CHAPTER XXXI
AFTER TWELVE MONTHS
The shock which electrified London was reminiscent of the shocks towhich it was submitted in the early days of the war, when the "Yellow"press ran riot, and journalists dipped deeply into their reservoirs ofsuperlatives to generate the current of sensation which should selltheir papers.
It was a misty afternoon, with an almost intangible yet saturatingdrizzle; a setting admirably fitting an evening newspaper thrill.Spirits were at a sufficiently low ebb for something of a screamingnature. Fleet Street did its best; a best at no time to be despised.
It came as the homeward rush began from the offices of the greatmetropolis. It stared out from street corners and the fronting ofbookstalls. It looked up from the greasy pavements. It served to hide aportion of the rags which hung about the nether limbs of small streeturchins. It came in strident, raucous tones upon the moisture-ladenatmosphere. There was no escaping it. That which escaped the eyesthrust itself upon defenceless ear. And its urgent note created thenecessary excitement in minds set upon the task of making the homewardjourney with the least possible delay.
Then, at once, the careless eye was caught and held. "Under Water: TheWorld Defied," cried one contents bill. "The New SubmersibleMerchantman," announced one of the more sedate journals. "The GreatProblem Solved," cryptically suggested a buff-tinted sheet. "FromDowning Street to the Deeps," smiled the more flippant pinkannouncement. And so on through the whole jargon of the press poster.There was no escape from it. The word "submersible" seemed to fill thewhole of the wretched winter atmosphere. And, as was intended, itcaught the London fancy, and deflected purpose into the channel itdesired.
London was startled; and when London is startled by its press it is noniggard. Therefore the rain of coppers which set in became perilouslynear a deluge. The small boys snatched, and the old sinners with greywhiskers and weather-stained faces swept in their harvest. Thebookstall attendants dealt out their papers in a steady, accuratestream, and, within an hour, the whole of London's democracy hadformulated its definite opinion upon the new adventure, in the dogmaticmanner of the British ratepayer.
Strange and mixed were many of the opinions which flew from lip to lipin the overcrowded homeward bound trains and 'buses. True, there weremany who read the well-told story of the skilful journalist as theymight read a sensational tale in a sixpenny magazine. They enjoyed it.They devoured it hungrily. Then they passed on to the sports page, andconsidered the doings of their favorites in the sporting world. But thesuburban ratepayer, the householder whose responsibilities left him noalternative but to take himself seriously, was of a different calibre.He possesses to the full the stolid, fault-finding mind of the Britishrace. He is as full of prejudice as the egg is supposed to be full ofmeat. He is ready at all times to hurl blame and anathema at the headsof those who conspire to extract from his pocket the necessary funds tocontrive that he shall live in security and comfort in his home. He isthe victim of a splendid pessimism for all things except his summerholiday. His opinions come like a shot from a gun.
He read with incredulity until he arrived at the point where he feltrighteously he could open afresh the rut of his ever-ready disapproval.Then the full force of what he read percolated heavily through his fogof prejudiced incredulity, and virtuous indignation supervened.
"What was this absurd nonsense? Who ever heard of submersiblemerchantmen? What fresh folly of the Government was coming now? ThePrime Minister on the trial trip. Why the devil didn't he stick to hisjob in Downing Street? The moment these fellows got their five thousanda year they didn't care a hang for the country. Playing about withthese toys of some crazy inventor. It made one sick. Anyway, if theGovernment were concerned in the scheme, why was it kept secret? Whywasn't the taxpayer told of it? Who was making the money out of it?Somebody. There was always graft in these secret things. There was toomuch of this hole-in-the-corner business--entirely too much. Altogethertoo much disregard for the liberty of the subject," etc., etc.
