The Lost Naval Papers Part 19

"I will. For once in their sheltered lives they shall hear the truth."

For what follows, Dawson is my princ.i.p.al, but not my sole authority. I have tested what he told me in every way that I could, and the test has held. Somehow--I am prepared to believe in the manner told by him--he forced the Cabinet to give him the authority for which he asked, and he used it in the manner which I shall tell of. He held what is always a first-rate advantage: he knew exactly what he wanted, no more or less, and was prepared to get it or retire from official life. Those who gave to him authority gave it reluctantly--gave it because they were between the devil and the deep sea. They would gladly have thrown over Dawson, but they could not throw over the civil and military powers who supported him in his demands. And had they thrown him over they would have been left to deal by their incompetent unaided selves with a strike in the midst of war which might have spread like a prairie fire over the whole country. But though they bent before Dawson, I am very sure that they did not love him, and that he will never be the Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. Against his name in the official books stands a mark of the most deadly blackness. Strength and success are never pardoned by weakness and failure.

When at last Dawson was summoned to the sitting; of the War Committee, he found himself in the presence of some half a dozen elderly and embarra.s.sed-looking gentlemen arranged round a big table. They had been discussing him, and trying to devise some decent civil means to get rid of him. He and his story of the coming strike in the North were a distressful inconvenience, an intolerable intrusion upon a quiet life. When he entered, he was without a friend in the room, except the War Minister who loved a man who knew his own mind and was prepared to accept big responsibilities. But even he doubted whether it were possible to achieve the results aimed at with the means required by Dawson.

Our friend suffered from no illusions. "I knew what I was up against,"

he said to me long afterwards. "I knew that they were all longing to be quit of me and to go to sleep again. But I had made up my mind that they should get some very plain speaking. I would compel them to understand that what I offered was a forlorn chance of averting a civil war, and that if they refused my offer they would be left to themselves--not to stamp out a spark of revolution, but to subdue a roaring furnace. They could take their choice in the certain knowledge that if they chose wrongly the North would be in flames within forty-eight hours. It was a great experience, Mr. Copplestone. I have never enjoyed anything half so much."

Dawson was offered a chair set some six feet distant from the sacred table, but he preferred to stand. His early training held, and he was not comfortable in the presence of his superiors in rank or station except when standing firmly at attention.

The Prime Minister fumbled with some papers, looked over them for a few embarra.s.sed minutes, and then spoke.

"Great pressure has been placed upon us, Mr. Dawson, to see you and to hear your report. Great pressure--to my mind improper pressure. I have here letters from Magistrates, Lords Lieutenant, competent military authorities, naval officers superintending shipyards, officials of the Munitions Department. They all declare that the industrial outlook in the North is most perilous, and that at any moment a situation may arise which will be fraught with the gravest peril to the country. We have replied that the law provides adequate remedies, but to that the retort is made that the men who are at the root of the grave troubles pending snap their fingers at the law. We are pressed to take counsel with you, though why the high officers who communicate with me should, as it were, shift their responsibilities upon the shoulders of a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard I am at a loss to comprehend. What I would ask of my colleagues is this: who is in fact responsible for the maintenance of a due observance of law in the Northern district from which you have come, and where you appear to discharge unofficial and wholly irregular functions? Who is responsible? Perhaps my learned friend the Home Secretary can enlighten us?" The Prime Minister paused, and smiled happily to himself. He had at least made things nasty for an intrusive colleague. But the Home Secretary, suave, alert, was not to be caught. He at any rate was not prepared to admit responsibility.

"It is possible, sir," he said, "that in some vague, undefined, const.i.tutional way I am responsible for the police service of the United Kingdom. But happily my direct charge does not in practice extend beyond England. The centre of disturbance appears to be on the northern side of the Border, within the jurisdiction of the Secretary for Scotland. It is possible that my right honourable friend who holds that office, and whom I am pleased to see here with us, will answer the Prime Minister's question. He is responsible for his obstreperous countrymen." The Home Secretary paused, and also smiled happily to himself. He had evaded a trap, and had involved an unloved colleague in its meshes; what more could be required of a highly placed Minister?

