fuechter, but the remark with which he returned our Field Marshal's sword

to him will never be forgotten in England. He said, in rather laboured

English, with a stiff, low bow:

"Keep it, my lord. If your countrymen had not forgotten how to recognize

a great soldier, I could never have demanded it of you."

And the man of iron saluted the heart-broken Chief of the shattered

British Army.

We prefer not to believe the report that this, the German Commander's

one act of gentleness and magnanimity in England, was subsequently paid

for by the loss of a certain Imperial decoration. But, if the story was

true, then the decoration it concerned was well lost.

It was a grim, war-stained procession that followed General von Fuechter

when, between two and three o'clock, he rode with his staff by way of

Ludgate Hill and the Strand to Carlton House Terrace. But the cavalry

rode with drawn sabres, the infantry marched with fixed bayonets, and,

though weariness showed in every line of the men's faces, there was as

yet no sign of relaxed tension.

Throughout that evening and night the baggage wagons rumbled through

London, without cessation, to the two main western encampments in Hyde

Park. The whole of Pall Mall and Park Lane were occupied by German

officers that night, few of the usual occupants of the clubs in the one

thoroughfare, or the residences in the other, being then in London.

By four o'clock General von Fuechter's terms were in the hands of the

Government which had now completed its earning of the title of "The

Destroyers." The Chief Commissioner of Police and the principal

municipal authorities of greater London had all been examined during the

day at the House of Commons, and were unanimous in their verdict that

any delay in the arrangement of peace and the resumption of trade,

ashore and afloat, could mean only revolution. Whole streets of shops

had been sacked and looted already by hungry mobs, who gave no thought

to the invasion or to any other matter than the question of food supply.

A great, lowering crowd of hungry men and women occupied Westminster

Bridge and the southern embankment (no German soldiers had been seen

south of the Thames) waiting for the news of the promised conclusion of

peace terms.

There is not wanting evidence that certain members of the Government had

already bitterly repented of their suicidal retrenchment and

anti-defensive attitude in the past. But repentance had come too late.

The Government stood between a hungry, terrified populace demanding

peace and food, and a mighty and victorious army whose commander, acting

upon the orders of his Government, offered peace at a terrible price, or

the absolute destruction of London. For General von Fuechter's brief

memorandum of terms alluded threateningly to the fact that his heavy

artillery was so placed that he could blow the House of Commons into the

river in an hour.

At six o'clock the German terms were accepted, a provisional declaration

of peace was signed, and public proclamations to that effect, embodying

reference to the deadly perils which would be incurred by those taking

part in any kind of street disorder, were issued to the public. As to

the nature of the German terms, it must be admitted that they were as

pitiless as the German tactics throughout the invasion, and as surely

designed to accomplish their end and object. Berlin had not forgotten

the wonderful recuperative powers which enabled France to rise so

swiftly from out of the ashes of 1870. Britain was to be far more

effectually crippled.

The money indemnity demanded by General von Fuechter was the largest ever

known: one thousand million pounds sterling. But it must be remembered

that the enemy already held the Bank of England. One hundred millions,

or securities representing that amount, were to be handed over within

twenty-four hours. The remaining nine hundred millions were to be paid

in nine annual instalments of one hundred millions each, the first of

which must be paid within three months. Until the last payment was made,

German troops were to occupy Glasgow, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Devonport,

Chatham, Yarmouth, Harwich, Hull, and Newcastle. The Transvaal was to be

ceded to the Boers under a German Protectorate. Britain was to withdraw

all pretensions regarding Egypt and Morocco, and to cede to Germany,

Gibraltar, Malta, Ceylon, and British West Africa.

It is not necessary for me to quote the few further details of the most

exacting demands a victor ever made upon a defeated enemy. There can be

no doubt that, in the disastrous circumstances they had been so largely

instrumental in bringing about, "The Destroyers" had no choice, no

alternative from their acceptance of these crushing terms.