But the Fleet Street chorus of "epochs" and "masterly moves" and"strokes of statesmanship" found an abiding echo amongst the optimists.They saw, with eyes wide open, that which they read. There was nogrumble in them. Why should there be? That which they read told themclearly of success. It told them that never again would Britain'soverseas commerce be placed in jeopardy from enemy attack in time ofwar; that is, if British enterprise would only rise to the opportunityafforded. That was simple enough. Of course the ship-owners would seetheir advantage. Germany--pah!
The men who personally felt aggrieved, however, were the professionalpoliticians and the private Member. These men were seriously perturbed.Here was real limelight, and they were not in it! Horrible thought!Their course lay clearly before them. An attack upon inoffensive paper,by a pen, erroneously believed to be mightier than the sword, was theironly hope of making up leeway. So those who had sufficient influencehurled broadcast the next morning, in their favorite daily papers, awealth of ill-considered and valueless criticism and opinion ofsomething which they were splendidly incompetent to judge.
And the cause of all the sensation? It was so small an incident, andyet so tremendous in its omen for the future. Just the story of anumber of eminent men, Cabinet Ministers, naval and army men, and oneor two great ship-builders, running a blockade of warships, andsuccessfully shipping a cargo of pretended contraband of war fromDundee to Gravesend. The game had been played in deadly earnest. It wasa test trip for a new type of submersible cargo and passenger vessel,pitting its powers against the concentrated might of a large squadronof the British Navy. It was a test of efficiency. The details weresimple in the extreme. The laden vessel, carrying a thousand tons ofmerchandise and its burden of passengers, was lying at Dundee. Outside,watching and waiting for its appearance on the high seas, lay apowerful squadron of the British Navy. The rules laid down were thatthe submersible should make its way to Gravesend, and the navalsquadron, under war conditions, was to capture it, or place it in sucha position as to be sinkable, by any means in its power, at any pointupon its journey.
The result. With all the skill and power at its command the greatsurface squadron had proved its helplessness. The submersible hadslipped out of port under cover of darkness, and from that moment,until its arrival at Gravesend, the seas had been scoured vainly for somuch as a sight of it.
It was a tremendous thought. It was a splendid victory for the pacifisthope. The dead Polish inventor had been justified beyond all question.Never had the word "epoch," such as Fleet Street loves, been betterused. It was such a moment that those who made the secret journey, andwitnessed the capabilities of the vessel which had been built at theDorby yards, were flung back from all preconceived convictions ofmaritime affairs, established during the war, to imaginativespeculation upon the vista of progress now opened up.
Not a man of them, from the Prime Minister of England down to thejunior lieutenant upon the vainly striving fleet of war-vessels, butrealized a picture of the doom of the magnificent and costlysuper-Dreadnought as the pillar of might upon which naval power mustrest. Its proud office gone, it appeared to them as little greater thana means of defence against the landing of hostile man power uponBritain's vulnerable shores. The proud queens of the sea must pass fromtheir exalted thrones to a lesser degree in naval armaments.
Nor was the realization without pity and regret. How could it beotherwise in the human heart which ever worships the actual display ofmight? It almost seemed as if the world had been suddenly given over totopsy-turveydom.
The facts, however, were irrefutable. As in the dim past the troubloussurface of the seas had been conquered by the intrepid and skilfulmariner, now at last the devious submarine channels had been turnedinto an almost equally secure highway of traffic by the inventor. Themarch of progress was continuing. It was invention triumphant. Theworld's sea-borne commerce was secured. It was held safe from enemywar-craft in the future. Therefore the doom of the proud battleship hadbeen sounded.
Som
e day, perhaps, a new weapon would be achieved. Some day, perhaps,even the channels of the dark waters would be rendered insecure by thehand that had now made them safe. For the present, however, andprobably for years to come, the sea-borne food supplies of Britainstood in no position of jeopardy.
It was well past midnight. The house in Smith Square quite suddenlydisplayed renewed signs of life. A closed motor had driven up, paused,and then passed on. Then appeared many lights behind the small-panedGeorgian windows.
