by John Masters
‘That brings up another matter,’ Stephen said. ‘That first night, after we got off the ship in Liverpool, you told us that you had made up your mind to join the British services … the Royal Flying Corps, I think you said. We have all been very busy since, and I have not wanted to bring it up until we have time to discuss all the implications. As they are obviously going to affect everything else in your life, including your proposed marriage, we had better do it now … You know that we would like you to stay on with JMC for a time, say a year, and then return to New York to gain experience in the headquarters of the bank?’
‘I know, Dad, but … I can’t. British and French are dying over there for us – to protect the sort of world I want to live in, and I can’t stay on here any longer. I’m not too proud to fight … It isn’t as though I was really needed here. I’m not.’
Stephen Merritt said slowly, ‘So be it then. When will you wish to be married?’
‘As soon as it can all be fixed up,’ Johnny said. ‘And we don’t want a fancy wedding.’
‘How do you know?’ Betty cut in. ‘I’ll ask Stella. I bet she wants a white dress, bridesmaids, everything.’
‘Mr Cate will not permit any extravagance, when England’s in such need.’
‘Who’ll be the bride’s “mother”, if Mrs Cate’s still in hiding?’
Johnny said, ‘Mrs Rowland, I believe – Guy’s mother.’
‘Ah, the fabulous Guy! When am I going to be allowed to meet him?’
‘Boxing Day – the family go down to watch the meet of the foxhounds, which is always at Beighton that day. They hunt hill foxes on the Downs.’
‘When’s Boxing Day?’
‘The day after Christmas, when the servants and postmen and people like that are given their Christmas boxes … tips.’
‘Do we hunt?’
‘I don’t. And you don’t have the clothes.’
‘Will Guy?’
‘Probably. It’ll be almost his last time out, before he joins the RFC. We’ll follow the hounds on foot.’
‘You follow the hounds. I’ll follow Guy.’
‘All right, sis, but you’ll never catch him. I’m warning you.’
‘I have plenty of time.’
‘Three weeks? With Guy in some RFC training camp on Salisbury Plain, probably?’
‘Ah, but I’m not going home with Dad.’
So she’s won her battle to get out of Smith, Johnny thought. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘There’ll be something. I feel … ready, somehow. It must be the war atmosphere, that you breathe here.’
Johnny thought, we’ve got the domestic details out of the way; now’s the time. He put away the little jewel box and turned to face his father and sister. ‘Now I have some news … a surprise.’
Betty said, ‘Out with it … I knew you had something on your mind.’
Johnny said, ‘Mr Harry Rowland has given control of the Rowland Motor Car Company to Mr Richard … to do what he likes with it. He told me an hour ago.’
Stephen started up, ‘What? What’s he going to do? Will he leave the JMC?’
Johnny said, ‘He doesn’t want to. He is thinking of turning Rowland’s to the manufacture of a small motor vehicle for carrying a machine-gun and three or four men, for the protection of airfields and headquarters.’
‘Sounds a good idea,’ Stephen said, ‘but what’s the management relationship going to be, the financial arrangements?’
‘He said he wanted to offer you – us – a twenty-four per cent interest in Rowland’s, in return for capital … and the same to Toledano’s.’
Stephen rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and after a while said, ‘It could work. Rowland’s and the JMC don’t compete with each other. They could share some things … offices, draughting, billing, accounting – paint shop perhaps. We’d have to look into the money involved. Rowland’s is in the red, obviously, but I don’t know how much.’
Johnny said, ‘We must have a conference, Dad. I’ve been thinking, ever since Mr Rowland called. I have an idea. I want to put it to you, and him, and Overfeld … Morgan, too.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘I need a little more time, Dad. The morning of the 23rd, perhaps – early, before we go down to Walstone.’
‘Very well. I’ll see Richard and get some financial information from him before then.’
