1
Gilbert looked up from the paper as Henry came out of the hotel.
"I say, Quinny," he said, "I think there's going to be a war!"
"A what?" Henry exclaimed.
"A war!..."
"But where?"
Henry sat down on the long seat beside Gilbert, and looked over his
shoulder at the paper.
"All over the place!" Gilbert answered. "The Austrians want to have a go
at the Serbians, and the Russians mean to have one at the Austrians, and
then the Germans will have to help the Austrians, and that'll bring the
French in, and ... and then I suppose we shall shove in some where!"
Henry took the paper from Gilbert's hands. "But what have we got to do
with it?" he said, hastily scanning the telegrams with which the news
columns were filled.
"I dunno!..."
"It's ridiculous.... What's there to fight about? Damn it all, my
novel's coming out in a month! What's it about?"
"You remember that Archduke chap who got blown up the other day?..."
"Yes, I remember!"
"Well, that's what it's about!"
"But, good God, man, they can't have a war about a thing like that...."
"It looks as if they thought they could. Anyhow, they're going to try!"
said Gilbert.
"Just because an Archduke got killed? Damn it, Gilbert, that's what
they're for!..."
There was a queer look of fright in the faces of the visitors to the
hotel. The boy from Holyhead had been slow in coming with the papers,
and the first news that came to them came from a man who had been into
the town that morning.
"There's going to be a war," he had shouted to the group of people
sitting on the terrace.
"Don't be an ass!" they had shouted back at him.
"Yes, there is. The whole blooming world'll be scrapping presently!" He
spoke with the queer gaiety of a man who has abandoned all hope. "Just
as I was getting on my feet, too!" he went on. He suddenly unburdened
himself to a man who had only arrived at the hotel late on the previous
evening ... they had never seen each other before ... but now they were
revealing intimacies....
"Just getting on my feet," the man who had brought the news went on.
"It'll be very bad for business, I'm afraid!..."
"Bad. Goo' Lor', man, it's ruin ... absolute ruin! I'll be up the pole,
that's where I'll be. And I was thinking of getting married, too. Just
thinking of it, you know ... nothing settled or anything ... and now ...
damn it, what they want to go and have a war for? _We_ don't want one!"
Then the boy with the newspapers appeared, and they rushed at him and
tore the papers from his bag....
"By Jove!" they said, "it's ... it's true!"
"I told you it was true. You wouldn't believe me when I told you. You
know, it's a Bit Thick, that's what it is. I've been a Liberal all my
life, same as my father ... and then this goes and happens! What _is_ a
chap to do?..."
He wailed away, filling the air with prophecies of doom and disaster.
They could hear him, as he rushed about the hotel telling the news,
taking people into corners and informing them that it was a Bit Thick.
There was something pitiful about him ... he had climbed to a
comfortable competence from a hard beginning ... and something comical,
too, something that made them all wish to laugh. The veneer of manners
which he had acquired with so much trouble had worn off in a moment, and
the careful speech, the rigid insistence on aspirates, to speak, took to
its heels. He appeared to them suddenly, carrying an atlas.
"Where the 'ell is Serbia anyway?" he demanded. "I can't find the damn
place on the map!"
2
They stood about, gaping at each other, unable to realise what had
happened to them. One of the windows of the drawing-room was open, and
the subdued buzz of women's voices came through it to the terrace.
Monotonously, exasperatingly, one querulous voice sent a fretful
question through the bewildered speeches of the women ... "But what's it
about? That's what I want to know. I've asked everybody, but nobody
seems to know!" Some one made an inaudible reply to the querulous voice,
and then it went on: "Serbia! That's what some one else said, but we
aren't Serbia. We're England, and I don't see what we've got to do with
it. If they want to go and fight, let them. That's what I say!..."
Gilbert and Henry sat in the middle of the group on the terrace,
listening to what was being said about them. They had thrown the
newspapers aside ... there was hysteria in the headlines ... and were
sitting in a sort of stupor, wondering what would happen next. The
buzzing voice, demanding to be told what the war was about, still
droned through the window, irritating them vaguely until the man who had
first brought the news got up from his seat, and went to the window and
shut it noisily.
"Damn 'er," he said, as he came back to his seat. "'Oo cares whether she
knows what it's about or not! What's it got to do with 'er any'ow. She
won't 'ave to do none of the fightin'!"
