"Yes. I go back to town to-night. There seems little doubt now that we shall come in. We can't leave France in the lurch. For one thing, we should be skunks if we did"—Pillars of State can be surprisingly colloquial in private life—"and for another, Germany means to gobble the whole of Europe this time, including this pacific little island of ours. It would be playing Germany's game to allow her to take us on one after another, instead of all together. Of course, the peace-at-any-price crowd are yowling; but—if we don't back our friends on this occasion, we can never hold up our heads again. It is just possible that the Germans may be fools enough to invade Belgium, in which case even the Cocoa Eaters and the Intellectuals will have to stop supporting them. But I think we shall fight anyhow. It will be a short war, but it will be the bloodiest war ever fought."
"Why do you think it will be short?"
"Because it will be so expensive in money and men that no country will be able to stand the racket for longer than a few months. Modern weapons are so destructive, and modern warfare costs so much, that before we know where we are one side will all be dead and the other side bankrupt; so we shall have to stop! The South African affair cost us a quarter of a million a day, while it lasted. This enterprise may run us into two, or even three millions. Think of that! Twenty millions a week! A thousand millions a year! We can't do it! Neither can France! Neither can Germany! No, it will be a short war. I am bound to admit K. of K. doesn't agree with me. He puts it at three years. I lunched with him two days ago. He was getting ready to go back to Egypt then—sorely against the grain, naturally; but it did not seem to have occurred to anybody to tell him to hold back for a week or two. We can't allow him to go out of the country at present; the thing's preposterous! Let me see, where was I?"
"Lunching with K."
"Oh, yes. He said three years. I asked why, and he replied that before this war finished every single able-bodied man of the combatant nations would be fighting in a national army, and it would take three years for this country to put its full strength into the field. But of course K. doesn't understand economic conditions. He's our greatest soldier, but not an economist. Still, that's K.'s view. I don't agree with it, but it's K.'s view. And if we go to war, K. will probably lead us; so we must expect to provide for war on K.'s scale."
All this was sufficiently stunning and bewildering in its suddenness and immensity; but it aroused my professional instincts.
"How is K. going to set about creating such an army?" I asked. "Raise supplementary Regular battalions; expand the Territorial establishment; or what?"
"I don't think he knows himself. In fact, he said so, quite frankly. In the first place, he hasn't been invited to help, as yet. In the second, he has been absent from England for the best part of fourteen years, and has not been able to keep himself conversant with the recent orgy of Army reform. He knew that the old Militia had been scrapped, but I found he was not sure whether its place had been taken by the Special Reserve or the National Reserve. And, of course, like all Regulars, he regards the Territorials with the utmost distrust. I think he shares the general soldier-man's opinion that the 'Terriers' are the old Saturday afternoon crowd with a new label. His idea seems to be to take no risks with amateur organisations, but to create a pukka new professional army on regular lines. He's wrong. He should take the present Territorial Army as a nucleus, and expand from that. The Territorial Associations are a most capable lot, and would build up big units for him in no time. Still, whatever way he does it, he will do it well; he's our great man. And he will need all his greatness. Germany means to smash us this time. She has been calling up her reservists, on the quiet, for the last six months. Her intelligence people have told her that we are all so tied up with the Suffragettes and Ireland that we can't come in, and that if we do, we cannot put up anything of a fight. I am almost tempted to believe Germany is right. I don't suppose we have a thousand spare rifles in the country. As for artillery—it takes three years to make a gunner! How on earth—"
"Now, then, what are you two absurd creatures conspiring about?" Our hostess was upon us brandishing a croquet-mallet. We rose hurriedly. "Alan Laing, how do you do? Why didn't you come and tell me you had arrived? As for you, Eskerley, I think you are getting into your second childhood. What's all this nonsense I hear about war with Germany? Why, I have a signed photograph of the Emperor in my drawing-room! How can one make war on people like that? And yet there you sit, talking about the thing as if it were really possible, and disorganising my fête champêtre by mobilising all my young men! Come and play croquet!"
Croquet with Lady Christina resembles nothing so much as croquet with the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland." It is true that she does not order our heads to be chopped off, but one sometimes wishes she would, and be done with it. Her success at the game—and she is invariably successful—is due partly to the nervous paralysis of her opponents, and partly to the uncanny property possessed by her ball of removing itself, while its owner is engaged in altercation, to a position exactly opposite its hoop. I bent my steps dutifully towards the lawn, leaving Lord Eskerley, who fears no one, not even Lady Christina, to fight a spirited rearguard action with that worthy opponent.