Four Days War

by S. Fowler Wright

Robert Hale & Company
London
1936
See prequel Prelude in Prague
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"As though men fought upon the ground,
And fields in upper air."

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

IT was Saturday, February 5th, 1938. The time was 4.57 p.m. - the afternoon following the night on which Germany had stunned the world by the destruction of Prague, and the announcement that Czechoslovakia must be spoken of in the past tense.

        The British cabinet was in session. Fifteen minutes before, Mr. Ganston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had entered the room bringing an ultimatum from the German Ambassador.

        He had said that Germany did not desire war that she did not ask that England should take her side if she should be attacked by any combination of foreign powers, as a result of the act of aggression which she had committed in the darkness of the previous night, and consummated during the day. All she asked was an immediate assurance that England would remain neutral in such event. As guarantee, she had required that the fortress of Gibraltar, and the control of the Suez Canal, should be surrendered to Germany until the crisis should be averted or overcome. As reward, he had offered assurance that a victorious Germany would not require return of the colonies which had once been hers, and were now under British control.

        A refusal of these conditions, to which an explicit answer was required not later than 5 p.m., would be the signal for instant war - and the German air-fleets had shown during the previous night how numerous they had become, how swiftly they could attack, and how terrible was their destructive power.

        In delivering this ultimatum, Baron Kronin had pointed out that the fact of its presentation should be sufficient evidence of the reality of the friendship which it professed, for did not Germany forego thereby the opportunity of surprise attack? Had it not been equally in her power to have struck without warning during the coming night, and perhaps to have completed the work of death before morning came? As it was, Mr. Ganston could observe, without calculation from him, that there would be an interval of about two hours, should England be stubborn to meet her fate, before the battle-fleets of her foe would darken the moonlit skies.

        As to the guarantees which were required, Baron Kronin expressed surprise that Mr. Ganston should be moved to protest or indignation, for had not the day gone by when they had been of importance to an Empire which was now breaking apart? What were they now but the reminders of ended power, the keys of an empty chest, the right-of-way to properties which were falling to other heirs? Mr. Ganston, after losing some time in argument and expostulation, had realized the finality of the ultimatum which he had received, and hurried to the cabinet meeting which was then sitting, with little more than a quarter of an hour remaining for a decision on which millions of human lives, born and unborn, the future of the British race, and perhaps even the civilization to which it belonged, must ultimately depend. . . .

        For the past ten minutes, Mr. Marmaduke Bewdley, the British Premier, had sat silent while the contentious voices around him were no more than the sound of a distant sea. For he saw that there would be no unanimity to be reached by the divided cabinet of which he was in little more than a nominal control. . . . no wisdom or inspiration to come from them. Almost to a man, he could have guessed correctly what the decision or indecision of each would be, and there was no gain in listening to their clamour of anger or doubt, of courage or prudence now. At the last, the decision must be his, and he was too honest in the process of his mind to attempt to confuse the fact by appealing to those who would support him from either side.

        It must be his word which, for the coming hours, must continue peace, or loose the horrors of war on the unconscious city, and the wider country beyond. . . . And he knew that it was Mr. Ganston's belief, which had been largely supported by the annihilation of Prague, that the secret air-fleets of Germany could attack in instant, overwhelming strength the slender barriers of plane and battery which the pacific temper of the English people and the exigencies of internal politics had provided for their defence.

        It was too late to regret that now: futile to ponder whether it had been under his premiership that history would record the ruin of the British Empire - or else its shame. There was this decision to be made, and, though it would be in the nation's name, it must, in reality, be resolved in his single mind, as he regarded the price of peace: by himself alone, as courage or caution ruled: by his fortitude or his fear. . . .

        Through the din of voices there came the sound of a striking clock. A voice said: "That's three minutes fast. There's time yet."

        So it was. There were three minutes yet. There was still time. Time for honour or shame: for prudence or many deaths.

        Mr. Bewdley rose. He said: "I will see Kronin myself. I must suppose he will wait for that."

        Mr. Lloyd-Davids said sharply: "But you must tell us what you intend."

        Mr. Bewdley was impatient in his reply: "How can I say that? I must be guided by what I hear. But I shall not give Germany what she demands."

        A voice asked: "Even though it mean war?"

        "Even though we may be subject to unprovoked attack, such as, I suppose, will stir the world to become aware of the common peril of all."

        He looked round the confused, excited groups of ministers among whom little of calmness or self-control had survived the sudden news of this monstrous threat.

He said: "Gentlemen, I shall seek peace if by any means it may yet be found; but you have heard that we are menaced with instant war, and the seconds count. There is no use in remaining here. . . . But, till you hear more from me, there must be no mention of this."

        He looked at the Foreign Minister as he passed him, feeling that there was one at least whom the moment would not confound. He asked: "You will inform France?"

        "It will be done as the hour strikes. I gave instructions before I came."

        As he spoke, the voice of Mr. Denver, the Minister for Transport, rose in irritable impatience, his usual truculence subdued to a nervous note: "I don't see what he means. We can't do anything till we know. There'd be a panic at once."

        Mr. Bewdley heard, and turned back to reply: "Isn't it Saturday? London will have been emptying itself about as fast as it can. Don't let anyone come in. That alone may be the saving of thousands of lives. But panic? Don't you know your own countrymen better than that? Aren't you prepared for this hour?" He turned his glance from Mr. Denver, as he went on: "It will be well to stop all the broadcasting programmes, and warn everyone to leave their receivers on, and to await news of urgent national importance. . . . No one will be surprised at that, after what's happened in Central Europe today."

        In the outer room, he paused to speak to his secretary: "Telephone Baron Kronin that I will be with him in four minutes. Say that I ask him to conclude nothing till I arrive."

        He went out to the street, facing the little crowd that was round the door, and looked about for the quickest vehicle he could find. Its horn screaming for other traffic to stand aside, an ambulance shot down the street. Mr. Bewdley spoke to a uniformed constable on the pavement: "Stop me that."

        The man knew him, and obeyed the urgency of his command. He stepped into the street, standing with lifted arms in the way of the approaching vehicle.

        The driver braked sharply, and stopped no more than two feet from the obstructing constable.

        "Don't stop us, officer," a young man who sat at the driver's side, and had the aspect of a medical student, protested earnestly, "there's a woman inside who's near bleeding to death now."

        Mr. Bewdley, showing no sign that he heeded, or even heard, clambered up to the driver's seat, making a third on the narrow front of the vehicle.

        "The German Embassy," he said. "Stop for nothing. Make the best speed you can."

        The driver looked a bewildered hesitation. His companion protested again. "But you cannot. It is a matter of life and - - "

        "It is a matter of peace or war," Mr. Bewdley answered sharply. "Of peace or war, and the seconds count. . . . I suppose you know who I am?"

        It was the first time in his life that he had evoked the authority of his position, as giving him precedence over the movements of lesser men. An hour before he would have said that it was an impossible thing for him to do.

        He was not sure whether the medical student knew him. Perhaps he guessed, but was less than sure. But the plea prevailed. The young man was no fool. He recognized the significance of the fact that it had been a policeman who had assisted Mr. Bewdley into that crowded seat. He said: "Well, sir, I suppose you know. Go ahead, Bill."

        The ambulance had not halted for more than fifteen seconds before it shot forward again, and its horn screamed to the crowded evening traffic to give it way. Mr. Bewdley had a moment for thought. He was still unsure what he would say, but he realized that it might be well to have some record beyond the memory of the spoken word. He drew out a pocket memorandum-book, interleaved with carbon sheets, in which he was accustomed to write memoranda for his secretary or others, copies of which he wished to retain for his own reference. He wrote with such steadiness as the moving vehicle allowed.

        "We have no intention of war. Any attack made upon us will be an act of unprovoked aggression."

CHAPTER II

BARON KRONIN received Mr. Bewdley without delay, and with the courtesy due to the high position he held. That this courtesy was of more than a formal kind, that it had any real cordiality, would have been as difficult to decide as to demonstrate any evidence of antipathy to the English Premier.

        The Baron was not typical, either in appearance or manner, of the race to which he belonged. He was small, spare, bald-headed, coldly suave in speech, and very sparing of words.

        He had been in diplomatic service at the time when Hitler had come to power, and he had accepted the position without protest, or, indeed, any avoidable expression of opinion of any kind, and having continued in service abroad, he had not been associated with the periodic measures by which the Fuhrer intimidated his foes, and rid himself of lukewarm or potentially dangerous friends, which negative advantages may have assisted his reputation for discretion and some other qualities that the office required.

        He rose as Mr. Bewdley entered the room, and advanced with an outstretched hand.

        "You have come," he asked, "that we may discuss the details of our accord?"

        "I have come in friendship, and to make accord if I can. . . . I have come to tell you that, even after what has happened in Prague, you can rely upon our influence in the councils of Europe to find some way to a common peace.

        "Do you wish me to understand that you reject to offer which we have made, for which, indeed, the hour is already gone?"

        "As it came to me, it appeared to be of an almost incredible kind, such as no government could propose to a friendly power, unless it were resolved to provoke war, which, if I may say it without offence, it would be foolish to do. It is an hour when Germany should seek friends, and the aid of those who desire peace"

        Baron Kronin was not direct in his reply, and, for the first time in his diplomatic career, something of the usual suavity left his voice, for he felt that its need gone.

        "We are resolved," he said, "that our race shall take its rightful place in the world, but there will be no more war than this end requires; and, I suppose, it will not be much"

        "You will have such a war as will shake the world and in which your own land will be most certain to fall"

        "Do you think that? Well, I must say you are wrong. You have witnessed the fate of Prague. Do you call it war? We have done no more than impose our will"

        As he thought of the power of his own land, it seemed to him, for the moment, as it had been regarded by his Government in Berlin, a folly too great for a responsible statesman, and one of Mr Bewdley's moderation to choose, that he should reject the terms which had been proposed.

        At a cooler moment, he had been of a different opinion, but now he remembered that his instructions had been to persuade the English Government to yield, if it were anyway possible, though he was not to abate his terms. He had done what he could to this end with Mr. Ganston an hour before. Now he went on: "I can understand that you may be reluctant to grant our terms, but there are some facts that you should not miss. We offer peace, which your nation values - perhaps too much. We offer security, under the shadow of German power. We do not even require that you shall draw the sword at our side. There may be shedding of German blood, while your own people shall sleep in safety and undisturbed."

        Mr. Bewdley was blunt: "We should be as safe as a sheep in a butcher's field."

        Baron Kronin thought: "Even so, does a sheep challenge the butcher to prove his power, while he would be engaged in another way?" But he replied in more courteous words, though their meaning was no less plain.

        "Yet I still say that you must face facts, be they pleasant or not. We are a nation that has been long arming for war. For the past four years we have worked for no other end, while you have gone by another road. It is too late for regret.

        "We have striven," Mr. Bewdley replied, "to make friendship with you, without falsehood to those who were our allies at a former time."

        "And you have counted on that! Had we quarrel with Belgium twenty-four years ago?"

        "You had none, as we know. But is not the unprovoked invasion of that country already condemned by the verdict of history? Is it not recognized as the fatal error which roused the indignation of many lands, which ranged this country among your foes, and was no less than the blunder by which you fell?"

