No wonder the men treated the Irish “rough” at times or got out of hand and shot up a village in which some of their pals had been killed. Killed without a dog’s chance. What did it mean, exactly, “shooting up” a village? Oh, just driving through in an armoured car and spraying the windows and door-ways with machine-gun bullets. Women and children killed like that? Often, of course. A rotten game, but guerrilla warfare was like that. . . .
“Any more whiskey, old man? Oh, thanks.”
He went on talking, describing raids and ambushes and reprisals, for an hour or more, until Bertram could listen to no more of this narrative by his “kid brother” as he used to call him. It made him feel physically sick. It seemed to drain him of all vitality, so that he trembled at the knees when he began to walk about the room.
“It’s frightful! It’s devilish! After the Great War and all our sacrifice for liberty! Two English-speaking peoples, bound together by blood, by Christian faith, by heroic memories! My God! Digby, I implore you to chuck it. Hand in your papers. Resign. Cut your right hand off rather than do that dirty work! It’s dishonouring. It’s filthy. It’s murderous.”
Digby’s face flushed. He gulped down some more whiskey, and lit a cigarette.
“It’s got to be done,” he said, sullenly. “Somebody’s got to do it. It’s what happens in this bloody world.”
He was less than twenty years old, and all his memories were of war, and blood, and death. He was annoyed by the emotion of his elder brother. He was also a little drunk. Presently he said, “So long, old man, I think I’ll go and do a show.”
Bertram had not asked him about Susan and Dennis. When the boy had gone, he raged about the room again. He remembered this boy, Digby, when he was a little fair-haired thing to whom he used to tell fairy-tales in bed. Their mother used to come and kiss them and tell them to go to sleep. Now this! Bertram was overwhelmed by a sense of pity for the mothers of the world.
XVII
Tucked into the frame of the Jacobean mirror (sham antique, but rather good-looking) over the mantelpiece of Bertram’s “study,” was the card given to him by Lady Ottery for her lecture on “The Religion of Revolution: Past and Present.” He had glanced at it several times from day to day with a sense of annoyance, as at the notification of an impending menace, such as a date with the dentist or any distant disagreeable and inevitable duty.