Changing Winds Part 82

"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 G.o.d, 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!..."

"G.o.d!" 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 d.a.m.ned 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 h.o.a.rd 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, d.a.m.n 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....