Robert Carter's Blog: http://novelcarter.blogspot.co.uk/, page 7

Fit enough for a mechanized war?

Many Noble Readers who have read The Deadly Playground, 1914 have been wonderfully kind insofar as they have told me how realistic the book's atmosphere feels. This I take as a great compliment, but it is no accident. Much time was spent in accurately rendering the spirit of the times.
When the Great War broke out in 1914, means were sought in Britain to encourage soldiers to enlist. Germany’s invasion of France and Belgium had been expected in the years before the war, but Britain's attention was largely elsewhere. Her main interests did not so much involve the machinations of Continental politics, but rather the development of her vast empire around the globe.
Britain relied on the English Channel and a powerful navy for defence. Her regular army was only one-tenth the size of Germany's. Moreover, the British instinctively disliked the Continental system of conscription which obliged young men to join the military for two or three years, so there was no reserve of trained men who could be quickly called up.
Nor was there any broadcasting in 1914, not even radio, and people could only be reached by newspapers and posters. Consequently, when the war began, the government’s call was made through these media, and the message was: serve your country now!
What may now seem naive in the light of later events, appeared during the summer of 1914 to be the right thing to do. The nation was under threat. It was clearly the duty of healthy young men to rally to the cause.
However, this was the time when the practices of warfare were first being shaped by mass production techniques on an industrial scale. No one, not even the experts of the day, knew how the coming war would be sought. The foremost instruments of death would turnout to be thousands of miles of barbed wire, tens of thousands of machine guns and millions of high-explosive artillery shells.
Unfortunately, this was not going to be a war in which athletic prowess was particularly required.

Lloyd George's Love Nest

Back in my dim and distant college days, there used to be an interminable song sung by drunken rugby players to the tune of "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" the only lyric to which was: "Lloyd George knew my father, father knew Lloyd George ..." repeated endlessly, or at least until the drunkards concerned fell over.
But who was this mysterious Lloyd George that father was supposed to have known?

I think it will come as a surprise to most people that David Lloyd George was technically a Mancunian - that's somebody born in Manchester, by the way – but in all other respects he was famously Welsh. He was a lawyer, and then a Liberal politician, and by 1906 at the age of 43, he had risen to become a member of the Cabinet. He was to become Chancellor of the Exchequer (the man who held the government's purse strings) by the time the Great War broke out, and by the time it ended he had been Prime Minister for two years.
What was certainly not so well known at the time was Lloyd George's sexual incontinence. He was known as "the Goat" in recognition of his many affaires. General Kitchener once said that Cabinet members should not be told military secrets because they all told their wives - except for Lloyd George who told other people's wives.

In 1913, after Lloyd George refused to see a deputation of Suffragettes to discuss votes for women, they made him their especial target. Lloyd George liked women, but he also liked golf. He had a house built near the course at Walton Heath, so he could play a round and then play around, so to speak. When militant Suffragettes found out about this still unfinished love-nest, they planted two time-bombs there.

One bomb, containing five pounds of gunpowder, actually went off. Neither Lloyd George nor his lady-love were hurt, but there's still a crack in the wall of Pinfold Manor to remind us that the female franchise was a matter of hot debate in those charming days before the Great War changed everything.

Queen of Belgium's Embarrassment

Not too many people outside Belgium remember King Albert the First, but they should, because he was a man of honour and a great king.
When in August, 1914, the Germans told him they were going to march their armies through his country on the way to stabbing France in the back, he told the Kaiser where to get off. What followed was five years of torture, with just about every major Power in the world trying their best to kick the German army back across the Rhine. Albert must have wondered more than a few times if he had done the right thing, but what else could he have done? You can't have powerful neighbours marching troops onto your territory whenever they choose. (Are you listening Mr. Putin?)
Anyway ... I guess you're wondering about the Belgian queen - Elisabeth by name - and her embarrassment.
Well, Albert and Elisabeth were married in Munich.  Germany, on 2nd of October, 1900. They married there because she was a Bavarian Duchess and a princess of Wittelsbach who had been born at Possenhofen Castle.  She and Albert were very much in love, and nobody at that wedding could have imagined that fourteen years later German troops (including Bavarian regiments) would be marching through Belgium, committing atrocities of the worst kind.
But if anyone thought Elisabeth might have harboured divided loyalties, they were made to think again. "Once a Belgian," she said, "always a Belgian."

The moon and New York City?

By October 1914 the German invasion of Belgium was almost complete. Only a tiny remnant of land behind the road from Nieuport to Ypres was left unconquered. Of 11,800 square miles, only 300 was left - about the land area of New York City. This had to be defended because the German army was about to be hurled at the remnant in the hope that this final capture would knock Belgium out of the war completely.
The Belgian army was exhausted and all but out of ammunition. The low-lying ground was saturated with water so defensive trenches couldn't be dug. There was nowhere to hide from German artillery. The French 42nd division and French colonial troops from Senegal had to be sent to reinforce them. They deployed along a railway embankment built up between three and six feet in elevation, running from Nieuport to Dixmude and waited.
Then, just as all hope began to fade, the moon came to Belgium's rescue. The moon? Yes, that's right: the moon.
A high tide in the North Sea meant that the sluice gates at Nieuport could be opened to let sea water into the Yser Canal. The resulting flood thwarted German intentions. Their furious attack on Ramscappelle had to be called off, and they were forced to turn their attention to the town of Ypres, where British forces were preparing to give them a dose of their own medicine.

If you are interested in my fictional account, then look at The Deadly Playground - my latest novel, out in early June.  See a preview above.