Daily Telegraph, Thursday, December 23, 1915
ALL-NIGHT SITTING OF THE COMMONS
The Additional Million
Radical Demonstration
Before four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon the House of Commons went into Committee upon the vote to add an additional one million men to the army. It was not until half-past five yesterday morning that the vote was agreed to. As a measure of precaution the Government had suspended the eleven o’clock rule and, till after midnight, the proceedings may be said to have followed customary lines. But it then became apparent that a group of Radicals below the gangway and a few Nationalists were determined to secure, if they could, the adjournment of the debate, the resultof which would have been to reduce to confusion the Government arrangements for the final meetings of the session – those of yesterday and today.
What they had ultimately in view was not clearly stated. It was obvious from the outset that they would not be bold enough to vote against the establishment of the army being increased to 4,000,000 officers and men, though, like a double thread, there ran through nearly all the speeches hostility to compulsion for single men and vaguely defined charges of incapacity and inefficiency levelled against the War Office and Army Staff. Several times it was repeated that the lives of another million men should not be entrusted to the ‘blunderers’ in charge.
Johnny Merritt sat facing his father, the opened newspaper spread on the table between them. Johnny was speaking – ‘It’s been a bad year for the Allies, Dad. As far as England’s concerned it’s been mainly a matter of disappointments, rather than defeats. So much was expected of battles likeNeuve Chapelle, Arras, Loos, the Dardanelles, that when success was nil, or small, disappointment was as unreasonable as the hopes had been in the first place. But the Germans have had severe disappointments, too. They wanted to knock Russia out of the war – they haven’t done it. They wanted tocapture Paris within a few weeks – they didn’t do it. They tried hard to get round the Allies’ northern flank at the end oflast year – they didn’t succeed. They hoped to make a decisivebreakthrough when they used gas at Ypres in April this year – they didn’t …’
‘It’s the higher direction of the war that seems to be inefficient, on the Allied side,’ Stephen said.
Johnny said, ‘Field-Marshal French was too emotional for his job … that’s what the colonel I talk to at the War Office says. The soldiers would probably have liked General Smith-Dorrien to replace him, but he was manoeuvred out, and General Haig appointed. My colonel says he’s not very popular, but highly regarded as a planner … and if he is emotional, which I believe he is not, he doesn’t let that control his thoughts or decisions.’
‘It’s the civilian side that worries me more than the military,’ Stephen said.
Johnny said, ‘The Germans have had a working General Staff for a long time, and an effective system of co-ordination between the General Staff and the civilian leaders of the country. The British army’s General Staff is fairly new, and the navy’s even newer – and despised by many senior admirals – and there’s been no tradition of planning or co-ordination between the Government and the General Staffs. But I do think that in 1916 there’ll be a big improvement. There’ll have to be another change in the Government … Asquith’s carrying the blame for Loos and the other disappointments, and he’ll go. Someone stronger will replace him … Curzon, Lloyd George, Balfour, even Churchill, perhaps. There’ll be a small War Cabinet. There’ll be conscription. There’ll be enough munitions of all kinds … Lloyd George will see to that. He’s done wonders already.’
‘The Admiralty will have to find a way to beat the U-boats, or England could be in serious trouble … Do you think the German fleet will come out?’
Johnny hesitated before saying, ‘I doubt it. Why should it? As long as it sits in its harbours, the British must keep a huge force ready to fight it. If it comes out and is destroyed, the navy can turn all its energies to fighting the U-boats.’
‘But what if the Germans win the sea battle?’
‘Ah! … My colonel at the War Office says Admiral Jellicoe – he’s the commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet – is the only man on either side who can lose the war in an afternoon, because if the British fleet were knocked out, the Germans could invade. Quite a small invading force would be enough to make the British bring all their troops back from France – if they could – leaving the French in the lurch. The French would give up, for sure. Their morale is not very good, after all their disappointments and losses since the war began … and, from all I hear, the main German land campaign next year will be against them.’
‘Will the French hold?’