        "There may be those by whom that is said, but our own writers, whom you may have no leisure to read, give us a different blame, and have an opposite cause for our non-success at that time. They say that our respect for the neutrality of Holland was the error by which we fell. Had we been - - "

        Baron Kronin was not unaware that he was speaking with an unusual freedom, the excitement of the hour, even to one of his own severe mental discipline, having an effect of fatigue, loosening control, and rendering him more voluble to the impulse of thought than it was his habit to be. But there was calculation also in his freedom of words, for if he failed (as he saw he did) in persuading Mr. Bewdley to yield, then there was gain in every second that he could be delayed, while the German air-fleets were rising into the skies.

        But Mr. Bewdley, having seen that he came on a useless quest, was as alert to this point as he. He interrupted now with a brusqueness which he would not have used at a quieter time.

        "If you say that, we are wasting words. With such code, your country could be no more than a trustless friend, and a less peril to those who call her an open foe. . . . But we have made no quarrel with you, and so that there may be no doubt on that point, I will give you this, which I have worded with care."

        As he spoke, he handed Baron Kronin the written slip which he had prepared.

        The Baron read it, and smiled. What use was there, he wondered, in writing such words as that? He had heard it said that the pen was mightier than the sword, which he would have agreed to be true while the sword is sheathed, but no longer than that. He thought that all chatter was futile now.

        He dropped the slip on to the table beside which they stood, and the slight movement of his hand was as contemptuous as though it had been thrown to the lighted grate.

        "Well," he said, if you can find comfort in that! . . .

But you have proved me right. It is what I told Berlin that you would, on which, as I had some reason to judge, they had thought me wrong. . . . But it may be best, even for you. You have had your day, and the next is ours. You have chosen to come to ground with the harder bump, but your doubt will be sooner done. . . . You will let me have my papers that I may leave, which I would prefer to do in the next hour?"

        "It is late tonight. Tomorrow morning, I have no doubt - - "

        "I would prefer to take earlier leave."

        Mr. Bewdley was ironic in his reply: "Those who make unprovoked attacks - - We must hope that, for so short a time, our air-fleets will be sufficient for your defence."

        Baron Kronin said: "It is a poor hope," but he made no further protest at that delay, the refusal to give him instant permission to leave by the usual channels actually suiting his plans, which his request had been intended to blind. For his orders were to remain in England, making his way to a secret German resort in Wiltshire during the night. There would be much occupation in England for such as he when they should take control on the next day, as it was intended that they should do.

        Mr. Bewdley said: "Well, I may see you again, but I think not. They shook hands with formality, and a consciousness that they played their parts in a drama that dwarfed themselves.

        Mr. Bewdley went out at a sharp pace, and took a taxi to Downing Street, telling the driver to lose no time, but having no thought after that for the pace at which he might drive, whether fast or slow, his mind being busy with many thoughts.

        Now that his decision was made, he had lost consciousness of himself, or of the years by which, at times, his shoulders were somewhat bowed.

        He knew now that he had given the only possible answer to the insolent ultimatum that would have made his country the vassal of German power, and that his decision would still be right, even though it should lead to no better end than that England should be destroyed in a night of blood: would still be right, even though (which he did not think) English people should curse his name for the words he had spoken then. For he saw that, for the race as for the single man, there is a small question of death, but a great one of how they die. . . .

        He turned his mind to wonder at the arrogance of this sudden assertion of German power, which seemed willing, to flout the world in the confidence of its single strength. And yet - sudden? Had not all its energies been openly spent, in the world's sight, during the last four years, to prepare it for such a day?

        Even so, he wondered. With Southern Europe to face, with England upon its right, and Russia upon its left - - It had made a mistake once, underrating its foes. But would it do so a second time? What diabolic, unimagined engines of war might it not have contrived with which to enslave the world? Well, he might know before the next dawn should come.

        But fundamentally, and with a profundity of relief, under all these thoughts there was the consciousness that his part was done. He had loosed forces which, within the next hour, would pass beyond his restraint, and which he would have little power to control.

CHAPTER III

M. Bonnier considered the position of France, which he did not like: he considered his own, with which he was no better pleased.

        He had been in office for seven months, which is a long time for a French Government to endure. He was menaced by the Agrarian party on one side, and on the other by the Royalists of the Right, who had become formidable in their own guise since Fascism had ceased to be a name by which enthusiasm could be aroused. The troubles in Syria and Algeria did not lessen, and now there was this crisis in Europe which appeared to give him the sour choice of disastrous war, or accepting the domination of Germany in Central Europe to a degree which must be inimical to his country's honour, and to her safety in later days. And the latter course must mean, when it should become known, that his Government would fall in an hour.

        Even those who might approve the prudence of what he did would observe the expediency of his disappearance from power, as though its shame could be lifted thus from the shoulders of France to fall wholly upon his own.

        Yet to resist? It was a question which - unless in the negative - France could not answer alone. What, he asked himself, would Russia - would England - say? . . .

        A secretary entered his room. "Sir Charles Duffield," he said, "is on the telephone. He says it is a matter of extreme urgency. He would speak to you only."

        M. Bonnier became alert at the call to action, which he did not doubt it to be. England, he thought, must have obtained some new information concerning German intentions, or have proposals to make, and she therefore approached her ally to confide, or as one seeking advice. Subconsciously, he was somewhat heartened by this evidence that England stood at his side at the critical hour. He did not suppose that Germany would make advances to England of first importance before approaching himself; for the problem, as he saw it, was one of Central Europe, military in character, and which primarily concerned his own country, and Russia, with which France was allied.

        Yet it was possible that Germany was using London to discover whether, or at what price, she would be left to the peaceful digestion of the prey she had so suddenly seized. He said: "Have him put through at once."

        He heard the British Ambassador's statement of the ultimatum which his Government had received, with a moment of consternation, until the assurance followed that Germany would not obtain the guarantees for which she had asked; and then with a very natural weakness of human relief as he realized that the first fury of German attack would not be directed towards the frontiers of France; and that England, or what of England would remain when the night had passed, would be at war with those who were the foes of his own land. It may have been a natural though a baser thought that found a moment of satisfaction in the fact that the German and English air-fleets would be the first to meet in a mutually destructive encounter, while that of France might remain entire to a later hour.

        He rallied his mind to reply "You can tell your Government that France will be speedy to act, for it is plain that the hour is come." He was too rational to suppose that his country could stand aside, unless it would be destroyed on a later day, and it may have been without meaning more or less than his words implied that he added: "But it is a matter on which, as you will comprehend, my collegues must be informed. Fortunately, they are not distant to call. In half an hour I will give you a more formal reply."

        Sir Charles Duffield accepted this assurance, being very much what he had expected to hear, and did not delay M. Bonnier with further words.

        He knew that France was unwilling to face a war which came, for her, at a most inopportune time, when she had armies abroad, with some hundreds of the best of her battle-planes; but he did not doubt, and M. Bonnier's own words had confirmed, that she would recognize that it was to be thrust upon her, unless she would bend her neck to the Führer's foot. If England had been asked to stand aside, it could only be that Germany wished for a clear field in which France might be trodden flat. If England, having refused that ignominious neutrality, was to be attacked in the night, then it was vital for France to strike also with no avoidable second's delay, either to give relief to an ally who might yet be potent for her own aid, or to wound her foe at a time when the larger portion of her own air-fleets would be absent from German skies.

        Sir Charles reflected, with satisfaction, that the air-fleets of France must be already alert, for the destruction which had fallen upon Prague was a warning that her Air Minister would not ignore, however willing she might be to delay the issue of war. And when he considered the strength of France, and the number of bombing-planes, after deducting those that were absent in her colonial wars, that she could still send out for the destruction of German towns, he had the same wonder that had passed through Mr. Bewdley's mind that Germany should have been so rash in unprovoked attack on the British Isles. He saw that it was no more than assumption that such attack would be made in immediate force. A threat might have been made in anticipation that England would yield, and in excess of any hostile movement which would occur. Yet that was not a probable supposition, for if there could be any military excuse for provoking Britain to war, it could only be on the calculation that she could be destroyed before her allies could become active either in assistance or counter-attack.

        Well, these were doubts that would be resolved before morning should come! He lost no time in telephoning to London that the French cabinet had been convened, and that its meeting would be a matter of minutes rather than hours, for it had been a day during which the governments of Europe had been in almost continual session, and he added a confident word as to what her action would be. M. Bonnier, he said, had spoken as one who saw the crisis for what it was, and would face it in a resolute way.

        But when, having waited for nearly an hour for a message which did not come, he had called up M. Bonnier again, and heard his voice after some prolonged, and, it had seemed to him, evasive delay, the reply was less satisfactory than he had been expecting to hear.

        M. Bonnier did not endeavour to discount the urgency of the position, nor did he suggest any doubt of the ultimate purpose of France. But a question had arisen as to the construction of a clause in the Russian treaty, concerning which it was of vital importance that no error of procedure should occur.

        The position was that, in the event of either France or Russia being attacked, her ally was bound to take arms in her support. But if a war of aggression should be commenced, this obligation would not apply. The fact that Germany had threatened war upon England could not, in itself, be regarded as an attack upon France, particularly as England had declined to become a party to the Franco-Russian alliance, as, Sir Charles Duffield would recall, she had been invited to do.

        M. Bonnier had discussed the position with the Russian Ambassador, who had expressed his personal conviction that the Soviet Republics would recognize the attack upon England, following the seizure of Czechoslovakia, as evidence that Germany had resolved to dominate Europe, which must either submit to be subdued in detail, or unite in resistance now. Faced with such alternatives, there could be little doubt of what their answer would be. But, he had urged, it would be, at the best, imprudent, at the worst disastrous, for France to interpose in a quarrel which was at present confined to England and Germany, without preconsultation with her ally. . . . And what difference could it make? It was no more than a matter of a few hours, and most probably less than that. He would get into communication with Moscow immediately, and there was no reason to doubt that she would accept the occasion for common action in the spirit of a treaty the letter of which France would have been scrupulous to observe. And meanwhile, would the time be lost? Could it not be used - would it actually be more than was required - for the dispositions which caution and good generalship would require before the frontiers of Germany could wisely be crossed?

        So M. Bonnier reported the Soviet Ambassador's words; and so, in fact, he had said.

        That he had gone somewhat further was more than it had seemed necessary to repeat. For he had not scrupled to throw out a quite different suggestion - that it might not, even yet, be too late to avert the horrors of continental war, for which France was, at the moment, so ill-prepared. The British Empire was large and rich. Suppose that Germany could satisfy herself from that dish, even to the point of repletion, and of throwing some unpicked bones to those who should not disturb her meal?

        M. Bonnier did not entertain that suggestion. Judgement and inclination combined in its rejection, for which he gave the Russian Ambassador good reasons enough, and such as appeared to bring conviction to that gentleman's mind. But he was not surprised that it should have been made, knowing that there was no cordiality between the English people and the tyranny which had Russia so surely beneath its heel; and while he put the suggestion aside, he saw in it an additional reason for having the position of Moscow clearly defined before he should cast the fortunes of France to the hazard of a war from which her ally might make excuse to stand aside. If Russia desired to put a limit to German power (as he did not doubt) then she must take her place in the field, as she would be no less likely to do if she found that France would not hazard a separate war.

        So he thought; and so he found the feeling of his colleagues to be. That which he told Sir Charles Duffield was the truth, though not all. It was true that France was arming in haste; that she was ready, even eager, to spring at the throat of her ancient foe while it was engaged in attacking the British Isles; that she both desired and anticipated that Russia would support her in that policy.

        In evidence of the friendship of France, M. Bonnier added information that had just come to his hands. The neutrality of Holland had already been violated, with her own consent, if such it could be called, where she had no reasonable alternative but to submit.

