Moyne is very fond of his wife, and has a sincere admiration for her abilities; but on the receipt of this telegram he lost his temper.
“What on earth,” he said, “is the use of advising unconditional surrender when Conroy and Malcolmson are engaged at this moment in making plans for sinking the Fleet with rifles?”
“I quite agree with you,” I said. “There’s no kind of use our going to them again. But I don’t expect they’re relying entirely on rifles. Malcolmson always said he understood explosives. He may be laying submarine mines opposite Carrickfergus.”
Lady Moyne’s telegram was not the only warning we received of the approaching visit of the Channel Fleet. Our system of leaving the telegraph wires intact proved to be an excellent one. Everybody in Belfast learnt that the Fleet was coming. Everybody, so far as I could learn, received the news with joy. Bland was tremendously excited. He called on me next morning, and invited me to go with him to see the British Fleet in action. He had been up very early and found a place, so he said, from which we could have a capital view of the bombardment of the town.
“I’ve got two pairs of field-glasses,” he said, “Zeiss prism binoculars. We’ll see the whole show capitally.”
“Was there much other looting last night?” I asked.
“There was none,” said Bland. “I hired the glasses. I got them for five shillings. Cheap, I call it; but the optician who owned them seemed to think they’d be safer if I had them than they would be in his shop. More out of the way of shells, I expect.”
Moyne refused to come with us. He still cherished the hope of being able to surrender himself during the day to some one in recognizable authority. Bland and I set out together.
We hurried along High Street, past the Albert Memorial and crossed the bridge to the south side of the river. The streets were full of volunteers, marching about, all in the highest spirits. The prospect of being shelled by the Fleet did not frighten them in the least. Having, as they believed, defeated the Army the day before, it seemed quite a simple matter to deal with the battleships.