"G.o.d forbid!" cried the Scottish Secretary hastily. "These aggressive and troublesome workmen are no countrymen of mine. It is true," he added pensively, "that when I am in the North I claim that a somewhat shadowy Scottish ancestry makes of me a Scot to the finger tips, but no sooner do I cross the Border upon my return to London than I revert violently to my English self. A kindly Providence has ordained that the central Scottish Office should be in London, and my urgent duties compel me to reside there permanently. Which is indeed fortunate. It is true that technically my responsibilities cover everything, or nearly everything, which occurs in the unruly North, but I do not interfere with the discretion of those on the spot who know the local conditions and can deal adequately with them. I am content to rest my action upon the advice of those responsible authorities whose considered opinions have been quoted by the Prime Minister."

The Prime Minister smiled no more. The wheel which he had jogged so agreeably had come full round, and, in colloquial speech, had biffed him in the eye. He fumbled the papers once more, and frowned.

"It seems to me," plaintively put in the First Lord of the Admiralty (a political chief very different from the one whom Dawson encountered in Chapter XII), "though I am a child in these high matters, that no one is ever responsible for the exercise of those duties with which he is nominally charged. For, consider my own case. Though I am the First Lord, and attend daily at the Admiralty, I am convinced that the active and accomplished young gentleman whom I had the misfortune to succeed regards himself as still responsible to the people of this country for the disposition and control of the Fleets. At least that is the not unnatural impression which I derive from his frequent speeches and newspaper articles."

There was a general laugh, in which all joined except the War Minister and Dawson. They were not politicians.

"If there is a big strike," growled the War Minister, "the Spring Offensive will be off. It is threatened now, very seriously. I am months behind with my howitzers."

His colleagues looked reproachfully at the famous warrior, and shifted uneasily in their chairs. He had an uncomfortable habit of blurting forth the most unpleasant truths.

"Yes," put in the Minister for Munitions, "we are behind with the howitzers and with ammunition of all kinds. But what can one do with these savage brutes in the North? I went there myself and spoke plainly to them. By G.o.d's grace I am still alive, though at one moment I had given up myself for lost. At one works where I made a speech the audience were armed with what I believe are called monkey wrenches, and showed an almost uncontrollable pa.s.sion for launching them at my head. I was hustled and wellnigh personally a.s.saulted. Like my patriotic friend the Scottish Secretary, I was very happy indeed when I got south of the Border. The central office of the Munitions Department is happily in London, and my urgent duties compel me to reside there permanently. I have no leisure for roving expeditions."

"This is very interesting," broke in the First Lord, who lay back in his chair with shut eyes. "There appears to be no eagerness on the part of any one of us to stick his hands into the northern hornets'

nest, or to admit any responsibility for it. All of us, that is, except our courageous and silent friend Mr. Dawson." He opened his eyes and smiled most winningly towards Dawson. "Would it not be well if we gave him an opportunity of telling us what his views are?"

"I have been waiting for him to begin," growled the War Minister.

"We are at your service, Mr. Dawson," said the Prime Minister graciously.

Dawson, standing stiffly at attention, had closely followed the conversation, and, as it proceeded, his heart sank. He despaired of discovering courage and quick decision in the group of Ministers before him. Yet when called upon he made a last effort. If the country were to be saved, it must be saved by its people, not by its politicians, and he was a man of the people, resolute, enduring, long suffering.

"Gentlemen," said he, "we are threatened with a strike in the Northern shops and shipyards which will cripple the country. It will begin within forty-eight hours. I can stop it if I go North to-night with the full powers of the Government in my pocket, and with the means for which I ask. All the authorities in the North, civil, military and naval, have approved of my plans. I ask only leave to carry them out."

"Your plans are?" snapped the War Minister.

"To get my blow in first," said Dawson simply.

The First Lord again looked at Dawson, and a glint of fighting light flashed in his tired eyes. "Thrice armed is he who has his quarrel just; and four times he who gets his blow in first. How would you do it, Mr. Dawson."

"Yes, how?" eagerly inquired the War Minister.

"I have served," said Dawson, "in most parts of the world. When in West Africa one is attacked by a snake, one does not wait until it bites. One cuts off its head."

"You have served?" asked the War Minister. "In what Service?"

"The Red Marines," proudly answered Dawson.

"Ah!" The War Minister was plainly interested, and Dawson had, during the rest of the interview, no eyes for any one except for him and for the First Lord. He recognised these two as brother fighting men. The others he waved aside as civilian truck. "Ah! The Red Marines. Long service men, the best we have. So you would cut off the snake's head before it can bite."

