A small band of Italian comrades, led by an adventurous Sicilian, got up a subscription for the purpose, and left the office of the Tocsin, amid great revolutionary enthusiasm, to journey to the assistance of the insurgent island. Only one of their number ever returned alive to Europe to tell of the horrors and hardships of the fierce struggle there endured, of the cruelty of the Spaniards, and the uselessness of the fight from the Anarchist point of view.
The Cuban fever was very catching, and after the departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the Tocsin. Carter and Simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little British grit was what was needed in Cuba, "to keep things humming." Simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. He waved an old belt appertaining to those times, and would, I believe, have sung something about the Union Jack and the beer of old England, had not his friend recalled him to a better sense of his duty as an Anarchist and Internationalist. It appeared that Carter had come into a small sum of money consequent on the death of an uncle, with which he was bent on paying their passage out to Cuba. "What is an Anarchist to do in this wretched country?" he asked. "I am tired of lying in bed waiting for the revolution. It's too slow coming." "Yah!" muttered Short under his breath to me, "the springs are out of order, and he finds it hard. That's about how much he cares for the revolution."
After Carter and Simpkins had taken their leave of the staff of the Tocsin I watched a very moving scene from the window, when they bade good Mrs. Wattles farewell. The good lady was very deeply affected, and with tears in her eyes she begged them to think again before betaking themselves to "them furrin' parts" where she had heard "the drink was something awful and not fit for a Christian stomach." She was only half reassured when told that rum came from somewhere in that direction.
But Carter and Simpkins never reached Cuba. Some few minutes' walk from the office of the Tocsin, at the corner of Lysander Grove, stood an inviting house of call, the "Merry Mariners," where the valiant warriors dropped in on their way, to refresh themselves, perhaps in anticipation of the dreary prospect which Mrs. Wattles's words had opened before them. When several hours later Short returned from his accustomed evening stroll round the neighbourhood, he described with great relish the pitiable termination of their voyage. He had found Carter just sober enough to cart his incapacitated disciple home on a wheelbarrow, after which he painfully betook himself to his bed, there to bemoan the tardiness of the revolution, and the broken condition of the spring mattress.
"And won't his guv'nor just give Simpkins a ragging when he gets home. He'll give him Cuba," gloated the unsympathetic printer.
Another relief expedition from the Tocsin met with scarcely more brilliant success. Beppe and Meneghino set out under the guidance of old M'Dermott, on tramp to Cardiff, whence they hoped to work their way out to the insurgent island. They, too, set out full of brave hopes and generous enthusiasm, but with too confident a trust in the beneficence of Providence as caterer to their material needs on the journey. Before a fortnight had elapsed, they also were back at the office, Beppe bearing the poor old Irishman on his shoulders in a quite crippled and exhausted condition. He had to be put to bed, and remained there several weeks, before he was in a fit state to get about again. They all complained bitterly of the inhospitality of the country-folk to whom they had appealed for help, and of the uncourteous reception they had met with in the Cardiff docks. Poor Meneghino reached London barefooted, his faithful canvas bag hanging disconsolately over his shoulder—and all with woefully vacant stomachs. They formed a comically dismal group as they collapsed into the office in an exhausted heap.
Amid these many strange and dubious, ludicrous or pathetic characters, some few heroic figures appeared. From time to time there came into our midst Vera Marcel, the Red Virgin of the barricades, the heroine of the Commune of Paris—a woman of blood and smoke and of infinite mercies towards men and beasts. I can see her still, almost beautiful in her rugged ugliness, her eyes full of the fire of faith and insane fanaticism, her hair dishevelled, her clothes uncared for. I can hear the wonderful ring of her tragic voice as she pleaded the misery of the poor and suffering, of the oppressed, the outcast, the criminal, the rejected, and as it rose higher and higher to invoke fire and sword and bloodshed in expiation. Then I seem to hear its magic and inspired ring as her wonderful faith conjured up visions of the future when the whole of humanity shall live in peace and brotherhood, and the knife, which in time of revolution had shed the blood of the oppressors, shall "cut nothing deadlier than bread." A strange gaunt figure she was, a woman who had never hesitated at shedding blood in the good Cause, nor feared to face death for it; but with her friends, and especially with children and dumb animals, she was as gentle as the gentlest of her sex; and no words can describe the extreme sweetness of her voice.
As publication time approached, all-night sittings became necessary, when all this heterogeneous assembly met together, and amidst Anarchist song and Anarchist enthusiasm forwarded or hindered, each in his degree, the publication of the Tocsin. I can see in my mind's eye the much-littered, overcrowded office in all the confusion of those nights, with its dark corners hidden in shadow, where slept tired fighters weary of the fray, and its brightly-lighted patches, under the lamps, where the work of the night was being carried on. Some dozen voices, more or less musical, are chanting Anarchist war-songs, and the Inno di Caserio and the Marseillaise ring out through the open windows to the dormant or drunken denizens of Lysander Grove. The Reincarnation is patiently turning the wheel of the printing machine, and rolling out fresh Tocsins, thinking, no doubt, of that tocsin which, at no distant date, shall ring out from a loftier sphere to rouse the deluded inhabitants of this globe to a different millennium from that dreamed of by Anarchists. But, whatever his thoughts, he grinds away with much Christian endurance and fortitude. Wainwright, who is tired after a long turn at the wheel, subsequent to a hard day's work in the brick-yard, is relating to a few interested listeners the strange story of his life, or discussing points of Anarchist principle and propaganda.
Then, somehow, the Bleeding Lamb would find his way in, and looking over at his reincarnated rival at the wheel with undisguised contempt, he whispers: "I know what sort of a wheel his unhallowed hoof ought to be turning!"