Chapter 30

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....

THE FIFTH CHAPTER

1

It was odd, that journey from Holyhead to London, odd and silent; for all the way from Wales to Euston they passed but one train. They drove through the long stretch of England, past wide and windy fields where the harvesters were cutting the corn, through the dark towns of the Potteries, by the collieries where the wheels still revolved as the cages were lowered and raised, and then, plunging into the outer areas of London, they drove swiftly up to the station. In the evening, they went to Hampstead to see Roger and Rachel, and found them reading newspapers.

"I don't seem able to do anything else," said Roger. "I buy every edition that comes out. I read the damn things over and over, and then I read them again...."

Rachel nodded her head. "So do I," she said.

A girl came in, a friend of Rachel, who had been in Finland when the war began. She had hurried home by Berlin, where she had spent an hour or two, while waiting for a train, before England declared war on Germany....

"What were they like?" Gilbert asked.

"Wild with excitement. We went to a restaurant to get something to eat, and while we were there, the news came that Russia was at war with them.... My goodness! There was a Russian in the room, and they went for him!... I had my aunt with me, and I was afraid she'd get hurt, so we cleared out as quickly as we could, and when we got to the station, we had to fight to get into the train. My aunt fainted ... and they were beastly to us, oh, beastly! I tried to get things for her, but they wouldn't give us anything! They kept on telling us we'd be shot, and threatening us!... They were frightened, those big fat men were frightened. If you'd touched them suddenly, they'd have squealed ... like panic-stricken rabbits!..."

They sat and talked and talked, and gloom settled on them. What was to be the end of this horrible thing which no one had desired, but no one was able to prevent.

"I believe they all lost their nerve at the last," Roger said, "and they just ... just let things rip. They call it a brain-storm in America. They lost their heads ... and they let things rip. My God, what a thing to have happened!"

They sat in silence, full of foreboding, and then the girl who had come from Finland went home.

"It's all up with the Bar, I suppose!" said Roger, when he had let her out. "Whatever else people want to do, they won't want to go to law. Having a youngster makes things awkward!..."

"If you should need any money, Roger," said Gilbert, "you might let me know!"

"And me, Roger!" said Henry.

"Thanks awfully!" Roger replied. "I won't forget. I've got some, of course, and Rachel has a little. I daresay we'll manage. It can't last long. A couple of months, perhaps!..."

"I can't see how it can last longer. It's too big, and ... oh, it can't last longer!"

"Kitchener says three years!..."

"He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose, but my God, three years of ... of that!..."

2

Rachel got up suddenly. "You haven't seen my baby yet," she said.

"So we haven't," Gilbert exclaimed. "Where is it?"

"She's upstairs asleep. You must come quietly!..."

"It's a girl, then?" said Henry.

Rachel nodded, and led the way upstairs to the bedroom where the baby lay in her cot.

"Isn't she a darling?" she said, bending over the child.

They did not answer, afraid, as men are in the presence of a sleeping child, that they might disturb her; and while they stood looking at the cot, Rachel bent closer to her baby, and lightly kissed her cheek.

They moved away on tiptoe.

"What do you call her?" Henry whispered to Roger, as they left the bedroom.

"Eleanor," he answered. "That was my mother's name. Jolly little kid, isn't she?"

Gilbert turned and went back to the bedroom. Rachel was still bending over the baby, and she looked up at him warningly. He went up to the cot and, leaning towards Rachel, whispered, "Do you mind if I kiss her, too, Rachel? I'm going to enlist to-morrow, and perhaps I won't get so good a chance as this!..."

She stood up quickly and put her arms round him. "Oh, Gilbert!" she said, and then she drew him down, so that he could kiss the baby easily.

3

Henry told Roger of Gilbert's intention, while Rachel and Gilbert were in the bedroom with the baby.

"Enlist?" said Roger.

Henry nodded his head.

"Well, of course!..." Roger began, and then he stopped. "I suppose so," he said, moving towards the tray which Rachel had brought into the room earlier in the evening. "Whisky?" he said.

"No, thanks, Roger!" Henry answered. "He's going down to-morrow!"

"He'd better wait a few days. There's been a hell of a scrum already to join. Queues and queues of chaps, standing outside Scotland Yard all day. He'd better wait 'til the rush is over...."

"I think he'd rather like to be in the rush," Henry said.

Then Rachel came into the room, followed by Gilbert.

