Joy in the Morning

by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

I answered hurriedly, trembling for fear I might say the wrong thing: "I've read what's in print, but your telling it puts it in another world. Please go on. Please don't shorten anything."

The shadow of a smile played. "I rather like telling you a story, d'you know," he spoke, half absent-mindedly—his real thoughts were with that huge past. He swept back to it. "You know, of course, about Dundonald's Destroyer—the invention of my great-grandfather's kinsman, Thomas Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald? He was a good bit of an old chap in various ways. He did things to the French fleet that put him as a naval officer in the class with Nelson and Drake. But he's remembered in history by his invention. It was a secret, of course, one of the puzzles of the time and of years after, up to 1917. It was known there was something. He offered it to the government [pg 336] in 1811, and the government appointed a committee to examine into it. The chairman was the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, said to be the ablest administrator of military affairs of that time. Also there were Admirals Lord Keith and Exmouth and the Congreve brothers of the ordnance department. A more competent committee of five could not have been gathered in the world. This board would not recommend the adoption of the scheme. Why? They reported that there was no question that the invention would do all which Dundonald claimed, but it was so unspeakably dreadful as to be impossible for civilized men.

"There was not a shadow of doubt, the committee reported, that Dundonald's device would not merely defeat but annihilate and sweep out of existence any hostile force, whole armies and navies. 'No power on earth could stand against it,' said the old fellow, and the five experts backed him up. But they considered that the devastation would be inhuman beyond permissible warfare. Not war, annihilation. In fact, they shelved it because it [pg 337] was too efficient. There was great need of means for fighting Napoleon just then, so they gave it up reluctantly, but it was a bit too shocking.

"The weak point of the business was, as Dundonald himself declared, that it was so simple—as everybody knows now—that its first use would tell the secret and put it in the hands of other nations. Therefore the committee recommended that this incipient destruction should be stowed away and kept secret, so that no power more unscrupulous than England should get it and use it for the annihilation of England and the conquest of the world. Also the committee persuaded the Earl before he went on his South American adventure to swear formally that he would never disclose his device except in the service of England. He kept that oath.

"Well, the formula for this affair was, of course, in pigeonholes or vaults in the British Admiralty ever since the committee in 1811 had examined and refused it. But there was also, unknown to the public, another copy. The Earl was with my great-grandfather, his kinsman and lifelong friend, [pg 338] shortly before his death, and he gave this copy to him with certain conditions. The old chap had an ungovernable temper, quarreled right and left, don't you know, his life long, and at this time and until he died he was not on speaking terms with his son Thomas, who succeeded him as Earl, or indeed with any of the three other sons. Which accounts for his trusting to my great-grandfather the future of his invention. I found a quaint note with the papers. He said in effect that he had come to believe with the committee that it was quite too shocking for decent folk. Yet, he suggested, the time might come when England was in straits and only a sweeping blow could serve her. If that time should come it would be a joy to him in heaven or in hell—he said—to think that a man of his name had used the work of his brains to save England.

"Therefore, the Earl asked my grandfather to guard this gigantic secret and to see to it that one man in each generation of Cochranes should know it and have it at hand for use in an emergency. My grandfather came into the papers when he [pg 339] came of age, and after him my father; I was due to read them when I should be twenty-one. I was only twenty in 1917. But the papers were mine, and from the moment it flashed to me what Kitchener meant I didn't hesitate. It was this enormous power which was placed suddenly in the hands of a lad of twenty. The Sirdar placed it there.

"I went over the business in an hour—it was simple, like most big things. You know what it was, of course; everybody knows now. Wasn't it extraordinary that in five thousand years of fighting no one ever hit on it before? I rushed to the War Office.

"Well, the thing came off. At first they pooh-poohed me as an unbalanced boy, but they looked up the documents in the Admiralty and there was no question. It isn't often a youngster is called into the councils of the government, and I've wondered since how I held my own. I've come to believe that I was merely a body for Kitchener's spirit. I was conscious of no fatigue, no uncertainty. I did things as the Sirdar might have done them, and it appears to me only decent to realize [pg 340] that he did do them, and not I. You probably know the details."

I waited, hoping that he would not stop. Then I said: "I know that the government asked for twenty-five volunteers for a service which would destroy the German fleet, but which would mean almost certain death to the volunteers. I know that you headed the list and that thousands offered." My voice shook and I spoke with difficulty as I realized to whom I was speaking. "I know that you were the only one who came back alive, and that you were barely saved."

General Cochrane seemed not to hear me. He was living over enormous events.