The Trampling of Louvain - Part 2

So what exactly did the Germans do to Louvain?
They spent five days burning it and looting what they could. They destroyed a library of a third of a million ancient manuscripts and medieval books. They burned Louvain's Catholic University and the church of St. Pierre along with the most prominent public buildings. But there was far worse: 250 men, women and children were shot dead. and the whole population of ten thousand were turned out of their homes and told to leave. Their supposed crime was rather nebulous and certainly untried in any court of law. They were said to have fired on German soldiers -- an attempt at an excuse which was seen, even at the time, as ludicrously transparent and self-serving.
In Aarschot there were 156 civilians murdered. In Andenne 211, in Tamines 383, and at the village of Dinant, near Liege, 674 - all murdered in an attempt to terrorize and cow the population. The German army stole all available food, even that growing in the fields, they looted anything that could be removed, broke into wine stores and drank all the alcohol they could get their hands on. Once Belgium was firmly in their grip, they went on to disable the Belgian economy by carting industrial machinery off to Germany along with thousands of workers who would then work at slave rates and act as hostages into the bargain. A third of Belgium's population of eight million became refugees, walking the roads by day and sleeping in ditches by night. How many perished is not recorded.
All this misery was not simply a by-product of war, it was masterminded as an illustration that no one should dare to oppose the Kaiser's will.
German war-planners, noted for their minute attention to detail, overlooked one glaring factor: no provision was made by the invaders to feed the Belgian population. The story of how they were eventually fed is told in my novel "The Deadly Playground." Make no mistake, the imperial German occupation of Belgium was, in almost every respect, a prototytpe for the "Nazi Europe" that appeared twenty-five years later. Those who have seen the movie Schindler's List can begin to imagine that living under the heel of the jackboot was a hellish experience.
"The old Reich knew already how to act with firmness in the occupied areas. That's how attempts at sabotage to the railways in Belgium were punished by Count von der Goltz. He had all the villages burnt within a radius of several kilometres, after having had all the mayors shot, the men imprisoned and the women and children evacuated."
Now guess who wrote that. Yes, you're right, it was indeed Adolf Hitler.

All this barbarism backfired, of course. Neutral countries saw what had been inflicted, and were horrified. Some were horrified enough to send their boys over to help sort it out. You should be proud of their contribution. This really was a case of going out to slay a very nasty dragon indeed.

The Trampling of Louvain - 1

Having invaded Belgium on August 4th, 1914, the Germans found themselves unable to sweep aside the Belgian army as they had confidently expected. This was rather embarrassing for the generals of the German high command, who regarded their army as the the best-trained and best-equipped military on the planet.
The Germans had planned to march their armies through Belgium on the way to France, whether the Belgians objected to this or not. The Belgians most certainly did object, and fought so well that they retarded the German advance sufficiently to allow France (and to a much lesser extent, Britain) to halt the invasion well before it reached Paris.
Infuriated by their lack of progress, and the surliness of uncooperative Belgians, they fell upon the Belgian city of Louvain (or Leuven, in Flemish) and tortured it mercilessly for five days, from August 25th, to teach Belgians a lesson they would not forget. They then began lying. They tried to blame the Belgians and make themselves out as the victims.
After the Germans took the city on August 19th, Hugh Gibson, a diplomatic official stationed at the American legation in Brussels commented thus:
"There is bad news from Louvain. The reports we have received agree that there was some sort of trouble in the square before the Hotel de Ville a day or two ago. Beyond that, no two reports are alike. The Germans say that the son of the Burgomaster shot down some staff officers who were talking together at dusk before the Hotel de Ville. The only flaw in that story is that the Burgomaster has no son. Some Belgians say that two bodies of Germans who were drunk met in the dusk; that one body mistook the other for French, and opened fire. Other reliable people tell with convincing detail that the trouble was planned and started by the Germans in cold blood. However that may be, the affair ended in the town being set on fire, and civilians shot down in the streets as they tried to escape. According to the Germans themselves, the town is being wiped out of existence. The Cathedral, the Library, the University, and other public buildings have either been destroyed or have suffered severely. People have been shot by hundreds, and those not killed are being driven from the town. They are coming to Brussels by thousands, and the end is not yet. This evening the wife of the Minister of Fine Arts came in with the news that her mother, a woman of eighty-four, had been driven from her home at the point of the bayonet and forced to walk with a stream of refugees all the way to Tervueren, a distance of about twelve miles, before she could be put on a tram to her daughter's house. Two old priests have staggered into the Legation more dead than alive after having been compelled to walk ahead of the German troops for miles as a sort of protecting screen. One of them is ill, and it is said that he may die as a result of what he has gone through."
And so it goes on ...

Any historian following the trouble in eastern Ukraine of late will recognize the dead hand of a despot at work. The Russians are operating in a way not dissimilar to that of the German high command of 1914.  What's perhaps most pathetic of all is their hope that anyone actually believes their lies.

Those beastly Germans ...

Noble Readers who reside in modern Germany and folks of German descent such as my good friend Herb Muller will, I hope, forgive my recent lambasting which was aimed at the misdeeds of their country between 1870 and 1945.
I must say here and now: I am not anti-German. I have nothing but admiration for modern Germany, which I have visited many times. I think highly of their wine, their beer, their women, their scenery and their cars. I wish the English football team could be relied upon to perform as well as the German football team, and when it comes to classical music, give me German composers every time.
But ...  I guess you knew there was a "but" coming.
We would be remiss in our observance as historians, were we to overlook the behaviour of Germany during the above-mentioned period, which was, to say the least, quite disgraceful.
That blunt instrument Political Correctness, it seems to me, wildly bludgeons those suspected of harbouring criticisms of others, when a finer, more surgical approach, is called for. One hardly dare criticise a given individual's misdemeanours for fear of being taken for being anti-this or an anti-that on a much larger scale. Much casual racism, I venture to suggest, is not actually racism, but an objection to tiresome or irritating elements of culture.
We need, I suppose, to realize that all cultures - yes, including our own -- have poisonous components which need to be recognized, operated on and removed. Like diseased organs that are better out than in, we can, if we are sensible, have the bad culture whipped out and sent to the incinerator. In the same way that individual people can have unpleasant habits or character traits, so entire cultures can contain toxic aspects which often hamper the lives of people brought up within those cultures. These elements can and should be got rid of.
Like trade, this can work to advantage in both directions. How much better would it have been, for example, if the Methodists who persuaded South Sea islanders not to eat one another had been reciprocally persuaded to be a bit less, well, Methodist? Or if the Germans whom we cured of their self-destructive obsession with tracked vehicles and well-cut uniforms had, in return, taught us how to run a railway on time.
It cost us all an enormous price to put an end to one of the nastiest and most toxic subcultures in all of history: Prussian militarism. It cost us further sacrifice to stamp out National Socialism, the monster that Prussian militarism begat. But it was worth it in the end, and I'm proud to think that Britain was at the forefront of the fight both times.
That's why we must look upon the many rows of white tombstones in the military cemeteries of Belgium and northern France without tears. The men whose remains lie beneath those memorials were not the hapless victims of a "futile" war, but heroes who died to make your today possible. If you want to salute the sacrifice of those men and women, use your freedoms wisely and try to turn yourselves and your children into kinder and more considerate people.
One day, perhaps, humankind will collectively learn how not to spawn toxic sub-cultures, and having snuffed out the worst of each other's weaknesses, perhaps we'll be able to fully enjoy each other's achievements in an atmosphere of security and peace.

