“I ought to explain a little further, perhaps. I have been writing on Labour questions for some time under the pseudonym of `Paul Fiske’.”
“Paul Fiske?” Mr. Stenson gasped. “You—Paul Fiske?”
Julian nodded assent.
“You are amazed, of course,” he proceeded, “but it is nevertheless the truth. The fact has just come to light, and I have been invited to join this new emergency Council, composed of one or two Socialists and writers, amongst them a very distinguished prelate; Labour Members of Parliament, and representatives of the various Trades Unions, a body of men which you doubtless know all about. I attended a meeting at Westminster an hour ago, and I was entrusted with this commission to you.”
Mr. Stenson sat down suddenly.
“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “You—Julian Orden!”
There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Stenson, however, was a man of immense recuperative powers. He assimilated the new situation without further protest.
“You have given me the surprise of my life, Orden,” he confessed. “That, however, is a personal matter. Hannaway Wells is in the study. You have no objection, I suppose, to his being present?”
“None whatever.”
Mr. Stenson rang the bell, and in a few minutes they were joined by his colleague. The former wasted no time in explanations.
“You will doubtless be as astonished as I was, Wells,” he said, “to learn that our friend Julian Orden comes here as the representative of the new Labour Council. His qualifications, amongst others, are that under the pseudonym of `Paul Fiske’ he is the writer of those wonderful articles which have been the beacon light and the inspiration of the Labour Party for the last year.”
Mr. Hannaway Wells prided himself upon never being surprised. This time the only way he could preserve his reputation was by holding his tongue.
“We are now prepared to hear your mission,” Mr. Stenson continued, turning to his visitor.
“I imagine,” Julian began, “that you know something about this new Labour Council?”
“What little we do know,” Mr. Stenson answered, “we have learnt with great difficulty through our secret service. I gather that a small league of men has been formed within a mile of the Houses of Parliament, who, whatever their motives may be, have been guilty of treasonable and traitorous communication with the enemy.”
“Strictly speaking, you are, without doubt, perfectly right,” Julian acknowledged.
Mr. Stenson switched on an electric light.
“Sit down, Orden,” he invited. “There is no need for us to stand glaring at one another. There is enough of real importance in the nature of our interview without making melodrama of it.”
The Prime Minister threw himself into an easy chair. Julian, with a little sigh of relief, selected a high-backed oak chair and rested his foot upon a hassock. Hannaway Wells remained standing upon the hearthrug.
“Straight into the heart of it, please, Orden,” Mr. Stenson begged. “Let us know how far this accursed conspiracy has gone.”
“It has gone to very great lengths,” Julian declared. “Certain members of this newly-formed Council of Labour have been in communication for some months with the Socialist Party in Germany. From these latter they have received a definite and authentic proposal of peace, countersigned by the three most important men in Germany. That proposal of peace I am here to lay before you, with the request that you act upon it without delay.”
Julian produced his roll of papers. The two men remained motionless. The great issue had been reached with almost paralysing rapidity.
“My advice,” Mr. Hannaway Wells said bluntly, “is that you, sir,”—turning to his Chief—“refuse to discuss or consider these proposals, or to examine that document. I submit that you are the head of His Majesty’s Government, and any communication emanating from a foreign country should be addressed to you. If you ever consider this matter and discuss it with Mr. Orden here, you associate yourself with a traitorous breach of the law.”
Mr. Stenson made no immediate reply. He looked towards Julian, as though to hear what he had to say.
“Mr. Hannaway Wells’s advice is, without doubt, technically correct,” Julian admitted, “but the whole subject is too great, and the issues involved too awful for etiquette or even propriety to count. It is for you, sir, to decide what is best for the country. You commit yourself to nothing by reading the proposals, and I suggest that you do so.”
“We will read them,” Mr. Stenson decided.
