CHAPTER XII
HOW LONDON TOOK THE NEWS
The awaking of England on the morning of the twenty-sixth of Novemberwas like the awaking of a man from a nightmare. Everyone who slept hadgone to sleep with one word humming in his brain--war--and war at home,that was the terrible thought which robbed so many millions of eyes ofsleep. But even those who slept did not do so for long.
At a quarter to one a sub-editor ran into the room of the chief NewsEditor of the _Daily Telegraph_, without even the ceremony of a knock.
"What on earth's the matter, Johnson?" exclaimed the editor. "Seen aghost?"
"Worse than that, sir. Read this!" said the sub-editor, in a shakingvoice, throwing the slip down on the desk.
"My God, what's this?" said the editor, as he ran his eye along theslip. "'Portsmouth bombarded from the air. Hillsea, Portsmouth,Gilkicker and Southsea Castle destroyed. Practically defenceless. FleetReserve Squadrons sailing.'"
The words were hardly out of his mouth before another man came runningin with a slip. "'_Jupiter_ and _Hannibal_ torpedoed by submarine._Spartiate_ blown up by aerial torpedo.'" Then there came a gap, asthough the men at the other end had heard of more news, thenfollowed--"'_Mars_, _Prince George_, _Victorious_, all torpedoed.Cruisers escaped to sea. No news of _Ithuriel_, no torpedo attack up topresent.'"
"Oh, that's awful," gasped the editor, and then the professionalinstinct reasserted itself, for he continued, handing the slip back:"Rush out an edition straight away, Johnson. Anything, if it's only ahalf-sheet--get it on the streets as quick as you can--there'll beplenty of people about still. If anything else comes bring it up."
In less than a quarter of an hour a crowd of newsboys were fighting inthe passage for copies of the single sheet which contained the momentousnews, just as it had come over the wire. The _Daily Telegraph_ was justfive minutes ahead, but within half an hour every London paper, morningand evening, and all the great provincial journals had rushed out theirmidnight specials, and from end to end of England and Scotland, and awayto South Wales, and over the narrow seas to Dublin and Cork, the shrillscreams of the newsboys, and the hoarse, raucous howls of the newsmenwere spreading the terrible tidings over the land. What the beacon fireswere in the days of the Armada, these humble heralds of Fate were in thetwentieth century.
"War begun--Portsmouth destroyed--Fleet sunk."
The six terrible words were not quite exact, of course, but they werenear enough to the truth to sound like the voice of Fate in the ears ofthe millions whose fathers and fathers' fathers back through sixgenerations had never had their midnight rest so rudely broken.
Lights gleamed out of darkened windows, and front doors were flung openin street after street, as the war-cry echoed down it. Any coin thatcame first to hand, from a penny to a sovereign, was eagerly offered forthe single, hurriedly-printed sheets, but the business instincts of thenewsboys rose superior to the crisis, and nothing less than a shillingwas accepted. Streams of men and boys on bicycles with great bags ofspecials slung on their backs went tearing away, head down and pedalswhirling, north, south, east and west into the suburbs. Newsagents flungtheir shops open, and in a few minutes were besieged by eager, anxiouscrowds, fighting for the first copies. There was no more sleep for manor woman in London that night, though the children slept on in happyunconsciousness of what the morrow was to bring forth.
What happened in London was happening almost simultaneously all over thekingdom. For more than a hundred years the British people had worked andplayed and slept in serene security, first behind its wooden walls, andthen behind the mighty iron ramparts of its invincible Fleets, and now,like a thunderbolt from a summer sky, came the paralysing tidings thatthe first line of defence had been pierced by a single blow, and thegreatest sea stronghold of England rendered defenceless--and all thisbetween sunset and midnight of a November day.