Ruxton Farlow had returned home with his wife after a strenuous andexciting day; and with them was their devoted Yorkshire father, burningwith the sense of a great triumph for his beloved son, and his almostequally beloved daughter.
Their journey from Gravesend earlier in the evening had been brokenthat they might attend an informal dinner-party at Downing Street. Itwas a function entirely in honor of the masters of Dorby; and it hadbeen arranged that Ruxton's colleagues in the country's Cabinet mighttender their sincere congratulations and thanks for the work which he,and his father, and his wife had achieved privately in their country'scause.
It was over; and all three were relieved and thankful. But the note oftriumph surging through their hearts was still dominant. Scarcely aword had passed between them in the brief run from Downing Street toSmith Square. Their hearts were as yet too full, and the memory of thewords addressed to them by Sir Meeston and his colleagues was still toopoignant to permit of normal conditions. Vita had leant back in thecar, with her husband's arm linked through hers, and one of hispowerful hands clasped in hers. She sat thus with thought teeming, anda heart thrilling with an unspeakable joy, and happiness, and triumph,all for the man at her side. Her own share in the events through whichthey had passed was entirely forgotten by her. This man at her sidefilled her whole focus. He was all in all to her, as she felt he wasall in all to the cause in which they had worked.
It was perhaps the profoundest and proudest moment of her life. It wasa moment of perfect happiness. All she had ever dreamed of was hers;and the hand of the man she worshipped was even now, warm and strong,clasped tightly in her own. Hers to keep; hers to lean on; hers neverto yield so long as their lives should last.
In the house they passed up into the small drawing-room, and, for a fewmoments, they sat there before retiring. Slowly the spell of the day'sevents fell from them. It was finally Sir Andrew who released them fromit.
He gazed across at Vita with twinkling eyes. His smile was full ofkindly tenderness.
"Now, perhaps, I shall have time to appreciate the fact that at last Iam the happy possessor of a beautiful daughter as well as a headstrongson," he said. Then, after the briefest hesitation: "Vita, my dear," hewent on, in his old-fashioned manner, while his gaze took in theradiant beauty turned abruptly towards him, "it seems to me that themost wonderful thing in the world has happened to me. The long, lonelylife seems to have entirely passed. I mean the loneliness which only aman can feel who is deprived for all time of the association of his ownwomankind. Now at last I can draw deep comfort from the reflection ofRuxton's happiness. Now, however slight my claim, I can nevertheless_claim_ something of a woman's filial regard. The grey of life has beentinted for me since you have chosen to make my boy happy, and as timegoes on I can see that tint develop into the roseate hue of a happinessI somehow never thought to feel again. Bless you, my dear, for cominginto an old man's life; and you, too, my boy," he went on, turning tothe smiling Ruxton, "for having given me such a daughter. I feel thisis the moment for saying this. The work is done now in workmanlikefashion, and the little triumph of it all makes me want to tell you ofthis thing that I feel."
Vita impulsively left her husband's side. She rose from the settee andcrossed over to her second father and held out both her hands.
"You have made it difficult for me to say a word----" she began,smiling down upon him with her glorious eyes. Then she seemed to becomespeechless.
The oriflamme of her red-gold hair shone with a delicious burnish underthe shaded electric light. Her flushed oval cheek glowed with asuggestion of thrilling happiness. The old man caught and held herhands, and, the next moment, she had bent her slimly graceful body andimpressed upon his rugged cheek a kiss of deep affection.
Still she remained speechless, and she turned and glanced with dewyeyes in appeal to the great husband looking on.
"Won't you help me?" she demanded wistfully.
Ruxton laughed happily.
"Help?" he said quickly. Then he shook his head. "No, no. You don'tneed any help. Just tell him what you once told me. You remember." Hiseyes became serious. "You said 'I love him almost as if he were reallymy own father.' He won't need more."
