The Other Campaign Begins

: The World Peril Of 1910

It was on the day following the destruction of Dover that the news of

the actual landing of the French and German forces had really taken

place at the points selected by Castellan reached Whernside. The little

house party were at lunch, and the latest papers had just come over from

Settle. Naturally what they contained formed the sole topic of

conversation.



"Really, Arnold, I think even you must confess t at things are a great

deal more serious than anyone could have imagined a few days ago. The

very idea--an invasion accomplished in forty-eight hours--Portsmouth,

Dover, Sheerness and Tilbury destroyed, and French and German and

Russian soldiers actually in arms on English soil. The thing would be

preposterous if it were not true!



"And what are we to do now, I should like to know? The Fleet doesn't

exist--we have no army in the Continental sense of the word, which of

course is the real military sense, thanks to a lot of politicians

calling themselves statesmen who have been squabbling about what an army

ought to be for the last ten years.



"You will be able to put a million trained and half-trained--mostly

half-trained--men into the field, to face millions of highly-trained

French, German, Russian and Austrian troops, led by officers who have

taken their profession seriously, and not by gentlemen who have gone

into the army because it was a nice sort of playground, where you could

have lots of fun, and a little amateur fighting now and then. I wonder

what they will do now against the men who have made war a science

instead of sport!



"I should like to know what the good people who have made such a fuss

about the 'tyranny of Conscription' will say now, when they find that we

haven't trained men enough to defend our homes. Just as if military

service was not the first duty a man owes to his country and to his

home. A man has no right to a country nor a home if he isn't able to

defend them. Kipling was perfectly right when he said:





'What is your boasting worth

If you grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth?'"





This little lecture was delivered with trembling lips, flushed cheeks

and flashing eyes by Lady Margaret Holker, Lord Westerham's sister, who

had joined the party that morning to help her brother in his recruiting.



She was an almost perfect type of the modern highly-bred Englishwoman,

who knows how to be entirely modern without being vulgarly "up-to-date."

She was a strong contrast to her brother, in that she was a bright

brunette--not beautiful, perhaps not even pretty, but for all that

distinctly good-looking. Her hair and eyebrows were black, her eyes a

deep pansy-blue. A clear complexion, usually pale but decidedly flushed

now, and, for the rest, somewhat irregular features which might have

been almost plain, but for that indefinable expression of combined

gentleness and strength which only the careful selection of long descent

can give.



As for her figure, it was as perfect as absolute health and abundant

exercise could make it. She could ride, shoot, throw a fly and steer a

yacht better than most women and many men of her class; but for all that

she could grill steaks and boil potatoes with as much distinction as she

could play the piano and violin, and sing in three or four languages.



She also had a grip, not on politics, for which she had a wholesome

contempt, but on the affairs of the nations--the things which really

mattered. And yet withal she was just an entirely healthy young

Englishwoman, who was quite as much at home in the midst of a good

swinging waltz as she was in an argument on high affairs of State.



"My dear Madge," said her brother, who had been reading the reports in

the second morning edition of the Times aloud, "I am afraid that,

after all, you are right. But then, you must not forget that a new enemy

has come into the field. I hardly like to say so in Miss Castellan's

presence, but it is perfectly clear that, considering what the Fleet

did, there would have been no invasion if it had not been for those

diabolical contrivances that John Castellan took over to the German

Emperor."



"You needn't have any hesitation in saying what you like about him

before me, Lord Westerham," said Norah, flushing. "It's no brother he is

of mine now, as I told him the day he went aboard the German yacht at

Clifden. I'd see him shot to-morrow without a wink of my eyes. The man

who does what he has done has no right to the respect of any man nor the

love of any woman--no, not even if the woman is his sister. Think of all

the good, loyal Irishmen, soldiers and sailors, that he has murdered by

this time. No, I have no brother called John Castellan."



"But you have another called Denis," said Auriole, "and I think you may

be well content with him!"



"Ah, Denis!" said Norah, flushing again, but for a different reason,

"Denis is a good and loyal man; yes, I am proud of him--God bless him!"



