No Man's Land (32 page)

The door to the street banged, and quick footsteps came down the stairs. A voice, youthful and eager, was heard asking: ‘Is Mr. Barnaby in there?'

Dennis started. Was it hallucination again that made him believe it was Alan's voice, the same hallucination that only a few days ago had made him believe that it was Alan's figure he had seen in the crowd? He had suffered from so much of this kind of hallucination at one time…

‘Yes, we're all here, Rutherford, come in,' cried Barnaby. Antoinette glanced at Dennis's face. And had no need to be told that already her precarious hold on happiness was threatened.

‘This is the man I was telling you about, Dennis, I wanted you to meet—'

Alan cut him short. ‘We met ages ago. I've still got one of his handkerchiefs in my possession. Do you remember tying up my gory wound for me, Dennis?'

‘I remember,' said Dennis, and Alan grinned at Conn and Pegeen, flung off his hat, and seated himself between Everard and Barnaby.

‘What about your tribunal?' asked the journalist.

‘The local tribunal has already passed me for Combatant Service,' replied Alan, ‘but I'm appealing again at the House of Commons next week. And then – good-bye to freedom for me, I suppose! But I'll tell 'em a few home-truths before I'm locked up. Beefy, sanctimonious old men, sitting there to tell me it's my duty to go out and take my share in murdering peasant-boys and students and labourers… And the same sort of old men on their side, egging
them
on to fight us, with just the same platitudes about duty and honour and self-defence, saying that we declared war first, just as we say they sprung the war on us! And the capitalists of all countries coining money out of bloodshed… Do they want the war to stop, those government contractors, making their millions by supplying munitions or boots or food for the armies?'

Dennis watched him through narrowed eyes. He had not altered much. He was eighteen months older, that was all. But there was the same quick impatience in phrase and gesture, the same vivid look.

He went on: ‘The only way to stop the war – not only this war, but all future wars, is by opposing conscription. You're all for the good cause here, I suppose?'

Barnaby answered for the company in general: ‘Yes, they're all appealing on different grounds. Everard, I forget what yours are?'

‘I've not had the honour of being called up yet,' the actor replied evasively.

‘And yours, Crispin?'

By a series of grunts, Crispin made it known that he did not intend to fight against the nation that had produced Beethoven and Bach.

‘I'd like to appeal on every ground there is!' Oswald cried excitably, ‘one can't do enough to keep the horror from going on.'

‘I'm appealing on racial and personal grounds,' declared Benny, ‘I won't be made to fight the Jews of other countries, even to avenge Brave Little Belgium, or prove myself a true patriot!'

Oswald began:

‘“Breathes there a man with soul so dead

Who never to himself has said—”'

‘I've said “This is my own, my native land” at least half a dozen times in half a dozen different lands,' Benny interrupted, ‘I have relatives scattered about in allied, enemy and neutral countries alike. And how can a man fight for any particular country, when he's got an aunt in every port?'

‘And England talks of defending the honour of small nations,' murmured Conn, ‘has she forgotten Ireland at her very door, Ireland that she's oppressed and ground under her heel these many years? Let her recognise Ireland as an equal and raise her up from the thraldom of a vassal before she takes Belgium's name in vain to hide her desire for gain.'

‘Well, at least you're free from the necessity of appealing,' said Barnaby, ‘they'll never dare introduce conscription into Ireland. It'll mean revolution if they do.'

‘And may I be the first to fly the
Sinn Féin
flag in the streets of Dublin that day!'

‘What about you, Dennis?' said Alan.

‘Humanitarian grounds.'

‘Good!' For a second their eyes met, and then parted again. There was chaos in Dennis's mind. Alan's personality had lost none of its potent spell… and there was Antoinette beside him… and he longing and longing to have the boy all to himself… And he knew that all his energies must go to the concealment of that desire. He leant back in his chair and listened to Alan's voice – and was aware that Antoinette's gaze rested always on himself.