And Vita obeyed him, reciting the words almost like some child. But shemeant them, and felt them, and at the last word her glance was full ofa whimsical light as she added of her own initiative--
"And aren't you two dears going to smoke?"
Half an hour later the two men were sitting alone in Ruxton's study.The smoke of their cigars hung heavily upon the air of the room. Therehad come a moment of profound silence between them. They had talked ofthe happenings of that day: of the test of their new submersible: itssimple triumph, and all it meant in the cause of humanity, of thatprogress towards a lasting peace among nations which mankind wasyearning to achieve.
Each man had offered his own view-point for discussion, and it seemedas if the last word had at length been spoken. But they sat on insilence, and Sir Andrew watched the reflective eyes of his idealistson. He was speculating as to what deep thought still lay unvoicedbehind them, and he urged him.
"Well, boy? It has been a long day. Is it bed? Or are you going to putinto words that dream I see moving behind your eyes?"
Ruxton broke into a short, nervous laugh which died out with a curious,sober abruptness.
"Dreams, dreams? I wonder if they are only dreams. If they are dreamsthey are surely vivid enough--painfully vivid." He paused for aninfinitesimal fraction. "No, no, Dad, I am no visionary in the sensethat imagination runs away with me. I see many things that every otherman sees, and it is only a question of different reading. What do youthink the majority of people in this country will do when they reallyunderstand all that our little adventure means? They willmetaphorically fling up their hats, and deride the wretched Teuton, andhis merciless delight in the slaughter of innocent life upon the highseas. In a few years' time, when they see our sea-borne traffic carriedby great submersibles of eight and ten thousand tons, their confidencewill be unbounded, and they will reiterate again the old song'Britannia Rules the Waves,' and--they will have justice on their side.But the questions which I ask myself, which I must keep on askingmyself, are--'Does Britannia rule the waves? Can she continue to rulethe waves?'"
He shook his head, and gently removed the ash from his cigar.
"In spite of all the evidence, in spite of our wholly promising newmove for protecting our overseas traffic, in spite of the brilliantmanner in which our Navy has met, and defeated, every ingenious methodof attack by our enemies in the past, I do not believe we can ever hopeto continue indefinitely our rule of the seas, or _even thesafeguarding of our overseas traffic_.
"Oh, yes, I know what everybody will say in answer to such astatement," he went on, in reply to the interrogatory in his father'seyes. "But they are wrong, a thousand times wrong," he declared, almostpassionately. "It is no sound argument or real logic that what we havedone for the past few hundred years we can continue to do. Our men aregiants among the men of the sea. But they are only human. The days of'wait and see' are over. We must not wait for trouble to arise toattempt its counter. We must look ahead with all the experience of thelate war behind us. The reason we rule the seas at the moment--if we dorule them--is because we are an island country, and because our pastnecessities have forced us to stride far ahead in maritime affairs ofall other nations, while they possessed no full realization of thevalue of sea power. But the late war has shown us that now, at last,every country in the world
understands to the full the necessity forwresting from any one Power the dominance of the seas. Look back.Germany was fighting for sea power as greatly as she was fighting foranything else. Russia, that vast land-locked world, could only hope foran outlet to the sea as a result of all her sacrifice. The Balkancountries, their national aspirations, every one of them was a harboron the high seas. The whole world intends to possess each its share ofthe great waterways, without fear of the dominance of any one nation.It is plain, plain as the writing on the wall.
