“Why, fight,” said the Canadian promptly; and then he continued in a deliberate drawl, stretching himself a little as he spoke: “These folks are spoiling for trouble, and they’ll give you no peace until they get it. I guess your troops aren’t any good—I’ve seen some of them—but I know no way to make them so except by fighting. And besides, I’ve an idea that there’s something else you haven’t told us yet.”
Jeremy shot a suspicious glance at him, and received in return a grin that was full at once of amusement and dislike. The Speaker appeared to be balancing considerations in his mind. When he spoke again, it was in a tone more serious and deliberate than he had yet used.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “my decision remains unaltered. I shall refuse and there will be war. But Thomas Wells is right. I have had something in my thoughts that I have not yet disclosed to you. But I will tell you now what it is, because I do not wish you to lose your spirits or to be half-hearted in supporting me. Only I must command you”—he paused on the word, looked around sternly, and repeated it—“I must command you not to speak a word of it outside this room until I give you leave.” He paused again and surveyed them with the air of a man who delays his certain triumph for a moment in order the better to savor it. “Gentlemen, when our troops take the field against these rebels, they will have something that no other army in the world has got. They will have guns!”
The great announcement had come, had passed, and seemed to have failed of its effect. Silence reigned in the council. Henry Watkins shifted from one foot to the other and regarded the Speaker with gloomy intentness. Then Thomas Wells broke the hush, with a faint tone of disappointment in his voice:
“Is that it? Well, I don’t know how that will work out. I thought that perhaps you had got some of the bosses up there in your pay.”
Henry Watkins was as silent as his companion, bewildered, disturbed, apprehensive. But the Speaker continued, his air of jubilation increasing rather than diminishing.
“And not only have we guns, but we have also a trained artilleryman to handle them. Jeremy Tuft, I must tell you, fought in the artillery in the great war against the Germans before the Troubles began. And now, Jeremy Tuft, let us hear your opinion, remembering that we have guns and they have none. Do you think we should fight or surrender?”
Jeremy was hard put to it not to give way physically before the old man’s blazing and menacing stare. His mind scurried hastily through half a hundred points of doubt. How could he know, when he had been in this world no more than a few weeks? And yet it seemed pretty clear, from what he had heard, that the soldiers from Yorkshire would be better than those that the Speaker had at his disposal. He could see only too plainly that the Speaker was trusting to the guns to work a miracle for him. He remembered that the guns were only just finished, had not been tested, that no gun-crew to fight them had yet been trained or even thought of. He had a sick feeling that an intolerable responsibility rested on him, that he must explain how much the effect of two guns in an infantry battle would depend on luck. He remembered that time at Arras, when they had got properly caught in the enemy’s counter-battery work, and he had sat in his dug-out, meditating on the people, whoever they were, that had started the war, and wondering how human beings could be so diabolical.... He woke abruptly from this train of thought as he raised his eyes and saw the Speaker still regarding him with that terrible, that numbing stare. His strength gave way. He stammered weakly:
“Of course, the guns would make a great difference....”
The Speaker caught up his words. “They would make just the difference we need. That is why I have made up my mind to fight now. Let those two men come in again.”