The German Overseas Empire

Before the rise of the United States, Britain, and to a far lesser degree France, shared the task of policing the world. Both had a great deal of experience in regulating volatile political situations that threatened the economic development of the world.
At their heights, France's empire totalled a little under 5 million square miles with a population of 110 million including France. The British Empire included a little more than 13 million sq. miles and contained a population amounting to one fifth of the world's total at the time - getting on for half a billion people. The British also controlled the world's oceans.
For comparison, the contiguous United States today has an area of about 3 million square miles with a population of 310 million, and the Russian Federation 6.5 million sq. miles with 145 million people. The erstwhile Soviet Union was somewhat less than 8.5 million sq. miles, with 293 million people.
Imperial Germany, personified by its half-crazed leader Kaiser Wilhelm II, was extremely jealous of the British Empire. When the Great War broke out, Germany had an overseas empire of its a own, comprising 1.3 million sq. miles and 65 million people - about the same size as the Dutch Empire. In Africa, they administered Togoland, Cameroon, German East Africa (which later was called Tanganyika, and later still Tanzania) and German South-West Africa (now Namibia, basically, the Namib desert.) They also possessed the north-eastern part of New Guinea, some lease-ports in China and various specks in the Pacific.
The Kaiser and his warmongering advisers thought they could add to this tally by invading France and removing a chunk of the French Empire as part of the price of withdrawing their army from French soil. They had gotten away with this kind of mugging before, notably during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. One attraction of the famous "Schlieffen Plan" – the German scheme to encircle Paris by invading through Belgium - was that the occupation of that country would give them not only Channel ports, but also Belgium and therefore another large chunk of Africa, the Belgian Congo. This acquisition would have split Africa by creating German-controlled territory from coast to coast.

The trouble was that, unlike the British, and to a lesser extent the French, neither the Belgians nor the Germans were particularly good at being colonialists.  Noble Readers who feel duty-bound to read about genocide, might begin by looking up the story of the Herero and Nama peoples who were herded into the Namib desert by the Germans to die of thirst just before the Great War.

Lest we forget - a caution on the Great War

Noble Readers the world over will doubtless soon begin to hear the distant trumpets that herald another historical anniversary. Here in Britain we have received over the past few months a steady flow of TV documentaries as the media rev up for the August, 2014 centenary of the start of World War One.
But I have already noticed a worrying trend in the coverage, which I feel I must remark upon and perhaps even attempt to correct. Many years ago, in the 1960's, it became fashionable to denigrate Britain's efforts to halt the German invasion of Belgium and France. Cheesy productions such as "Oh! What a Lovely War" saw luvvies* of lofty rank mercilessly lampooning the generals of the Great War, and the phrase "lions led by donkeys" became vogue. It was also common to hear the Great War described as "futile."
Today, we have a more informed view of those days. We understand that the explosion of German aggression that all but destroyed Europe, was something that had to be opposed. Millions of good men gave life and limb to accomplish that end, and the generals who led them eventually won the war. To hear present-day media types ignorantly ridiculing that heroic effort as imbecilic or callous turns my stomach.
My remedy? Just say "no" to mealy-mouthed obfuscation and historical revisionism. And say it loud when it dishonours our fallen heroes. These men would not have wanted to be remembered as victims, but as men who stepped up when civilization needed saving from a bestial menace.
The truth is, Prussian militarism was a nasty piece of work. It had to be curbed every bit as much as its natural heir, the Nazis. Prussian militarism specialized in invading neighbouring countries and then treating their inhabitants with appalling brutality. So when you hear commentators attempt to characterize the Great War as a six and two threes kind of thing, in which the blame ought to be shared out equally by all the countries involved, just remember that the Germans were the bad guys.
The moment Germany became a nation ruled by the Prussian military they went looking for trouble. Austria, Denmark, France ... no neighbour was safe. If German armies hadn't swarmed across their borders in 1914 in pursuit of long-planned conquests, then there would have been no war. Germany started it. It was Germany's fault. We must remember that and remember it accurately, or remembrance is worthless.

* British slang. A luvvy is an actor, usually of the  pretentious, overblown or narcissistic kind.

Read the 1st chapter of The Deadly Playground!

