CHAPTER XXIX
THE LION WAKES
At daybreak on the nineteenth, to the utter amazement of everyone whowas not "in the know," the Imperial yacht, _Hohenzollern_, was found offTilbury, flying the Imperial German Ensign and the Naval flag, as wellas a long string of signals ordering the aerial bombardment of London tocease, and all the _Flying Fishes_ to return at once to Canterbury.
The apparent miracle had been accomplished in an absurdly easy fashion.About nine a.m. on the eighteenth a German orderly went into thepost-office at Dover and handed in an official telegram signed "VonRoon," ordering the _Hohenzollern_ to come round at once to Dover, asshe was considered too open to attack there.
There was something so beautifully natural and simple in the wholeproceeding that, although there were about a dozen German officers andnon-commissioned officers in the room at the time that the orderly cameand went without suspicion, the telegram was taken by the clerk, readand initialled by the Censor, and passed.
A few minutes later the orderly, marching in perfectly correct Germanfashion and carrying a large yellow envelope, walked out through thetown northwards and climbed the hill to the eastward of the ruinedcastle. The envelope with its official seal took him past the sentrieswithout question, but, instead of delivering it, he turned down a bypathto Fan Bay, under the South Foreland, gained the beach, took off hisuniform in a secluded spot under the cliffs, and went for a swim. Theuniform was never reclaimed, for when he reached the submerged_Ithuriel_ Denis Castellan had a rub down and put his own on.
The captain of the _Hohenzollern_ was only too glad to obey the order,for he also thought that it would be better protected from the dreadedocean terror in Dover, so he lost no time in obeying the order; with theresult that, just as he was entering the deserted Downs, the said terrormet him and ordered him to the right-about under pain of instantsinking.
After that the rest was easy. The captain and officers raged andstormed, but not even German discipline would have prevented a mutiny ifthey had not surrendered. It was known that the _Ithuriel_ took noprisoners. In five minutes after the irresistible ram had hit them theywould be at the bottom of the sea, and so the Hohenzollern put about andsteamed out into the North Sea, with the three wicked forward gunstrained upon her, and the ram swirling smoothly through the water fiftyyards from her stern.
At nightfall the course was altered for the mouth of the Thames. And so,with all lights out and steered by a thin shifting ray from her captor'sconning-tower, the Kaiser's yacht made its strange way to Tilbury.
The instant she dropped her anchor a couple of destroyers ran out fromthe Gravesend shore and ranged alongside her. The next minute a Britishcaptain and three lieutenants followed by a hundred bluejackets hadboarded her. The German Commander and his officers gave up their swords,devoutly hoping that they would never meet their War Lord again, and sothe incident ended.
It will be easily understood that the Kaiser was about the mostinfuriated man in the United Kingdom when the _Flying Fishes_ arrived atCanterbury and the Commander of the squadron described the arrival ofthe _Hohenzollern_ in the Thames and asked for orders.
In the first place no one knew better than William the Second howpriceless was the prize won by the impudent audacity of these two youngBritish sailors. In his private apartments on board there were his owncomplete plans of the campaign--not only for the conquest of Britain,but afterwards for the dismemberment of the British Empire, and itspartition among the Allies--exact accounts of the resources of the chiefEuropean nations in men, money and ships, plans of fortifications, andeven drafts of treaties. In fact, it was such a haul of Imperial andInternational secrets as had never been made before; and that eveningthe British Cabinet held in their possession enough diplomaticexplosives to blow the European league of nations to pieces.
Erskine and Castellan were honoured by an autograph letter from theKing, thanking them heartily for their splendid services up to thepresent stage of the war, and wishing them all good luck for the future.Then the _Ithuriel_ slipped down the Thames, towing half a dozenshabby-looking barges behind her, and for some days she disappearedutterly from human ken.
What she was really doing during these days was this. These barges andseveral others which she picked up now and then were filled withammunition for her guns and fuel for her engines, and she dropped themhere and there in obscure creeks and rock-bound bays from Newcastle tothe Clyde, where they lay looking like abandoned derelicts, until suchtimes as they might be wanted.
Meanwhile, very soon after the loss of the _Hohenzollern_, the Kaiserreceived two messages which disquieted him very seriously. One of thesecame by airship from Potsdam. It was an exhaustive report upon thepapers which Lennard had left with him on that momentous night as itturned out to be, on which the War Lord had rejected the ultimatum ofthe Man of Peace. It was signed by Professor Doellinger and endorsed byfour of the greatest astronomers of Germany.
Briefly put, its substance amounted to this: Mr Lennard's calculationswere absolutely correct, as far as they went. Granted the existence ofsuch a celestial body as he designated _Alpha_ in the document, and itsposition _x_ on the day of its alleged discovery; its direction andspeed designated _y_ and _z_, then at the time of contact designated_n_, it would infallibly come into contact with the earth's atmosphere,and the consequences deduced would certainly come to pass, viz., eitherthe earth would combine with it, and be transformed into asemi-incandescent body, or the terrestrial atmosphere would become afire mist which would destroy all animal and vegetable life upon theplanet within the space of a few minutes.
The second communication was a joint-note from the Emperor of Austria,the President of the Hague Council, the President of the FrenchRepublic, and the Tsar of Russia, protesting against the bombardment ofLondon or any other defenceless town by the airships. The note set forththat these were purely engines of war, and ought not to be used forpurposes of mere terrorism and murder. Their war employment on land orwater, or against fortified positions, was perfectly legitimate, butagainst unarmed people and defenceless towns it was held to be contraryto all principles of humanity and civilisation, and it was thereforerequested by the signatories that, in order to prevent seriousdifferences between the Allies, it should cease forthwith.
