The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  But it was neither of these, and compared to them it was a case of “only” Hermann who wanted to see him. But Hermann, it appeared, wanted to see him urgently, and, if he was in (which he was) would be with him in ten minutes.

  But the Bach thread was broken, and Michael, since it was not worth while trying to mend it for the sake of these few minutes, sat down by the open window, and idly took up the morning paper, which as yet he had not opened, since he had hurried over breakfast in order to get to his piano. The music announcements on the outside page first detained him, and seeing that the concert by the Falbes, which was to take place in five or six days, was advertised, he wondered vaguely whether it was about that that Hermann wanted to see him, and, if so, why he could not have said whatever he had to say on the telephone, instead of cutting things short with the curt statement that he wished to see him urgently, and would come round at once. Then remembering that Francis had been playing cricket for the Guards yesterday, he turned briskly over to the last page of sporting news, and found that his cousin had distinguished himself by making no runs at all, but by missing two expensive catches in the deep field. From there, after a slight inspection of a couple of advertisement columns, he worked back to the middle leaf, where were leaders and the news of nations and the movements of kings. All this last week he had scanned such items with a growing sense of amusement in the recollection of Hermann’s disquiet over the Sarajevo murders, and Aunt Barbara’s more detailed and vivid prognostications of coming danger, for nothing more had happened, and he supposed—vaguely only, since the affair had begun to fade from his mind—that Austria had made inquiries, and that since she was satisfied there was no public pronouncement to be made.

  The hot breeze from the window made the paper a little unmanageable for a moment, but presently he got it satisfactorily folded, and a big black headline met his eye. A half-column below it contained the demands which Austria had made in the Note addressed to the Servian Government. A glance was sufficient to show that they were framed in the most truculent and threatening manner possible to imagine. They were not the reasonable proposals that one State had a perfect right to make of another on whose soil and with the connivance of whose subjects the murders had been committed; they were a piece of arbitrary dictation, a threat levelled against a dependent and an inferior.

  Michael had read them through twice with a growing sense of uneasiness at the thought of how Lady Barbara’s first anticipations had been fulfilled, when Hermann came in. He pointed to the paper Michael held.

  “Ah, you have seen it,” he said. “Perhaps you can guess what I wanted to see you about.”

  “Connected with the Austrian Note?” asked Michael.

  “Yes.”

  “I have not the vaguest idea.”

  Hermann sat down on the arm of his chair.

  “Mike, I’m going back to Germany today,” he said. “Now do you understand? I’m German.”

  “You mean that Germany is at the back of this?”

  “It is obvious, isn’t it? Those demands couldn’t have been made without the consent of Austria’s ally. And they won’t be granted. Servia will appeal to Russia. And…and then God knows what may happen. In the event of that happening, I must be in my Fatherland ready to serve, if necessary.”

  “You mean you think it possible you will go to war with Russia?” asked Michael.

  “Yes, I think it possible, and, if I am right, if there is that possibility, I can’t be away from my country.”

  “But the Emperor, the fire-engine whom you said would quench any conflagration?”

  “He is away yachting. He went off after the visit of the British fleet to Kiel. Who knows whether before he gets back, things may have gone too far? Can’t you see that I must go? Wouldn’t you go if you were me? Suppose you were in Germany now, wouldn’t you hurry home?”

  Michael was silent, and Hermann spoke again.

  “And if there is trouble with Russia, France, I take it, is bound to join her. And if France joins her, what will England do?”

  The great shadow of the approaching storm fell over Michael, even as outside the sultry stillness of the morning grew darker.

  “Ah, you think that?” asked Michael.

  Hermann put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

  “Mike, you’re the best friend I have,” he said, “and soon, please God, you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the world to me. You two make up my world really—you two and my mother, anyhow. No other individual counts, or is in the same class. You know that, I expect. But there is one other thing, and that’s my nationality. It counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you can stand between me and that. I expect you know that also, for you saw, nearly a year ago, what Germany is to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrong about it all—about the gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps in a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said ‘home,’ didn’t I? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can’t help going.”

  Hermann’s hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michael the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister, of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of this ominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural and speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surely all civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, so far from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits of all the Cabinets of Europe were at this moment only just beginning to stir themselves so as to secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite of this, the darkness and the nightmare grew in intensity. But as to Hermann’s determination to go to Germany, which made this so terribly real, since it was beginning to enter into practical everyday life, he had neither means nor indeed desire to combat it. He saw perfectly clearly that Hermann must go.

  “I don’t want to dissuade you,” he said, “not only because it would be useless, but because I am with you. You couldn’t do otherwise, Hermann.”

  “I don’t see that I could. Sylvia agrees too.”

  A terrible conjecture flashed through Michael’s mind.

  “And she?” he asked.

  “She can’t leave my mother, of course,” said Hermann, “and, after all, I may be on a wild goose chase. But I can’t risk being unable to get to Germany, if—if the worst happens.”

  The ghost of a smile played round his mouth for a moment.

  “And I’m not sure that she could leave you, Mike,” he added.

  Somehow this, though it gave Michael a moment of intensest relief to know that Sylvia remained, made the shadow grow deeper, accentuated the lines of the storm which had begun to spread over the sky. He began to see as nightmare no longer, but as stern and possible realities, something of the unutterable woe, the divisions, the heart-breaks which menaced.

  “Hermann, what do you think will happen?” he said. “It is incredible, unfaceable—”

  The gentle patting on his shoulder, that suddenly and poignantly reminded him of when Sylvia’s hand was there, ceased for a moment, and then was resumed.

  “Mike, old boy,” said Hermann, “we’ve got to face the unfaceable, and believe that the incredible is possible. I may be all wrong about it, and, as I say, in a few days’ time I may come racing back. But, on the other hand, this may be our last talk together, for I go off this afternoon. So let’s face it.”

  He paused a moment.

  “It may be that before long I shall be fighting for my Fatherland,” he said. “And if there is to be fighting, it may be that Germany will before long be fighting England. There I shall be on one side, and, since naturally you will go back into the Guards, you will be fighting on the other. I shall be doing my best to kill Englishmen, whom I love, and they will be doing their best to kill me and those of my blood. There’s the horror of it, and it’s that we must face. If we met in a bayonet charge, Mike, I should have to do my best to run you through, and yet I shouldn’t love you on
e bit the less, and you must know that. Or, if you ran me through, I shall have to die loving you just the same as before, and hoping you would live happy, for ever and ever, as the story-books say, with Sylvia.”

  “Hermann, don’t go,” said Michael suddenly.

  “Mike, you didn’t mean that,” he said.

  Michael looked at him for a moment in silence.

  “No, it is unsaid,” he replied.

  Hermann looked round as the clock on the chimney-piece chimed.

  “I must be going,” he said, “I needn’t say anything to you about Sylvia, because all I could say is in your heart already. Well, we’ve met in this jolly world, Mike, and we’ve been great friends. Neither you nor I could find a greater friend than we’ve been to each other. I bless God for this last year. It’s been the happiest in my life. Now what else is there? Your music: don’t ever be lazy about your music. It’s worth while taking all the pains you can about it. Lord! Do you remember the evening when I first tried your Variations?… Let me play the last one now. I want something jubilant. Let’s see, how does it go?”

  He held his hands, those long, slim-fingered hands, poised for a moment above the keys, then plunged into the glorious riot of the full chords and scales, till the room rang with it. The last chord he held for a moment, and then sprang up.

  “Ah, that’s good,” he said. “And now I’m going to say good-bye, and go without looking round.”

  “But might I see you off this afternoon?” asked Michael.

  “No, please don’t. Station partings are fussy and disagreeable. I want to say good-bye to you here in your quiet room, just as I shall say goodbye to Sylvia at home. Ah, Mike, yes, both hands and smiling. May God give us other meetings and talks and companionship and years of love, my best of friends. Good-bye.”

  Then, as he had said, he walked to the door without looking round, and next moment it had closed behind him.

  Throughout the next week the tension of the situation grew ever greater, strained towards the snapping-point, while the little cloud, the man’s hand, which had arisen above the eastern horizon grew and overspread the heavens in a pall that became ever more black and threatening. For a few days yet it seemed that perhaps even now the cataclysm might be averted, but gradually, in spite of all the efforts of diplomacy to loosen the knot, it became clear that the ends of the cord were held in hands that did not mean to release their hold till it was pulled tight. Servia yielded to such demands as it was possible for her to grant as an independent State; but the inflexible fingers never abated one jot of their strangling pressure. She appealed to Russia, and Russia’s remonstrance fell on deaf ears, or, rather, on ears that had determined not to hear. From London and Paris came proposals for conference, for arbitration, with welcome for any suggestion from the other side which might lead to a peaceful solution of the disputed demands, already recognised by Europe as a firebrand wantonly flung into the midst of dangerous and inflammable material. Over that burning firebrand, preventing and warding off all the eager hands that were stretched to put it out, stood the figure of the nation at whose bidding it had been flung there.

  Gradually, out of the thunder-clouds and gathering darkness, vaguely at first and then in definite and menacing outline, emerged the inexorable, flint-like face of Germany, whose figure was clad in the shining armour so well known in the flamboyant utterances of her War Lord, which had been treated hitherto as mere irresponsible utterances to be greeted with a laugh and a shrugged shoulder. Deep and patient she had always been, and now she believed that the time had come for her patience to do its perfect work. She had bided long for the time when she could best fling that lighted brand into the midst of civilisation, and she believed she had calculated well. She cared nothing for Servia nor for her ally. On both her frontiers she was ready, and now on the East she heeded not the remonstrance of Russia, nor her sincere and cordial invitation to friendly discussion. She but waited for the step that she had made inevitable, and on the first sign of Russian mobilisation she, with her mobilisation ready to be completed in a few days, peremptorily demanded that it should cease. On the Western frontier behind the Rhine she was ready also; her armies were prepared, cannon fodder in uncountable store of shells and cartridges was prepared, and in endless battalions of men, waiting to be discharged in one bull-like rush, to overrun France, and holding the French armies, shattered and dispersed, with a mere handful of her troops, to hurl the rest at Russia.

  The whole campaign was mathematically thought out. In a few months at the outside France would be lying trampled down and bleeding; Russia would be overrun; already she would be mistress of Europe, and prepared to attack the only country that stood between her and world-wide dominion, whose allies she would already have reduced to impotence. Here she staked on an uncertainty: she could not absolutely tell what England’s attitude would be, but she had the strongest reason for hoping that, distracted by the imminence of civil strife, she would be unable to come to the help of her allies until the allies were past helping.

  For a moment only were seen those set stern features mad for war; then, with a snap, Germany shut down her visor and stood with sword unsheathed, waiting for the horror of the stupendous bloodshed which she had made inevitable. Her legions gathered on the Eastern front threatening war on Russia, and thus pulling France into the spreading conflagration and into the midst of the flame she stood ready to cast the torn-up fragments of the treaty that bound her to respect the neutrality of Belgium.

  All this week, while the flames of the flung fire-brand began to spread, the English public waited, incredulous of the inevitable. Michael, among them, found himself unable to believe even then that the bugles were already sounding, and that the piles of shells in their wicker-baskets were being loaded on to the military ammunition trains. But all the ordinary interests in life, all the things that busily and contentedly occupied his day, one only excepted, had become without savour. A dozen times in the morning he would sit down to his piano, only to find that he could not think it worth while to make his hands produce these meaningless tinkling sounds, and he would jump up to read the paper over again, or watch for fresh headlines to appear on the boards of news-vendors in the street, and send out for any fresh edition. Or he would walk round to his club and spend an hour reading the tape news and waiting for fresh slips to be pinned up. But, through all the nightmare of suspense and slowly-dying hope, Sylvia remained real, and after he had received his daily report from the establishment where his mother was, with the invariable message that there was no marked change of any kind, and that it was useless for him to think of coming to see her, he would go off to Maidstone Crescent and spend the greater part of the day with the girl.

  Once during this week he had received a note from Hermann, written at Munich, and on the same day she also had heard from him. He had gone back to his regiment, which was mobilised, as a private, and was very busy with drill and duties. Feeling in Germany, he said, was elated and triumphant: it was considered certain that England would stand aside, as the quarrel was none of hers, and the nation generally looked forward to a short and brilliant campaign, with the occupation of Paris to be made in September at the latest. But as a postscript in his note to Sylvia he had added:

  “You don’t think there is the faintest chance of England coming in, do you? Please write to me fully, and get Mike to write. I have heard from neither of you, and as I am sure you must have written, I conclude that letters are stopped. I went to the theatre last night: there was a tremendous scene of patriotism. The people are war-mad.”

  Since then nothing had been heard from him, and today, as Michael drove down to see Sylvia, he saw on the news-boards that Belgium had appealed to England against the violation of her territory by the German armies en route for France. Overtures had been made, asking for leave to pass through the neutral territory: these Belgium had rejected. This was given as official news. There came also the report that the Belgian remonstrances would be disregarded. Should
she refuse passage to the German battalions, that could make no difference, since it was a matter of life and death to invade France by that route.

  Sylvia was out in the garden, where, hardly a month ago, they had spent that evening of silent peace, and she got up quickly as Michael came out.

  “Ah, my dear,” she said, “I am glad you have come. I have got the horrors. You saw the latest news? Yes? And have you heard again from Hermann? No, I have not had a word.”

  He kissed her and sat down.

  “No, I have not heard either,” he said. “I expect he is right. Letters have been stopped.”

  “And what do you think will be the result of Belgium’s appeal?” she asked.

  “Who can tell? The Prime Minister is going to make a statement on Monday. There have been Cabinet meetings going on all day.”

  She looked at him in silence.

  “And what do you think?” she asked.

  Quite suddenly, at her question, Michael found himself facing it, even as, when the final catastrophe was more remote, he had faced it with Falbe. All this week he knew he had been looking away from it, telling himself that it was incredible. Now he discovered that the one thing he dreaded more than that England should go to war, was that she should not. The consciousness of national honour, the thing which, with religion, Englishmen are most shy of speaking about, suddenly asserted itself, and he found on the moment that it was bigger than anything else in the world.

  “I think we shall go to war,” he said. “I don’t see personally how we can exist any more as a nation if we don’t. We—we shall be damned if we don’t, damned for ever and ever. It’s moral extinction not to.”

  She kindled at that.

  “Yes, I know,” she said, “that’s what I have been telling myself; but, oh, Mike, there’s some dreadful cowardly part of me that won’t listen when I think of Hermann, and…”