TO MY SON
BOBBY
*BOB AT SIXTEEN*
You can tell a better tale than I;
Trap and wing you shoot a better score;
You can cast a surer, lighter fly,
Catch as can, you'd put me on the floor;
Should I hoist a sail beneath the sky
Yours the race, away and back to shore.
You have mastered all my woodland lore,
In the saddle you can give me spades;
You have slain your first and mighty boar
In the classic Croyden Forest shades;
You have heard the Northern rivers roar,
You have seen the Southern Everglades.
You have creeled your Highland yellow trout
Where the Scottish moorlands call us back;
You have left me puzzled and in doubt
Over tropic specimens I lack--
Sphinxes that I know not, huge and stout;
Butterflies, un-named, in blue and black.
Well, we've had a jolly run, my son,
Through a sunny world has lain our trail
Trodden side by side with rod and gun
Under azure skies where white clouds sail;
--Send our journey is not nearly done!
Send the light has not begun to fail.
_Envoi_
Yet, that day you tread the trail alone,
With no slower comrade to escort
On the path of spring with blossoms sown,
You may deem me not so bad a sort,
Smile and think, as one who would condone,
"He was sure a perfectly good sport."
R. W. C.
Broadalbin; 1916.
*DOG-DAYS (1914)*
The mad dog of Europe
Yelped in the dog-days' heat;
To his sick legs he staggered up
Swaying on twitching feet;
Snarled when he saw the offered cup,
And started down the street.
All hell has set his brain aflame;
All Europe shrieks with dread;
All mothers call on Mary's name,
Praying by shrine and bed,
"For Jesus' sake!"--Yet all the same
Each sees her son lie dead.
"On Guard!" the Western bugles blow;
"Boom!" from the Western main;
The Brabant flail has struck its blow;
The mad dog howls with pain
But lurches on, uncertain, slow,
Growling amid his slain.
They beat and kick his dusty hide,
He bleeds from every vein;
On his red trail the Cossacks ride
Across the reeking plain
While gun-shots rip his bloody sides
From Courland to Champagne.
Under the weary moons and suns
With phantom eyes aglow,
Dog-trotting still the spectre runs
Yelping at every blow
'Til through its ribs the flashing guns
And stars begin to show.
The moon shines through its riven wrack;
On the bleached skull the suns
Have baked the crusted blood all black,
But still the spectre runs,
Jogging along its hell-ward track
Lined with the tombs of Huns.
Back to the grave from whence it came
To foul the world with red;
Back to its bed of ancient shame
In the Hunnish tomb it fled
Where God's own name is but a name
And souls that lived lie dead.
*THE GIRL PHILIPPA*
*FOREWORD*
On the twenty-eighth of June, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir
to the Austrian throne, was murdered by a Serb in Serajevo, the capital
of Bosnia. The murder was the most momentous crime ever committed in
the world, for it altered the geography and the political and social
history of that planet, and changed the entire face of the civilized and
uncivilized globe. Generations unborn were to feel the consequences of
that murder.
Incidentally, it vitally affected the life and career of the girl
Philippa.
Before the press of the United States received the news, Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador, had been notified of the tragedy,
and a few minutes later he was in secret conference with the President.
The British Ambassador knew what he wanted, which was more than the
administration knew, and at this hasty and secret conference he bluntly
informed the President that, in his opinion, war before midsummer had
now become inevitable; that there was every probability of England being
drawn into a world-wide conflict; and that, therefore, an immediate
decision was necessary concerning certain pending negotiations.
The truth of this became apparent to the President. The State
Department's ominous information concerning a certain Asiatic Empire,
the amazing knowledge in regard to the secret military and political
activities of Germany in the United States, the crass stupidity of a
Congress which was no better than an uneducated nation deserved, the
intellectual tatterdemalions in whose care certain vitally important
departments had been confided--a momentary vision of what all this might
signify flickered fitfully in the presidential brain.
And, before Sir Cecil left, it was understood that certain secret
negotiations should be immediately resumed and concluded as soon as
possible--among other matters the question of the Harkness shell.
About the middle of July the two governments had arrived at an
understanding concerning the Harkness shell. The basis of this
transaction involved the following principles, proposed and mutually
accepted:
1st. The Government of the United States agreed to disclose to the
British Government, and to no other government, the secret of the
Harkness shell, known to ordnance experts as "the candle shell."
2nd. The British Government agreed to disclose to the United States
Government, and to no other government, the secrets of its new submarine
seaplane, known as "the flying fish," the inventor of which was one
Pillsbury, a Yankee, who had offered it in vain to his own country
before selling it to England.
3rd. Both Governments solemnly engaged not to employ either of these
devices against each other in the event of war.
4th. The British Government further pledged itself to restrain from
violence a certain warlike and Asiatic nation until the Government of
the United States could discover some method of placating that nation.
But other and even more important negotiations, based upon the principle
that the United States should insure its people and its wealth by
maintaining an army and a navy commensurate with its population, its
importance, and its international obligations, fell through owing to
presidential indifference, congressional ignorance, the historic
imbecility of a political party, and the smug vanity of a vast and
half-educated nation, among whose employees were numbered several of the
most perfect demagogues that the purlieus of politics had ever
germinated.
