'What do you mean?'
'Do you remember what he said?—"Just so long as England remains in a state of religious indifference, just so long as the present conditions obtain, will the war continue."'
'Don't let us talk about that now.'
'But I must, my dear chap. I am going back to duty to-morrow, and I want to realize the inwardness of all we have seen. One thing I am determined on.'
'What is that?'
'To fight this drink business as long as I have breath. It is doing us more harm than Germany. I am told there is danger of a food famine. It is said that bread is going to be scarce,—that people may be put on short rations. Of course we only hear hints now, but there are suggestions that Germany is going to pursue her submarine policy with more vigour, so as to starve us. A man I met in the hotel a little while ago told me that they were going to sink all merchant ships at sight, regardless of nationality. Of course you know what that means.'
'There are always rumours afloat,' I said.
'They might do it. Germany is capable of anything. But we could laugh at that, but for this drink business. Think of it! Four million tons of grain wasted in making drink since the beginning of the war, and there is a talk about a shortage of bread. Three hundred thousand tons of sugar have been used in making drink since the beginning of the war, and it is difficult for people to buy sugar for the common necessities of life! And that is not the worst of it. Why, man, you know what we have seen during these last weeks,—all the horror, all the misery, all the devilry! What has been at the bottom of nine-tenths of it? Night after night, when we have come back from seeing what we have seen, I have been studying these questions, I have been reading hours while you thought I was asleep. And I tell you, it would not be good for us to have victory, until this thing is destroyed. And I doubt whether God Almighty ever will give us victory, until we have first of all strangled once and for ever this drink fiend.'
'Don't talk nonsense! You are becoming a teetotal fanatic.'
'Think, Luscombe,' and he rose from his chair as he spoke, 'suppose God were to give us victory to-night? Suppose the Germans were to cave in, and tell us that we could dictate the terms of peace? Suppose our armies were to come back while things are as they are, and while the thought and feeling of the nation is as it is? Don't you see what would follow? When trouble was first in the air, Asquith said that "war was hell let loose." Would not hell be let loose if victory were to be declared? Think of the drunkenness, the devilry, the bestiality that you and I saw! Think what those streets round Waterloo station are like! Think of the places we went to, and remember what took place! And these are grave times,—times of struggle and doubt, and there are only a few odd thousands home on leave. But what would happen, with all these public-houses standing open, if hundreds of thousands, intoxicated with the thought of victory, came back? You have told me what took place during the Boer War; that would be nothing to the Bacchanalian orgies we should see if victory were to come now.'