Julian passed over the papers. The two men crossed the room and leaned over the Prime Minister’s writing table. Mr. Stenson drew down the electric light, and they remained there in close confabulation for about a quarter of an hour. Julian sat with his back turned towards them and his ears closed. In this atmosphere of government, his own position seemed to him weird and fantastic. A sense of unreality cumbered his thoughts. Even this brief pause in the actual negotiations filled him with doubts. He could scarcely believe that it was he who was to dictate terms to the man who was responsible for the government of the country; that it was he who was to force a decision pregnant with far-reaching consequences to the entire world. The figures of Fenn and Bright loomed up ominously before him, however hard he tried to push them into the background. Was it the mandate of such men as these that he was carrying?
Presently the two Ministers returned to their places. Julian had heard their voices for the last few minutes without being able to distinguish a word of their actual conversation.
“We have considered the document you have brought, Orden,” the Prime Minister said, “and we frankly admit that we find its contents surprising. The terms of peace suggested form a perfectly possible basis for negotiations. At the same time, you are probably aware that it has not been in the mind of His Majesty’s Ministers to discuss terms of peace at all with the present administration of Germany.”
“These terms,” Julian reminded him, “are dictated, not by the Kaiser and his advisers, but by the Socialist and Labour Party.”
“It is strange,” Mr. Stenson pointed out, “that we have heard so little of that Party. It is even astonishing that we should find them in a position to be able to dictate terms of peace to the Hohenzollerns.”
“You do not dispute the authenticity of the document?” Julian asked.
“I will not go so far as that,” Mr. Stenson replied cautiously. “Our secret service informed us some time ago that Freistner, the head of the German Socialists, was in communication with certain people in this country. I have no doubt whatever that these are the proposals of the authorised Socialist Party of Germany. What I do not understand is how they have suddenly acquired the strength to induce proposals of peace such as these.”
“It has been suggested,” Julian said, “that even the Hohenzollerns, even the military clique of Germany, see before them now the impossibility of reaping the rewards of their successful campaigns. Peace is becoming a necessity to them. They would prefer, therefore, to seem to yield to the demands of their own Socialists rather than to foreign pressure.”
“That may be so,” Mr. Stenson admitted. “Let us proceed. The first part of your duty, Orden, is finished. What else have you to say?”
“I am instructed,” Julian announced, “to appeal to you to sue at once, through the Spanish Ambassador, for an armistice while these terms are considered and arrangements made for discussing them.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will not evade even that question. Of the twenty-three members of the new Council of Labour, twenty represent the Trades Unions of the great industries of the kingdom. Those twenty will unanimously proclaim a general strike, if you should refuse the proposed armistice.”
“In other words,” Mr. Stenson observed drily, “they will scuttle the ship themselves. Do you approve of these tactics?”
“I decline to answer that question,” Julian said, “but I would point out to you that when you acknowledged yourself defe
ated by the miners of South Wales, you pointed the way to some such crisis as this.”
“That may be true,” Mr. Stenson acknowledged. “I have only at this moment, however, to deal with the present condition of affairs. Do you seriously believe that, if I make the only answer which at present seems to me possible, the Council of Labour, as they call themselves, will adopt the measures they threaten?”
“I believe that they will,” Julian declared gravely. “I believe that the country looks upon any continuation of this war as a continuation of unnecessary and ghastly slaughter. To appreciably change the military situation would mean the sacrifice of millions more lives, would mean the continuation of the war for another two years. I believe that the people of Germany who count are of the same opinion. I believe that the inevitable change of government in Germany will show us a nation freed from this hideous lust for conquest, a nation with whom, when she is purged of the poison of these last years, we can exist fraternally and with mutual benefit.”
“You are a very sanguine man, Mr. Orden,” Hannaway Wells remarked.
“I have never found,” Julian replied, “that the pessimist walks with his head turned towards the truth.”
“How long have I,” the Prime Minister asked, after a brief pause, “for my reply?”