‘Conscription has got to be fought,'Alan repeated, ‘without conscription, Germany could never have gone to war. And the people have got to be made to see reason, those who say that we must go on with the war “for the sake of the men who have fallen.” What sense is there in that? Because we have wasted a million good lives already, why should we throw another million on to the same refuse-heap? “To make their sacrifice worth while!” As if anything could make their sacrifice in such an iniquitous cause worth while! “They died gladly for their country” – it's all cant, cruel sickening cant to make the people at home see the war through rose-coloured spectacles. If they saw it without the spectacles, they wouldn't be so willing to go on paying for the continuation of it. “We must fight until the whole of Germany is crushed” – is the whole of Germany to blame for this war, any more than the whole of England? Blame it on the German High Command, if you like, and on the Prussian Junkers and their kind, but not on the people – people as straight and decent as ours, only maddened by this artificially worked-up hatred, this dizzy vision of world-power and world-empire. But in Germany, just as in every other country, there are people who don't let themselves be dazzled by that vision, and who are ready to work for the overthrow of governments that can organise wholesale butchery as a means by which to extend dominion.'

‘The pity of it is, that we're so few,' said Benny, ‘such a small and unpopular minority.'

Alan returned impatiently: ‘We're not out for laurels.'

‘No, it's more likely to be the broad arrow,' said Oswald.

‘Let it be the broad arrow, then! It'll be the badge of freedom of the future, badge of honour for those who have struggled against the tide of public opinion. The militarists' hatred of us is much more bloodthirsty than their hatred of the Germans; we are the cowards and the traitors who are deliberately delaying victory. “If we don't give Germany a knock-out blow now, the war will start all over again for the next generation” – you hear the ignorant and the thoughtless reiterating that catch-phrase like a lot of parrots. The war all over again – that's exactly what they will have if they do win their complete military victory. When the “knockout blow” has been dealt, they'll have to go on keeping big armies and building big ships, to consolidate their position as top-dog. And as long as we have big armies and navies, we shall always have wars. The pretty toys have to be used – they can't be kept for show… People call us “Pro-Germans” – it's laughable. If I'd been in Germany or anywhere else, I'd have fought just as hard against being turned into a cog in the infernal machinery of war. It's the whole system of militarism I'm up against, not the individual wrongs of one country or another. No civilised industrial population of any country wants war. Miners in Cornwall and Lancashire or Galicia and Siberia; poor devils sweating in our factories and in
their
factories; railwaymen, schoolmasters, farmers – what do they want with war? Nothing… until the idea is drilled into them by those in power. The people who want war and believe that war is good, should be allowed to make a private picnic of it. The government officials and cabinet ministers and war profiteers on both sides; the people who say they'd rather lose all their sons, than that they shouldn't go out and fight—'

‘The khaki-clad females who say they wish they were men, so that they could kill a few Huns themselves,' Dennis put in.

‘Yes, if only that small handful who started the war, and are continuing it, could finish it up amongst themselves, without implicating the masses!'

‘Without the masses, there would be no war,' said Barnaby.

‘Exactly!' cried Alan, ‘without the masses, there
could
be no war, and that is the solution of it all, and the end and the aim of socialism – to free the masses from the tyranny of governments that can drive them like cattle to be slaughtered in this crazy campaign of greed and hatred. Look at the wonderfully organised man-power of all the nations, with all the woman-power behind it; look at the scientific miracles and the ceaseless labour and energy that go to the production of big guns, submarines, aeroplanes, poison-gas; think of all this employed in the cause of destruction… And think of the heroism and self-sacrifice of those who really “die gladly” for a mistaken ideal; and the tremendous flame of patriotism that's burning in the hearts of all the peoples alike: if all these tangible and intangible splendours could have been used in the furtherance, instead of in the destruction of civilisation!