A Picnic at Port Meadow, Tuesday, 10th September, 1912
"I always say that September is the best month to be in England, don't you agree?"
Stanley Walker caught the remark and considered it. It seemed to have been directed at him, but the slender woman who had spoken was stepping out of a motor car with friends and, by the time he had turned around, her attention had moved on.
"Happy birthday, dear Jimmikin! This is for you!"
"Not ... Cristal?"
"What else?"
"Oh, Theda, you shouldn't have!"
"Oh, but I did!"
Walker watched from some remove as a welter of guests developed around Jimmy Barrington and his sister. Walker knew little about women, but this one was eye-catching, expensively-dressed in cream satin with a broad hat and dainty shoes. She wore a striking gold sautoir, designed to draw attention to her neckline. Her voice had a velvety quality that was hard to ignore, and she certainly knew how to signal her arrival. She embraced Jimmy theatrically, and handed over what looked like a large bottle wrapped up in paper and tied with a pink silk bow. He took it with his right hand, and she made a point of touching the knot that secured the black silk sling cradling Jimmy's arm.
"Look at you, poor lamb!"
Jimmy recoiled, a stranger to self-pity. "Toodles threw me, but I soon got up again."
"Toodles! Anyone would think it was a horse instead of a horrid motor car."
"Toodles is not horrid, she's a perfect lady, and the fault is all mine. I hope you brought along a silver bucket for that bottle. Anything else would be heresy."
"You can cool it in the river, for all I care."
"Theda, you're a barbarian!"
Walker's view was obscured, but he had seen enough for the moment. There was a marked family likeness that ran through the Barringtons — thick, dark hair, brown eyes and strong features, as well as vivacity and irresistible charm. She must be Theodosia, Walker thought, the younger of Jimmy's sisters. There were five brothers and two sisters in all, a testament to Sir Edmund's ambition to sire five sons. Four had come in speedy succession. Jimmy, as was his nature, had made them all wait.
So there, it seemed, was the infamous Theda, a slim vision in cream, but barbarian or no, she was right about September. It was a beautiful day, sunny and breezeless, with the warmth of an unusually hot summer baked into the ground. The ancient grass of Port Meadow had yellowed and now stretched away a couple of miles to the sweet, hazy city of Oxford with her dreaming spires. Here the banks of Wolvercote mill-stream were becoming crowded. A couple of dozen university men, most of them Jimmy's fellow St. John's undergrads or Eton school-pals who had come up to Oxford in the same year. More Barringtons were arriving by the minute, and others whom, Walker was fairly sure, represented the cream of London Society.
He wandered along the row of nine cars that had now drawn up, several bearing the badge of the Royal Automobile Club. What Jimmy had said would be a small impromptu picnic had developed into a full-blown family circus, and attended now by numbers of Barrington servants. They were busy setting up tables and carrying hampers and deck-chairs and Indian carpets from two furniture lorries parked on the Godstow Road. Crates of bottles were carried out, a mountain of prepared food appeared and a Victrola began to play, the latter attended by a portly servant in Barrington livery and white gloves.
Such a casual deployment of wealth was quite overwhelming to one unused to elevated society. Here were people who had the power to make those not of their intimate circle feel the pain of sheepish inferiority. Walker decided therefore to listen rather than speak. He reflected that his father, Arthur, as owner of a bicycle shop, earned a respectable £250 a year. It was three times what a police constable might take home, but there was no way to gauge how fast a Barrington might run through that sum. Judging by this afternoon's display it might be a matter of minutes.
Much as he enjoyed Jimmy Barrington's company, an enormous gulf did lie between them. Walker himself was a scholarship boy from the industrial North. If he had failed to win his grammar school's prize he could not have attended university, let alone entered a prestigious college. Fortunately, he had a mathematical bent and was attuned to hard work. It had taken a retentive mind and an immense amount of effort to get here, but his Oxford was not Jimmy's Oxford. He had not been invited to become a member of any of the smart student sets, nor could he have accepted if he had. Jimmy had suggested he join the university's Officer Training Corps, and he had done so, mainly because it afforded inexpensive excitement. The OTC, Jimmy had said, was subsidised by a government concerned about maintaining an officer reserve but opposed to the continental practice of compulsory national service.
Jimmy was certainly no snob, but the gulf between them was not just a matter of slender means, there was a palpable separation of cultures too. Because the Walkers were not born to opulence, Stanley Walker had grown up a scrimper and a saver like his parents. Even if he made millions one day, as Mr Morris said he might, such lavish fruits could never be enjoyed guiltlessly — by his children or grand-children perhaps. But never by him.
Walker sipped his wine, consoling himself that, on the other hand, there was nothing very blue about Barrington blood either. Sir Edmund was certainly the wealthiest man in the British Empire, but his wealth was not founded on the ownership of land. Rather it came from the charging of interest. The bank which was to become Barrington & Co. had originally been created in 1672 by a goldsmith called Jeremiah Esmond, who had set up business in the Strand under the sign of a smiling golden sun. There was today a branch not two miles away in the High, trading under the same famous "gilty smile."
"The British aristocracy always professes to look down on what they like to call 'new money,'" Walker's father had once told him. "But it knows better than to exclude newcomers. Instead, they absorb them."
That explained Jimmy's father's title — Sir Edmund was Lord Horsley, and he behaved in all respects as if his ancestors had come over with William the Conqueror. But if there was both wealth and class standing between Stanley Walker and Jimmy Barrington, there was nature too. Jimmy was quick-minded, unfettered, bold. Walker was anything but devil-may-care. Painfully aware of his own methodical mind and his social diffidence, he saw himself as a tongue-tied plodder. He had wondered more than once how he had managed to be taken up by one of Edmund Barrington's accomplished sons.
To most people the answer was obvious. What Stanley Walker lacked in social effervescence he made up for in knowledge of mechanical matters: the car that had disgorged Theda and her friends he had instantly identified as a Roi des Belges tourer by Messers Rolls and Royce, a 40/50 H.P. beast with coachwork by Hooper & Co. Wonderful! He suppressed the desire to investigate more closely, knowing that to engage the chauffeur in conversation was probably not the done thing.
"And you are?"