"To-morrow afternoon," explained Dawson, "I must attend a meeting of shop stewards, over two hundred of them. They contain the head of the snake. Give me powers, a proclamation of martial law which I may show them, and I will cut off the snake's head."

"You soldiers are always prating about martial law," grumbled the Prime Minister. "We have given to you the amplest powers under the Defence of the Realm Act and the Munitions Act to punish strikers.

Those are sufficient. I have no patience with plans for enforcing a military despotism."

"Excuse me, sir," said Dawson patiently, as to a child, "but if a hundred thousand men go out on strike, your Acts of Parliament will be waste paper. You cannot lock up or fine a hundred thousand men, and if you could you would still be unable to make them work. No means have ever been devised to make unwilling men work, except the lash, and that is useless with skilled labour. No one in the North cares a rap for Acts of Parliament, but there is a mystery about martial law which carries terror into the hardest heart and the most stupid brain. I want a signed proclamation of martial law, but I undertake not to issue it unless all other forms of pressure fail. I must have it all in cold print to show to the shop stewards when I strike my blow.

Without that proclamation I am helpless, and you will be helpless, too, by Friday next. This is Wednesday. Unless I cut off the snake's head to-morrow, it will bite you here even in your sheltered London."

The Prime Minister fumbled once more with the papers before him, but they gave him no comfort. All advised the one measure of giving full authority to Dawson and of trusting to his energy and skill. "Dawson is a man of the people, and knows his own cla.s.s. He can deal with the men; we can't." So the urgent appeals ran.

"And if you do not succeed? If you proclaim martial law and we have to enforce it, where shall we be then?"

"No worse off than you will be anyhow by Friday," said Dawson curtly.

"So you say. But suppose that we think you needlessly fearful. Suppose that we prefer to wait until Friday and see; what then?"

"You will see what has not been seen in our country for over a hundred years," retorted Dawson. "You will see artillery firing shotted guns in the streets."

The Prime Minister shrugged his shoulders, but the War Secretary turned to his pile of maps and picked up one on which was marked all the depots and training camps in the northern district. "How many men do you want?" he asked.

"No khaki, thank you," replied Dawson. "It is not trained, and the workmen are used to it. To them khaki means their sons and brothers and friends dressed up. I want my own soldiers of the _Sea Regiment_ in service blue. I want eighty men from my old division at Chatham."

"Eighty!" cried the War Minister--"eighty men! You are going to stop a revolution with eighty Red Marines!"

"I could perhaps do with fewer," explained Dawson modestly. "But I want to make sure work. Give me eighty Marines, none of less than five years' service, a couple of sergeants, and a lieutenant--a regular pukka lieutenant. Give them to me, and make me temporarily a captain in command, and I will engage to cut off the snake's head. You can have my own head if I fail."

The Great War Minister rose, walked over to Dawson, and shook his embarra.s.sed hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dawson," said he.

The First Lord, now fully awake, sat up and stared earnestly at the detective. Those two, the chiefs of the Navy and the Army, had grasped the startling fact that for once they were in the presence of a Man.

The others saw only a rather ill-dressed, intrusive, vulgar police officer.

"I have rarely met a man with so economical a mind," went on the War Minister, who resumed his seat. "If you had asked me for eight thousand, I should not have been surprised." He turned to the Prime Minister. "If our resolute friend here can stop a revolution with eighty Red Marines, let him have them in G.o.d's name."

"Oh, he can have the Marines," growled the Prime Minister--"if the First Lord agrees. They are in his department. And if it pleases him to dress up as a temporary captain, that is nothing to me; but I draw a firm line at any proclamation of martial law."

"Well," asked the War Minister of Dawson, "what say you?"

"I must have the proclamation, my lord," replied Dawson. "Not to put up in the streets, but to show to the shop stewards. They won't believe that the Cabinet has any s.p.u.n.k until they see the proclamation signed by you. They know that what you say you do."

["Great Heavens," I said to Dawson, when he recounted to me the details of his surprising interview with the War Committee, "tact is hardly your strong suit. You could not have asked more plainly to be kicked out. The flabbier a Cabinet is, the more convinced are its members of adamantine resolution."

"If I had to go down and out," replied Dawson, "I had determined to go fighting. I was there to speak my mind, not to flatter anybody."]