"And I should reckon that skipper of his, Captain Erskine, must be a

pretty smart sort of man," said Mr Parmenter, who so far had hardly

joined in the conversation, and who had seemed curiously indifferent to

the terrible exploits of the Flying Fishes and all that had followed

them. "That craft of his seems to be just about as business-like as

anything that ever got into the water or under it. I wonder what he is

doing with the Russian and German ships in the Thames now. I guess he

won't let many of them get back out of there. Quite a young man, too,

according to the accounts."



"Oh, yes," said Lady Margaret, "he isn't twenty-nine yet. I know him

slightly. He is a son of Admiral Erskine, who commanded the China

Squadron about eight years ago, and died of fever after a pirate hunt,

and he is the nephew of dear old Lady Caroline Anstey, my other mother

as I call her. He is really a splendid fellow, and some people say as

good-looking as he is clever; although, of course, there was a desperate

lot of jealousy when he was promoted Captain straight away from

Lieutenant-Commander of a Fishery cruiser, but I should like to know how

many of the wiseacres of Whitehall could have designed that Ithuriel

of his."



"It's a pity she can't fly, though, like those others," said Mr

Parmenter, with a curious note in his voice which no one at the table

but Lennard understood. "She's a holy terror in the water, but the other

fellow's got all the call on land. If they get a dozen or so of these

aerial submarines as you might call them, in front of the invading

forces, I can't see what's going to stop a march on London, and right

round it. Your men are just as brave as any on earth, and a bit more

than some, if their officers are a bit more gentlemen and sportsmen than

soldiers; but no man can fight a thing he can't hit back at, and so I

reckon the next thing we shall hear of will be the siege of London. What

do you think, Lennard?"



Lennard, who had hardly spoken a word during the meal, looked up, and

said in a voice which Lady Madge thought curiously unsympathetic:



"I shouldn't think it would take more than a fortnight at the outside,

even leaving these airships out of the question. We haven't three

hundred thousand men of all sorts to put into the field, who know one

end of a gun from another, or who can sit a horse; and now that the

sea's clear the enemy can land two or three millions in a fortnight."



"All our merchant shipping will be absolutely at their mercy, and they

will simply have to take them over to France and Germany and load them

up with men and horses, and bring them over as if they were coming to a

picnic. But, of course, with the airships to help them the thing's a

foregone conclusion, and to a great extent it is our own fault. I

thoroughly agree with what Lady Margaret says about conscription. If we

had had it only five years ago, we should now have three million men,

instead of three hundred thousand, trained and ready to take the field.

Though, after all--"



"After all--what?" said Lady Margaret, looking sharply round at him.



"Oh, nothing of any importance," he said. "At least, not just at

present. I daresay Lord Westerham will be able to explain what I might

have said better than I could. There's not time for it just now, I've

got to get a train to Bolton in an hour's time."



"And I'll have to be in Glasgow to-night," said Mr Parmenter, rising. "I

hope you won't think it very inhospitable of us, Lady Margaret: but

business is business, you know, and more so than usual in times like

these.



"Now, I had better say good-bye. I have a few things to see to before Mr

Lennard and I go down to Settle, but I've no doubt Auriole will find

some way of entertaining you till you want to start for York."



At half-past two the motor was at the door to take Mr Parmenter and

Lennard to Settle. That evening, in Glasgow, Mr Parmenter bought the

Minnehaha, a steel turbine yacht of two thousand tons and twenty-five

knots speed, from Mr Hendray Chinnock, a brother millionaire, who had

laid her up in the Clyde in consequence of the war the day before. He

re-engaged her officers and crew at double wages to cover war risks, and

started for New York within an hour of the completion of the purchase.



Lennard took the express to Bolton, with letters and a deed of gift from

Lord Westerham, which gave him absolute ownership of the cannel mine

with the twelve-hundred-foot vertical shaft at Farnworth.



That afternoon and evening Lady Margaret was more than entertained, for

during the afternoon she learned the story of the approaching cataclysm,

in comparison with which the war was of no more importance than a mere

street riot; and that night Auriole, who had learned to work the great

reflector almost as well as Lennard himself, showed her the

ever-growing, ever-brightening shape of the Celestial Invader.