        Germany had notified the Dutch Government, less than an hour ago, that she intended to cross Holland with air-fleets which she had herself put at a strength of four thousand planes. They would drop no bombs, would do no damage to the cities of Holland, if they were allowed unobstructed course. Resistance would mean that the fate of Czechoslovakia yesterday would be that of Holland today. . . . What could she do but submit? Even now, M. Bonnier said, his information was that these air-fleets were passing over the Dutch coast, in a formation having a front three or four miles in width, and taking a direction from which it appeared that their objective must be considerably north of the Thames estuary.

        Sir Charles thanked him for information which showed on which side his sympathies lay, though he did not suppose that London would be less accurately informed. He said that he would pass the information on without any delay.

        "So you may," the French Premier replied, "for the telephone service will be cleared for your use, and you may also wire if you will. Our communications with London should not be easy to interrupt. But most of the services with Northern and Eastern Europe have been out of action for the last hour, and there is confusion upon the air."

CHAPTER IV

EUSTACE ASHFIELD glanced at the clock and rose hastily. It was 4.55 p.m. and if he left with no further minutes' delay he could reach New Street station in time to catch the 5.15 for Bromsgrove, which he was determined to do though the heavens; fell - or should he say though the Germans came? Certainly a more possible, though still widely improbable thing.

        It had been an exciting, eventful day. He had waked with the pleasant anticipation of how its later hours were to be spent, which, of itself, would have been enough to engage his mind; but after that there had been the news of the destruction of Prague, and the stark horror of that event had been the inescapable topic in all men's mouths, with wonder, or indignation, or pity, or perhaps fear, as their natures were; and everywhere through the Midland Metropolis there had been speculation or apprehension of what the next day would bring. It was plain to see that Europe lay under the shadow of war. The question was would France fight, being so ill-situated as she now was? Or would she protest and yield, as she had done when Austria had fallen into the arms of the Third Reich? And if she made this a cause of war, would England be able to stand aside? Opinions had differed about that. Some said that it would be foolish for her to intrude into problems of Central Europe, with which she had no concern. Why should she interfere with Czech and German and Frank and Slav? Let them make Europe a slaughter-house if they would. England had preached peace for the last twenty years, and if she practised it, who could blame her for that? And the Germans were a virile race, who could not be kept down. The more the strength of German armaments, secret and open, were disclosed or guessed, the more obvious it became that England would be wise to avoid the storm. And Germany had shown, more than once in the last four years, that that was all she desired. Let the brutes in the bearpit fight, if they could be content in no other way, and let England look over the edge, and perhaps bring them to reason at last, when they had shed as much blood as they were willing to lose!

        There were others who saw facts in a clearer light, and even some who were not greatly averse from war, which, they had little doubt, would bring fortune to them. . . . There was a tale going about of a manufacturer in the last war who had papered his dining-room walls completely with one-pound notes, in the exuberance of wealth which was thrust upon him at a bewildering and ever-increasing rate. . . . There was a boot-black who recalled having been paid six-pound-ten a week for nearly two years for the simple labour of binding hay.

        Eustace had heard such talk, and its excitement had warred with that of his more personal concerns, and then at midday he had had a new subject for thought when he had opened a War Office telegram which read: Commence manufacture gas-masks to your utmost capacity report maximum output tonights post acknowledge this by wire our confirmation following.

        Well, be it peace or war, there was financial security for himself; there was the prosperity which would mean so much, and had seemed so doubtful twenty-four hours before.

        He had not neglected what was required. He had stopped all other work, putting every machine that he had on the gas-mask parts He had reported the maximum that he could do, by the aid of a night-shift, with his present plant, and the increased deliveries he could make by the purchase of some extra lathes. He had applied to the Labour Exchange for the additional hands he would require for the night-shift. He had neglected nothing, and on Monday he would put in any hours that the work required. . . . but tonight he was catching the 5.15, though the heavens fell.

        It was only three months before that Eustace Ashfield, then in his third year at Oxford, had found his studies suddenly interrupted by his uncle's death, and then that they were not destined to be resumed.

        His uncle had supported him while he lived, and, dying had left him all that he had. Unfortunately, it was not much; and it was in the form of a business from which, in his uncle's hands, a small, diminishing income had been derived. Interviews with lawyers and accountants had made it clear that, if the business were closed, capital and income would both be gone. The business was like a horse, skinny and tough, which might yet be useful to drive or ride, but, if it were knocked on the head, there would be little flesh to be scraped from its ancient bones.

        He had had the choice of letting it go, and pocketing any surplus it might provide, or taking his uncle's place; and he had chosen the bolder course, the wisdom of which had not been beyond doubt, as the turnover had shown a tendency to decline, and the expenses to rise, under his sanguine but inexperienced management.

        Among the more doubtful assets of the business had been a patent for improvements in gas-mask construction taken out more than two years before, and concerning which there was a long correspondence with a War Office department, and evidence of several journeys to London on his uncle's part, all of which appeared to have been of an exasperatingly inconclusive character.

        The department had hesitated, criticized, tested, required alterations of pattern, invited quotations for very large quantities - but it had not bought.

        Now it seemed that fortune had come through the bombs that had ruined Prague. And it could not have come at a more opportune time. Eustace Ashfield was not indifferent to the sufferings of others, nor oblivious of the shadow that fell darkly across the face of the world, but his heart was light as he slammed his desk, and ran down the narrow winding stair that led to the street door.

        For nearly two months now, since three weeks before Christmas, when he had seen her first (he had, of course, heard of her some months earlier, and seen her pictured in the daily press), the thought of Imogen Lister had disturbed his sleep, and dominated his business hours. But to meet her socially, in the absence of mutual acquaintances, and at a time when she was not seeking friends, but had come to visit her aunt's Bromsgrove home to avoid an unwelcome publicity, had proved difficult, even to the persistent purpose of his infatuation, and it was only a week before that he had achieved it in what he foolishly supposed to have been a natural and casual manner. Using his opportunity with commendable adroitness, he had mentioned a near performance of Journey's End by the local dramatic society, and on her saying that she had not seen that once-popular play, he had replied, in advance of fact, that he had two tickets, and would she care to do so?

        "Which day is it?" she had asked, and then: "Saturday? Oh, yes, I could manage that."

        So, in a moment, it had been concluded. And after that, in view of the fact that her aunt's house was near the hall where the play was to be performed, and that he lived nearly two miles away from the railway station in the opposite direction, it had been almost inevitable that he should be expected to call for her.

        "You will come for tea?" she had asked "It won't matter it being late if you're kept in town I shall be going in myself in the afternoon."

        Imogen Lister was one of whom few had heard six months before, but whose name had now become one of those of which the whole world talks for a time, after which it is forgotten by most with an equal ease. She had won a notoriety less pleasant in experience than imagination when she had made a solitary nonstop flight, which had crossed the Antarctic from Tasmania to the Falkland Islands - the most spectacular crossing of lonely seas and forbidding land which had not been already attempted and overcome.

CHAPTER V

THE train which Eustace Ashfield caught was one which would be filled during the week with the more prosperous of Birmingham business and professional men - those who could afford to leave their offices at a comparatively early hour, and to reside some considerable distance from the city on its more expensive residential side - but would be comparatively empty on Saturday. The men among whom he sat, most of whom had been detained, like himself, by the unusual circumstances of the day, were more or less known to each other, and there was a feeling of excitement among them, of the imminence of momentous event, of apprehension which was less than a painful dread, and yet enough to make them abnormally conscious of their surroundings and of themselves, sufficient to somewhat diminish the reticence of speech and emotion which is characteristic of the Midland English.

        This feeling was not decreased when the door of the compartment was pulled open, as the train was already moving at some speed round the curving platform, and a young stockbroker tumbled in.

        "There'll be a war before morning," he said, without waiting to gain his breath. He stood by the door, for the seats were already occupied beyond further crowding. He addressed no one in particular, for, when he had leisure to choose, he was accustomed to the comparative emptiness of the first-class carriages, and these men were strangers to him; but he was answered by: "A good many are saying that." "And a good thing, too, so long as we've got the sense to keep out." "Yes, it's bound to come now, and the sooner it's over the better." "Between France and Germany, I suppose?" "It isn't hard to guess that." "What's the news now?"

        The stockbroker, having recovered breath, answered the last question: "There isn't any news yet. But they've stopped everything on the radio, and told everyone to keep tuned in and wait for something that's coming through. I wouldn't have missed it, only I'd promised to be home tonight on this train."

        A voice discounted the importance of this information: "Well, I don't know that there's much in that. There's nothing much on the radio at this time of day. There'd be next to nobody listening-in."

        "I wouldn't say that," another voice answered from the far corner, that of a quiet, elderly man, with a tired, lined face, "I believe it's the Children's Hour."

        So it was agreed that it was. If there were few others, there would be many children waiting for their accustomed programme, who would hear unexpected words. Would hear what? Something that, if they should live, they would always remember as the beginning of great events? Of a sudden horror disturbing the security of a million homes? If they should live.

        To the man in the corner the remembrance had brought a sharp fear and a sudden shame. He was past any thought of military service himself. But he had children at home. He had a young son who might be called up. He had a brother in the Naval Reserve, who certainly would. And his own feelings during the day had been little else than a great relief. Relief since the moratorium had been hurriedly declared, as the news of the bombing of Prague had threatened financial chaos throughout the world, and had come to him, with a miraculous suddenness, to suspend the incessant struggle by which he had maintained the outward solvency of a business of meagre capital and obsolescent plant, since it had been crippled by the delusive prosperity, the impossible taxation of unreal profits, and the following depression that had been the nightmare experiences of the last war Well, he would be wiser if another had come. He would fake his profits this time, as his neighbours had done then. But he did not like the word that had come to his mind. For one who had maintained a difficult probity for thirty-six years of business life, who had always made straight-forward taxation returns - now he was not one who would fake accounts. Camouflage was a better word. . . . But, even if there were an outbreak of war, England might not be involved. She had stood out, solitary in her efforts for peace, avoiding entangling alliances, niggardly only in her reluctant expenditure on defensive armaments, under the darkening skies of the last three years. At least, he told himself, he did not desire war, which was so far true that, if the power of decision had been in his own hand, he would have resolved on peace without a moment's debate, even though he had known that his own financial ruin would be entailed. It would have been a decision monstrous to doubt! But that did not change the feeling of relief which the moratorium brought the pleasant consciousness of prolonged anxiety lifted, and perhaps permanently removed. . . .

        He woke from the oblivion of a moment's thought to become aware that the conversation around him was on kindred topics of a man who had plunged in leather on the eve of the last war and during its opening week, thereby making a fortune which had grown since, until he was now one of the richest men in the Midland capital of a large Birmingham business which had suffered an experience not unlike his own, having sunk its wartime profits in machinery bought at fantastic prices, and new buildings erected in the same financial delirium, which had become useless or empty as the war-orders ceased, leaving only a similarly fantastic claim for eighty per cent. of these unreal profits to be paid in cash at the tax-gatherer's demand.

        "They skinned them out for the next few years, and then the slump came, and they had to write most of it off."

        "We shan't be such mugs, if we're going to have it over again."

        "They weren't all such mugs then."

        "You won't get the chance again," the young stock-broker said, with the assurance of youth. "You'll all be controlled more likely than not."

        "Well, it might be better than E.P.D."