Fighting!
Henry sat up and looked at the man. Why, of course, there would be
fighting ... and perhaps England would be drawn into the war, and
then!...
A girl came out of the hotel, with towels under her arm, and called to
them. "Coming to bathe?" she said.
They looked at her vacantly. "Bathe!" said Henry.
"Yes. It's a ripping morning!"
They stood up, and looked towards the sea that was white with sunshine
... and then turned away again. It seemed to Henry as if, down there by
the rocks, in a splash of sunlight, a corpse were lying ...
festering.... He sat down again, mechanically picking up a newspaper and
reading once more the telegrams he had already read many times.
"Come along," the girl said. "You might just as well bathe!"
Gilbert looked up at her and smiled. "I was just wondering," he said,
"what one ought to do!"
3
The banks had closed, and there was an alarm about money and a deeper
alarm about food.... Panic suddenly came upon them, and in a short
while, visitors began to pack their trunks in their eagerness to get
home. The women felt that they would be safer at home ... they wanted to
be in familiar places. "I really ought to be at home to look after my
house," a man said to Henry. "They're a rough lot in our town, and if
there's any shortage of food ... they'll loot, of course! I don't like
breaking my holiday, but!..."
He did not complete his sentence ... no one ever completed a sentence
then ... but went indoors....
And telegrams came incessantly, telegrams calling people home, telegrams
announcing that others were not coming, telegrams containing information
of the war....
"I suppose," said Gilbert, "if anything comes of this, well have to do
something!..."
"Do something?" Henry murmured.
"Yes, I suppose so...."
Perkins came to him, Perkins who had an agency in Manchester.
"You know," he said, "I don't call this place safe. It's right on the
coast ... slap-up against the sea ... and you know, if a German cruiser
was to drop a shell right in the middle of us, we'd look damn silly, I
can tell you!"
"We have a navy too," said Gilbert.
"Yes, I know all about that, but that wouldn't be much consolation to me
if I was to get blown up, would it? You know, I do think they ought to
draw the blinds down at night so's the light won't show out at sea. I
mean to say, there's no sense in running risks, is there?"
"No ... no, of course not!"
"I think I'll go and suggest that to the proprietor. I've just been up
to Manchester to see how things are going on there. Bit excited, of
course. Nobody seems to know what to do, so they just sit down and
cancel everything. Silly, I call it. I went to my office to get my
letters, and every blessed one was cancelling an order. I mean to say,
that's no way to go on ... losing their heads like that. And you know
they'll need my stuff later on ... if we go in!"
"Your stuff?" Henry said.
"Yes. I deal in black!..."
"Christ!" said Gilbert, getting up and walking away.
"Your friend seems a bit upset, doesn't he?" Mr. Perkins murmured to
Henry.
4
They went into Holyhead, and wandered aimlessly about the station.
Marvellously, men in uniform appeared everywhere. The reservists, naval
and military, had been called up, and while Gilbert and Henry stood in
the station, a large number of them went away, leaving tearful, puzzled
women on the platform. That morning the boots at the hotel had been
called up to join his Territorial regiment. He had been carrying a trunk
on his back, when the call came to him, and, chuckling, he dropped the
trunk, and skipped off to get ready. "I'm wanted," he said ... and then
he went off.
And still people went about, bemused and frightened, demanding what it
was about....
"Well have to go in," some one said in the station. "I can't see how we
can stay out!..."
"I can't see that at all," his neighbour replied. "We've got nothing to
do with it!"
"If the Germans won't leave the Belgians alone!..."
Perkins interrupted again. "We've got a Belgian cook in our hotel," he
said. "It ... it sort of brings it all home to you, that!"
There were rumours that the working-people were resolute against the
war....
"And so are the employers," said Perkins. "I can tell you that. I've not
met anybody yet who wants a war!"
And as the rumours flew about, they grew. One could see a rumour begin
and swell and change and increase.
"I tell you what," said Perkins. "These Germans have been damn well
asking for it, and I hope they'll damn well get it. I know a few Germans
... Manchester's full of 'em ... and I don't like 'em. As a nation, I
don't like 'em. They ... they get on my nerves, that's what they do!"
There was talk about German organisation, German efficiency, German
militarism....