‘All experience of the war so far says they will. No one has yet broken an organized defence line … but England may have to help … There’ll be a big expansion of the war in the air … The Russians may hold on, they may not … Heaven knows what will happen in Africa, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Serbia, Salonika, et cetera. I don’t think any of those places matter, or can affect the final outcome … What do the people at home feel about the war, Dad?’
Stephen stroked his chin, considering. Johnny had matured a great deal in this last year. His written reports had been illuminating and cogent, but they had not prepared Stephen for this new incisiveness of his son’s personality. Finally be said, ‘People are of two minds … at least. The British blockade and high-handedness at sea have caused much anger and resentment. If it weren’t for German political ineptitude – and the Kaiser’s genius for putting his foot in his mouth – it is conceivable that we would enter the war on the German side.’ Johnny made to protest, but Stephen held up his hand and continued: ‘But that’s not likely as long as the Germans keep sinking Lusitanias and shooting Nurse Cavells … Again, people say, “Why should we salvage the British Empire?” The British would get more support if they publicly undertook to free India and Ireland, for a start, at the end of the war … and also the German colonies they have occupied … People believe they’re going to grab those for themselves, permanently … On the other hand the war is making us prosperous, very. Our trade is increasing by leaps and bounds. Many Americans are making a great deal of money out of the war, so it is popular. That doesn’t mean those same people think we should join in, on either side … But I am afraid that we will be forced to, in the end, to protect our investments, which have been mostly on the Allied side. And I am sure that the Germans will give us the necessary provocation, sooner or later … What’s your prognostication?’
‘It’s hard to say, Dad. If the British were all like Guy Rowland, the war would be over in no time … If they were all like his father, Colonel Rowland, they’d go down butting their heads against a brick wall … If they were like Mr Cate, they wouldn’t have gotten into the position of having to fight in the first place … If they were Frank Strattons – you don’t know him – they’d invent something that machine-guns and barbed wire couldn’t stop … If they were all Bert Gorses, they’d murder their officers and statesmen and declare a radical republic … But they’re all those mixed together, and the result is Mr John and Mrs Louise, Bob and Mrs Stratton, Willum and Mary Gorse, Commander Tom, Mr Richard, Naomi, Stella, Laurence, Virginia – even Mrs Fiona – they all have something of Guy, something of Bert Gorse, something of Mr Cate, something of Colonel Quentin … I think the dominant fact is that the British are determined, as a people. They are so determined that they will somehow set their house in order even if their leaders don’t want to, or don’t know how to. I won’t say the war’s still popular – though it was, generally, until Loos – but the people don’t believe there’s any alternative way of dealing with Germany, except by beating them. The British aren’t all heroes. There’ll be more industrial trouble after conscription comes in – a great deal of it. There’ll be more bitterness, about those who go and those who weasel out of going … but England is still financially sound, and there are still plenty of men, to fight. The war will be waged, at whatever cost.’
‘And what a cost it will be,’ Stephen murmured.
‘Yes, but we’ll win, in the end.’
34 Christmastide, 1915
In the last week before Christmas the waits sang all over Britain, in the evenings. This night the sky was of infinite depth, the moon huge and yellow, the stars brilliant points of scattered light. The air was still and cold, and all who went out of doors went bundled in coats and scarves, gloves and hats.
No carollers were singing outside No. 23 Greeley Crescent in Hedlington, but there was a group further down the street. Inside No. 23 Fiona Rowland was speaking, ‘I can’t understand why she won’t tell us where she is.’
‘She explained in her letter, Mummy,’ Guy said patiently. ‘She said she’d let us know where she is as soon as you promise not to have her brought back, and put a notice in The Times.’
‘I ought to go to the police,’ Fiona said. ‘She may be in trouble. She may be lost.’
Guy said, ‘She’s nearly seventeen. I think she’s probably joined one of the women’s service groups – the Women’s Legion, perhaps. She talked about them in the summer hols, and she really hated Cheltenham.’