He turned, lifted the brim of his straw boater. "I ... I'm Stanley. Stanley Walker. How do you do?"
"We used to have a butler named Stanley. He's dead now, poor fellow."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. I'm Theda, by the way." The velvet tones were husky, her enunciation as precise as that of an Oscar Wilde character. "You're one of Jimmy's student friends, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"Mods? Greats?"
"I'm afraid reading Classics wasn't for me. Engineering."
"Good grief!" She wrinkled her nose. "Can you study that at Oxford?"
"Well, yes. Under Professor Jenkin. It's a fairly new department, but —"
She looked at him with a candidly appraising eye. "Engineering. Yes, I suppose it's quite the coming thing."
"I hope so." An uncomfortable silence began to unfold, so he said, "I was just admiring your motor car. It's a Silver Ghost, isn't it?"
"Silver? No, it's dark blue. That one over there."
"What ... what I meant was —"
"You know, Stanley — may I call you Stanley? — poor Jimmy's obsessed with speed. He always liked to race about. I gather his shoulder's black and blue."
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"If you count yourself his friend you mustn't encourage him. Personally, I can't think of anything more boring than being flung out of a machine and killed."
"I think being flung out and killed is more of a by-product of racing, rather than the main aim."
But she had already turned her back on him, her attention caught by some new arrival, and then she was gone.
A glass of Chablis was immediately thrust into Walker's hand.
"I say, Stanley. You must have some of the Cristal, but only when it's cold enough." It was Jimmy. "Louis Roederer. Theda gave it to me — she knows it's my favourite — though I can't think where she could have found a bottle, unless from some Russian prince. There are probably dozens of them here to watch the autumn manoeuvres. Actually, I think Constantine Benckendorff is around somewhere. He's the son of their ambassador. You must meet him."
"How's the arm today?"
"It'll be right as rain next week. Too late for the army manoeuvres, alas."
"I thought you said this was supposed to be a small picnic."
"Oh, that's down to Hugh, I'm afraid. Took it upon himself to fix things properly — me being the incapable runt of the litter. He wanted us all to descend on Sisley Park, but I told him that the mountain must come to Mahomet. Still, quite a gathering of the old clan, eh? They're all turning up, except Moz and Guy, of course."
Walker nodded, knowing that Hugh was one of Jimmy's older brothers, and a Member of Parliament. There was also Guy, an artist who lived abroad somewhere and was, from what little was said of him, something of a black sheep. Moz — Mozelle — was his married elder sister who had married a foreign aristocrat who was much older than her. She also lived abroad. Sisley Park, Walker surmised, was yet another of the Barrington country house estates.
"Have you met Saul Graham? He's terribly amusing."
"I don't think so."
"What? You haven't met him, or you don't think he's amusing?" Jimmy grinned. "He's the tall chap over there in the boating blazer. His people are from Boston, and he wants to be a diplomat. He's on a scholarship — some endowment or another set up by old Natty Rothschild after Cecil Rhodes died, so I expect you'll have plenty in common."
The American was in his late twenties and seemed immensely mature. He was a keen rower and a postgraduate student of modern history. He talked seamlessly about Harvard and the Charles River and his impressions of England in which he had now been resident for a year. Walker quickly confirmed what he had suspected from the first: that they had hardly anything in common. Having parked the two outsiders with one another, Jimmy had set off in pursuit of his birthday host's duties, and Walker monitored him from afar, admiring his easy manner and complete lack of self-consciousness.
"He's quite a fellow, isn't he?" Graham said, following his gaze.
"Yes. If he doesn't get himself killed. Or if he does I suppose I shall get the blame."
"If his father lets him keep that Sunbeam I'd rate his chances at no more than fifty-fifty."
"Can I ask you something?" Walker said, anxious to change the subject.
"Sure."
"What on earth is 'Louis Roederer?'"
"Champagne. I gather Theda brought him a magnum of Cristal."
"It sounds expensive."
"Hardly. The entire stock belongs to the Tsar. You can't buy the stuff on the open market. Do you want to know the story behind it?"
"Go on."
"Most champagnes come in green bottles, but not Cristal. The present Tsar's grandfather commissioned Monsieur Roederer to create the finest champagne and deliver it in bottles made of lead crystal glass so he could have the immense pleasure of seeing the bubbles rising."
"How decadent."
"That's autocracy for you." Graham lowered his voice. "But the real reason was so that nobody could hide a bomb in one of his bottles and blow the son of a bitch to kingdom come."
Walker smiled, suddenly liking the man. "To be fair, I suppose our current noble ally has to be more careful than most when it comes to being bumped off."
"You bet. Russia is bubbling with revolution. And, you know what? I reckon Tsar Nicholas will start a war with Germany if things get any worse for him."
"Do you really believe that? Over what?"
"Any pretext that comes to hand. If you'd had the chance to put a couple of million starving peasants into your army instead of letting them run around fomenting revolution, wouldn't you do that?"
"I don't know. I was never a Tsar."
"Sure, you would. Only there's a problem: the Russians have an alliance with France, so if the Russians start a war with Germany, it'll bring the French in. France has been frantic to retake her lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, so they won't hold back. And since Britain has the entente with France, you'll be drawn in too."
"No ... I don't believe that." The idea seemed far-fetched. What right-thinking statesman would let such a thing happen? "What reason do we have to want a fight with Germany?"
Graham shrugged. "You might want to sink their navy."
"We don't need to. We're out-building them."
"For the moment, yes, but your Liberal government has other ideas. Prime Minister Asquith wants to spend money on pensions for old people and lunches for schoolchildren and a dozen other worthwhile reforms. As for Germany, she's getting stronger every year. She wants a fleet as big as yours and an overseas empire of her own — one just like yours. She feels hemmed in by hostile powers. Can you blame her for wanting what other Powers have already?"
"Is that really how the Germans see us?"
"On the idle hill of summer, sleepy with the flow of streams," Graham quoted. "Far I hear the steady drummer drumming like a noise in dreams." He reached out to touch the sleeve of a thick-set man of about forty, another American. "Hello, H.C., isn't Lou with you?"
H.C. nodded, caught Walker's eye amiably. "Sure. She won't let me go anywhere without her."
As the American ambled away, Graham said. "He's a mining engineer — Australia and China. A good friend of Leo's, as well he might be: he's made Barrington's — and himself — a very great deal of money. He agrees with me about Germany. After all, without an empire of their own how are they going to get hold of the raw materials their industry needs?"
