Christopher shook his head. "There's something sinister about your appearances in the City, Brun. 'Where the carcases are, there will....'"
Brun nodded. "It's true enough this time," he said.
CHAPTER IX
THE DARKEST HOUR
"So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall into.... Home and to bed with a heavy heart."
Diary of Samuel Pepys.
I
During that terrible December week in 1899, England suffered more defeats to her arms than during any other week of the century. Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, their names leapt one after another on to the screen.
London was dismayed; London was impatient. Easy enough to declare that the most criminal blunders had been perpetrated, easy enough to explain how one would oneself have conducted this or that, man[oe]uvred hither or thither some pawn in the game.