And thus it was that--not at the end of a long and hard-fought war, as

the result of vast misfortunes or overwhelming valour on the enemy's

side, but simply as the result of the condition of utter and lamentable

defencelessness into which a truckling Government and an undisciplined,

blindly selfish people had allowed England to lapse--the greatest,

wealthiest Power in civilization was brought to its knees in the

incredibly short space of one week, by the sudden but scientifically

devised onslaught of a single ambitious nation, ruled by a monarch whose

lack of scruples was more than balanced by his strength of purpose.

XXI

ENGLAND ASLEEP

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,

And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,

Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.

LOWELL.

General von Fuechter and his splendidly trained troops were not the only

people in England for whom the mere fatigue of that week was something

not easily to be forgotten. My impression of its last three days is that

they brought no period of rest for any one. I know that there were as

many people in the streets by night as by day. The act of going within

doors or sitting down, seemed in some way to be a kind of cowardice, a

species of shirking, or disloyalty.

I remember Constance Grey assuring me that she had lain down for an hour

on Thursday. I can say with certainty that we were both of us on our

feet from that time until after the terms of the surrender were made

known on Saturday evening. I can also say that no thought of this matter

of physical weariness occurred to me until that period of Saturday

evening--soon after seven o'clock it was--when the proclamations were

posted up in Whitehall, and the special issues of the newspapers

containing the peace announcements began to be hawked.

An issue of the _Standard_, a single sheet, with broad black borders,

was the first press announcement to reach the public; and it contained a

grave, closely reasoned address from the most famous statesman of the

Opposition, urging upon the public the need vital of exercising the

utmost cautiousness and self-restraint.

"England has been stricken to the earth," said this dignified statement.

"Her condition is critical. If the injury sustained is not to prove

mortal, the utmost circumspection is required at this moment. The

immediate duty of every loyal subject is quietly to concentrate his

energies for the time upon the restoration of normal conditions. In that

way only can our suffering country be given that breathing space which

is the first step toward recuperation. For my part, I can conceive of no

better, quicker method for the individual of serving this end than for

him to make the speediest possible return to the pursuit of his ordinary

avocation in life. It is to be hoped that, bearing in mind our urgent

need, all employers of labour will do their utmost to provide immediate

occupation for their work-people. It is not in the tragic catastrophe of

the past week, but in the ordeal of this moment, of the coming days,

that the real test of England's endurance lies. Never before was her

need so great; never before has Nelson's demand had so real and intimate

a message for each and every one of us. I pray God the response may ring

true. 'England expects that every man will do his duty!'"

I must not omit my tribute to those responsible for the salient fact

that this important issue of the journal whose unwavering Imperialism

had been scoffed at in the mad times before the Invasion, was not sold,

but distributed. Employment was found for hundreds of hungry men, women,

and children in its free distribution; their wage being the thing they

most desired: bread, with soup, which, as I learned that night, was

prepared in huge coppers in the foundry of the printing works.

I was with Constance Grey in Trafalgar Square when the news of the

accepted terms of peace reached us. We had just secured admission into

Charing Cross Hospital--not without considerable difficulty, for its

wards were crowded--for two wounded nurses from Epping. Together we read

the news, and when the end was reached it seemed to me that the light of

life and energy passed suddenly out of my companion. She seemed to

suffer some bodily change and loss, to be bereft of her spring and

erectness.

"Ah, well," she said, "I am very tired, Dick; and, do you know, it

occurs to me I have had nothing to eat since yesterday afternoon. I

wonder can we get away from these men, anywhere?"

The streets between Victoria and Hyde Park were lined by German cavalry

men, who sat motionless on their chargers, erect and soldierly, but, in

many cases, fast asleep.

We began to walk eastward, looking for some place in which we could rest

and eat. But every place seemed to be closed.

"How long have you been on your feet?" said Constance, as we passed the

Law Courts.

"Only since Thursday evening," I said. "I had a long rest in that cart,

you remember--the one I brought the lint and bandages in."