Walker wanted to push the sound of far away war drumming aside, but he could hardly maintain that he had not heard it too. He looked across the gathering, surprised to see now several faces made famous by the illustrated magazines, the writer H.G. Wells, the sculptor Epstein and the celebrated barrister Raymond Asquith among them. All were now turning their faces skyward.
Twenty yards away the thin strains of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" had tailed off, and in that momentary quiet, the sound of a distant engine was droning. He took off his boater and shielded his eyes. There it was!
A flying machine ...
"Extraordinary, isn't it?" Walker muttered, as he watched the fragile object slowly battling forward. He had read in the papers a few weeks ago that a new height record had been set by a machine climbing to over ten thousand feet.
"Don't you wish you were up there?" Graham asked. "What a god-like view they must have."
He shook his head. "You'd never get me up in one of those things. I get a pain in my vitals whenever I stand at the top of a flight of stairs. I'm not even happy being this tall."
"I guess it must be flying to the Army manoeuvres at Cambridge."
"That guess would be perfectly correct."
The remark had come from a passing third party, a man in his late thirties with Barrington features, pomaded hair plastered flat and a clipped moustache. He carried a stick and a bowler in his left hand, and though he wore no uniform, his stiff collars and general bearing seemed to Walker to be that of a man who was accustomed to military discipline.
They introduced one another and shook hands. The newcomer turned out to be Jimmy's eldest brother, Charles. Walker realized that his presence here probably explained that of Raymond Asquith's, who happened to be the prime minister's eldest son. Jimmy had once let slip the fact that Charles was a frequent quest at the Asquith's house at Sutton Courtnay. Walker felt a frisson of revelation as he briefly glimpsed the web of invisible strands that held the nation together. It was rather like being able to look into an engine and see the inner workings.
"Mark my words," Charles said, "that little damsel-fly will revolutionize how the next war will be fought."
"'The next war,'" Graham repeated. "You see. It's not just me who believes it's inevitable."
"When has war ever been anything else?" Charles grunted. "Walker — ah, yes. I hear you're the chap who's been trying to get Jimmy killed."
Walker grinned. "Jimmy drives like a maniac without any help from me. I just tinker with his engine from time to time, and try to knock all the dents out."
Graham sipped at his wine. "Jimmy said you spent the whole summer vac right here, working in a garage in Longwall Street."
"Yes. Mr Morris is assembling his cars there. I've been trying not to get in his way too much."
"How are they powered?" Charles asked suddenly.
Walker was surprised. He had hardly expected a technical question. "Four-cylinder side-valve engines, just over a litre capacity. Sixteen horsepower. He buys them in from White and Poppe in Coventry."
"So ... not big enough to power a flying machine?"
"Not really. I saw Mr. Bleriot's machine when it was on display in Selfridges department store. That engine was twenty-five horsepower, as I recall. But current machines have engines that develop twice that power."
Charles put a finger to his lips thoughtfully. "Is your Mr Morris looking to expand his business?"
Walker scratched his head. "Well, yes. I'm sure he'd welcome backers if that's what you're suggesting."
Charles gave a bridge player's non-committal smile.
Even so, Walker's enthusiasm dropped into gear. "Mr. Morris has got plenty of ideas and bags of get-up-and-go. He wants to build a factory out at Cowley on the site of the old military college. I think eventually he plans to compete with Henry Ford — at least in British Empire markets."
Charles straightened. "I'm not connected in any way with Barrington's Bank, you understand, but I may just mention your Mr. Morris to some of my friends."
When Jimmy's parents arrived, Walker was listening to Saul Graham's notions about Realpolitik and eating excellent game pie from crockery emblazoned with the Barrington arms. He put his plate down and joined everyone else in the welcome. Sir Edmund, tweedy and bewhiskered, waved his stick. Lady Flora looked on, her expression as imperious as that of Queen Mary. It was, Walker supposed, clearly a marriage of equals.
"More a merger of interests than a marriage," Graham muttered.
"They look as though they were made for one another." Still, Walker thought, they've managed seven children. Lord knows how.
Saul Graham seemed to have made a detailed study of it. Forty years ago, the Barrington marriage had eclipsed the Marquis of Bute's reign as Britain's richest man. Lady Flora had brought with her a considerable dowry, coming as she did from a family that still controlled much of the sea-borne trade of India and the East. The financial Panic of 1890 had forced Barrington's to change from a limited company to a partnership, as a partnership the Barrington family would have been personally liable for all deposits in a crisis. Fortunately, the Panic had not resulted in a crisis for Barrington's, whose exposure to South American debt had been slight. So it was that in the last year of the old century, the bank was able to move into magnificent new premises in the Strand, a building designed by Charles Holding and decorated with nudes by Jacob Epstein. Last year, Sir Edmund had taken over Lorimer, Barnes & Co., thereby gaining another seat at the London clearing house.
Wider still and wider, Walker thought as he finished his third glass. He realized that he was beginning to get a little squiffy and cautioned himself. It would not do to get drunk. He wished he could pluck up courage to introduce himself to Mr Wells, whose novel of Martian invasion had so thrilled him as a schoolboy. But the opportunity seemed to have passed. Birthday speeches were now the order of the day — good-natured words of praise and a humorous caution from Sir Edmund, a ripple of applause, a well-received toast and a joke about Jimmy's lack of consideration, having had the bad manners to be born in the middle of the grouse season.
Lady Flora, who seemed to have a calculating side to her, spoke of the greater inconvenience she had been put to in the autumn of 1893: "My husband and I had been spending the summer with the Astors, and we were aboard the Royal Mail Ship Campania. She was steaming down New York Harbor when James, out of sheer impatience, decided to make his debut. If he had managed to stay put for just five days longer, he would have been born a Liverpudlian."
Everyone laughed, and perhaps embarrassed by mention of the liner, a very well-known figure, Lady Cunard, received several curious glances. To see such celebrated socialites in the flesh was a new experience for Walker. A meaningful look from Jimmy to Hugh, perhaps concerning Lady Cunard, was lost on Walker, though he did recall that one of the Astor family had died six months ago in the Titanic disaster.
