Death of a Hero (32 page)

“I've just been dining with Tommy Parkinson of the Foreign Office. He had to leave early and go back to Downing Street. It seems there are Cabinet meetings all the time. Tommy was frightfully depressed and pessimistic about the situation.”

“What did he say?” asked three or four eager voices.

“He wouldn't commit himself at all. He was simply very gloomy and
distrait
, and wouldn't say anything definite.”

“Why didn't you ask him whether Germany is mobilizing?”

“I did, but he wouldn't tell me anything.”

“Oh, well, perhaps he only has a liver.”

Among the other guests was a tall, very erect, rather sunburned man of about forty, who had taken no part in the conversation. He was sitting on a couch in silence beside a woman younger than himself – his wife – who was also silent. George heard him introduced to another man as Colonel Thomas. After a few minutes George went over and spoke to him.

“My name's Winterbourne. You're Colonel Thomas, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of the situation we've all been discussing so intelligently?”

“I don't think anything. A soldier mustn't have political ‘views', you know.”

“Well, but do you think the Germans are mobilizing?”

“I don't know. I believe they are. But that doesn't necessarily mean war. They may be mobilizing for manoeuvres. We're mobilized for manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain.”

“Mobilized! The British Army mobilized !”

“Only for manoeuvres, you know.”

“Are you mobilized too?”

“Yes, I leave tomorrow morning.”

“Good God!”

“Oh, it's only manoeuvres. They always happen at this time of the year.”

Another day – it must have been the Sunday before the 4th of August – George went down to Trafalgar Square to attend a Socialist peace meeting. The space round the Nelson Column was so crowded that he could not get near enough to hear the speakers, who were standing on the plinth above the heads of the crowd. An eager-faced man with white hair and an aristocratic voice made a speech, directed at mob prejudices. He apparently took the view that the threatened war was the work of Imperial Russia. George caught repeatedly the words “knout”, “Cossacks”, and the phrase “the eagles of war are spreadin' their wings”. Some of the listeners at a rival war meeting started an attack on the peace party. There was a scuffle, which was very soon dispersed by mounted police. The crowd surged away from Trafalgar Square. George found himself carried towards the Admiralty Arch and up the Mall. He thought he might as well go back that way, and try to get a bus at Victoria. But opposite Buckingham Palace the road was blocked by a huge crowd, which was continually reinforced from all three roads. The Palace Gates were shut, with a cordon of police in front of them. The red-coated Guardsmen in their furry busbies stood at ease in front of the sentry-boxes.

“We want King George! We want King George!” chanted the mob.

“We want King George!”

After several minutes a window was opened on to the centre balcony, and the King appeared. He was greeted by an immense ragged cheer, and acknowledged it by raising his hand to his forehead. The crowd began another chant:

“We want War! We want War! We want WAR!”

More cheering. The king made no gesture of approval or disapproval.

“Speech!” shouted the mob, “speech! WE WANT WAR!”

The King saluted again, and disappeared. A roar of mingled cheering and disappointment came from the crowd. There were several of the inevitable humorous optimists to cry:

“Are we down-hearted?”

“No-ooo!”

“Is Germany?”

“Yuss!”

“Do we care for the Germans?”

“No-oooo!”

There could be no doubt about the feelings of that small section of the English population…

Even then George still clung to hopes of peace, bought only the more pacific Radical papers, and believed that Sir Edward Grey would “do something”. Touching faith of the English in the omnipotence of their rulers! After all, Sir Edward was not God Almighty, but merely a harassed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in a difficult position, with a divided Cabinet behind him. What on earth could the man have done? Possibly a frank statement in July that if France or Belgium were attacked, England would “come in”? People say so now, but then it might have looked like a gesture of provocation… Who are we to pass judgements? And the nations cannot altogether pose as the victims of their rulers. It is certain that the mobs in the capitals were howling for war. It is certain that the largest popular demonstrations in favour of peace occurred in Germany…

When the news came that France had mobilized, and that the Germans had crossed the Belgian frontier, George abandoned all hope immediately. He knew that one of the cardinal points of British policy is never to allow Antwerp to rest in the possession of a Great Power. The principle is as old as the reign of Queen Elizabeth or older. Who was it said, “Antwerp is a pistol pointed at England's head”? All Europe was in arms, and England would join. The impossible had happened. They were in for three months of carnage and horrors. Yes, three months. It couldn't last longer. Probably less. Oh, much less. There would be an immense financial collapse, and the governments would have to cease fighting. Why, Bank rate was ten per cent already. He jumped on a bus at Hyde Park Corner and sat just inside the entrance.

“What's the news?” said the conductor.

“Very serious: the French have mobilized.”

“What abaht us?”

“We've done nothing yet. But it looks inevitable.”

“Why, we ain't declared war, ‘ave we?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, there's still ‘opes, then. I reckon we'd best mind ah own business, and keep aht of it.”

Mind our own business! How quickly that unselfish sentiment was crystallized in the national slogan: Business As Usual!