Was it any wonder that men looked blankly into each other's eyes, andasked themselves and each other how such an unheard-of catastrophe hadcome about, and what was going to happen next? The first and universalfeeling was one of amazement, which amounted almost to mental paralysis,and then came a sickening sense of insecurity. For two generations theFleet had been trusted implicitly, and invasion had been looked uponmerely as the fad of alarmists, and the theme of sensationalstory-writers. No intelligent person really trusted the army, althoughits ranks, such as they were, were filled with as gallant soldiers asever carried a rifle, but it had been afflicted ever since men couldremember with the bane and blight of politics and social influence. Ithad never been really a serious profession, and its upper ranks had beenlittle better than the playground of the sons of the wealthy andwell-born.
Politician after politician on both sides had tried his hand at schemeafter scheme to improve the army. What one had done, the next hadundone, and the permanent War Office Officials had given more attentionto buttons and braids and caps than to business-like organisations offighting efficiency. The administration was, as it always had been, achaos of muddle. The higher ranks were rotten with inefficiency, and thelower, aggravated and bewildered by change after change, had come tolook upon soldiering as a sort of game, the rules of which were beingconstantly altered.
The Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers had been constantlysnubbed and worried by the authorities of Pall Mall. Private citizens,willing to give time and money in order to learn the use of the rifle,even if they could not join the Yeomanry or Volunteers, had been justignored. The War Office could see no use for a million able-bodied menwho had learned to shoot straight, besides they were only "damnedcivilians," whose proper place was in their offices and shops. Whatright had they with rifles? If they wanted exercise, let them go andplay golf, or cricket, or football. What had they to do with the defenceof their country and their homes?
But that million of irregular sharpshooters were badly wanted now. Theycould have turned every hedgerow into a trench and cover against the foewhich would soon be marching over the fields and orchards andhop-gardens of southern England. They would have known every yard of theground, and the turn of every path and road, and while the regular armywas doing its work they could have prevented many a turning movement ofthe superior forces, shot down the horses of convoys and ammunitiontrains, and made themselves generally objectionable to the enemy.
Now the men were there, full of fight and enthusiasm, but they hadneither ammunition nor rifles, and if they had had them, ninety percent. would not have known how to use them. Wherefore, those who wereresponsible for the land defences of the country found themselves withless than three hundred thousand trained and half-trained men, of allarms, to face invading forces which would certainly not number less thana million, every man of which had served his apprenticeship to the grimtrade of war, commanded by officers who had taken that same tradeseriously, studied it as a science, thinking it of considerably moreimportance than golf or cricket or football.
It had been said that the British Nation would never tolerateconscription, which might or might not have been true; but now, when thenext hour or so might hear the foreign drums thrumming and the foreignbugles blaring, conscription looked a very different thing. There wasn'ta loyal man in the kingdom who didn't bitterly regret that he had notbeen taken in the prime of his young manhood, and taught how to defendthe hearth and home which were his, and the wife and children which wereso dear to him.
But it was too late now. Neither soldiers nor sharpshooters are made ina few hours or days, and within a week the first battles that had beenfought on English ground for nearly eight hundred years would have beenlost and won, and nine-tenths of the male population of England would belooking on in helpless fury.
There had been plenty of theorists, who had said that the BritishIslands needed no army of home defence, simply because if she once lostcommand of the sea it would not be necessary for an enemy to invade her,since a blockade of her ports would starve her into submission in amonth--which, thanks to the decay of agriculture and the depopulation
ofthe country districts, was true enough. But it was not all the truth.Those who preached these theories left out one very important factor,and that was human nature.
For over a century the Continental nations had envied and hated Britain,the land-grabber; Britain who had founded nations while they had failedto make colonies; Britain, who had made the Seven Seas her territories,and the coasts of other lands her frontiers. Surely the leaders of theleagued nations would have been more or less than human had theyresisted, even if their people had allowed them to do it, thetemptation of trampling these proud Islanders into the mud and mire oftheir own fields and highways, and dictating terms of peace in theancient halls of Windsor.