Perhaps fortunately, Lady Flora had stopped speaking, and Sir Edmund was thanking Hugh for having organized the gathering. The wherewithal had come from his house at Sisley Park, which was close by at Burford. Hugh, the third-born son, was the image of a country nobleman, a typical huntsman, who, of all the sons present, most resembled his father physically, except that he had the complexion of a man who loved the open air. Also standing next to his father was Leo, the second-born son, stouter and less handsome than the others. He listened to the patriarch's words with solemn but distracted interest.
Graham pointed him out. "Jimmy is truly honoured. Leo hardly sets foot outside Belgravia, unless it's to visit his club in St James's. He's the numbers man. A natural-born genius for figures, so they say. He's being groomed for great things."
"The succession?"
"If you mean the chairmanship of the board, certainly. Sir Edmund knows he won't live forever. He's lucky to have Leo. You know, within the family, they call him 'Mycroft.'"
Walker smiled, recognizing the reference to Sherlock Holmes' brother. "And Charles? He said earlier that he had no connection with Barrington's Bank."
"What about that?"
"Well, it just seems odd. After all, he's the first-born."
Graham looked at him for a moment, then said, "If you want to know about Charles, you'll have to ask Jimmy. My lips are sealed."
Walker raised an eyebrow and enquired no more, but as he let his gaze run along the guests, he could not fail to notice that Charles Barrington was now absent from their immediate number. Perhaps he had taken himself off altogether.
As the warmth of the afternoon waned and the willow trees threw shadows across the mill-stream, the gathering began to dissolve. Walker sat down among the scattering of empty deck-chairs. The better-known faces had already disappeared. Family motor-cars crunched over the gravel and began to meander back through Wolvercote village, until the only members of the Barrington family who remained were Jimmy and Theda. Informality was now the motif, and a steady trickle of wine helped to push the conviviality. Walker was lounging with Graham and a couple of St John's men, discussing the world, while Bullivant, Jimmy's attentive valet, periodically refilled glasses.
Bullivant's broad beaming face and yeoman presence seemed benign to Walker, feudal loyalty personified. Walker saw him note the re-appearance of Charles and go to him with inquiries. When Charles sat down in conversation with friends, Jimmy and Theda pulled over chairs and settled down too, attracted by the debate. Somebody had broached the subject that no one wanted to talk about.
"Who says they won't?" One of the St John's men was asking. "German society is wholly militarized. They'll do what their generals tell them."
"Don't forget that France also has half a million men under arms," the other said.
"And they need every man jack of them with six or seven German armies sitting on their frontier."
"What about Russia?" Constantine Benckendorff said. "Thirty-six cavalry divisions, one hundred and fourteen divisions of infantry. Two and a half million soldiers. Would the Kaiser dare to turn his back on them?"
Theda said, "Among father's friends there are few who feel there's any possibility that Germany will back away from the next crisis."
Graham sat back and laced his fingers behind his head. "In May, the Reichstag voted through a new military spending bill, enough for three new dreadnoughts and an increase in army numbers to over 650,000 men. The essential problem is that Germany is a country of sixty-five millions, whereas there are only forty million Frenchmen. There are already whisperings that French conscription will be raised from two to three years. Should it come to war, the Germans will be able to field four million troops. France will be lucky to manage half that figure."
"How do you know all this?" Theda asked.
"Saul's been dining with us in Lowndes Square while you were in Nice," Jimmy told her. "He's keen to have Charles introduce him to one of his friends in the U.S. State Department. He must have kept his ears open when Winston came to dinner last month."
"Indeed I did."
"It seems obvious to me," Theda said, "that even the most intelligent person has little chance of thinking worthwhile thoughts if he's not in possession of salient facts."
"I agree. But what I've heard from men who do know was far from comforting."
Theda looked to Walker and murmured. "Winston's First Lord of the Admiralty. He may well be along later."
"Thank you. I have actually heard of Winston Churchill."
"I'm so sorry, but it's hard to tell with engineers."
Walker hated to be patronized, but at the same time any remark received from Theda Barrington felt like manna from heaven. He said, "Well, I'm not an engineer yet."
A glint was in Graham's eye as he persisted. "All I'm saying is that if the Kaiser wants to engineer an attack on France, he'll have to think about France's allies too. France's big ally is Russia with potentially five million soldiers, although the quality of their leadership is probably debateable."
"And that brings us to Britain," Jimmy said.
"Yes. Not much of an army, I'm afraid. A tenth the size of either Germany's or France's. But then, you're an island. You've learned to depend solely on your navy for protection."
After a pause that seemed as if it would end the conversation, Walker asked, "Do you really think Britain would go to war to defend France? What use would we be if we did?"
Graham laughed. "It does seem a ludicrous idea, I grant you. But things have changed somewhat since you caught Napoleon by the toe and sent him to live out his days on a rock in the middle of the South Atlantic. If only you could persuade the Emperor of Germany to do likewise."
Jimmy sipped at his glass, and as Charles went to stand behind his chair, Theda said, "Why don't we ask Charles what he thinks? After all, he's the expert."
All eyes turned to Charles.
"Every new war brings new weapons," he said. "And every new weapon requires new tactics. No one knows how the coming war is going to turn out because no one knows how it will have to be fought."
Walker watched Bullivant carve open the last of a dozen scones, lay a doily carefully on a plate and bring out a pot of strawberry jam.
Charles went on, "I'll offer you just one example. You all saw that flying machine that came over earlier. Eight machines will be taking part in the army manoeuvres — General Haig opposing General Grierson across the Gog Magog Hills. I want you to try to imagine how hard it's going to be for either of them to keep his troop movements secret."
"Impossible, I would think," Graham said. "And the U.S. army agrees."
Jimmy asked. "Do you have military aeroplanes in America yet?"
"Sure we do." Graham lay back. "Things have advanced a lot since that hop among the dunes at Kittyhawk."
Charles nodded. "And we expect them to advance a lot further. It may have escaped your attention, Mr. Graham, but we're no longer an island. We stopped being that three years ago."