"They don't think anything of a civilian in Germany. The soldier's
everything. And women ... oh, my God, the way they treat women! I've
seen German officers ... I've seen 'em myself ... chaps that are
supposed to be gentlemen ... going along the street, and shoving women
off the pavement!..."
"You know," said Perkins, "I don't really think much of the Germans
myself. I mean to say, they got no initiative. That's what's the matter
with 'em. Do you know what a German does when he wants to go across the
street? He goes up to a policeman and asks him. And what does the
policeman do? Shoves him off the pavement!... I'd break his jaw for him
if he shoved me!"
They stayed on, wondering sometimes why they stayed, and then at
midnight, a troop train steamed into the station, and a crowd of tired
soldiers alighted from the carriages and prepared to embark.
"My God, it's begun!" said Perkins. "Where you chaps going to?" he asked
of a soldier.
"I dunno," the soldier answered. "Ireland, I think. I 'eard we was goin'
to put down these bleedin' Orangemen that's bin makin' so much fuss
lately, but some'ow I don't think that's it. 'Ere, mate," he added,
thrusting a dirty envelope into Perkins's hand. "That's my wife's
address. I 'adn't time to write to 'er ... we was sent off in a 'urry
... you might just drop 'er a line, will you an' say I'm off!..."
"Right you are," said Perkins.
"Tell 'er I think I'm off to France, see, on'y I don't know, see!
There's a rumour we're goin' to Ireland, but I don't think so. You
better tell 'er that. An' I'm all right, see. So far any'ow!..."
"God!" said Perkins, as the soldiers moved towards the transport,
"don't it make you feel as if you wanted to cry!..."
In the morning, they knew that England had declared war on Germany.
"Of course," said Gilbert, "we couldn't keep out of it. We simply had to
go in!"
They had gone down to the bay to bathe. "This'll be my last," Gilbert
muttered as they stripped, "for a while anyhow!"
"But you're not going yet," Henry said.
"I think so," Gilbert replied. "I don't know how the trains are running,
but I shall try to get back to London to-night."
"But why?..."
"Oh, I expect they'll need chaps. Don't you think they will?"
"Do you mean you're going to ... enlist?"
"Yes. That seems the obvious thing to do. They're sure to need people,"
Gilbert answered.
"I suppose so," said Henry.
"I don't quite fancy myself as a soldier, Quinny. I'm not what you'd
call a bellicose chap. I shan't enjoy it very much, and I expect I shall
be damned scared when it comes to ... to charging and that sort of thing
... but a chap must do his share...."
"I suppose so," Henry said again.
It seemed to him to be utterly absurd that Gilbert should become a
soldier, that his sensitive mind should be diverted from its proper
functions to the bloody business of war.
"I've always jibbed a bit when I heard people talking about England in
the way that awful stockbroker in the hotel talks about it," Gilbert was
saying, "and I loathe the Kipling flag-flapper, all bounce and brag and
bloodies ... but I feel fond of England to-day, Quinny, and nothing else
seems to matter much. And anyhow fighting's such a filthy job that it
ought to be shared by everybody that can take a hand in it at all. It
doesn't seem right somehow to do your fighting by proxy. I should hate
to think that I let some one else save my skin when I'm perfectly able
to save it myself...."
"But you've other work to do, Gilbert, more important work than that.
There are plenty of people to do that job, but there aren't many people
to do yours. Supposing you went out and ... and got ... killed?..."
"There's that risk, of course," said Gilbert, "but after all, I don't
know that my life is of greater value than another man's. A clerk's life
is of as much consequence to him as mine is to me."
"I daresay it is, Gilbert, but is it of as much consequence to England?
I know it sounds priggish to say that, but some lives are of more value
than others, and it's silly to pretend that they're not."
"I should have agreed with you about that last week, Quinny. You
remember my doctrine of aristocracy?... Well, somehow I don't feel like
that now. I just don't feel like it. Those chaps we saw at Holyhead,
going off to France ... I shouldn't like to put my plays against the
life of any one of them. I couldn't help thinking last night, while I
was lying in bed, that there I was, snugly tucked up, and out there ...
somewhere!..." He pointed out towards the Irish Sea ... "those chaps
were sailing to ... to fight for me. I felt ashamed of myself, and I
don't like to feel ashamed of myself. You saw that soldier giving his
wife's address to Perkins? Poor devil, he hadn't had time to say
'Good-bye' to her, and perhaps he won't come back. I should feel like a
cad if I let myself believe that my plays were worth more than that
man's life. And anyhow, if I don't write the plays, some one else will.