        The statement was received without enthusiasm or pronounced dissent. The imposition of Excess Profits Duty, with its crude inequities, its pledge of brevity cynically broken by a Government which yet expected its victims to observe the standard of honour which it contemned, its offer of fortune to those of sufficient wit and latitude of conduct to evade its provisions with easy minds, its impossibly oppressive demands upon more scrupulous men, the maddening anomalies of its "pre-war standards" - it had been a method of taxation which only a low standard of commercial probity could endure, and only ignorance could defend. . . . But the idea of control was not congenial to those who were masters of their own factories, however insignificant they might be, in an area in which the independence of the individual manufacturer had been more stubbornly and successfully maintained than either in Lancashire or the farther North. They felt that, even at the call of patriotism, even under the extreme ordeal of war, the interference of controlling officialdom would not be lightly endured.

        Eustace Ashfield listened without intruding his own opinions. He was too young to have any business memories of the last war, and the mystic letters E.P.D. had little meaning for him. But he disliked the thought that the War Office might claim the right to interfere with the work of his own factory; perhaps, he vaguely imagined, to send someone to superintend the manufacture of the patented gas-masks that they required. And then he was relieved by a dim memory of having read the awards of a committee which had been set up after the last war to provide compensation for patentees and others whose brains or properties had been seized or exploited in the hour of crisis without their leave, or without a legal bargain being made at the time. He had an idea that some of these had been granted enormous sums.

        Of course, if the gas-mask were as good as his uncle had claimed, it might be required in quantities far beyond the possibilities of his small factory, or his limited capital, and, of course, at an urgent national need, it must be made as it could best be, without waiting for him. But he would be recompensed in the end. . . . And all this was conjecture only. There might be no war, or one from which England would stand aside. The sure facts were that he had an open order to manufacture all that he could at his own price - and that he was going out with Imogen Lister tonight. He could not feel that overmuch was wrong with the world, though there might be rumours of coming war, and the ashes of Prague still smoked to a frosty sky.

        The train pulled up at the Barnt Green station, where about half its passengers would alight to cross the platform for the branch line to Redditch. The platform was already occupied by an excited crowd who had been induced by a cry of "All change here!" to leave a train which had come up from Redditch, and would normally have taken them on to Birmingham, and who had then been told that they could not complete the journey unless they could show urgent private or business reasons for entering the city that night. A few only were anxious, or even willing to proceed after the significance of the order had reached their astonished minds. The doors of the train, which had been locked as they left it, were opened to let them in, and it was hurried off, its ordinary schedule abandoned, on a non-stop return to the city, in accordance with an instruction which had been broadcast ten minutes before, that all centres of population be evacuated for the night, as far as means of transit allowed.

        From the babel of voices upon the platform, disputing among themselves, or giving information to those who had alighted from the Birmingham train, Eustace heard enough to leave no doubt that the shadow of war, long feared and yet only half believed, as though it could be no more than a dreadful, incredible dream, had fallen upon the land.

        "You say Germany's declared war? War with England alone?" . . . "You must have made some mistake." . . . "Well, that's what the radio said." . . . "Why should she do that? I tell you it isn't sane. We've done nothing to her." . . . "Unless she's gone utterly mad." . . . "She couldn't pull that off if she tried." . . . "You'll never make me believe that." . . . "There'll be all the world in it by this time tomorrow." . . . "Well, we've been expecting it long enough." . . . "But there's lots of places more likely than this." . . . "They said we were to give up the Suez Canal, or they'd attack us in half an hour."

        The voices died as the train moved forward again to run rapidly down the steep Bromsgrove gradient. The occupants of the compartment, who had become less numerous, so that the stockbroker found a seat, might have discussed a certainty where they had had no more than a doubt before. But they said little, being occupied with their own thoughts.

        They thought first of themselves and of those dependant upon them, as was natural and perhaps right for them to do. And for the most part they still thought of the coming war as a matter of future days, rather than as that which might be at their own doors in the next hour. They thought first of their own affairs, of a score of doubts which rose as they strove to adjust their minds to this sudden, overwhelming event. Of the order which had been placed, at what had seemed a stiff price, for five tons of copper this morning. Would it stand now? There might be a difference on Monday of twenty-five pounds a ton! . . . Of the flotation which had been underwritten, and the advertisements already placed - who would be responsible, what would happen about it now? . . . Well, if there should be a food-shortage, there would be the two pigs to kill. That was the best of living a few miles out. You had some garden and stock. Perhaps it would be better to kill them at once. The live animals would be more likely than sides of bacon to be commandeered. And it might be difficult to get any more sharps. . . . It was to be hoped Beryl wouldn't take it the wrong way! She might say she didn't believe a word, or she might be frantic with silly fears. . . .

        So their thoughts went, but under all there was an exhilaration of consciousness that they were no longer alone in the civil war, social or economic, which had been the routine of their lives till an hour ago. They had become comrades in common danger and common cause.

CHAPTER VI

EUSTACE alighted on the Bromsgrove platform, and, as he did so, the lesser thought of a war with Germany left his mind, for Imogen Lister was also leaving the train, scarcely five yards away. Hadn't she said she would be going into the city this afternoon? What an incredible fool he had been not to think of that! But he had no time to reproach himself, for she looked round, and met his eyes as someone she had expected to see. It seemed that she also was oblivious of this talk of war as she shook hands, and said: "I hope you won't mind walking. It's such a short way that I didn't think it worth while to have the car brought down."

        No, he said, with sincerity, he didn't mind that. It was what he would much prefer.

        They went out through an excited, hurrying crowd, above the murmur of which a woman's voice rose hysterically: "But I tell you I've got to go. Both my children are there!" And then again, in response to the station-master's soothing inaudible words: "But that's no good to me! They'll be frightened to death if there's any noise in the night. They'll think it's a storm."

        They went out, walking quickly through the cold February evening on a road lit by infrequent lamps and a rising moon, and sparkling with a thin sprinkle of frozen snow. They were more aware of each other than of the calamity which was commencing to shake the world, but it was already too imminent in its effects to be excluded from whatever conversation they might commence.

        "I only just managed to catch the train," he said, leading towards the promise of business prosperity that the day had brought.

        "Yes, I saw that. You passed my carriage just as the guard's whistle blew."

        "I didn't see you, or - - "

        "No, you couldn't. Anyway, we were full up, and a bit more."

        "It wasn't easy to get off. I had a big order from the War Office in today. It's for a new gas-mask which we've had patented for the last two years, but they've only just decided to take it up. . . . They've ordered as many as I can turn out."

        She did not congratulate him, as he may have hoped that she would, nor appear interested in the event as affecting his own fortune. She took the news in a less personal way.

        "I'm not sure that gas-masks are any good. Captain Malins says that it's wicked to teach people to trust them. They're no good against breathing some of the worst gases; and, besides that, people may be frozen, or burnt with acids all over the body, just the same whether they've got them on or not. And when you think of that, and of how ugly they are to wear! Captain Malins says they won't be a bit of good for the next - I suppose I should say for this war, if it s really come."

        "I don't know that you're quite right about that," he answered, striving with some success to keep the annoyance

he felt out of his voice, and to discuss the matter in the same abstract manner. "In some ways, this is the best mask that has been invented yet. That isn't only my own opinion. The War Office evidently agrees."

        He would have liked to say: "And they may be better judges than this Captain Malins, whoever he is," but he ended with more discretion: "The order shows they must have been preparing for war earlier in the day."

        "Yes, I suppose it does. They'd have been silly if they hadn't begun to look round after what happened to Prague during the night. Captain Malins said it was certain to come, and will be over within a week. He doubts whether he'll be in it at all."

        "I suppose Captain Malins is R.A.F.?"

        "No. Or he wouldn't have said that. He thinks they'll have all the show. He's something to do with tanks. . . . He thinks there'll be no fighting at all, except in the air, and when our air-fleet gets smashed, there'll be no more to be done. The other side will go on dropping bombs till we say that we've had enough, and just lie flat to be kicked."

        "I don't suppose," he answered, "it will be quite as simple as that." He was less interested in the military problem than in the fact that what he heard had the sound of quotation rather than original expression. Evidently Captain Malins was one whose words were treasured. He was aware that if the Captain of Tanks had been quoted as asserting that the world was round he would have been disposed to examine the proposition with a hostile scepticism. But he must not allow an absurd jealousy to make him talk like a fool! Nor to waste the moments that now were his. What was it she had just said? "Isn't it rather proved by what happened in Prague last night?"

        "Yes," he answered, "it does rather look that way."

        But his mind returned, in the half-minute's silence that followed, to a stubborn argument that it couldn't be as simple as that. Not, for instance, with a large country. Not with a Great Power. Not with England, for instance. Few things are as simple and as one-sided as that. Even the proposition that the earth is round. Isn't it said to be flattened at the ends? The thought of those frozen ends naturally brought his companion's flight to his mind.

        "It must have been a terribly lonely time," he said, thinking aloud; and then: "I suppose you're about sick of talking about it now?"

        Sick of talking about it? Yes, she was. Sick beyond words. It was to avoid that talk that she had left London and come here, telling Aunt Bella, more in earnest than jest, that she would walk out the first time she heard mention of anything within a thousand miles of the southern seas.

        But there had been an imaginative sympathy in his voice, and in the word he had used. Loneliness. That was what it had been. Unimaginable, and incommunicable to other minds. He had not fatuously praised her courage, as such countless men and women had done before. However dimly, he had imagined what it had been.

        She answered readily: "Well, it did get a bit boring, till I came here. Perhaps monotonous is a better word. Everyone meant to be kind, but they all said the same thing, and had to be answered in the same way. But you're right as to what it was. It was just loneliness above all. . . . Of course, it wouldn't have been possible even two or three years ago; but the machine was quite safe. . . . It was a silly thing to do, all the same. I shan't try anything like it ever again."

        "Oh," he said, "I expect you'll feel differently after a time."

        But she made no answer to that, for her mind had gone back, and she heard again the unceasing purr of the engines that never failed, and saw the unsetting sun, and looked down - far down - upon jagged mountains and black ravines that had lain desolate and alone for a million years, alone with the snow and the iron cold, until her plane had appeared, a speck of invading life in the empty sky.

        Flying high, she had gone to sleep at last, as she had been trying to do in vain for so many hours. She had slept secure in the knowledge that at any dangerous difference of altitude, any atmospheric disturbance, she would be waked at once by the warning bell; but she had opened her eyes again to become aware that the plane still flew steadily, swiftly, on wasplike wings, and to look down on the glacial heights, and the black ravines, and the plains of frozen, unending snow. . . .

        But she had been glad of that sleep when she had been struck by the blizzard against which she had fought, with little progress, for seven hours, for it had been a gale of such fury as seldom comes in the world of men. She had not known whether she were over ocean or land, for the frozen sleet drove too thickly for anything to be seen a yard ahead or below, and after the first moments of peril were passed, when she had been saved by the great height at which she had been flying before, she had thought only to soar - to beat upward as long, as much, as the growing weight of ice on the wings allowed.

        It was a danger from which she had supposed that she would be free, for her machine was fitted with a device by which the ice could be scraped away with a movement like that of a fly cleaning its wings, and this had worked with the mechanical perfection which the makers had guaranteed; but the sleet against which she drove had settled so thickly, had caked so fast, that the plane had been forced far down before the interval passed after which its wings and back would be cleaned anew. So, for seven hours, she had struggled on, through a blizzard to which, it seemed, there could be no end. . . . To be alone, where no life has been from the dawn of time. So many thousand miles from a human voice. Alone in the empty sky, above the death-cold wastes of the frozen snow. . . . No, she would never do it again. She had only done it because she had rashly said that she would, and been annoyed when she had been ridiculed by someone whose contempt would have been unpleasant to have. There was no courage in that.