The long, unendurable nightmare had begun. And the reign of Cant, Delusion, and Delirium. I have shown, with a certain amount of excusable ferocity, how devilishly and perniciously the old régime of Cant affected people's sexual lives, and hence the whole of their lives and characters and those of their children. The subsequent reaction was, at least in its origin, healthy and right. There simply
had
to be a better attitude, the facts had to be faced. And nobody with any courage will allow himself to be frightened out of saying so, either by the hushhush partisans of the old regime or the doing-what-grandpa-did-and-let's-pretend-it's-all-lovely, or by the fact that numerous congenital idiots have prattled and babbled and slobbered about “sex” until the very word is an exacerbation. But the sexual life
is
important. It is in so many cases the dominant or the next to dominant factor in people's lives. We can't write about their lives without bringing it in; so for God's sake let's do so honestly and openly, in accordance with what we believe to be the facts, or else give up pretending that we are writing about life. No more Cant. And I mean free-love Cant just as much as orange-blossoms and pealing church bells Cant…

If you're going to argue that Cant is necessary (the old political excuse), then for Heaven's sake let's chuck up the game and hand in our checks. But it isn't necessary. It can only be necessary when deceit is necessary, when people have to be influenced to act against their right instincts and true interests. If you want to judge a man, a cause, a nation, ask: Do they Cant? If the War had been an honest affair for any participant, it would not have needed this preposterous bolstering up of Cant. The only honest people – if they existed were those who said: “This is foul brutality, but we respect and admire brutality, and admit we are brutes; in fact, we are proud of being brutes.” All right, then we know. “War is hell.” It is, General Sherman, it is, a bloody, brutal hell. Thanks for your honesty. You, at least, were an honourable murderer.

It was the régime of Cant
before
the War which made the Cant
during
the War so damnably possible and easy. On our coming of age the Victorians generously handed us a charming little cheque for fifty guineas – fifty-one months of hell, and the results. Charming people, weren't they? Virtuous and far-sighted. But it wasn't their fault? They didn't make the War? It was Prussia, and Prussian militarism? Right you are,
right ho! Who made Prussia a great power and subsidized Frederick the Second to do it, thereby snatching an empire from France? England. Who backed up Prussia against Austria, and Bismarek against Napoleon III? England. And whose Cant governed England in the nineteenth century? But never mind this domestic squabble of mine – put it that I mean the “Victorians” of all nations.

One human brain cannot hold, one memory retain, one pen portray the limitless Cant, Delusion, and Delirium let loose on the world during those four years. It surpasses the most fantastic imagination. It was incredible – and I suppose that was why it was believed. It was the supreme and tragic climax of Victorian Cant, for after all the Victorians were still in full blast in 1914, and had pretty much the control of everything. Did they appeal to us honestly, and say: “We have made a colossal and tragic error, we have involved you and all of us in a huge war; it's too late to stop it; you must come and help us, and we promise to take the first opportunity of making peace and making it thoroughly”? They did not. They said they didn't want to lose us, but they thought
WE
ought to go; they said our King and Country needed us; they said they'd kiss us when we came home
(merci!
effect of the Entente Cordiale?); they said one of the most civilized races in the world were “Huns”; they invented Cadaver factories; they asserted that a race of men notorious during generations for their kindliness were habitual baby-butchers, rapers of women, crucifiers of prisoners; they said the “Huns” were sneaks and cowards and skedaddlers, but failed to explain why it took fifty-one months to beat their hopelessly outnumbered armies; they said they were fighting for the Liberty of the World, and everywhere there is less liberty; they said they would Never sheathe the Sword until etcetera, and this sort of criminal rant was called Pisgah-Heights of Patriotism… They said… But why continue? Why go on? It is desolating, desolating. And then they dare wonder why the young are cynical and despairing and angry and chaotic! And they still have adherents, who still dare to go on preaching to
us!
Quick! A shrine to the goddesses Cant and Impudence…

I don't know if George was aware of all this, because we never discussed it. There were numbers of things you prudently didn't discuss in those days; you never knew who might be listening and “report”. I myself was twice arrested, as a civilian, for wearing a cloak and looking foreign, and for laughing in the street; I was under acute suspicion for
weeks in one battalion because I had a covy of Heine's poems and admitted that I had been abroad; in another I was suspected of not being myself, God knows why. That was nothing compared with the persecution endured by D. H. Lawrence, probably the greatest living English novelist, and a man of whom – in spite of his failings – England should be proud.

I do know that George suffered profoundly from the first day of the War until his death at the end of it. He must have realized the awfulness of the Cant and degradation, for he occasionally talked about the yahoos of the world having got loose and seized control, and, by Jove! he was right. I shan't attempt to describe the sinister degradation of English life in the last two years of the War: for one thing, I was mostly out of England; and for another, Lawrence has done it once and for all in the chapter called “The Nightmare” in his book
Kangaroo.

In George's case, the suffering which was common to all decent men and women was increased and complicated and rendered more torturing by his personal problems, which somehow became related to the War. You must remember that he did not believe in the alleged causes for which the War was fought. He looked upon the War as a ghastly calamity, or a more ghastly crime. They might talk about their idealism, but it wasn't convincing. There wasn't the
élan
, the conviction, the burning idealism which carried the ragged untrained armies of the First French Republic so dramatically to Victory over the hostile coalitions of the Kings. There was always the suspicion of dupery and humbug. Therefore, he could not take part in the War with any enthusiasm or conviction. On the other hand, he saw the intolerable egotism of setting up oneself as a notable exception or courting a facile martyrdom of
rouspétance.
Going meant one more little brand in the conflagration; staying out meant that some other, probably physically weaker, brand was substituted. His conscience was troubled before he was in the Army, and equally troubled afterwards. The only consolation he felt was in the fact that you certainly had a worse and a more dangerous time in the line than out of it.

As a matter of fact, I never really “got” George's position. He hated talking about the subject, and he had thought about it and worried about it so much that he was quite muddle-headed. It seemed to involve the whole universe, and his attempts to express his point of view would wander off into discussions about the Greek city-states or the principles of Machiavelli. He was frankly incoherent, which meant a
considerable inner conflict. From the very beginning of the War he had got into the habit of worrying, and this developed with alarming rapidity. He worried about the War, about his own attitude to it, about his relations with Elizabeth and Fanny, about his military duties, about everything. Now, “worry” is not “caused” by an event; it is a state which seizes upon any event to “worry” over. It is a form of neurasthenia, which may be induced in a perfectly healthy mind by shock and strain. And for months and months he just worried and drifted.