“Twenty-four hours,” Julian told him, “during which time it is hoped that you will communicate with our Allies and pave the way for a further understanding. The Council of Labour asks you for no pledge as to their safety. We know quite well that all of us are, legally speaking, guilty of treason. On the other hand, a single step towards the curtailment of our liberties will mean the paralysis of every industry in the United Kingdom.”
“I realise the position perfectly,” Mr. Stenson observed drily. “I do not exactly know what to say to you personally, Orden,” he added. “Perhaps it is as well for us that the Council should have chosen an ambassador with whom discussion, at any rate, is possible. Nevertheless, I feel bound to remind you that you have taken upon your shoulders, considering your birth and education, one of the most perilous loads which any man could carry.”
“I have weighed the consequences,” Julian replied, with a sudden and curious sadness in his tone. “I know how the name of `pacifist’ stinks in the nostrils. I know how far we are committed as a nation to a peace won by force of arms. I know how our British blood boils at the thought of leaving a foreign country with as many military advantages as Germany has acquired. But I feel, too, that there is the other side. I have brought you evidence that it is not the German nation against whom we fight, man against man, human being against human being. It is my belief that autocracy and the dynasty of the Hohenzollerns will crumble into ruin as a result of today’s negotiations, just as surely as though we sacrificed God knows how many more lives to achieve a greater measure of military triumph.”
The Prime Minister rang the bell.
“You are an honest man, Julian Orden,” he said, “and a decent emissary. You will reply that we take the twenty-four hours for reflection. That means that we shall meet at nine o’clock to-morrow evening.”
He held out his hand in farewell, an action which somehow sent Julian away a happier man.
CHAPTER XVII
Table of Contents
Julian, on, the morning following his visit to the Prime Minister, was afflicted with a curious and persistent unrest. He travelled down to the Temple land found Miles Furley in a room hung with tobacco smoke and redolent of a late night.
“Miles,” Julian declared, as the two men shook hands, “I can’t rest.”
“I am in the same fix,” Furley admitted. “I sat here till four o’clock. Phineas Cross came around, and half-a-dozen of the others. I felt I must talk to them, I must keep on hammering it out. We’re right, Julian. We must be right!”
“It’s a ghastly responsibility. I wonder what history will have to say.”
“That’s the worst of it,” Furley groaned. “They’ll have a bird’s-eye view of the whole affair, those people who write our requiem or our eulogy. You noticed the Press this morning? They’re all hinting at some great move in the West. It’s about in the clubs. Why, I even heard last night that we were in Ostend. It’s all a rig, of course. Stenson wants to gain time.”
“Who opened these negotiations with Freistner?” Julian asked.
“Fenn. He met him at the Geneva Conference, the year before the war. I met him, too, but I didn’t see so much of him. He’s a fine fellow, Julian—as unlike the typical German as any man you ever met.”
“He’s honest, I suppose?”
“As the day itself,” was the confident reply. “He has been in prison twice, you know, for plain speaking. He is the one man in Germany who has fought the war, tooth and nail, from the start.”
Julian caught his friend by the shoulder.
“Miles,” he said,—“straight from the bottom of your heart, mind—you do believe we are justified?”
“I have never doubted it.”
“You know that we have practically created a revolution—that we have established a dictatorship? Stenson must obey or face anarchy.”
“It is the voice of the people,” Furley declared. “I am convinced that we are justified. I am convinced of the inutility of the prolongation of this war.”
Julian drew a little sigh of relief.
“Don’t think I am weakening,” he said. “Remember, I am new to this thing in practice, even though I may be responsible for some of the theory.”