"Roger," she said, "Gilbert's going to enlist!..."

"So Quinny's just been telling me. Have a whisky, Gilbert?"

"No, thanks, old chap," said Gilbert, "but if you have a cigarette!..."

"I'll get them," Rachel exclaimed.

She brought the box of cigarettes to him, and while he was choosing one, she said to Roger, "I was so excited when he told me, that I got up and hugged him!"

"Good!" said Roger.

4

They walked home to Bloomsbury, where they had easily obtained rooms, for the sudden withdrawal of Germans and Austrians had left Bloomsbury in a state of vacancy. As they went down Haverstock Hill towards Chalk Farm, an old man lurched against them.

"All the young chaps," he mumbled thickly. "Thash wot sticks in my gizzard! All the young chaps! Gawblimey, why don't they tyke the ole ones!..."

"Steady on," Gilbert exclaimed, catching his arm and holding him up. "You'll fall, if you're not careful!"

"Don't marrer a damn wherrer I do or not!" He reeled a little, and Gilbert caught hold of him again. "I woul'n be a young chap," he muttered, "not for ... not for nothink. You ... you're a young chap, ain't you? Yesh you are! You needn't tell me you ain't! I can see as wellsh anythink! You're a young chap ri' enough. Well ... well, Gawd, 'elp you, young feller! Thash all I got to sy ... subjec!' Goo-ni', gen'lemen!" He staggered off the pavement, and went half way across the deserted street. Then he turned and looked at them for a few moments. "Ain't it a bloody treat, eih?" he shouted to them. "_Ain't_ it a bloody treat?"

"Drunk," said Gilbert.

Henry did not reply, and they walked on through Chalk Farm, through Camden Town, into the tangle of mean streets by Euston, and then across the Euston Road to Bloomsbury. They did not speak to each other until they were almost at their destination.

"It's awfully quiet," said Henry, turning and looking about him.

"I don't see any one," Gilbert answered, "except that old fellow ahead of us!..."

"No!"

They walked on, and when they came up to the old man, who walked slowly, and heavily in the same direction, they called "Good-night!" to him. He looked round at them, an old, tired, bewildered man, and he made a gesture with his hands, a gesture of despair. "Ach, mein freund!" he said brokenly, and again he made the suppliant motion with his hands.

"Poor old devil!" Gilbert muttered almost to himself.

5

They went to their rooms at once, too tired to talk to each other, and Henry, hurriedly undressing, got into bed. But he could not sleep. "I suppose I ought to join, too!" he said to himself, as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Gilbert and I could go together!..."

But what would be the good of that? The war would be over quite soon. Even Roger thought it would be over in a couple of months, and if that were so, there would be no need for him to throw up his work and take to soldiering. "It'll be over before Gilbert's got through his training. Long before!..."

"Anyhow, I can wait until the rush is over. I might as well go on working as stand outside Scotland Yard all day, waiting to be taken on.... Or I could apply for a commission!..."

He lay very still, hoping that he would fall asleep soon, but sleep would not come to him. He sat up in bed, and glanced about the room.

"I suppose," he said aloud, "they're fighting now!"

He lay down again quickly, thrusting himself well under the bedclothes and shut his eyes tightly. "Oh, my God, isn't it horrible!" he groaned.

He saw again that crowd of hurried soldiers detraining at Holyhead, thinking that perhaps they were going to Ireland, but not quite sure ... and he could see them stumbling up the gangways of the transport, each man heavily accoutred; and sometimes a man would laugh, and sometimes a man would swear ... and then the ship sailed out of the harbour, rounding the pier and the breakwater, churning the sea into a long white trail of foam as she set her course past the South Stack.... They could see the lights on her masthead diminishing as she went further away, and then, as the cold sea wind blew about them, they shivered and went home.... Now, lying here in this stillness, warm and snug, Henry could see those soldiers, huddled together on the ship. He could imagine them, murmuring to one another, "I say, d'ye think we _are_ goin' to Ireland?" and hear one answering, "You'll know in three hours. We'll be there _then_, if we are!" and slowly there would come to each man the knowledge that their journey was not to Ireland, but to France, and there would be a tightening of the lips, an involuntary movement here and there and then.... "Well, o' course, we're goin' to France! 'Oo the 'ell thought we was goin' anywhere else?" The ship would carry them swiftly down the Irish Sea and across the English Channel ... and after that!...

"Some of them may be dead already," he murmured to himself.