The conversation reached an impasse, then Graham said suddenly, "What you think about the Germans, Mr Bullivant?"
Walker wondered if Graham was doing it deliberately, asking a servant's opinion to make some kind of point, but Jimmy's grin showed that Barrington attitudes were often a challenge to the usual protocol.
"Germans?" Bullivant said, unperturbed. "Wicked bastards, the lot of them, sir. If you'll excuse my French."
"And what brings you to that unhappy conclusion?" Graham pressed.
"Because they're shaping up for another piece of infamy, Mr Graham. Any fool can see that."
"Oh, is that right?"
"Yes, sir." Bullivant's eyes flickered from Graham to Jimmy, seeking permission to go on. "Well, sir, them Prussians are pushing the other, more peaceable Germans along, just like they done last time."
"Last time? Why don't you enlighten us about that Mr Bullivant."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "Remind us what happened, Bully."
Bullivant knew very well that Graham was trying to sport with him, but he was undeterred. "Last time the Germans made short work of the French army, then they surrounded Paris to starve them out. Then they squeezed the French government for a big bag of gold and gobbled up a couple of their eastern counties to boot. Blow me, if that didn't leave the Germans with a rare old taste for invading. Next time they'll be after getting a hold on Channel ports, homes for their dreadnoughts, all the better to starve us out, I daresay. So that's why I call them wicked bastards, sir."
Graham looked the servant in the eye and said softly. "I'll have you know, Bullivant, that my mother was born in Hamburg."
"Begging your pardon, sir. I didn't know that, and I'm sure she's a very nice lady, but that don't alter my opinion of the Kaiser's generals."
"Bully, I think we'll have some apple pie now," Jimmy said quietly and Bullivant took himself away. "I hope you'll forgive him, Saul, he does get his information mainly from the Daily Graphic."
"I can't complain." Graham said, making light of it. "I did ask for his opinion, and to his credit he gave me a straight answer."
"But, you know, there's a great deal of truth behind what Bully says," Charles said levelly. "A single Germany, forcibly united under Prussian leadership — a great vision if you're German, but it was hardly going to benefit the rest of Europe. And so it has proved. Bismarck warred with Denmark then Austria then France, in the later case most profitably. Bully's 'big bag of gold' was, I suppose, the war reparations imposed by the Treaty of Frankfurt. That ran, if memory serves, to five billion francs. And that staggering sum was to be paid over three years, or German troops would not leave French soil. Both Alsace and Lorraine were indeed, 'gobbled up.' And let us not forget that Bismarck's Realpolitik has become today's increasingly dangerous Weltpolitik. More champagne, anyone?"
As the conversation dissolved into small-talk, Walker watched a speck growing beyond Charles Barrington's head. It rose higher and higher into the sky like some insect repelled by the oil of his pomade. But this was no insect, it was the day's second aeroplane. As Walker's eyes followed it, it banked then levelled out.
"Look! There's another one!" someone said, pointing.
"Extraordinary!"
"Goodness! I believe it's trying to come back down to earth."
All eyes turned to watch the machine as it began an awkward descent. There were two men aboard seated in tandem, pilot and observer, their flying helmets clearly visible. The number 263 was painted in black on the white tail. It was hard to judge, but the machine had already descended to perhaps three or four hundred feet. It looked for a moment as if the pilot contemplated a landing on Port Meadow, and Walker looked to Jimmy, suspecting that some kind of stunt had been planned to add even more glamour to his birthday picnic.
But as the machine cruised over them there was a sudden, alarming change of direction. Its angle of descent steepened. The flight seemed all at once ominous, as if there was something not quite right about the control. The sick movement riveted them all. And then, as everyone watched, at perhaps two hundred feet above the ground, something tore away from the right wing and it collapsed upward.
There were immediate gasps.
"Oh, no!" Theda whispered.
Walker felt a stiletto enter his heart. It was horrible to watch, but impossible to turn away from. The machine was plummeting now, falling vertically toward a point a couple of hundred yards away to the north. Then one of the occupants separated from the machine and began to tumble through the air towards the trees. Both man and machine vanished. The witnesses heard a brief soughing of foliage and a dull percussion that Walker felt through the soles of his shoes.
He found himself running like a hare towards the road. His boater flew off but he paid it no heed. Some of the other guests were following. Ahead there was a low wooden fence and he vaulted it. On the far side of the road a grey stone wall ran towards the mill-stream bridge. It was breast-high and he climbed over it easily and jumped down into the stinging nettles beyond. The wall enclosed a copse, and Walker groped forward through the trees, penetrating the undergrowth toward the place where it seemed the machine had hit.
Lord! He thought. What do I do if they're dead? What do I do if they're still alive?
Others behind him were jumping the wall and fanning out with varying degrees of success. He hacked his way onward through the greenery for perhaps fifty more yards until he began to smell burned castor oil. That was familiar enough, and conclusive — castor oil was what lubricated engines.
"Over here!" he shouted, his breath ragged now.
He pushed his way through brambles and interlaced boughs, the sharp tang of bruised vegetation sharp in his nostrils, drawn onward by a strange pool of light.
When he saw the wreckage he froze. Foliage had been shredded from several trees and was strewn around. Dappled sunshine filtered down through the hole that had been ripped in the leaf canopy, and in the middle was a heap of torn fabric, wooden struts, broken metal tubes. There was no longer any shape to it. It looked more like a tent that had been pulled down by a gale, except that here was a white board with the number 263 lying at an angle beside it, a crushed wicker-work seat and a large metal mass, half buried, still smoking and leaking hot oil.
And then he saw the observer.
Stanley Walker had never seen a dead man before. The sight of the white face, the crimson smears, the limbs positioned at repellent angles — all was profoundly shocking to him. He cried out, and a physical frisson ran through his flesh at the sound.
The shriek was quite involuntary, but it had the effect of drawing the others towards him. They too stood still, not daring to step closer. It was as if they were in the grip of an ancient animal instinct. He heard Jimmy say, "Oh, Jesus Christ!" Then Charles Barrington arrived and broke the spell. He began to pull the corpse from the wreck, motioning others to help.
"Give me a hand here, gentlemen."
And as the others went grimly forward, so did Stanley Walker.


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Rob