The result of this communication was of course a Council of War, whichwas anything but a harmonious gathering, especially as several of theolder officers agreed with the tone of it, and told the Kaiser plainlythat they considered that there was quite enough in the actual businessof war for the _Flying Fishes_ to do; and the Chancellor did nothesitate to express the opinion that the majority of the peoples ofEurope, and possibly large numbers of their own soldiers, who, afterall, were citizens first and soldiers afterwards, would strongly resentsuch operations, especially when it became known that the Emperor's ownAllies had protested against it; the result of the Council was thatWilliam the Second saw that he was clearly in a minority, and had thegood sense to issue a General Order there and then that all aerialbombardments, save as part of an organised attack, should cease fromthat day.
The events of the next twenty days were, as may well be imagined, fullof momentous happenings, which it would require hundreds of pages todescribe in anything like detail, and therefore only quite a briefsketch of them can be given here. This will, however, be sufficient tothrow a clear light upon the still more stupendous events which were tofollow.
In consequence of the almost incredible destruction and slaughter duringthese first four awful days and nights of the war, both sides had lostthe command of the sea, and the capture of the _Hohenzollern_ in broaddaylight less than a dozen miles from the English coast had producedsuch a panic among the rank and file of the invaders, and thereinforcements of men waiting on the other side of the Channel and theNorth Sea, that communication save by airship had practically stopped.
The consequence of this was that, geographically, the Allied armies,after the release of the prisoners from Portsmouth and Folkestone,amount
ed to some three million men of all arms, with half a millionhorses, and two thousand guns--it will be remembered that a vast numberof horses, guns and stores had gone to the bottom in the warships whichthe _Ithuriel_ had sunk--were confined within a district bounded by thecoast-line from Ramsgate to the Needles, and thence by a line runningnorth to Southampton; thence, across Hampshire to Petersfield, and viaHorsham, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, and over Canterbury, back toRamsgate.
In view of the defeat and destruction of the expedition against London,the troops that had been thrown forward to Chatham and Rochester toco-operate with it were re-called, and concentrated between Ashford andCanterbury. The rest of England, Scotland and Ireland was to the presenta closed country to them. The blockade on Swansea and Liverpool had beenraised by the _Ithuriel_, and there was nothing to prevent any amount ofsupplies from the west and south being poured in through half a hundredports.
Thus the dream of starving the British Islands out had been dissipatedat a stroke. True, the dockyards of Devonport and Milford Haven had beendestroyed by the airships, but copies of the plans of the _Ithuriel_ hadbeen sent to Liverpool, Barrow, Belfast, the Clyde and the Tyne, andhundreds of men were working at them night and day. Scores ofbattleships, cruisers and destroyers, belonging both to Britain andother countries, which were nearing completion, were being laboured atwith feverish intensity, so that they might be fitted for sea insomething like fighting trim; submarines were being finished off bydozens, and Thorneycroft's and Yarrow's yards were, like the rest,working to their full capacity.
The blind frenzy of rage which had swept like an epidemic over the wholekingdom during the first days of disaster had died away and in its placehad come the quiet but desperate resolve that if Britain was to beconquered she should be depopulated as well.
All male employment, save that which was necessary to produce coal andiron, to keep the shipyards and the gun factories going, and theshipping on the west coast running, was stopped. In thousands of cases,especially in the north, the places of the men were taken by the women;and, in addition to these, every woman and girl, from the match-girls ofWhitechapel to the noblest and wealthiest in the land, found some workto do in the service of their country.
Every day, thousands and tens of thousands of the sons of England,Scotland, Ireland and Wales were taken in hand by "Mr SergeantWhat's-'is-Name," and drilled into shape with miraculous speed; andevery day, as detachment after detachment went to the battle front,which now extended from North Foreland to Portland Bill, the magic ofpatriotism and the long-inherited habits of order and obedience changedthe raw recruit into the steady-nerved, strong-hearted soldier, wholearnt his duty in the grim school of battle, and was ready to do it tothe end.
In less than a month Britain had become a military nation. It seemed atthe time and afterwards a miracle, but it was merely the outcome ofperfectly natural causes.
After all, every British man has a strain of fighting blood in him. Evenleaving out his ancient ancestry, he remains the descendant of familieswho have given soldier-sons to their country during five hundred yearsof almost ceaseless war in one part of the world or the other. He isreally born with battle-smoke in his nostrils, and the beat of thebattle-drum in his heart--and he knows that, neither on land nor sea hashe ever been finally beaten.
Remember, too, that this was to him a holy war, the holiest in which thesword can be drawn. He was fighting for freedom, for the possession ofhis land, for the protection of wife and child and kindred, and theheritage which his fathers of old time had handed down to him. Was itany wonder, then, that within the space of a few weeks the peacefulcitizens of Britain, like the fabled harvest of the dragon's teeth,seemed to spring as men full-armed from the very ground? Moreover, thiswas no skirmishing with sharpshooters over a vast extent of country, sixthousand miles away from home, as it had been in South Africa. This washome itself. There was no right or wrong here, nothing for politiciansto wrangle about for party purposes. Here, in a little corner of littleEngland, two mighty hosts were at death-grips day and night, the onefighting for all that is dearest and most sacred to the heart of man;and the other to save itself from what could be nothing less thanirretrievable disaster.