“It is the people who are the soundest directors of a nation’s policy,” Furley pronounced. “High politics becomes too much like a game of chess, hedged all around with etiquette and precedent. It’s human life we want to save, Julian. People don’t stop to realise the horrible tragedy of even one man’s death—one man with his little circle of relatives and friends. In the game of war one forgets. Human beings—men from the toiler’s bench, the carpenter’s bench, from behind the counter, from the land, from the mine—don khaki, become soldiers, and there seems something different about them. So many human lives gone every day; just soldiers, just the toll we have to pay for a slight advance or a costly retreat. And, my God, every one of them, underneath their khaki, is a human being! The politicians don’t grasp it, Julian. That’s our justification. The day that armistice is signed, several hundred lives at least—perhaps, thousands—will be saved; for several hundred women the sun will continue to shine. Parents, sweethearts, children—all of them—think what they will be spared!”
“I am a man again,” Julian declared. “Come along round to Westminster. There are many things I want to ask about the Executive.”
They drove round to the great building which had been taken over by the different members of the Labour Council. The representative of each Trades Union had his own office, staff of clerks and private telephone. Fenn, who greeted the two men with a rather excessive cordiality, constituted himself their cicerone. He took them from room to room and waited while Julian exchanged remarks with some of the delegates whom he had not met personally.
“Every one of our members,” Fenn pointed out, “is in direct communication with the local secretary of each town in which his industry is represented. You see these?”
He paused and laid his hand on a little heap of telegraph forms, on which one word was typed.
“These,” he continued, “are all ready to be dispatched the second that we hear from Mr. Stenson that is to say if we should hear unfavourably. They are divided into batches, and each batch will be sent from a different post-office, so that there shall be no delay. We calculate that in seven hours, at the most, the industrial pulse of the country will have ceased to beat.”
“How long has your organisation taken to build up?” Julian enquired.
“Exactly three months,” David Sands observed, turning around in his swing chair from the desk at which he had been writing. “The scheme was started a few days after your article in the British Review. We took your m
otto as our text `Coordination and cooperation.’”
They found their way into the clubroom, and at luncheon, later on, Julian strove to improve his acquaintance with the men who were seated around him. Some of them were Members of Parliament with well-known names, others were intensely local, but all seemed earnest and clear-sighted. Phineas Cross commenced to talk about war generally. He had just returned from a visit with other Labour Members to the front, although it is doubtful whether the result had been exactly in accordance with the intentions of the powers who had invited him.
“I’ll tell you something about war,” he said, “which contradicts most every other experience. There’s scarcely a great subject in the world which you don’t have to take as a whole, and from the biggest point of view, to appreciate it thoroughly. It’s exactly different with war. If you want to understand more than the platitudes, you want to just take in one section of the fighting. Say there are fifty Englishmen, decent fellows, been dragged from their posts as commercial travellers or small tradesmen or labourers or what-not, and they get mixed up with a similar number of Germans. Those Germans ain’t the fiends we read about. They’re not bubbling over with militarism. They don’t want to lord it over all the world. They’ve exactly the same tastes, the same outlook upon life as the fifty Englishmen whom an iron hand has been forcing to do their best to kill. Those English chaps didn’t want to kill anybody, any more than the Germans did. They had to do it, too, simply because it was part of the game. There was a handful of German prisoners I saw, talking with their guard and exchanging smokes. One was a barber in a country town. The man who had him in tow was an English barber. Bless you, they were talking like one o’clock! That German barber didn’t want anything in life except plenty to eat and drink, to be a good husband and good father, and to save enough money to buy a little house of his own. The Englishman was just the same. He’d as soon have had that German for a pal for a day’s fishing or a walk in the country, as any one else. They’d neither of them got anything against the other. Where the hell is this spirit of hatred? You go down the line, mile after mile, and most little groups of men facing one another are just the same. Here and there, there’s some bitter feeling, through some fighting that’s seemed unfair, but that’s nothing. The fact remains that those millions of men don’t hate one another, that they’ve got nothing to hate one another about, and they’re being driven to slaughter one another like savage beasts. For what? Mr. Stenson might supply an answer. Your great editors might. Your great Generals could be glib about it. They could spout volumes of words, but there’s no substance about them. I say that in this generation there’s no call for fighting, and there didn’t ought to be any.”
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 293