Just then we passed a tailor's shop-window, and, in a long, narrow strip

of mirror I caught a full-length reflection of myself. I positively

turned swiftly to see who could have cast that reflection. Four days

without shaving and without a change of collar; two days without even

washing my hands or face; four days without undressing, and eight hours'

work beside the North London entrenchments--these experiences had made a

wild-looking savage of me, and, until that moment, I had never thought

of my appearance.

Smoke, earth, and blood had worked their will upon me. My left hand,

from which two fingers were missing, was swathed in blackened bandages.

My right coat-sleeve had been cut off by a good-natured fellow who had

bandaged the flesh wound in my arm to stop its bleeding. My eyes glinted

dully in a black face, with curious white fringes round them, where

their moisture had penetrated my skin of smoked dirt. And here was I

walking beside Constance Grey!

Then I realized, for the first time, that Constance herself bore many

traces of these last few terrible days. In some mysterious fashion her

face and collar seemed to have escaped scot free; but her dress was

torn, ragged, and stained; and the intense weariness of her expression

was something I found it hard to bear.

Just then we met Wardle of the _Sunday News_, and he told us of the

bread and soup distribution in the _Standard_ office. Something warned

me that Constance had reached the limit of her endurance, and, in

another moment, she had reeled against me and almost fallen. I took her

in my arms, and Wardle walked beside me, up a flight of stairs and into

the office of the great newspaper. There I walked into the first room I

saw--the sanctum of some managerial bashaw, for aught I knew--and placed

Constance comfortably in a huge easy chair of green leather.

Wardle brought some water, for Constance was in a fainting state still;

but I hurried him off again to look for bread and soup. Meantime I

lowered Constance to the floor, having just remembered that in such a

case the head should be kept low. Her face was positively deathly--lips,

cheeks, all alike gray-white, save for the purple hollows under both

eyes. One moment I was taking stock of these things, as a doctor might;

the next I was on my knees and kissing the nerveless hand at her side,

all worn and bruised and stained as it was from her ceaseless strivings

of the past week. I knew then that, for me, though I should live a

hundred years and Constance should never deign to speak to me again,

there was but one woman in the world.

I am afraid Wardle found me at the same employ; but, though I remember

vaguely resenting his fresh linen and normally smart appearance, he was

a good fellow, and knew when to seem blind. All he said was:

"Here's the soup!"

[Illustration: "I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVELESS HAND"]

He had brought a small wash-hand basin full to the brim, and a loaf of

warm, new bread. As the steam of the hot soup reached me, I realized

that I was a very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides. It

may have been the steam of the soup that rallied Constance. I know that

within two minutes I was feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It

is a wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouthfuls of hot soup

upon an exhausted woman, whose exhaustion is due as much to lack of food

as need of rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though cracked, was

clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxurious little cabinet near the

chair one felt was dedicated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we

had invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink soup from as a

cup, but requires more careful manipulation when hot. If the side of the

tumbler becomes soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new

bread.

Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he was neatly dressed;

but he found a certain vicarious pleasure, I think, in watching

Constance and myself at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used

the seat of the green chair as a table--a strange meal, in strange

surroundings; but a better I never had, before or since. There was a

physical gratification, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the

colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face; a singularly

beautiful process of nature I thought it. Presently the door of the room

opened with a jerk, and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in.

"H'm!" he said brusquely. "Beg pardon!" And he was gone. I learned

afterwards that the room belonged to him, and that he came direct from a

conference of newspaper pundits called together at Westminster by the

Home Secretary. I do not know where he took refuge, but as for us we

went on with our soup and bread till repletion overtook us, as it

quickly does after long fasts, and renewed strength brought sighs of

contentment.

"Wardle," I remember saying to my journalistic friend, with absurd

earnestness, "have you anything to smoke?"

"I haven't a thing but my pipe," he said. "But wait a moment! There used

to be--yes. Look here!"