        What she wanted now was a normal life. To meet people to whom she was neither more nor less than a normal girl. A girl of twenty-two, with a good figure; and with good brows, and a dimpled chin that it should be easy to praise. Not merely an airwoman, with those little wrinkles about the eyes which would never go. . . .

        "We go in here," she said. And then, with a laugh: "I was almost passing the gate."

CHAPTER VII

"I SHALL be down in five minutes," Imogen said. "Clara, show Mr. Ashfield where the cloakroom is. You'll come into the lounge when you're ready? It's the first door on this side."

        Eustace found his way to the lounge, which was empty, though he could hear voices talking, with a high pitch of excitement, in a room not far away.

        There was a wireless set which must have been turned on, for he heard the concluding words of a sentence as he entered:

        ". . . will be met with quietness and courage, and in confidence that the right will triumph."

But after that, which had been the end of a short appeal that the Prime Minister had made to the spirit of a nation not without stubbornness to endure, there was a long minute of silence, and then another voice said sharply:

        "Attention, all listeners! The black-out of east coastal districts is to be extended to Northern and Midland areas, from Newcastle and Carlisle in the North to Northampton and Coventry in the South. This operation is to be carried out with the utmost promptitude in the districts mentioned, and within fifteen minutes later in Lancashire and generally in the counties west of the Pennine range."

        There was another short pause, during which Imogen entered the room, her step quick, and her eyes bright with excitement, as she said "We missed hearing a lot while we were in the train. There's a war on with Germany, and they're said to be on the way to attack us now They - - "

        She stopped as another voice came from the radio this time that of one of the regular announcers, who spoke in his usual pleasantly inflected voice, as though deliberately intending to give assurance to those who heard, that it was no more than ordinary news of the day.

        "This is the British Broadcasting Company speaking. This is the first news, copyright reser - - " (he checked himself, and went on) "which may be freely used by the press, and by all listeners. A large German air-feet, believed to consist of between three and four thousand fighting and bombing-planes, has violated Dutch neutrality, and, having now passed across Holland, is heading west over the North Sea, its apparent objective being the industrial areas in the North and Midlands. This unprovoked attack, which may be compared to the invasion of Belgium twenty-four years ago, follows a demand from the German Government that England should surrender to them both Gibraltar and the control of the Suez Canal, as guarantees of neutrality in the event of a European war resulting from the seizure of Czechoslovakia earlier today. This demand was made less than two hours ago, and it is evident that prerparations for the attack which is now launched must have been already completed in anticipation of its rejection. Suitable military and other dispositions are being made to deal with the emergency. All loyal and patriotic citizens are earnestly requested to obey the instructions of local authorities, to evacuate urban areas so far as circumstances and means of transport allow, and in particular to avoid the showing of lights, which may be a danger to others, as well as to themselves. Night attack from the air, whatever means may be employed, can never be a serious menace to a civilian population which is sufficiently scattered."

        "I wanted you to meet my brother-in-law, Captain Malins," Imogen said, as the radio became silent again, "but he's had to go. There was an announcement calling on all officers who were on leave to rejoin at once." She added, with a smile: "I suppose he'll find out whether he was right about the tanks now."

        "I didn't know that you had a sister," Eustace said. (Indeed, how should he? He knew nothing about her, except what had appeared in the public press.) He took courage in the thought that he had no rival to fear, which changed to a measure of doubt again as she answered gravely:

        "I haven't now. Ethel died about two years ago."

        She moved to the window as she spoke, drawing heavy curtains across the dropped blinds. "I shouldn't think any light would get through that. . . . I suppose Journey's End will be off now? Or will they still try carrying on? I should like to go, if they do. . . . But, anyway, there's no reason why we shouldn't have tea. And I want you to meet my aunt."

        She spoke, he thought, with some effort to be casual, to carry on quietly, as English people under such circumstances may be expected to do. But the thought of the three or four thousand planes that might be overhead in the next hour, dropping their cargoes of death, and of what had happened in Prague last night, were not easy to put aside.

        His own thoughts were on herself, to the obstruction of other considerations. But her words caused a doubt as to what, in these unforeseen circumstances, he would be expected to do.

        If the performance should be cancelled, which there was small reason to doubt, he might be said to have little excuse for remaining there at such a time, it was not everyone who would wish to have strangers (and he was no more than that) invading their privacy, watching, actions and words. Should he offer to go? Or should he take advantage of the event to propose to stay for a time in a house in which, he supposed, only women were?

        "If," he began, "there is anything I can do to help - - "

        "Help?" she said, in a puzzled voice. "You might go round after tea, to see that there aren't any lights showing. But I expect Clara'll do that better. She wouldn't stumble over anything in the dark. . . . You can help eat the scones before they get cold. I don't see that you can do anything more important now."

        He saw, and was pleased to see, that she was resolved to treat the event without any display of emotion, such as most Englishmen dislike more than the calamities by which it may be provoked, but as they moved to the door, and he opened it for her, the radio spoke again:

        "Attention, all listeners, please. All airmen or airwomen having 'A' Flying Certificates are required to report forthwith to the nearest aerodrome, and to hold themselves at the disposal of the Royal Air Force Command as their services may be required. Report should be made by telephone if possible in the first instance, when further instructions will be received."

        She laughed slightly, as she heard this unexpected call, but there was a nervous tone in the light words: "Well, that's come to the right address. It seems that the scones are to get cold after all. . . . The telephone's in the next room. You can come with me, if you like; or perhaps you'd better go into the dining-room, and begin tea."

        "I'll come with you, if I may."

        He heard her give her name, and ask to be put through to the nearest aerodrome, with which it seemed that she was connected without delay. He heard her repeat her name, and then after a moment's interval, reply with emphasis: "Good gracious, no! I shouldn't know what to do. I've never seen one in my life. Not to look twice." And then, after another pause: "Oh, yes. I could do that. . . . Yes, I suppose I could." And after a short interval: "Yes, I can be there. . . . Yes, there'll be no doubt about that."

        She put back the receiver, saying only: "It hasn't taken as long as I thought it might. They shouldn't be cold after all," and led the way to the dining-room, where she said nothing more of the undertaking he had heard her give, till he had been introduced to her aunt, Mrs. Rowntree, an old lady of genial manners, and an infirmity of deafness which she would not willingly admit, and the tea had been poured, and he had sat down to a more substantial meal than afternoon tea is usually expected to be, doubtless in consideration of the fact that he had returned from a day's work, and that the next meal would be far ahead, if they should fulfil the programme for which he came.

        Then she said, in a slightly raised voice, clearly worded for Mrs. Rowntree to hear: "I've got to go to the North-field Aerodrome tonight. They want me to fly one of their old machines. I don't suppose I shall be back before morning.

        Mrs. Rowntree said: "Yes, my dear. They're sure to want the best help they can get."

        If she felt surprise, or any other emotion, she did not allow it to appear. Her tone was kind, but as casual as though she had heard that her niece would spend the night at a friend's house.

        "I should have thought," Eustace said, in a voice of protest, "that they'd have had enough men for that. On the first night!" He knew that the call had been general, and not only to an airwoman of special skill.

        Imogen answered: "Yes, it does seem a bit startling. But they've been building machines rather rapidly in the last three months, and now they must be getting out all the old ones as well. . . . They asked me," she added, in a lower tone, which she knew that her aunt would not readily admit that she did not hear, "whether I had had any machine-gun practice, and I told them I never had - it wasn't a very likely thing - and then" - slightly raising her voice again - "they asked me if I could pilot one of the old biplanes, and I said I thought I could manage that."

        "I thought," Eustace said, still vainly resenting a fact which he could not change, "that the biplane was out of date as a fighting machine."

        "It's not quite obsolete," she answered. "I believe one or two patterns most recently built are very good fighting machines. But what I'm asked to pilot is one of the old 'dustbin' pattern of night-bombers, that was reckoned a good machine of that class two or three years ago."

        "They must want it," he said stubbornly, "either to fight or for dropping bombs, which is the same thing. It isn't a girl's work, and they ought to have managed better than to be calling you up the first minute a war begins."

        But," she said reasonably, "they haven't asked me to fight or to drop bombs. There'll be someone else to do that. They want me to fly the plane, which I'm able to do. . . . I suppose they've got men enough, but they're short of fully trained pilots, with all the new machines they've had built, and now sending up the old ones as well. . . . A pilot can't be fully trained as quickly as they can build a machine. I needn't have rung them up if I hadn't wished." She added, after a moment's pause, in which he did not reply: "They didn't seem to be in any muddle. They gave me the number of my machine, and told me where and when to report, without any delay, as though they'd been expecting me to ring up, but I suppose they felt certain that someone would. I'm not wanted till half-past ten. I suppose they can't have the machine ready before then. It's probably not been out of the hangar for months."

        "Well," he said, "I think it's a rotten shame that you've got to go." And after that he fell silent, having thoughts that were best not spoken aloud. For how could he attempt to dissuade her, even if he had been less sure than he was that it was a waste of breath? Hadn't it been said for the last three years that the next war would be one in which women and children must be exposed to the same risks as the men? If there were death in the air, could it be said that there would be safety for any upon the ground? And it was easy to guess that England would have need of all who were skilled in flight before morning should dawn again. Doubtless the R.A.F. had been preparing every air-worthy machine they had, since the news of the destruction of Prague had shocked the world twelve hours before.

        It was easy also to guess that the old lumbering bombers, which could do little more than a hundred miles an hour with a full load in the upper air, would be more vulnerable than the newer planes, and that few would return in safety if they should be dispatched (and of what other use could they be?) to drop bombs in the enemy's country. They were too clumsy to fight, and too sluggish to flee. But what use was there in saying this? Probably she knew it as well as he.

        "I suppose," she asked her aunt, "Harry hasn't gone in the car? . . . No, I didn't suppose he would." She turned to Eustace in explanation: "There's no one here except myself who can drive, if Harry - Captain Malins - is away. Auntie's given it up. I wonder whether you'd mind driving me to Northfield and bringing the car back, if it isn't asking too much? That is, if you're used to driving, of course."

        "Yes," he said, glad to be asked, but controlling an unreasonable annoyance that she should not have assumed his ability as well as his willingness. "I shall be very glad to do that."

        "Thanks," she said, and their eyes met in an intimacy of understanding, such as could not have been so quickly reached at a quieter time. "I shall be grateful for that. It won't be like going alone, and I couldn't take auntie's car without knowing that it would be got back safely."

        "I suppose," he said doubtfully, "it's certain that they won't have the play now? And you wouldn't want to go if they do? Though there'd be about time if I were to drive you straight on from there."

        She hesitated in reply. It might be a relief to watch. Better than sitting there for the next three hours, talking to hinder thought, for she was fighting down a fear - almost a belief - that she would not live till the light returned. She could judge the risk for which she had volunteered better than Eustace Ashfield could do, and fuller knowledge did not make it a less desperate chance.

        "If they're having it," she said, "it would be rather rotten to let them play to the empty seats. We could telephone and find out. . . . And there's that wireless been talking away for the last ten minutes with no one to hear, unless cook's gone in to listen. We don't know what news we've missed."

        "We'd better go in there," Mrs. Rowntree said, "if you've both finished," but the telephone rang urgently as she spoke.

CHAPTER VIII

"THIS," Imogen heard, "is the Bromsgrove Police Station. You are advised, for your own security, to evacuate your house in the next ten minutes, and sooner if possible, and you are requested to leave all lights burning."

        "Burning? I suppose you mean out?"

