The Message Part 12

He could not hear Death's rattle at the door, He was so busy with his sottishness.

TURNER.

The chance of my position on the edge of the crowd nearest to Marble Arch caused me to be among those who secured a paper, and at the comparatively modest price of sixpence. Two minutes later, I saw a member of the committee of the Demonstration hand over half-a-crown for one of the same limp sheets, all warm and smeary from the press. And in two more minutes the newsboys (there must have been fifty of them) were racing back to Marble Arch, feverishly questing further supplies, and, I suppose, reckoning as they ran their unaccustomed gains.

The news, mostly in poster type, was only a matter of a few lines of comment, and a few more lines of telegraphic despatch from Brentwood:

"Telegraphic communication with Chelmsford has now been cut off, but one of our special representatives, who succeeded in obtaining a powerful six-cylinder motor-car, has reached Brentwood, after a racing tour to the northeastward. We publish his despatch under all possible reserve.

He is a journalist of high repute, but we venture to say with confidence that he has evidently been imposed upon by the promoters of the most abominably wicked hoax and fraud ever perpetrated by criminal fanatics upon a trusting public. We have very little doubt that a number of these rabid advocates of that spirit of militarism to which the British public will never for one moment submit, will be cooling their heated brains in prison cells before the night is out."

And then followed the despatch from Brentwood, which said:

"Roads, railways, communication of all kinds absolutely blocked. Coastal regions of Suffolk and South Norfolk, and possibly Ess.e.x, are occupied by German soldiers. A cyclist from near Harwich says the landing was effected last evening, the most elaborate preparations and arrangements having been made beforehand. My car was fired at near Colchester.

Chelmsford is now occupied by German cavalry, cyclist and motor corps.

Have not heard of any loss of life, but whole country is panic-stricken.

Cannot send further news. Telegraph office closed to public, being occupied in official business."

That was all. As my eyes rose from the blurred surface of the news-sheet the picture of the crowd absorbed me, like a stage-spectacle. There were from forty to sixty thousand people a.s.sembled, of all ages and cla.s.ses.

Among them were perhaps one thousand, perhaps two thousand, copies of the newspaper. Some ten thousand people were craning necks and straining eyes to read those papers. The rest were making short, hoa.r.s.e, frequently meaningless e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

I saw one middle-aged man, who might have been a grocer, and a deacon in his place of wors.h.i.+p, fold up his paper after reading it and thrust it, for future reference, in the tail-pocket of his sombre Sunday coat. But his neighbours in the crowd would not have that. A number of outstretched hands suddenly surrounded him. I saw his face pale. "Give us a look!" was all the sense I grasped from a score of exclamations.

The grocer's paper was in fragments on the gra.s.s ten seconds later, and its destroyers were reaching out in other directions.

"It's abominable," I heard the grocer muttering to himself; and his hands shook as though he had the palsy.

But in other cases the papers pa.s.sed whole from hand to hand, and their holders read the news aloud. I think the entire crowd had grasped the gist of it inside of four minutes; and their exclamatory comments were extraordinary, grotesque.

"My G.o.d!" and "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?"

"'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? Not arf!" "Anything to sell the papers, you know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" "Johnny get yer gun, get yer gun!" "Some one must be punished for this. Might have caused a panic, you know." "True? Good Lord, no! What would our Navy be doing?"

"Well, upon my word, I don't know." "Nice business for the fish trade!"

"Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to their Aunt Rebecca's." "Wot price Piccadilly an' Regent Street to-night?" "Come along, my dear; let's get home out of this." "Absolute bosh, my dear boy, from beginning to end--doing business with 'em every day o' my life!" And then a hoa.r.s.e s.n.a.t.c.h of song: "'They'll never go for England'--not they! What ho! 'Because England's got the dibs!'"

Suddenly then, above and across the thousand-voiced small talk, came the trained notes of the voice of the President of the Local Government Board.

"My friends, the whole story is a most transparent fraud. It's a shameful hoax. I tell you the thing is physically and morally impossible. It couldn't have been done in the time; and it is all a lie, anyhow. I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our chairman for----"

The crowd had listened attentively enough to the old agitator's comment on the news. They liked his a.s.surances on that point. But they were in no mood for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling across the gra.s.s toward Marble Arch and down to Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's further words were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause, cheers, laughter, shouts of "Are we downhearted?" raucous answers in the negative, and cries of "Never mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good fellow!"

In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to have been stripped naked, and the few vehicles, tables, and little platforms which had formed the centre of the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree suddenly bereft of foliage, looking curiously small and bare. I am told that restaurants and refreshment places did an enormous trade during the next few hours. When the public-houses opened they were besieged, and, in many cases, closed again after a few hours, sold out.

For my part, I made at once, and without thinking, for Constance Grey's flat in South Kensington. The crowds in the streets were not only much larger, but in many ways different from the usual run of Sunday crowds.

The people wore their Sunday clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday manners and air. There was more of a suggestion of Sat.u.r.day night in the streets; the suggestion that a tremendous number of people were going to enjoy a "spree" of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, combined with a general desire for cigars, drinks, singing, and gaiety, seemed to be ruling the people.

