The atmosphere oppressed him with memory of all the rumours circulated about German spies ... German Secret Service.... England honeycombed with treachery.... What were they doing, in this empty house, talking German with the passionate zest of tongues let loose from hours of irksome restraint?... What was in those tins and cases?... How had they got hold of the German newspapers and pamphlets lying about?... One of the group was reading aloud a German letter now, and all listened tensely, some still kneeling on the dusty boards with their arms full of books—all except David and the heavy-looking girl and a boy with a flowing tie and thick lips and incredibly close shaven head, who were engrossed in some private discussion.... The girl produced a pile of music and their heads bent closer over the score.
Confounded insolence this, in the very heart of London! Richard’s mood wavered from indignation to a queer sort of panic at being thus associated. He wondered if he ought to give information? No, he could hardly do that, brought here in all good faith by David. But even supposing that these people were bent on no actual harm—and commonsense asserted that they were merely packing hampers for the German prisoners, and at the same time enjoying a little licence of their native speech—even then, how dared David suppose that he was “One of us” among these—these Huns. Not a fibre of kinship in him stretched to meet them. He was as utterly an alien here as....
As he had been at Winborough, this last term.
A sudden ache asserted itself for Greville Dunne’s grey eyes looking straight from under the rim of his midshipman’s cap; for Greville’s English voice, and divine lack of understanding for all things save what was usual and fitting a young Britisher of eighteen should understand; ache for Mrs Dunne and for the Dunnes’ cottage home in Kent—for Molly’s tom-boy exuberance, and young Frank dashing into the chintz sitting-room with his toboggan.
Only of course they would be blank to the badgering perplexities which David Rothenburg——
In an effort to escape from the linked chain of thought, Richard took up a journal lying on the ground near his feet. It was a month-old copy of the Tageblatt. In little separate squares outlined in black were the names of those who had fallen in action: “Thomas Spalding—Gefallen, 14ten Juni 1915.”... What was this palpable English name doing among the list of German officers? Thomas Spalding? Richard speculated idly on the anomaly, till fancy quickened to realization that this Thomas Spalding was his own equivalent on the other side—over there a boy of English parentage brought up in Germany, enlisted in the German army, with his sympathies ... where? Over here, Richard Marcus, of German parentage, brought up in England—Ah well, Thomas Spalding had more luck than he. They had taken him in the army and he had been killed in action. Nevertheless, who knows what he may have had to endure first, from taunts and coldness and suspicion, outcast emotions pushed this way and that. Inevitably the lot of those who are not entirely sons of the soil on which they fight ... die ... “Thomas Spalding, Gefallen.”... Richard stared at the brief announcement till a sting of tears rushed to his eyes. He wished he could have had just one talk, one grip of the hand with his unknown comrade, suddenly nearer and more vivid to him than either Greville or David.
You and I, Thomas Spalding....