        "No, burning. You are in an area which will be camouflaged to draw the German attack. You had better switch on every light that you have."

        "Where do you expect us to go?"

        "You've got a car, haven't you?"

        "Yes."

        "Will it hold all who are in the house?"

        "Yes, it will do that."

        "Then you can't do better than stay in it during the night. Don't block up the road. Get into the open country and turn into a field. That'll be the most sensible thing. But don't lose any time now."

        The voice ceased abruptly, doubtless having many similar admonitions to give, and Imogen repeated the message to her two companions.

        Mrs. Rowntree took it with equanimity. "Well," she said cheerfully, "I suppose they won't mind if we lock the doors when we go. . . . I expect the Germans will hit something else if they aim here. . . . I suppose I shall get an allowance for what light I waste from the next quarter's account. . . . Imogen, you might tell cook and Clara to wrap up well, and be as quick as they can. . . . No, I can look after myself. Perhaps Mr. Ashfield won't mind helping you to get out the car. I'll see to the lights while you're doing that."

        The old lady bustled around the house, switching on the lights and withdrawing curtains and blinds. When she entered the room where the radio had been giving momentous news to unheeding walls, she bent to it for a moment to listen, as she would not have cared to do had she not been alone. She heard:

        ". . . the Southern division of which approached the Norfolk coast flying high and changing formation as it neared the land, so that it was massed with a narrow front. It has been met by the East Anglian patrol air-fleet under Air-Commodore Lubbock, reinforced by Southern and Midland squadrons, and heavy fighting is now proceeding.

        The voice paused a moment, and resumed:

        "A German submarine attack is reported upon naval units stationed in the Firth of Forth, in which H.M. battleship Beatty has been slightly damaged, and the Swedish freighter Tronheim has been sunk, apparently by a torpedo that missed the mark at which it was aimed. It is reported that the submarine, which must have entered the harbour before war was declared, is already netted, so that it cannot escape."

        Well, she mustn't lose time listening to that! She thought, with a vividness of imagination that would have surprised those to whom she was only outwardly known (for she had spoken intimately to none since her husband died in the Jutland battle twenty-two years before), of that deadly strife in the darkness and bitter winds of the night: the battle that must be raging still in the heights of air over the bleak flat land and the winter sea. She saw the high wastes of air loud with the noise of quick-firing guns, and black with great clouds of smoke that the fleets spread for their own defence or to mask attack. From these clouds the swift war-planes swooped and swerved. Their gun flashes stabbed redly into the night. She saw them collide and fall headlong with shattered wings, or interlocked to an equal death, as Dante's demons grappled and fell above the sea of the boiling pitch. . . . She prayed that this battle over the Norfolk coast might exhaust the invading foe, so that there would be the less danger to face when Imogen should ascend at a later hour. But she prayed with a poor hope, for she knew that the air-fleets of England had not been designed to resist such an invasion as had now swept in sudden tempest upon her coasts.

        At the worst, they were to have had the support of more powerful friends, for England (such had the argument been), seeking only peace, need have no fear that she would rouse the wrath of a stronger foe. Should she fight at all (and many held that she should not do so for any stake, and would talk as though the decision must rest entirely with her), it would be at the side of puissant allies, in a war in which all the forces of world justice would unite to chastise an aggressive foe. . . . And none had known, and few guessed, the strength of the secret forces which had been built and trained to enslave the world.

        If the air force of England could, by heroic sacrifice, and at the cost of its own destruction, hold back the attacking fleets from working such ruin as Prague had felt, until they should be compelled to withdraw to defend their frontiers from other foes, it would be the most that could be hoped, and more than could be expected that they would do. . . .

        But this idea of disguising the dark landscape of night with deliberate lighting of places of small account might not be vain, if it were done on a large scale, and had been designed with sufficient skill. Mrs. Rowntree switched on the last light, wrapped herself in her warmest coat, ascertained that the cook was not neglecting to bring a thermos flask and ample food for the night, and went out very cheerfully to the waiting car.

CHAPTER IX

"Do you want me to come?" Eustace asked, as he threw open the garage doors, and the car lights shone on to the drive. There was room for five in the car - just. There would be more comfort for four. The very strength of his desire to remain with her during the short hours that remained made him more sensitive to the ambiguity of his position in that household which he had only entered an hour before.

        Could he leave four women at such a time of threatening danger and death? Obviously not. Having no responsibilities of his own for the night, his duty was to stand by them, and be of what service he could.

        Could he assume that his company would be desired by people who were almost entire strangers to him, and who showed no sign of inability to handle their own affairs? The answer seemed equally clear. Yet he did not think that she would wish him to leave. He had little doubt of that, or anticipation of what the answer would be.

        "I don't want you to come. I want you to go, if it isn't asking too much. Unless you've got anything else on that you ought to be doing now. Perhaps it's more than I ought to ask, but - - "

        "Of course, I'll do what you wish. My time's free enough. But I'm not sure that I understand. If you'd rather I didn't stay now - - "

        "I suppose I wasn't quite clear. . . . You'd better get in, and I'll take it round. I'm used to backing it at the bend. . . . I meant that I've got to be at Northfield in three hours' time, and the car ought to be going the other way. I believe Northfield's about six miles from here on the Birmingham road, which is about the last that you ought to take. I wondered whether you'd think I'm asking too much if I ask you to drive my aunt and the maids somewhere where they'll be out of the way of any trouble that's likely to come?"

        "You mean that you're not proposing to come yourself?"

        "How can I? I've got time for getting to Northfield now, even if I find that I've got to walk, but I don't want to get farther away."

        He saw the difficulty more clearly than he would admit in his blank distaste for the part he was asked to take, and his reluctance to part so quickly, or to leave her to face alone the dangers of an area which was being lighted to attract the bombs of the German fleet.

        "I don't see why we shouldn't drive you there first. It's the only sensible thing to do."

        "And when we know that the Germans may be here any moment now?"

        "It won't take long if it's only six miles."

        "No? Have you thought what the road's likely to be? It's the main road out of Birmingham for everyone going to Bristol or Worcester, and all the places between and beyond them. What will it be like for a car trying to get the opposite way?"

        They were round at the front of the house as she said this, and she assumed his assent as she turned to Mrs. Rowntree to explain: "Mr. Ashfield's kindly undertaken to drive you. I suppose it doesn't much matter where, so long as it's somewhere dark, and sufficiently out of the way."

        Mrs. Rowntree appeared not to hear, or to understand. She said, as Imogen would have guided her to the front seat: "No, my dear. If Mr. Ashfield's to drive, you'd better be in front. You'll be able to tell him the way to go." She added with the candour which emergency brings: "I shouldn't hear what he said, more likely than not."

        "But I'm not coming, Aunt Bella. I'm going the other way."

        "Nonsense, Imogen. Don't be absurd. We shall drive you to Northfield first."

        "No. You couldn't do that. I've explained to Mr. Ashfield. Besides, I'm not ready. I've got to change. You don't think I could fly like this?"

        "Then you'd better change quickly, my dear, unless you want us to be here when the Germans come, if they ever do.

        She looked up to a sky which was bright with frost and unclouded stars, though it was now obscured by the lighted houses around. She could hear or see nothing of present menace, not observing a low mutter of distant sound - was it of guns or of bursting bombs? - which came to the ears of her younger companions.

        "I think everything's in now, madam." It was the cook's voice that interrupted, reminding them that there were others for whose safety they were responsible.

        But Mrs. Rowntree was one who knew her own mind and was accustomed to have her way. "It's no use, my dear," she said; "the longer you argue, the longer you'll keep us here.

        Imogen saw that she could not solve the problem simply by walking off into the night, for it was true that she must change into garments more fit for flight in the freezing heights of the air. She ran back quickly into the house and the car stood at the lighted door, while the mutter of distant sound grew louder, nearer, out of the east. And then, for a few minutes, it died away.

        Mrs. Rowntree, crowding into the back of the car with the two maids, remarked cheerfully that the letters of the Bible are said to be less numerous than the Yorkshire acres, and that, if the Germans thought they were going to bomb them all, they would find that it would take them some time to do; and in what seemed an incredibly short time, even to those who sat waiting thus, Imogen came running, out, looking shorter, broader, in the loose-fitting, fur lined leather garments and hood in which she had faced the Antarctic cold a few months before.

        "You'd better turn left at the gate," she said, as she scrambled quickly into the car. "The radio is still chattering away, but I couldn't stop to hear what it said. It was something about feeding each other if difficulties of transit arose, as I ran up, and 'a form of refuge which cannot be recommended in congested areas,' as I came down. We shall have to manage without its wisdom as best we can. Pity we haven't brought the portable in the car."

        She was of better courage than in the earlier evening. The excitement of action had come, and the speed with which she had changed had stirred her blood. Perhaps, more subtly, she felt the difference of the garb she wore. . . .

        Two hundred yards away a house burned, lighting the frosty road. They drove towards it, as they must, and the wind swept the hot smoke upon them, so that they must slacken speed on a road that they could not see. They questioned whether it were an accident of the night, or had been deliberately fired, and decided that the camouflage was being very thoroughly done.

        Clear of the smoke, and with the light of the burning house at their backs, they ran rapidly along a side road that was now empty of life, for they had been among the last to be warned, and there were few who had not been quicker to flee.

        They could only vaguely guess what the scheme of illusion might be, but they saw that the district was not widely lighted in a crude general way, but in patches only, and, as they left Finstall Park on their right, and came to a narrow hilly lane, their purpose being to avoid the main roads, and approach Northfield from the south, they became aware that the sky above had become black, and that a widespread smoke-screen was overhead.

        Overhead too was the noise of airplane engines, but whether of friends or foes it was vain to guess. There was no dropping of bombs, or sound of conflict above, though the night was disturbed by a low confused thunder of distant sound, telling of that terror out of the east that the darkness bred.

CHAPTER X

THEY were near the new by-pass road when they came clear of the pall of smoke, and as they slackened speed, facing the problem of a stream of traffic that ran without lights in one direction across the whole breadth of the road, and which they must ask themselves how they could hope to cross, or whether they could make progress against it when they had gained what should have been their own side of the road, the airplanes that they had heard before became visible in the sky. There were seven planes that flew in the shape of an arrow's head. And then seven again. And a third seven behind them. They came from the east, not flying low, but sufficiently so to be under the thin stretches of almost transparent cloud that drifted across the moonlit sky.

        "They are German planes," Imogen said. "I wonder what they're meaning to do."

        "You are sure they're German?"

        "They're not English. I'm sure of that. I know all the patterns."

        The planes were nearly overhead now. Two or three fields away, a bomb burst. The next moment they were surrounded with light, and with dreadful sound. The bombs fell round them on every side. The maid, Clara, screamed hysterically.

        In ten seconds, it was over for them Flying swiftly, the German squadrons passed on, scattering a continuous hail of bombs upon the smoke-blackened area from which they had come. The noise of their bursting was a deafening but rapidly receding thunder of sound.

        Shouts and screams came from the road ahead, where a bomb had fallen with disastrous result. The car which had first been struck was buried beneath the piled wreckage of a dozen others that had run into it, or been run into by those that followed, before the stream of unlighted vehicles could be brought to halt.

        Imogen's hand went to the door. "We'd better see what we can do to help "

        "Sit still," Eustace said; "can't you see what's coming? I'm going to back, if I can."

        She did not understand the significance of the "if," not being able to see the gaping side of the radiator, where their own car had been struck by a flying fragment of shell, but the reason for getting clear was easier to perceive.