These were the bitter thoughts which were rankling in the breast ofevery loyal British man during the remainder of that night of horriblesuspense. Many still had reason to remember the ghastly blunders and themuddling which had cost so many gallant lives and so many millions oftreasure during the Boer War, when it took three hundred thousandBritish troops to reduce eighty thousand undrilled farmers tosubmission. What if the same blundering and muddling happened now? Andit was just as likely now as then.
Men ground their teeth, and looked at their strong, useless hands, andcursed theorist and politician alike. And meanwhile the Cabinet wassitting, deliberating, as best it might, over the tidings of disaster.The House of Commons, after voting full powers to the Cabinet and theCouncil of Defence, had been united at last by the common and immediatedanger, and members of all parties were hurrying away to theirconstituencies to do what they could to help in organising the defenceof their homeland.
There was one fact which stood out before all others, as clearly as anelectric light among a lot of candles, and, now that it was too late, noone recognised it with more bitter conviction than those who had made itthe consistent policy of both Conservative and Liberal Governments, andof the Executive Departments, to discourage invention outside thecharmed circle of the Services, and to drive the civilian inventorabroad.
Again and again, designs of practical airships--not gas-bags which couldonly be dragged slowly against a moderate wind, but flying machineswhich conquered the wind and used it as a bird does--had been submittedto the War Office during the last six or seven years, and had beenpooh-poohed or pigeon-holed by some sapient permanent official--and nowthe penalty of stupidity and neglect had to be paid.
The complete descriptions of the tragedy that had been and was beingenacted at Portsmouth that were constantly arriving in Downing Streetleft no possibility of doubt that the forts had been destroyed and the_Spartiate_ blown up by torpedoes from the air--from which fact it wasnecessary to draw the terrible inference that the enemy had possessedthemselves of the command of the air.
What was the command of the sea worth after that? What was the fightingvalue of the mightiest battleship that floated when pitted against apractically unassailable enemy, which had nothing to do but droptorpedoes, loaded with high explosives, on her decks and down herfunnels until her very vitals were torn to pieces, her ammunitionexploded, and her crew stunned by concussion or suffocated by poisonousgas?
It was horrible, but it was true. Inside an hour the strongestfortifications in England had been destroyed, and ten first-classbattleships and a cruiser had been sent to the bottom of the sea, and soat last her ancient sceptre was falling from the hand of the Sea Queen,and her long inviolate domain was threatened by the armed legions ofthose whose forefathers she had vanquished on many a stricken field byland and sea.
"Well, gentlemen," said the Prime Minister to the other members of theCabinet Council, who were sitting round that historic oval table in theCouncil Chamber in Downing Street, "we may as well confess that this isa great deal more serious than we expected it to be, and that is to mymind all the better reason why we should strain every nerve to holdintact the splendid heritage which our fathers have left to us--"
Boom! A shudder ran through the atmosphere as he spoke the last words,and the double windows in Downing Street shook with the vibration. Themembers of the Cabinet started in their seats and looked at each other.Was this the fulfilment of the half prophecy which the Prime Ministerhad spoken so slowly and so clearly in the silent, crowded House ofCommons?
Almost at the same moment the electric bell at the outer of the doubledoors rang. The doors were opened, and a messenger came in with atelegram which he handed to the Prime Minister, and then retired. Heopened the envelope, and for nearly five minutes of intense suspense hementally translated the familiar cypher, and then he said, as he handedthe telegram to the Secretary for War:
"Gentlemen, I deeply regret to say that the possible prospect which Ioutlined in the House to-night has become an accomplished fact. Twohundred and forty-three years ago London heard the sound of hostileguns. We have heard them to-night. This telegram is from Sheerness, andit tells, I most deeply regret to say, the same story, or something likeit, as the messages from Portsmouth. A Russo-German-French fleet ofbattleships, cruisers and destroyers, assisted by four airships and anunknown number of submarines, has defeated the Southern portion of theNorth Sea Squadron, and is now proceeding in two divisions, one up theMedway towards Chatham, and the other up the Thames towards Tilbury.Garrison Fort is now being bombarded from the sea and the air, and willprobably be in ruins within an hour."
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