I've always believed that if there's a good job to be done in the world,
it'll get done by somebody. If this chap fails to do it, it'll be done
by some other chap.... Will you come into Holyhead with me and enquire
about trains? There's a rumour that a whole lot of them have been taken
off. They're shifting troops about...."
6
Gilbert was to travel by the Irish mail the next day. He had made up his
mind definitely to go to London and enlist, and Henry, having failed to
dissuade him from his decision, resolved to go to London with him. They
had talked about the war all day, insisting to each other that it could
not be of long duration. There was a while, during the first two or
three days' fighting, when the Germans seemed to have been held by the
Belgians, that they had the wildest hopes. "If the Belgians can keep
them back, what will happen when the French and British get at them?"
But that time of jubilee hope did not last long, and again the air was
full of rumours of disaster and misfortune. The Black Watch had been cut
to pieces....
There was a sense of fear in every heart, not of physical cowardice, but
of doubt of the stability of things. This horrible disaster had been
foretold many times, so frequently, indeed, that it had become a joke,
and novelists had written horrific accounts of the ills that would
swiftly follow after the outbreak of hostilities. Credit would disappear
... and all that pretence at wealth, the pieces of paper and the scrips
and shares, would be revealed at last as ... pieces of paper. Silver,
even, would be treated with contempt, and there would be a scramble for
gold. And people would begin to hoard things ... and no one would trust
any one else. There would be suspicion and fear and greed and hate ...
and very swiftly and very surely, civilisation would reel and topple and
fall to pieces.... At any moment that might happen. So far, indeed,
things were still steady ... calamity had not come so quickly as
imaginative men had foretold ... but presently, when the slums ... the
rich man's reproach ... had become hungrier than they usually were,
there would be rioting ... and killing.... One began to be frightfully
conscious of the slums ... and the rage of desperate, starving people.
One imagined the obsessing thought in each mind: _Here we are, eating
and drinking and being waited upon ... and perhaps to-morrow!..._
But no one, in forecasting the European Disaster, had made allowance for
the obstinacy of man or taken into account the resisting power of human
society. As if man, having built up this mighty structure of
civilisation, would let it be flung down in a moment without trying to
save some of it! As if man, having in pain and bloody sweat discovered
his soul, would let it get lost without struggling to hold and preserve
it!...
Gilbert and Henry came into the drawing-room, where the women were
whispering to each other. Inexplicably, almost unconsciously, their
voices had fallen to whispers ... as if they were in church or a corpse
were above in a bedroom.... Four of the women were playing Bridge, but
none of them wished to play Bridge; and as Gilbert and Henry entered the
room, they put down their cards and looked round at them.
"Is there any more news?" one of them said, and Gilbert told them of the
rumours that had been heard in Holyhead.
"They say the Black Watch have been cut to pieces," he said.
The whispering stopped.... They could hear the clock's regular
tick-tick....
"Oh, the poor men ... the poor men!" an old woman said, and her fingers
began to twitch....
Almost mechanically, the Bridge players picked up their cards. "It's
your lead, partner!" one of them said, and then she threw down her
cards, and rising from her chair, went swiftly from the room.
"Oh, the poor men ... the poor men!" the old woman moaned.
7
They sat on the rocks after tea and while they sat there, they saw a
great ship sailing up the sea, beautiful and proud and swift; and they
jumped up and climbed to the highest point of the cliff to watch her go
by. They knew her, for there had been anxiety about her for two days,
and as they watched her sailing past, they cheered and waved their hands
although no one on the great vessel could see them. A girl came running
to them....
"What is it?" she said.
"It's the _Lusitania_," they answered. "She's dodged them, damn them!"
"Oh, hurrah!" the girl shouted. "Hurrah! Hurrah!"
8
And then the strain lifted. The _Lusitania_ had won home to safety. The
Germans, greedy for this great prize, had failed to find her.
Civilisation still held good ... if the world were to go down in the
fight, it would go down proudly, hitting hard, hitting until the
last....