        The main road ahead was blocked, beyond hope of passage. Into the side lane where they were, with scarcely room for two cars abreast, a large Bentley, indifferent to everything but the safety of its own occupants, its horn' blatant warning piercing a score of surrounding discords, was endeavouring to force a passage into the lane.

        Where it came, the stream of smaller cars behind it would surely follow. As they stood, they blocked half the width by which this crowded traffic could find release; when it should bear down upon them, they would find it hopeless to attempt to turn, and might have no better hope of release than to back down the mile-long lane, with the impatient, congested traffic jostling by, unless they would stand there until morning came. Even without being aware of that gaping wound, it was easy to see the purpose of what he did.

        "There's a gateway a short distance back," he said. "If I can get there before the lane fills, I might find space to turn."

        But this proved to be beyond the capacity of the wounded car, and the help of others, anxious to clear the way, had to be obtained to push it back to the gate, and into a field where it would cease to impede the road, their efforts dreadfully lit by the pile of wreckage which had now burst into a pillar of flame, making it useless to hope that any maimed or unconscious life could still be released.

        "Well, that settles it," Imogen said. "I've got to walk the rest of the way. But it can't be far now. It shouldn't be hard to find."

        "If you'll go with her, Mr. Ashfield," her aunt proposed, without suggesting that it was a favour for which she asked, for her eyes were still good, though her hearing failed, "we shall be quite comfortable here till we can get someone to mend the car."

        Imogen said: "Of course, he can't leave you like this. Do you suppose I shan't find my way? Suppose they come back dropping bombs again?"

        "If they do, my dear, I don't see that Mr. Ashfield could save us from getting hit. But they won't do that again. England's rather too large for them to drop them twice on the same spot."

        There might be some defect of logic in this reasoning, but the old lady had her way, as she most often would; and Eustace found that his own object was to be further advanced, at least for another hour, by this catastrophe which had fallen upon the world.

        They made their way with some difficulty back to the main road, having nothing but a precarious narrowness of gutter in which to advance against the oncoming traffic, but when they gained it there was a side-pavement by which they could make better progress on foot than had they been attempting to force a car against a current of flight.

        There were no lamps lighting the road, but the night was not dark, the last clouds leaving the sky bare to the moon and the frost-bright stars, and the cold becoming more intense as the night advanced. They passed dark houses which might or might not be deserted, but in which it was certain that no man slept. They were lighted for half a mile by a little pinewood that blazed with a scatter of drifting sparks, and a pleasant resinous scent. They could still hear the noise of explosions at times, and lights flickered along the sky. Once, when they were in a dip of the road, with a high wall at the side, giving little view except of the sky that was directly above their heads, they heard a burst of machine-gun fire that seemed to be but little distance above. It ceased for a moment, and then broke out again farther away, a drama of flight and chase that they could not see.

        But they noticed that the eastward sky was dark, or only lit at times with local gleams of some flickering light. Birmingham had shut off the wide glow by which it showed itself during the hours of night over an area of a thousand miles; and it was plain that the German attack had failed to find it now, by the darkness in which it lay.

        It seemed a good omen to these two, and to give reason for hope, as they came to the aerodrome gates, and were sharply challenged by an officer who was with the sentries whose bayonets guarded the entrance. But his voice changed as he saw that Imogen was clothed for the air, and heard her name, which he clearly knew.

        "Oh, Miss Lister?" he said. "You're before time, but you're none too soon. You're wanted at once, if you'll come with me. . . . You'd better keep to this side."

        He led her away abruptly, giving, Eustace no more than a hurried glance, which passed him as though he had no thought to spare at that hour for terrestrial men. She left in that haste with no parting word, and Eustace stood lingering for a moment at a gate that he might not pass.

        In the shadow of the wall, where the officer had drawn Imogen to the other side, he saw something that lay like a large dog or a tumbled sack.

        One of the sentries followed his glance, and could not resist speech on that which had been the excitement of ten minutes before.

        "Shot him, the Captain did," he remarked, "shot him down like the dog he was."

        He explained that the man who lay there, a heap that had ceased to twitch, had lived in one of the small houses outside the gate, and had been suspected for some time of spying, and German blood, although suspicion had always been less than proof.

        But tonight the sentries' vigilance had caught him climbing over the fence, with what object no one would ever know, and Captain Gibson's revolver had saved occasion for further words. . . .

        Eustace stood for some time in the frozen road, uncertain of what he should next do, his mind emotionally exhausted by the experiences of the day. He had waked with the one thought of the meeting the evening was expected to bring, and the fear that he might fail to use his opportunity to open the way to some further gain. Who could have thought that it would bring him, not only that which he had hoped, but a prosperity (as he supposed) which removed the most formidable obstacle from the goal he sought? Who could have thought that it would end in so strange, so momentous, so dreadful a way? . . . He heard the roar of a rising plane. One by one, twenty-two great biplane night-bombers rose from the dark aerodrome grounds. After them, swifter and lighter far, a small scouting plane rose and circled round them as they formed into double line, and then shot forward to survey the dark path that they were to take. He did not doubt that one of those slow, cumbrous, obsolescent planes, which, if it were attacked by the battle-planes of the German fleet, would be too clumsy to fight or fly, was flown by the girl he loved.

        Would he see her again? It might be held to be less than a likely guess. He did not even know that she would propose to come back to this Midland home, which had been no more than a place of visit to her.

        But he saw that it was the one link that he had, and self-interest joined with nobler motives to return his steps to the field where he had left the three women to wait in the foundered car.

        But as he walked back on the frosty, moonlit road, on which the traffic was becoming less now, but which was scattered with cars that had collided or broken down, or which had pulled aside as seeing no object in further flight, he saw the selfishness of the doubt that had troubled his mind. Did he think of himself alone, and nothing of her, that he should be most concerned of how they should meet again? Should not his first thought have been of her peril in distant and hostile skies? Would she return, would she be alive, when the morning came? He imagined the squadron pursued and surrounded by a fleet of swifter deadlier, more numerous foes. It became a centre of bursting shells: it was raked by machine-gun fire. . . . He saw her plane fall earthward a flaming wreck. He saw her dead, or dragged out, mutilated but still alive, to be wounded prisoner in that foreign, now hateful land. . . . And he had been glad, a few hours before, that the coming war had promised fortune to him! God forgive! God understand and forgive! . . . And what a poor part was to be his. Making gas-masks while others died! Gas-masks for profit, while others died! Gas-masks which Captain Malins (he still thought with a vague jealous resentment of the opinion of this man he had never met) had said would be of no use in the coming war. . . . What was it likely that she, who had won previous fame, who was called to the place of danger at the hour of her country's need - the place which he would have been unfitted to take - what was it likely that she would think of him, if she thought at all in the future hours? . . . But he would pray no less for her life and safety because he saw how vain were his own desires. . . .

        It was the next morning, while news was still being distributed from the Western station, that he listened to this announcement:

        "The Air Ministry issued this bulletin at 10.17 a.m. today:

        " 'A squadron of twenty-two night-bombers, under Squadron-Leader C. A. Withers, was dispatched from the Northfield Aerodrome yesterday, at 10.28 p.m., with orders to destroy the naval stores and barracks at Cuxhaven, and the shipping in the harbour.

        " 'This attack was carried out with success, and Cuxhaven was subjected to a heavy bombardment with incendiary bombs, as a result of which it is still in flames. The loss of shipping is also believed to have been serious.

        " 'It is much regretted that the squadron when returning over the North Sea encountered a German air-fleet of overwhelming strength, and was shot down after a most gallant resistance, in the course of which important losses are reported to have been suffered by the attacking fleet, but exact details have not yet been received.' "

CHAPTER XI

THERE is no reason to doubt that the German bid for the neutrality of the British Empire was genuine in its intention, and that it was regarded as a reasonable possibility that the stipulated conditions would be accepted.

        The proof of this lies in the fact that it involved renunciation of the advantages of an absolutely unexpected attack, which it may be supposed that the German Government would not have scrupled to make in the entire absence of provocation, as they had invaded Belgium twenty-four years before, and in conformity with the standards of international conduct explicitly advocated by their military writers of later dates.

        The possibility of such a surrender, however ignominious it might be, was based on the fact that England was inadequately armed to resist even the measure of German aerial strength which had been openly shown to the world, and still less to encounter that which had been indicated during the previous night; and it approached probability when consideration was taken of the pacific temper which had led to that inadequate and reluctant arming. Alone among the nations of Europe, England had shown that she dreaded war. She had argued, striven, intrigued for peace, amidst neighbours whose whole strength, under the urgence of hate or fear, had been organized for the ordeal of coming strife.

        It is certain that the German High Command was anxious to avoid the error of 1914, and that considerations of both military and political strategy rendered it desirable to secure English neutrality while they proceeded to the conquest of continental Europe. It is even probable that they would have sought an active alliance, had not such a development been rendered impossible, not by any unfriendliness of the English for the German people, which did not exist, but by the policy of deliberate aggression, the crude atheism, and the tyrannic and bloody domestic methods of the German Government, which were anti pathetic to English ideals of public and private life.

        It is probable also, for reasons which will appear, that Germany had not desired or intended at this time to provoke a general war, for which she would have preferred to wait for another year.

        Her first miscalculation had been the supposition that Prague would yield, at a moment when she could have no encouragement from the preoccupations of France, and that a controlling German influence might have been established in Czechoslovakia without the necessity for military action. But, when that supposition had proved mistaken, she had struck at once, her plans for that and a score of other eventualities having been perfected in advance. And when she had concluded, in the following hours, that she had exposed her ultimate purpose too far to avoid the issue of wider war, she had then resolved, according to plans already matured, by one swift decisive act either of diplomatic or physical violence, to eliminate a potential enemy before her allies against that eventuality (if any such she had) could intervene for her relief.

        The German strategy in the air attack which it had now made was sound, if not brilliant, in the broad outline of its conception, and of that character which is possible only to a High Command that has overwhelming superiority of numbers in its control. It left the suddenly improvised War Council of England waiting through the early hours of the night for an attack on London that did not come, as it waited also, with equal tensity, for news that the French air-fleets were moving to its support.

        A German air-fleet had been assembled during the afternoon, consisting of 1,200 battle-planes and 3,000 night-bombers of the newest patterns, and this fleet had taken the air as the February darkness fell, and crossed the Netherlands in single formation, only dividing, as it left the coasts of that land, into two divisions, the smaller of which proceeded northward to attack the industrial and shipping area of the Tyne, while the main body advanced towards the Norfolk coast.

        It was known that this coast, which was considered by the English military authorities to be most vulnerable both to attacks from the air and to the landing of a hostile army, was strongly protected by anti-aircraft batteries, and the orders the German Air-Admiral had received were that he should advance on a narrow front, and subject the country beneath him to a bombardment sufficiently intense to insure a lane of unmolested retreat for his night-bombers when they should be returning with their magazines emptied.

        The fleet was about twenty miles from the Norfolk coast, and had slackened speed for the manoeuvres which the adoption of this formation required, when the British cruiser Campaspe opened fire upon it.

        The Campaspe was one of the newest type of armoured cruiser, and had been primarily designed to resist attacks from the air. It had heavily armoured decks, and every gun which it bore could be thrown up at an angle sufficient to threaten some part of a fleet which was extended so far through the upper air.

        It had been cruising without lights, and only revealed its presence as its gun-flashes struck upward into the night.