"I solemnly submit that Britain's power, her domination of the seas,cannot stand for all time. And the reason--it is so simple, so terriblysimple. Just as our strength now lies in the seas, so does ourweakness. Every moment of our lives the threat of starvation staresinto our haunted eyes, and we, like hunted men, search and search for ameans to ward it off. Do you see? I could weep for those who will notsee. The Germans were just not clever enough, that is all. They saw theweakened links in our armor, and endeavored to drive home the attackwhen they attempted their submarine blockade. But their attempt lackedadequate preparation. This is all ancient history, but it points in thedirection I would have men look. The result of that has been to make usfurther consolidate our defences. The completion of that comes in ournew submersible. But, remember, we are defending only against knownforces--not the unknown. It is the unknown we have to fear. Every humandefence can be destroyed by human ingenuity. That is why I say that thenew principle will only serve us in itself for just the amount of timewhich it takes our rivals to readjust their focus, and mobilize theirpowers of offence. The day will come when some invention will bebrought to attack underwater craft successfully. And then--what then?In spite of all our territory, our wealth, our nominal power we shallbe driven to yield to the pangs of hunger. It is not a dream I amshowing you. It is a reality. It is a truism which no logical mind candeny."
Sir Andrew refrained from comment for some moments as his son ceasedspeaking. But at last, as the silence prolonged, he urged him.
"And what is the answer to it all?" he enquired. His eyes were serious,and his words came crisply. He had caught something of his boy'sgravity although he was not sure how far he accepted his creed. "Theremust be an answer. Every problem of State possesses its solution, if wecan only find it--in time."
Ruxton nodded. Then he rose abruptly from his chair and flung hiscigar-end into the empty fireplace with a forceful gesture. He began topace the room.
"That is the crux of the whole situation," he declared feverishly, hisdark eyes burning with an intense light. "In time! In time! If we couldonly be induced to adopt the true solution 'in time'--before we areforced to adopt it. Oh, yes, there is a solution--a right solution. Itis so simple that one wonders it has not long since been discussed byevery man in the street. The solution stares us in the face on everyhand. It calls aloud to us in appeal, and we turn from it. Everycountry that can ever hope to last out the days of man must beself-contained, self-supporting. In times of stress it must be capableof existence upon its own natural stores. Look at America's positionduring the war. She could afford to hold aloof, and continue her reignof prosperity while she snapped her fingers at Armageddon. Why? Becauseshe was independent of the rest of the world both economically andstrategically. Let the whole of the rest of the world blaze. Let theslaughter go on. She could stand alone though the conflagration raged acentury. No combination of human forces could defeat America withoutexterminating her peoples. Here are we, with territory, blocks ofterritory scattered throughout the world so vast as to make Americalook small in comparison. They are not tracts of savage country, butcultivated and highly civilized States, any one of which can be whollyself-supporting. They are ours--peopled with our people--governed bycodes of laws similar to our own--with objects and principles like toour own. And yet we sit here awaiting ultimate destruction, a tinygroup of islands upon the crests of the Atlantic waters. It makes onethink of the foolish bird, who builds her nest and stocks it full ofeggs, and sets it upon the topmost twigs of a tree, waiting for thegathering of the storm which must sweep it out of existence, while thewhole protection of the tree's full strength lies open to her. Theposition is so absurd as to set one laughing in very bitterness. I tellyou the day will come when an island home is utterly untenable for anygreat nation. I am not even sure that the time has not already come. IfI had my way our empire would be ruled from the heart of Canada, whosevast tracts of territory are bursting with an unbroached wealth whichno country in the world can ever hope to match. There, amidst thosefertile plains, I would set up our kingdom, and gather our limitlessresources about us. There, in the midst of that new world, I wouldwield me the sceptre of the greatest Empire of all time, and within itsramparts I would strive unceasingly for the spiritual and mundanewelfare of our people and all mankind. No nation in the world was evermore fitted, both in temper and in power, for the task. No peopleswould more willingly lend themselves to it. All our history has beenone long story of pacific purpose, and only has our regrettablegeographical setting forced upon us any other course. My most ardentthought and desire is that some day we may voluntarily remove theobstacles besetting us, and our pacific purpose may be given the fulldevelopment it seeks. But so long as Britain nests upon the waters ofthe Atlantic, so long shall we continue to live under the burden ofwar. And the end?--Who can prophesy the--end?"
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