At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band was blaring out the air of "The Holy City," and people stood about in groups laughing and chatting noisily. The newspaper boys had some compet.i.tors now, and the Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was added to by a number of lads and girls who had appeared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless commodities for sale, such as peac.o.c.ks' feathers, paper fans, and streamers of coloured paper.

Why these things should have been wanted I cannot say; but their sellers knew their business very well. The demand was remarkably brisk.

Indeed, I noticed one of three young men, who walked abreast, purchase quite a bunch of the long feathers, only to drop them beside the curb a few moments later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them, and sold them again. I suppose that by this time the vast majority of the people had no doubt whatever about the news being a monstrous hoax; but there was no blinking the fact that the public had been strongly moved.

It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned from a servant that Miss Grey was at home--had just come in, as a matter of fact. It was as though I had some important business to transact with this girl from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes, and alert, thoughtful expression. I felt that it would have been serious if she should have been away, if I had missed her. It was not until I heard her step outside the door of the little drawing-room into which I had been shown, that I suddenly became conscious that I had no business whatever with Constance Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty-eight hours of my dining there, might perhaps be adjudged a piece of questionable taste.

A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the matter at all, I should have known that Constance Grey wasted no time over any such petty considerations. She entered to me with a set, grave face, taking my hand mechanically, as though too much preoccupied for such ceremonies.

"What do you think of the news?" she said, without a word of preliminary greeting. I felt more than a little abashed at this; for, truth to tell, I really had given no serious thought to the news. I had observed its reception by the public as a spectator might. But, in the first place, I had been early warned that it was all a hoax; and then, too, like so many of my contemporaries, I was without the citizen feeling altogether, so far as national interests were concerned. I had grown to regard citizens.h.i.+p as exclusively a matter of domestic politics and social progress, munic.i.p.al affairs, and the like. I never gave any thought to our position as a people and a nation in relation to foreign Powers.

"Oh, well," I said, "it's an extraordinary business, isn't it? I have just come from the Demonstration in Hyde Park. It was practically squashed by the arrival of the special editions. The people seemed pretty considerably muddled about it, so I suppose those who arranged it all may be said to have scored their point."

"So you don't believe it?"

"Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a gigantic hoax, is it not?"

"But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how--how wonderful English people are! You, your own self; what do _you_ think about it? But forgive me for heckling. Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the study? Aunt is in there."

We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room, with low wicker chairs, and a big, littered writing-table.

"Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance Grey, when I had shaken hands with her aunt.

"Doesn't he?" said that strong, plain-spoken woman. "Well, I fancy there are a good many more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their eyes opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow."

"Then you take the whole thing seriously?" I asked them.

Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in the presence of these women, and were racing over everything that I had seen and heard that day, from the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise, in Holborn.

"I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs. Van Homrey, with laconic emphasis. "Do you?" she added.

"Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your view. My first word of it was just before dawn this morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and, somehow--well, you know, the general idea seems to be that the whole thing is an elaborate joke worked up by the Navy League, or somebody, as a counter-stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration--to teach us a lesson, and all that, you know."

I had to remind myself that I was addressing two ladies who were sure to be whole-hearted supporters of the Navy League and all other Imperialist organizations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be appraising me. I fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were looking right into me with grave criticism, and discovering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the thought. I should have been more distressed had not a vague, futile anger crept into my mind. After all, I thought, what right had this girl from South Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew England better than she did. I was a journalist of experience. Bah! My twopenny thoughts drooped and fainted as they rose.

"But perhaps you are better informed?" I said, weakly. "Perhaps you have other information?"

Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I recall her gaze now, it was almost maternal in its yearning gravity.

"I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she said. "What cuts me to the heart is the fear that it may have come too late."

Never have I heard such gravity in a young woman's voice. Her words overpowered me almost by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them.

They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a fount of inspiration.

"We haven't any special information," said Mrs. Van Homrey. "We have only read, like every one else, that East Anglia is occupied by German soldiers, landed last night; that the East Anglian Pageant has been made the cloak of most elaborate preparations for weeks past; that the Mediterranean incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw the Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dreadful business has succeeded so far, like--like perfect machinery; like the thing it is: the outcome of perfect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We have heard no more; but the only hoaxing that I can see is done by the purblind people who have made the public think it a hoax--and that is not conscious hoaxing, of course; they are too bemuddled with their disarmament farce for that."

"More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid," said Constance Grey. And then, turning to me, she said: "We lunched at General Penn d.i.c.ksee's to-day; and they have no doubt about the truth of the news. The General has motored down to Aldershot. They will begin some attempt at mobilizing at once, I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into touch with headquarters. All the War Office people are away for the week-end. In fact, they say the Minister's in Ipswich, and can't get away. General Penn d.i.c.ksee says they have practically no material to work with for any immediate mobilization purposes. He says that under the present system nothing can be done in less than a week. He thinks the most useful force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks. But I should suppose they would be wanted for the s.h.i.+ps--if we have any s.h.i.+ps left fit for sea. The General thinks there may be a hundred thousand German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of London by to-morrow."

"Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, "it doesn't seem easy to take it any other way than seriously; not if one's on the British side. And, for the matter of that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty seriously in East Anglia, and--and in Berlin."

And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra Sunday work for Wardle, and the way they had started selling peac.o.c.ks' feathers and things, in the streets!