‘Daddy said she had to finish there … the term ended four days ago, and she’s vanished. I’ll have to write to Daddy and tell him.’ She got up crossly. ‘It’s very inconsiderate of her. When are you joining the Royal Flying Corps?’
‘January 3rd,’ he said. ‘I want to hunt on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day … and see this sister of Johnny Merritt’s he tells me is so beautiful. The 2nd’s a Sunday, so I can’t join till the 3rd.’
His mother stood up suddenly, looking down on him where he sat by the fire. The flames touched points of orange in her grey eyes, and emphasized the fine wrinkles at the corners of them. She said, ‘I was going to wait to tell you till Virginia went back to school, but if she’s not coming … Guy, I’m going to leave your father. I’m not in love with him – haven’t been for years. I …’
‘He is with you,’ Guy said. He and his sister had known for a long time that their parents’ marriage was not the warm affectionate thing it might have been – as that between their Uncle John and Aunt Louise was, for instance; nevertheless this was a painful wound that his mother was giving him.
She said, ‘For years I have wanted to marry another man, a painter. Now that you’re leaving home, and there would only have been Virginia, I am going to him. Virginia can live with Uncle Christopher – she’ll be happier in the country anyway, and of course you can both come and visit us whenever you want to.’
‘Are you going to marry this man?’ Guy asked.
‘I want to, but …’ she looked away, and he saw tears in her eyes, ‘I don’t know whether he wants to tie himself … or feel responsible for me.’
‘Daddy does.’
‘Oh, darling, I know, I know, but … I’m a woman. When you deal with women remember that we need more than housing and keeping, like a horse or a motor car. We need understanding … we have our needs of the spirit, and they have to be taken notice of. Your father never understood me … or I him, I suppose. I love Archie, and he does understand me. We laugh and play when we’re together. We have other things binding us than a house, children, meals, budgets … I’ll go as soon as you’ve left. When I’m settled in London – Archie has a studio flat in the King’s Road in Chelsea – I’ll give up this place. The Post Office will forward any letters, if Virginia writes …’
‘Have you told Daddy about this?’ Guy asked unhappily.
‘I told him when he was home wounded that I wo
uld leave him, yes.’
‘Hadn’t you better write and ask him if he wants to keep the flat on? He may not want to have to find a new place. Or he may want to remarry.’
She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why, why, I suppose he might. I’d never thought of that. Yes, I’ll write to him.’ She spoke suddenly harshly. ‘But I’m going to Archie, and that’s that. We only have one life to live, and time is passing … I’m sorry, Guy, but I’ll die if I don’t. I don’t care what anyone thinks or says, any more – not the Governor, Mother Rowland, not my own mother … not even you. There’s a war on!’ She sat down, reaching across the fire to touch her son’s slowly outstretched fingers. ‘How long will it continue, Guy? I pray that Archie will never go to it, but every month it lasts makes it harder for a man like him to stay at home … and everyone talks about conscription.’
‘It’ll go on for a long time yet,’ he answered her slowly. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot. When the war began it was “over there” – something foreign which we were going to, as though we were going to Paris for a weekend, or visiting Monte Carlo. Now, I can almost see it as an animal, or a snake, crawling across the Channel and into England, into all the houses simultaneously … and not only into the houses, into the people … It hasn’t got into me yet, but it will. I won’t come back the same as I went, I know.’
‘Your father has changed,’ she said. ‘I felt it, when he was home.’
Guy said, ‘I felt it, too, when he came down to Wellington. So will Boy change, and Frank and Fred Stratton. Everyone will change, even those who stay at home.’ His mother was crying silently, her face immobile, tears running down her cheeks. He had never seen her cry, before this night, that he could remember, and he knelt quickly beside her. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. I understand, and I’m sure Virginia would, if she were here. Perhaps Daddy does, even. Virginia’s all right, I’m sure. Just put that notice in The Times, that she wants you to. Let her do what she wants to, needs to.’
Fiona said, ‘And you’re leaving the nest, my eaglet, going to fly.’