        Never before had been, perhaps never again would such a target be offered to the guns of a British ship. With no more aim than a shot-gun needs when a flight of wild-fowl is overhead, the Campaspe's guns flung upward their bursting shells. . . . It was an audacious challenge against impossible odds; but it did not cease before it had demonstrated the difficulty of hitting a moving target from a great height in the air, and its end was so long delayed that a number of the German bombers were ordered at last to descend and destroy at close-quarters a shattered wreck, with its decks awash, that was still serving a single gun. And by that time seventeen of the German planes had spun down in flames to the cooling sea.

        The Campaspe sank, having done its part, leaving a raft afloat on which fourteen men were washed ashore during the night, and the German air-fleet passed on to its ultimate mission, which was to destroy whatever forces of the air might be mustered to bar its way, and then bombard the Midland industrial centres.

        The German High Command had calculated that, up to this time, a considerable proportion of the British air-fleet would be held back for the protection of London, and that the forces which they would first have to meet would be consequently less; but it was not their expectation or wish that this position should remain. They had for-seen that, as the hours passed, and the news came to London that the German air-fleets were spreading destruction through the Midland area, while there was no sign of any threat to itself, the air-forces which had been stationed there would be sent northward to find their foes, and a fleet of 700 fighting planes was ordered to extend itself upon the left flank of the German position, both for its protection and to draw the attack of the British forces away from the London area. Its orders were explicit that it was not to advance southward itself, for the German strategy was to render London bare of defence, that it might be more absolutely destroyed before morning came, for which it expected to have new fleets released at a later hour.

        But to explain clearly how even the secret air-fleets of Germany could be equal to such large demands, without exposing its own frontiers to the attack of its nearer foes, it is necessary to go back to a diplomatic event of the preceding August, and this may be conveniently done before considering the course which the war had taken during the night.

CHAPTER XII

IT had been a hot afternoon in the last week of August 1937 when Dr. Schronberg, the German Foreign Minister, received Comrade Levinski, the Soviet Ambassador. The visit was one of formality, its occasion, which was openly known, being to convey the thanks of the Russian Government for an act of humanity and good seamanship by which a German destroyer had succoured a Russian ship in distress in the Baltic Sea. Those who hoped that the peace of Europe might be maintained observed it with satisfaction, as showing the brotherhood of mankind when faced by the hostile forces of Nature, which are their relentless and indifferent foes.

        But the conversation which actually took place was on a more sinister and quite different subject, being no less matter than the terms of a secret treaty, by which the two governments that were so superficially opposite, so fundamentally alike in their ruthless suppression of individual liberties of thought or conduct, and in their conception of a community in which the single citizen exists for the state rather than the state for him, were to unite to enthral the world.

        "If we were assured," Levinski said cautiously, "that what is spoken here will not be known in Paris in the next hour - - "

        "Information," Dr. Schronberg replied coldly, "does not leak out of Germany in these days. We have no jails for those who barter or blab. We use axe and cord, by which treason has become an unpopular crime."

        "So I have observed," Levinski allowed, "or it is unlikely that we should make you the offer I now propose. I come to proffer you our alliance, which, at the right moment, will be the world to divide."

        "But you are allied with France, who is no less than our bitter foe."

        "So I suggest that we shall remain. It will make our compact with you of the greater worth, for we shall continue to hear the most secret counsels of France, and we can advise her in a false way. It will also make her more careless to keep her friends of another sort."

        Dr. Schronberg recognized the good sense of this argument. France had not hesitated in previous years to alienate the sympathies of the United States by her unwllingness to reduce her debt, even when her vaults had been heavy with idle gold. Her press would abuse England at any hour beyond substance of fact, and on provocations that were not meant, nor always easy to see. She had acted thus in the assurance that Russia lay, a constant threat, on the flank of her major foe. So she must continue to dream.

        Dr. Schronberg moved to a map of the two hemispheres of the globe which hung on the farther wall.

        "Excellency, you talk of sharing the world." His eyes fell on the great expense of the two Americas, north and south, and Levinski, taking his meaning at once, made a confident reply.

        "Will the New World face the Old when three continents own our power, and recruit our arms? Our fleets will be ten to one, both in air and sea. . . . They would claim respect, were they now allied to our nearer foes; but they say it is nothing to them. They are too wise to be drawn again into Europe's wars! . . . They will be there to take on the next day."

*        *        *        *        *

        That conversation had been six months before, and now the hours passed, until midnight was but a short distance ahead, and the French air-fleets were held in leash, waiting the word from Russia which did not come.

        M. Bonnier sat in council with the three most trusted members of his cabinet, and with the leaders of the opposition parties of Left and Right, whom he had summoned to his support, that all should share the decision which might be no less than their country's fate.

        "M. Smirnoff," he said, "is very firm on this point, that if we cross the German frontier with no further excuse than that England has been attacked, the Russian treaty will not apply, and his country will remain free to act as her interests may dictate without obligation to us."

        "And for this doubt," M. Regnier, the one-time head of the Croix de Feu, protested with passionate impatience, "for this splitting of rotten straws, we are to delay our attack till the ruin of England is made complete, and the German air-fleets can be assembled upon our frontiers in all their strength! How shall you answer France in that hour for the chance you have thrown away?"

        "If the Germans cross our frontier, though with no more than a single plane, if they drop but one bomb, Russia will be instant in our support, for to that her honour is pledged by a treaty which all men know. . . . What do you say, M. Reval?"

        He addressed the leader of the Radical party, the one man who had not spoken till now. He had risen from a sick-bed at this hour of his country's need, and listened in a sombre silence to the contentious voices around him.

        "I am ill," he said, "and may be less fit to advise. But I do not understand why the answer of Moscow should be so greatly delayed."

        "M. Smirnoff can only communicate with Moscow by wire, for Germany is troubling the air, and even by wire the direct lines are not prudent to use. But at any moment he is expecting reply."

        "It may be that because I am ill I see with discoloured eyes; but, to me, it has the look of a trap."

        "I have thought of that," M. Bonnier replied, "but, were it so, would not M. Smirnoff have encouraged us to attack, so that the obligation of Russia to us would be relieved, whereas he entreats us only to act in consultation with him?"

        "But suppose - - " M. Reval appeared to hesitate upon words that he would not speak. "No," he said, "I am ill. I do not ask that you shall listen to me." He sank back in his chair, in such evident physical distress that, for the next few minutes, the attention of his companions was directed to his relief, even to the exclusion of greater things. After which M. Bonnier said:

        "Gentlemen, I propose this. We will wait until 2 a.m., and if no answer from Moscow has then arrived, we must conclude that it is someway blocked, so that it cannot come. By that patience our Russian friends will perceive that we have not acted in indifference to consultation with them, but at that hour we shall give control to our soldiers of land and air.

        "We may equitably observe that, had we been selected for this German attack, England would have been under no treaty for our relief, and what she would then have clone can be a guess, and no more.

        "We may also observe that we are, at the worst, at a less dangerous pass than had we been first attacked, for it is very sure that England, outnumbered in the air though she may be, will cause much loss to her foes, which must be the better for us at a later hour; and we may suppose, knowing how stubborn of temper she is of disposition to be against the jaws of a closing trap, that she will not he so cast down in a night that she will not bite on the crushing heel for a second day.

        "But if we ask ourselves whether we should continue to stand aside so long as we are left to ourselves, Germany having made no hostile motion to us, we must consider what she would be likely to do if the fear of England had left her mind. . . . I suppose that we must now fight for our land, whether Russia come to our side or remain still, lest Europe become no more than a German farm. . . . And we must not overlook that while we wait for a Russian word, Russia may be also waiting for us. Or she may herself be attacked, and cut off in such a manner that she cannot reply."

        There was a general murmur of assent to a decision which made some compromise of conflicting views, and still left two hours during which the reply from Russia would be likely to come.

        Only M. Reval replied to M. Bonnier's last words with: "Would M. Smirnoff urge us to wait, if he were not well assured that Russia is not being attacked at this present hour?" And this argument, having a double edge, inclined those who heard to accept M. Bonnier's proposal with easier minds, for the thought that the German air-fleets might also be engaged on the Russian front, while France lost her chance from a foolish fear, had inclined more than one who heard to favour a more instant attack. And there was no other there who felt the doubt that had entered a sick man's mind.

        So they sat on, waiting for a Russian word that would never come, the time passing quickly enough in debate of many matters affecting France and themselves, including the tentative construction of a war-cabinet which statesmen of all parties would be invited to join at this crisis of coming strife, as they could scarcely doubt it to be; and with news of moment coming in from all parts of the world, both of night and day.

        It was 1.45 a.m. when M. Bonnier inquired finally of the Russian Ambassador, and received a reply that he was coming over to the Quai d'Orsay at once; but the minutes passed after that, and he did not arrive.

        Instead of him, there was news of a battle in English skies, the stress of which was now spent, and become no more than guerrilla fighting among the clouds, for the British air-fleets which had been sent up to meet the German invasion, which were reported to consist of anything from five hundred to a thousand planes, but must have been much under the more sanguine figure, had attacked the invading fleets with the untried tactics of aerial strife, and had broken at last, after beating many times against the great host of their foes, as a wave breaks on the harder rock.

        Until now the news had been that London lay quiet and distant from the more northern war, the noise of which could be heard at times by those who patrolled its outskirts above the clouds. And still, with the passing hours, its population poured outward on every side, until few were left in its silent streets, except those who were stout of heart to remain, or held by duties, or bonds of love. . . . And its air-fleets, and even some of its mobile batteries, were ordered north at last, to meet the more urgent need. But now the tale was that a new German fleet, of unknown but enormous strength, was crossing the narrow seas, and that the batteries of the coasts of Kent, flinging fierce barrages to the skies, could be heard on the Flanders shore.

        "Mais, mon Dieu!" M. Bonnier exclaimed. "If they have done that, they must have resolved that we are too frightened to make attack. They must have left the Rhine country bare. It is Heaven's chance that is ours tonight! Why does not M. Smirnoff come? He should have been here three - four minutes ago! Jules, you must call the Embassy up. Inquire if he have left as he said, and how long a time."

        But the reply from the Embassy was not easy to understand. It came from a junior clerk, who said that he was the sole official now in charge for the night. The Ambassador and his principal secretaries had left more than ten minutes before. By the way they left, he did not think they were coming back. . . .

        There had been no time to discuss the meaning of this before there was the noise of shouts in the outer room, where an excited youth was insisting that he would see M. Bonnier himself, and that without an instant's delay.

        "It is news I have," he could be heard to protest, "which will not wait for a second's time!"

        M. Bonnier's secretary went to the door, and was pushed roughly aside by a breathless youth, who had come from the night-office of a famous international travel agency.

        "M. Bonnier," he panted, "there was a Russian air-fleet flying west over the Bavarian mountains nearly an hour ago."

        "You are sure of this? You dare not bring me an idle tale?" M. Bonnier spoke quietly, though his voice shook.

        "Monsieur, it is surely true! It is our business to know. . . . A Russian plane came down at Glocknei, having caught fire in the air."

        "It fell fighting the German fleet?"

        "No, monsieur. It was an accident of the air. There are German war-planes that guide them the way they come.

        M. Reval's voice rose with a strength it had not shown until then. "And we have let the hours pass! We have ruined France! . . . So I had seen it to be, and I thought it a fever's dream!"

        He sank backward in his chair, but whether in faint or death there was none to heed. France must fight now at such odds as England faced a few hours before.

CHAPTER XIII

THE England of 1938 was unready, alike in disposition and material resources, for the conflict which had been thrust upon her. Her armaments, though substantially strengthened during the three previous years, had been scaled upon the assumption that she woul