There was a drawer in a side-table near the great writing-table, and one

division of it was half-full of cigarettes, the other of Upman's

"Torpedoes."

"I will repay thee," I murmured irreverently, as I helped myself to one

of each, and lit the cigarette, having obtained permission from

Constance. It was the first tobacco I had tasted for forty-eight hours,

and I was a very regular smoker. I had not known my need till then, a

fact which will tell much to smokers.

"And now?" said Constance. Her eyelids were drooping heavily.

"Now I am going to take you straight out to South Kensington, and you

are going to rest."

I had never used quite that tone to Constance before. I think, till now,

hers had been the guiding and directing part. Yet her influence had

never been stronger upon me than at that moment.

"Well, of course, there are no cabs or omnibuses," said Wardle, "but a

man told me the Underground was running trains at six o'clock."

We had a long, long wait at Blackfriars' station, but a train came

eventually, and we reached the flat in South Kensington as a

neighbouring church clock struck ten. The journey was curious and

impressive from first to last. Fleet Street had been very much alive

still when we left it; and we saw long files of baggage wagons rumbling

along between Prussian lancers. But Blackfriars was deserted, the ticket

collector slept soundly on his box; the streets in South Kensington were

silent as the grave.

London slept that night for the first time in a week. I learned

afterwards how the long lines of German sentries in Pall Mall, Park

Lane, and elsewhere slept solidly at their posts; how the Metropolitan

police slept on their beats; how thousands of men, women, and children

slept in the streets of South London, whither they had fled

panic-stricken that morning. Conquerors and conquered together, the

whole vast city slept that night as never perhaps before or since. After

a week of terror, of effort, of despair, and of debauchery, the sorely

stricken capital of the British Empire lay that night like a city of the

dead. England and her invaders were worn out.

At the flat we found Mrs. Van Homrey placidly knitting.

"Well, young folk," she said cheerily; "I've had all the news, and

there's nothing to be said; and--there's bath and bed waiting for you,

Conny. I shall bring you something hot in your room."

Ah, the kindly comfort of that motherly soul's words! It was but a few

hours since her "Conny" had stood by my side on ground that was

literally blood-soaked. Since the previous night we had both seen Death

in his most terrible guise; Death swinging his dripping scythe through

scores of lives at a stroke. We had been in England's riven heart

throughout the day of England's bitterest humiliation; and Mrs. Van

Homrey had bed and bath waiting, with "something hot" for Constance to

take in her room.

"But, Aunty, if you could have seen----"

"Dear child, I know it all." She patted her niece's shoulder, and I

noticed the rings and the shiny softness of her fingers. She saw at a

glance--indeed, had seen beforehand, in anticipation--the wrought-up,

exhausted condition Constance had reached. "I know it all, dear," she

said soothingly. "But the time has come for rest now. Nothing else is

any good till that is done with. Come, child. God will send better days

for England. First, we must rest."

So Constance turned to leave the room.

"And you?" she said to me.

"I will see to him. You run along, my dear," said her aunt. So Constance

took my hand.

"Good night, Dick. You have been very good and kind, and--patient. Good

night!"

There was no spare bedroom in that little flat, but the dear old lady

had actually made up a bed for me on a couch in the drawing-room, and

before she retired for the night she made me free of the bathroom, and

supplied me with towels and such like matters, and gave me cake and

cocoa; a delicious repast I thought it. And so, while crushed and beaten

London lay sleeping off its exhaustion, I slept under Constance Grey's

roof, full of gratitude, and of a kind of new hope and gladness, very

foreign, one would have said, to my gruesome experiences of the past

forty-eight hours.

England, the old victorious island kingdom, bequeathed to us by Raleigh,

Drake, Nelson; the nineteenth-century England of triumphant

commercialism; England till then inviolate for a thousand years; rich

and powerful beyond all other lands; broken now under the invader's

heel--that ancient England slept.