XIV: MILITARY
At dawn a shower of rain came. They collected water in George’s boots. They had already eaten Siebenhaar’s.
Thus revived, George stood up, and on the edge of the sea saw blue land and little white sails. They came nearer and nearer, and presently they were delivered by a little vessel that contained one white man and ten negroes. Neither George nor Siebenhaar could speak, but they pointed to their bellies and were given to eat.
“I recant,” said Siebenhaar. “There is nothing to be learnt from death, for death is nothing. The stomach is lord of life and master of the world.”
With that he recounted their adventures and the reason for their being in such a woeful plight. The master of the ship, on learning that Siebenhaar was a Fatter, said that he must deliver him up as a prisoner when they reached Cecilia, the capital of the Fattish colony which they would see as soon as the fleet—for it was a fishing fleet—turned into the bay.
“As a Philosopher,” said Siebenhaar, “I have no nationality. As an engineer—but I am no longer an engineer. The Admiral and the Chaplain will have seen to that. My life is now devoted to Mr. Samways, as in a certain narrower sense it has nearly been.” And he told the master of the ship how George was by birth the proprietor of the island in dispute between the two nations, and how the island shone with precious stones and glittered with a mountain of gold. The master’s cupidity was aroused, and he agreed to grant Siebenhaar his liberty on the promise of a rich reward at the conclusion of the war. He was a Fattishman, and could not believe that there would be any other end than a Fattish triumph.
A pact was signed and they sailed into Cecilia, the governor of which colony was Siebenhaar’s cousin and delighted to see him and to have a chance of talking the Fatter language and indulging in philosophical speculations for which his Fattish colleagues had no taste. He welcomed George warmly on his first entry in a civilised land, and was delighted to instruct him in the refinements of Fattish manners: how you did not eat peas or gravy with your knife, and how (roughly speaking) no portion of the body between the knees and shoulders might be mentioned in polite society, and how sneezing and coughing and the like sudden affections were to be checked or disguised. George talked of Arabella and the wonderful stir of the emotions she had caused in him. Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch (for that was his name) was greatly shocked, and told how in the best Fattish society all talk of love was forbidden, left by the men to the women, and how among men the emotions were never discussed, and how, since it was impossible to avoid all mention of that side of life, men in civilisation had invented a system of droll stories which both provided amusement and put a stop to the embarrassment of intimate revelations.
However, as George’s vigour was restored by the good food he ate in enormous quantities, he could not forbear to think of Arabella or to talk of her. He spoke quite simply of her to a company of officers, and they roared with laughter and found it was the best story they had ever heard.
When the officers were not telling droll stories, they were playing cards or ball games or boasting one against the other or talking about money.
George asked what money was, and they showed him some. He was disappointed. He had expected something much more remarkable because they had been so excited about it. They told him he must have money, and Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch gave him a sovereign. A man in the street asked George to lend him a sovereign and George gave it to him. The officers were highly amused.
The adventurers had not been in Cecilia above a week when the town was besieged and presently bombarded. Except that there was a shortage of food and that every day at least thirty persons were killed, there was no change in the life of the place. The officers told droll stories and played cards or ball games or boasted one against the other or talked about money. They ate, drank, slept, and quarrelled, and George found them not so very much unlike himself except that he was serious about his love for Arabella, while they laughed. He asked Siebenhaar what civilisation was. Said the philosopher with a wave of his hand:
“They have built a lot of houses.”
“But the ships out there are knocking them down.”
“They have made railways from one town to another.”
“But the black men have torn the railways up.” (For the native tribes had risen.)
Said Siebenhaar:
“No one can define civilisation. It means doing things.”
“Why?”
“Thou art the greatest of men,” replied Siebenhaar, and his face beamed approbation and love upon his friend. But to put an unanswerable question to Siebenhaar was to set him off on his theories.
“First,” he said, “the stomach must be fed. Two men working together can procure more food than two men working separately. That is as far as we have got. Until the two men trust each other we are not likely to get any further. Until then they will steal each other’s tools, goods, women, and squabble over the proceeds of their work and make the world a hell for the young. When one man steals or murders it is a crime: when forty million men steal, murder, rape, burn, destroy, pillage, sack, oppress, they are making glorious history, a lot of money, and, if they like to call it so, an Empire. But Empire and petty thefts are both occasioned by the lamentable distrust of the two men of our postulate.”
“But for Arabella,” said George, “I could wish I had never left my island.”
News of the war came dribbling in. The island had been twice captured by the Fatter fleet, and twice it had been evacuated. The Fatters had suffered defeat in their home waters but had gained a victory in the Indian seas. Came news that the island had again been captured, then the tidings that the whole of the Fatter fleet and army was to be concentrated upon Cecilia and the colony of which it was the capital.
“Why?” asked George.
“Because a new reef of gold has been discovered up-country.”
The bombardment grew very fierce. From the mountain above the town ships of war could be seen coming from all directions, and some of them were Fattish ships, but not enough as yet to come to grips with the Fatter fleet.
The inland frontiers were attacked but held, though with frightful loss of life. Then one night from the Fatter fleet came a landing party, and Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch called a council of war, and the officers sat from ten o’clock until three in the morning debating what had best be done.
At half-past one the landing party were only a mile away. A shell burst in the street as George was walking to his lodging and three men were killed in front of him. It was the first time he had seen such a thing. It froze his blood. He gave a yell that roused the whole town, ran, was followed by a crowd of riff-raff seizing weapons as they went, and rushed down upon the enemy, who had stopped for a moment to see two dogs fighting in the road. They were taken by surprise and utterly routed.
There is no more rousing episode in the whole military history of Fatland. George was for three days the hero of the Empire. He received by wireless telegraphy countless offers of marriage, ten proposals from music-hall engagements, and by cable a demand for the story of the fight from the noble proprietor of a Sunday newspaper. It was impossible to persuade that noble proprietor that there was no extant photograph of Mr. Samways, and a fortune was spent in cablegrams in the fruitless attempts to do so.