This, then, was the condition of affairs in the United States when, on
the nineteenth of July, the British Ambassador was informed that through
the treachery of certain employees the plans and formula for the
Harkness shell had been abstracted.
But the British Embassy had learned of this catastrophe through certain
occult channels even before it was reported to the United States
Government; and five hours after the information had reached Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice, two young men stepped aboard the Antwerp liner _Zeeduyne_ a
few seconds before the gangway was pulled up.
With the first turn of the steamer's screws the wheel of fate also began
to revolve, spinning out the web of destiny so swiftly that already its
meshes had fallen over an obscure little town thousands of miles
distant, and its net already held a victim so obscure that few except
the French Government had ever heard of the girl Philippa.
The two young men who had come aboard at the last moment were
nice-looking young men. They carried tennis bats, among other frivolous
hand luggage, and it was rumored very quickly on board that they were
two celebrated New Zealand tennis champions on their way to the
international tournament at Ostend.
It was the Captain who first seemed interested in the rumor and who
appeared to know all about the famous New Zealand players, Halkett and
Gray.
And this was odd, because when Halkett and Gray came aboard their names
did not figure on the passenger list, no stateroom had been engaged for
them, and the Captain of the _Zeeduyne_ had never before laid eyes on
either of them.
But he may have heard of them, for that morning the British Embassy had
called him on the telephone, had talked for twenty minutes to him, and
had arranged for him to hold his steamer if necessary. But it had been
necessary for the Captain to hold the _Zeeduyne_ for ten minutes only.
The voyage of the _Zeeduyne_ was calm, agreeable, and superficially
uneventful. There was much dancing aboard. Halkett and Gray danced
well. They had come aboard knowing nobody; in a day or two they seemed
to have met everybody. Which urbanity is not at all characteristic of
Englishmen. New Zealanders, it seemed, were quite different.
The ocean being on its best behavior nearly everybody appeared
triumphantly on deck. There were, however, several passengers who
maintained exclusiveness in their staterooms; and among these were two
German gentlemen who preferred the stateroom they shared in common.
However, they took the air sometimes, and always rather late at night.
Evidently they were commercial gentlemen, for they sent several wireless
messages to Cologne during the voyage, using a code of their own which
seemed to concern perfumes and cosmetics and, in particular, a toilet
soap known as Calypso soap.
In return they received several wireless messages, also apparently in
some commercial code, and all mentioning perfumes and Calypso soap.
And a copy of every code message which they dispatched or received was
sent to the Captain of the _Zeeduyne_, and that affable and
weather-reddened Belgian always handed these copies to the tennis
champions of New Zealand, who spent considerable time poring over them
in the only spot on the steamer which was absolutely safe from
intrusion--the Captain's private quarters.
Then, in their turn, as the steamer drew nearer to the Belgian coast,
they sent a number of wireless messages in private code. Some of these
messages were directed to the British Consul at Maastricht, some to the
British Ambassador at Brussels, some to private individuals in Antwerp.
But these details did not interfere with the young men's social
activities on board, or with their popularity. Wherever Halkett and
Gray walked, they walked surrounded by maidens and pursued by approving
glances of relatives and parents.
But the two German gentlemen who kept their cabin by day and prowled
sometimes by night were like Mr. Kipling's cat; when they walked they
walked by their wild lone. Only the chaste moon was supposed to notice
them. But always either Halkett or Gray was watching them, sometimes
dressed in the jaunty uniform of a deck steward, or in the clothing of a
common sailor, or in the gorgeous raiment of a ship's officer. The two
Germans never noticed them as they walked in the dark by their wild
lone.
And always while one of the young men watched on deck, the other
ransacked the stateroom and luggage of the gentlemen from Germany--but
ransacked in vain.
As the _Zeeduyne_ steamed into the Scheldt, several thousand miles away,
in the city of Washington, the French Ambassador telegraphed in cipher
to his Government that the secret plans and formula for the Harkness
shell, which had been acquired by England from the United States
Government, had been stolen on the eve of delivery to the British
Ambassador; that French secret agents were to inspect the arrival of all
Dutch, Belgian, and German steamers; that all agents in the French
service resident or stationed near the north or northeastern frontier of
France were to watch the arrival of all strangers from Holland or
Belgium, and, if possible, follow and observe any individual who might
be likely to have been involved in such a robbery.
Immediately, from the Military Intelligence Department in Paris orders
were telegraphed and letters sent to thousands of individuals of every
description and station in life, to be on the alert.
Among others who received such letters was a denationalized individual
named Wildresse, who kept a cabaret in the little town of Ausone.
The cabaret was called the Cafe de Biribi. Wildresse insisted that the
name had been his own choice. But it was at the request of the
Government that his cabaret bore the ominous title as an ever-present
reminder to Wildresse that his personal liberty and the liberty of his
worthless son and heir depended on his good behavior and his alacrity in
furnishing the French Government with whatever information it demanded.
The letter sent to Monsieur Wildresse read as follows: