Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  On the Sunday Irish Nationalism had demonstrated visibly that it was preparing to meet the storm gathering in the north. A former clerk in the House of Commons, thriller-writer and Boer War veteran named Erskine Childers, a devoted supporter of Home Rule though of staunch Unionist stock on his mother's side, brought his yacht Asgard into Howth, five miles from Dublin, with an estimated 25,000 rifles for the Southern cause. Irish Volunteers unloaded the rifles, which were quickly dispersed on lorries before a British regiment from Dublin could arrive on the scene. The soldiers scattered the Nationalists, and having failed to intercept the smuggled rifles, marched back to Dublin, reviled and stoned by the mob who assumed, after the manner of most demonstrators, that discipline would prevent retaliation.

  Unfortunately, they were wrong. Where a south country regiment would have gritted its teeth and endured the jeers and even the missiles which severely injured several soldiers, the King's Own Scottish Borderers were made of more volatile material. As their march reached Bachelor's Walk, by the Liffey, the hail of brickbats increased, the commander of the contingent, Major Haig, was struck five times, and the Scots lost their tempers. Without orders, some of the soldiers opened fire on their tormentors, and although their officers managed to stop the shooting almost immediately, when the smoke had cleared there were three of the crowd dead on the ground and more than thirty wounded.

  The reverberations of those shots rolled all over Ireland, where there was natural indignation at this breach of the civilian's inalienable right to assault troops with impunity, and into Britain, where there was some dismay that a line regiment had so far broken its discipline as to fire on a technically unarmed mob. There was universal sympathy for the dead, and for a fourth victim, one of the wounded who died in hospital next day, although in his case sympathy was modified west of the Irish Sea when it was learned that although in plain clothes he was a British Army officer named Arthur Clayton.

  Mr Franklin received the stunning news in a note from Oxton Hall on Wednesday morning, and half an hour later, having hurried over from Castle Lancing, heard it from the lips of Sir Charles himself, standing in front of the great fireplace where five years ago King Edward had warned Mr Franklin to avoid the haddock at breakfast.

  'I can't imagine what he was doing there. He went across on the night boat, and I suppose got word of this business of the arms coming in, and went out to see what was happening. He wasn't with the troops, apparently - he must have been among the spectators, and when those fools opened fire. ..'

  The tragic irony of it sickened Mr Franklin. Arthur, the so unlikely Unionist fanatic, shot down by British troops, falling among those whom he regarded as his bitterest enemies. Arthur, the cheerful and honourable good companion, who had lied and cheated and been ready to sacrifice his own sister's happiness, for all he knew, in the cause of Loyalism. It was heart-breaking, but Mr Franklin's sympathy was all for the haggard old man, fighting to keep the emotion from showing in a face that had aged ten years.

  `I always hated this damned Irish business - hated it like the poison it is.' He was speaking quietly, but with an underlying force that shook him physically. `Even when it seemed harmless enough, old tales for children that they learned from their mother. God rest her. I'm only thankful that she didn't live to suffer this. I don't know how Arthur ever came to believe so passionately in ... in this Loyalist thing. Peggy, too, I suppose, although not like Arthur.' He raised his eyes, bright with grief and agony, to Mr Franklin's. 'It seems so ... impossible. Arthur was an Englishman, like me - and yet I suppose - I suppose he was Irish, too. There was a part of him that I knew nothing about. I suppose a father can never know more than half of his child.'

  There was nothing for Mr Franklin to say. Comfort, he knew, was seldom of any use even when the bereaved was in a highly emotional state, and Sir Charles Clayton was not emotional. Whatever he felt, he was expressing it calmly and sanely; if his face was ravaged and he had to clasp his hands together to prevent their trembling, he was still in control of himself. Mr Franklin knew that those few short sentences were the closest he would ever come to hearing Sir Charles's inner thoughts, that they were his class and kind's equivalent of the coronach or the sackcloth. They were being spoken now, to him, not only because he was the first person to whom they could have been spoken, but also because a man will speak to his son-in-law with a greater openness than he will use even to his own flesh and blood.

  `Won't you sit down, sir?' was all he could find to say, and Sir Charles shook his head.

  'No. If I sit down, I won't get up - and I'll have to be in Thetford in the next hour for the train. I'll catch the night mail from Liverpool and be in Dublin tomorrow.'

  `I'll come with you,' said Mr Franklin.

  'No. No, thank you, Mark.' Sir Charles took a deep breath. 'I'll be better alone. It's good of you, but you must look after Peggy. When the telegram came this morning - it came from Gough himself - I spoke on the telephone with your man Samson. It was he who told me you were at Lancing. But Peggy wasn't at home - went out to one of her parties last night, and hadn't returned. I'll telephone again before I go, and if she hasn't come back by then, perhaps you. ..'

  'I'll go up to Town, and we can come across and join you in Dublin.'

  'No - I'd rather you didn't.' Sir Charles hesitated, and then looked Mr Franklin in the eye, and his glance was defensive, almost hostile. 'The way in which this thing has happened ... it will be better if only I'm there when they. .. at the service, I mean.' Even to Mr Franklin, whom he liked and trusted better than any man living, now, Sir Charles was painfully reluctant to say what was in his mind. To him, to the soldier and the father of a soldier, there was something almost shameful in the manner of Arthur's death - shot in a squalid riot, accidentally, by his own comrades-in-arms. It was not such a death as he could ever have envisaged. That Arthur must have been a mere bystander was beside the point; his presence there had not been military, it had been partisan and political, and Sir Charles was tormented by the knowledge.

  'I suppose they'll bury him at the Curragh. They won't want any fuss. Gough's an old friend of mine - he'll see that things are properly ... properly looked after.' For a terrible moment Mr Franklin thought that Sir Charles would break down, but after a moment he went on steadily enough:

  'You and Peggy should stay in London - or down here, or at Castle Lancing. I should be back by the end of the week.'

  One of the servants came into the hall, carrying two suitcases, which he set down by the door. Sir Charles spoke, and his voice was harsh.

  'I said I wanted the large case - the brown one. Take one of those back and put its things in the brown case. The brown one. And don't lock it. I'll attend to it down here.'

  When the servant had gone, Sir Charles turned and glanced above the fireplace to where the great brass-hilted broadsword hung on its nails over the mantel. Abruptly he reached up to unhook it, but the thin wire which supported the scabbard was too tightly wound round the nails; he tugged sharply, and at the third tug the wire snapped. He turned with the weapon in his hands, looking down at the scabbard, black with age, and at the hilt, its leather grip cracked and discoloured. From tang to ferrule it must have measured over a yard, but no doubt the large brown suitcase would accommodate it. Sir Charles rested it against a chair beside the fireplace.

  'It can go into the ground with him,' he said.

  When he left Oxton Hall, Peggy had still not returned to Wilton Crescent, and the business of breaking the news of her brother's death would devolve on Mr Franklin. It was a task he would have shrunk from at any time, but ten times more so since the Savoy Ball, with all its attendant shocks and miseries which had left him in a confusion that was still, he realised, unresolved in his mind. But there was nothing for it, and an hour after Sir Charles had left Thetford to catch the connection that would take him across country to Liverpool, Mr Franklin boarded the train to London. Before he left he telephoned Samson, and gave instructions that nothing should be sai
d to Peggy until he got there.

  But when he arrived at Wilton Crescent, it was to find a grim-faced Samson, as nearly flustered as Mr Franklin had ever seen him, with the news that Peggy had returned and left again within an hour, for Ireland.

  'I very much regret it, sir, but when Sir Charles telephoned the first time, it seems that somehow Mrs Franklin's personal maid overheard my conversation - and learned of Mr Clayton's death. As you know, sir, she had been with the family since Mrs Franklin was a child; consequently, when Mrs Franklin came in this morning, she found Polly in tears, and learned the sad news from her. I am extremely sorry, sir. I told Mrs Franklin that you would be arriving, but she said she must go at once. She left to catch the Fishguard train a little under an hour ago.' Samson hesitated before adding the suggestion: 'I could have a telegram dispatched to meet the train at Fishguard if you wish, sir.

  No, thought Mr Franklin, let her go. Whatever Sir Charles felt, Peggy would want to be there. He knew how strong the tie between brother and sister had been - perhaps knew it better than Sir Charles himself. And the old man would be none the worse of Peggy's presence; nor would it cause the least embarrassment. Mr Franklin did not know General Gough, but he was quite sure, like Sir Charles, that everything would be looked after properly.

  There was no point in going to Ireland himself, however; that would have been an intrusion. Nor could he go back to Castle Lancing; whatever his and Peggy's feelings, he ought to be at Wilton Crescent when she returned.

  So he stayed in London, in that last week of July - the week which began not unlike so many other weeks, with the kind of domestic crisis that was now a familiar part of British experience, with rumours and fears and warnings of the kind that everyone took for granted, and of which they could say that they were no different from what their parents and even distant ancestors must have known. That fairly ordinary week, with its sunny weather promising well for the August Bank Holiday weekend, when Londoners would relax at the seaside, or picnic in the country, or take the children to the Zoo, the well-to-do planning motor trips to the Downs or weekends at Eastbourne, and the Cockneys dreaming of jellied eels and deck chairs and pints of old and mild and sand between the toes at Clacton or Southend. The week like so many others, that generations would look back on with a kind of disbelief and wonder, because it belonged to a world that no one would ever see again, the last ray of a setting sun that had risen in some misty, historic time before anyone could remember, and had shone brightly over a gradually changing but still comfortingly consistent scene, and was now about to go down at last. And what everyone would remember was how calm and untroubled it had been, with no possible hint of how the gears of time were about to change for millions of ordinary folk, clashing into a new and frightening revolution as the human race rushed suddenly forward into a new dark age. But in that week nobody knew. Nobody could possibly know.

  In that week the Stock Exchange fell, recovered, and fell again between Tuesday and Friday, when the Exchange closed. Consols went down to 71, their lowest ever, Bank rate doubled to 8 per cent and then rose to 10 per cent. For suddenly in mid-week even happy, sunny Britain was aware of a cloud thundering up into the sky beyond the eastern horizon, like a genie of smoke towering out of its opened bottle. On Wednesday came the news that Austrian troops were over the Serbian frontier, and Belgrade - unknown to the many, a name to some, a place on the map which school lessons hardly touched, to the informed - was being bombarded. It was still little enough; the foreigners were at it again, and good luck to them. Serbia had appealed to Russia for help almost a week earlier, and now Austrian troops were reported to be massing on the Russian frontier as the great useless bear began to stir; would there be war in the East? Possibly, but that was nothing new, and diplomacy would win the day in the end - but in the meantime, beyond the careless multitudes preparing for the holiday, there were officials at Westminster and Whitehall, and anxious men in the clubs, who were heard to remark that if- if, mind you - it came to the bit, we would fight, although God forbid we didn't want to,

  and probably wouldn't have to, because the Germans didn't want to, either, and was it true that Berlin had given a private undertaking that in the event of war (which was highly unlikely, of course) they would have no claim on French, Dutch, or Belgian territory? Well, that would let us out, surely - I don't know; they say Grey's rejected it; I'm more alarmed, let me tell you, about this Irish business - they say there have been outbreaks in Dublin. Oh, well, that was to be expected, after Howth - but to get back to the point, I'd think the Tsar had more sense, wouldn't you?

  But in the coast towns there were seamen, and even North Sea passengers, who had seen an ominous sight - the grey squadrons ploughing northwards through the sea mist, the endless columns of the most colossal naval power in history, the racing destroyers to the fore, the powerful cruisers, the stately and massive battle wagons, the Dreadnoughts, and in the pubs and at street corners from the Cinque Ports to Aberdeen the word was heard: 'The Fleet's gone to Scapa.' Yet even that was reassuring, too, for it was a reminder that Britannia was on the waves again, the indestructible English wall, and the trawler and lobstermen from the Dogger to the Forth could watch the mighty shapes dwindle into the fog and take comfort from the knowledge that there was no force on salt water that could threaten the lighted shoreline of their homes and harbours.

  Mr Franklin, in Wilton Crescent, thanked God that he hadn't been induced to buy Consols, and wondered if Peggy and her father would be back by the weekend.

  On the Thursday it was learned in the high places, and filtered through the lofty hall of the Reform and the hushed chambers of the Athenaeum, that Germany had demanded that Russia should cease mobilising her forces. Trust that damned idiot of a Kaiser to start throwing his weight about. Pompous little ass. Well, when you've got four million men under arms, presumably you think you can rattle your sabre. No doubt - what are the French going to do about it, though?

  Then on the Friday, when it was realised that a financial crisis at least was suddenly impending, the word went round that old Rothschild had headed a deputation of bankers and City men calling on the Chancellor, Lloyd George, with an appeal that, whatever happened on the Continent, Britain should remain neutral; it was understood that the Chancellor was firmly opposed to war . . . oh, no doubt, but I heard that that firebrand Churchill is spoiling for a fight. Indeed, but it's what Grey and Asquith think that matters, wouldn't you say? - I mean, everyone knows what young Winston's like. What about Rothschild and his lot, then? - I don't know, but I shouldn't mind betting there's a German Jewish banking conspiracy at work both here and in Berlin. Well, that'd be a blessing for once - they're the last ones who want to see everything go up in smoke. Is it true about the run on gold? Well, I heard they're going to print bank-notes. What on earth for? Well, my dear chap, for the simple reason that there's only enough gold in the cellar to meet five percent of the commercial paper. And they tell me the bank notes are going to be boosted as being 'as good as gold' while Lloyd George puts his head in a bucket and wonders what to do next. And I heard there was a meeting and someone suggested a moratorium, and Lloyd George didn't even know what a blasted moratorium was. Fact .. .

  Mr Franklin listened to the small talk, and wondered with slight unease if the eagles and sovereigns in his safe deposit box were such a sound investment after all. He had no real inkling of what the financial scuttlebutt was all about, anyway, and he had no time to waste speculating on what seemed to be happening in Europe. Possibly Peggy would be back by the week-end, and he was not sure what he was going to do about that.

  That Friday night the excursion trains steamed out of the brightly-lit stations, the shop shutters went up, fathers and mothers spread the wages on the kitchen table and calculated how much could be set aside for fun at the seaside, excited children were told to get out of the way of the packing and get upstairs or there won't be any holiday or ice-cream or Punch and Judy, and if you don't put them spades and buckets down I'
ll ... the pubs did splendid business, society gave a great sigh as it settled down to dinner at the Trocadero and Monico's and agreed that it had been a jolly good season, really, queues a quarter of a mile long stood in cheerful patience watching the buskers and waiting to get into the second house of Pip, Squeak!, and inside the huge, stuffy, smoke-filled theatre, a packed audience roared its applause as a radiant Miss Delys stamped her high-heeled boots, clapped her hands, and with a thunderous accompaniment from the big drum, led the multitude in the new popular chant invented by Saki which was running round the city like wildfire:

  Cousin Teresa takes out Caesar,

  Fido, Jack, and the big Bor-zoi!

  Stamp-stamp from the strutting principal, and boom-boom from the drummer, on the last two syllables. 'All right, everyone - let's have it again!' And in Plymouth and Deal, in Yarmouth and Grimsby, in Dundee and Peterhead, in Oban and Douglas and Cardigan Bay, holiday visitors noted idly as they strolled in the dusk that there were, unusual numbers of fishing vessels lying at the quays, but of the fishermen themselves hardly a sign. And at the stations the men in blue jerseys and reefers and sea-boots were kissing wives and girls goodbye and boarding the trains with their canvas hold-alls on their shoulders, for all over the island the reserve of the great fleet was mustering in response to urgent signals from the Admiralty. Whatever happened elsewhere, by Sunday every British seaman, regular or civilian, would be at his station, ready for war.

  Still, for the majority of the nation, there was no real sense that the peace was about to be disturbed until the appearance, on the Saturday, of armed sentries at such strategic points as railway stations and level crossings. That, with the news in the day's papers that Russian and Austrian mobilisation had become general, and that Germany had issued a stern demand to France to stay neutral in the event of eastern hostilities, finally brought home, even to the least interested, that something was seriously wrong, and that this time the crisis might not blow over. Mr Franklin, walking by way of Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square to the Strand, after digesting the foreign news with his breakfast, was struck by the air of normality and calm of the crowds who, as usual, thronged the great thoroughfares; at first he assumed that they did not understand the gravity of the events that were convulsing the chancelleries of Europe, including their own, that they did not fully appreciate that within a few days they might be at war with the most powerful enemy they had ever faced, whose troops outnumbered their own by six to one, and were as great as those of Britain and France combined, that they might face invasion, or the unguessed terror of attack from the air. He did not, himself, expect these things to happen; it was difficult to believe, on this fine morning, that already at the other end of the continent men and women were dying under gunfire, or that the peaceful air of England might be shattered by bombs and high explosives, that battles might be fought in her streets and enemy armies march across her fields. Extremely unlikely - but even so, he would have expected the remote possibility to produce some effect on popular behaviour. Not panic, or even gloom; after five years he knew them better than that - but at least gravity, sober and concerned discussion, a diminution of the happy, careless bustle he saw all around him, perhaps even an eager congregation outside the great newspaper offices to hear the latest news. There might have been expected just a little reduction in the city's normal high spirits.