‘And you're expected to take your share in the destruction, without asking if it's right or wrong. All honour to the men who, when war broke out, almost as a matter of course left their homes and their loves and their careers, because they thought it was the only decent thing to do… And all blame to the old men at home, and to the narrow-minded women and unimaginative girls who made it appear the only decent thing! We're convinced that it isn't, and
we must stand firm
, cost what it may! We're few: that doesn't matter. We shall be pilloried: that doesn't matter. All that matters is that we shall have striven against what our brains and our hearts recognised as evil – Oh, not only evil, but stupid and petty and beastly – and that we shall have done our bit towards bringing nearer the day when militarism will be supplanted by industry, and we may hope to have an international system of legislation that'll knock out the possibility of disputes having to be settled by the barbarous and unintelligent means of bloodshed.'

‘Unintelligent, good Lord, yes!' cried Barnaby, ‘the whole thing is unintelligent, even from the militarist point of view. There are thousands of men being forced to fight, who are physically and mentally unfit to be of the least use in battle, but whose brains might have given us scientific inventions that would have benefited humanity, works of art, books, music… No, they won't let them stop at home and do what they
can
do, but must send them out to do incompetently things against which their whole nature rises in revolt. From the general utility standpoint: in which capacity is the artist of more value to the nation? As a creator of a work that may live, or as a mass of shattered nerves, totally incapable either of fulfilling the requirements of the army or of carrying out his own ideas?'

‘Oh, how much does the general public care about art or the artist these days?' exclaimed Dennis.

‘They may not care now,' rejoined Barnaby, ‘but it's the sacred duty of everyone who's got the gift of creation to try and keep it intact. When the war is over we shall be grateful to those who through the long night of destruction have kept alight the torch of art and intellect. That's rendering a greater service to mankind than putting your life at the disposal of the war-machine.'

‘And the sight of all those war-shrines makes me sick!' cried Alan. ‘“
Greater love hath no man—
” How dare they profane the words? It's not that a man is merely “laying down his life for his friends,” but trying to do some other man in at the same time. How does that fit in with “
Thou shalt not kill
”?'

An unobtrusive-looking spectacled man, who all this while had sat silent at the corner table which Crispin had vacated, looked over at the group. ‘It does not fit in, and it never will, but the Church has become untrue to herself, as those who serve her have become untrue, perverting her words until they seem to serve the ends of the State.'

Alan asked eagerly: ‘Are you appealing on religious grounds, then?'

The man replied, ‘Yes. And I daresay I'll get partial exemption. Non-Combatant Service. The despicable compromise that some men can make with their conscience. “
Thou shalt not kill
” – they think they're obeying the letter of the law if they don't bear arms and go to the fighting-line; but they're scarcely obeying the spirit when they accept work in munition-factories, or otherwise help to release men to be killed in their place.'

‘Yes, I'm up against people of that sort, as much as I'm up against rabid militarists,' said Alan; ‘they are the cowards and shirkers who deserve all the onus heaped upon the community of pacifists and socialists as a whole. Men whose conscience won't let them kill, but who haven't the courage to back their opinions – I've no use for them. Passive pacifism won't do any good. What we want is active pacifism, fearless and unashamed, ready to join hands with the workers of all other countries; to stand firm against their immoral, gain-seeking governments; and ready to suffer the utmost penalty of their idiotic and benighted law.'

Crispin rose from his chair. ‘You b-bloody pacifists make as much noise as b-bloody militarists. One c-can't hearoneselfthink…' And on this cryptic utterance he made his exit.

The cloud of smoke became denser and more dense. Roy Radford and the flappers had long since departed, and the remaining company, having abandoned their separate tables, formed one collective straggling group. Through the smoke, Antoinette watched them; O'Farrell's fine sensitive features and visionary eyes shadowed by a thatch of wild auburn hair; Barnaby's rough-hewn head and hunched shoulders; Everard's sleek good looks; Harry Hope's chubbiness; Benny Joseph's dark eyes and Semitic profile; the nondescript appearance of the religious ‘objector' who had joined in the conversation; Oswald's thin pale face and jerkiness of movement; Pegeen's tilted nose, and the cigarette stuck impertinently in one corner of her mouth… Picturesque enough, the whole group, only now Antoinette dared not glance at that slim boy with his dark flaming eyes, nor at Dennis… not since she had seen that look on his face when Alan had entered.