"Who told you anything about it?"
"I heard something—of course, sir, we do talk among ourselves to a certain extent, can't help it. I know you're not supposed to tell us news, but I thought in a case like this perhaps you might stretch a point. Is there a row in Ireland or what?"
"There is no scare, and no row in Ireland," said Roche. His manner had often a touch of rhetoric. "There is Armageddon. Germany and Austria are attacking Russia, France, and ourselves."
"My hat!" said Gardiner. He straightened up; his face lighted, his eye sparkled. "Oh, my hat! What wouldn't I give to be in the army!"
"You won't be the first to say that to-day," said Roche; "but if you were in the army you might not be alive to congratulate yourself on the fact to-morrow. The Germans have occupied Luxemburg, they are sweeping across Belgium; soon, I expect, they will be in Paris, and then it will be our turn. And God knows—Steady, man! What are you doing?"
Gardiner was clutching his arm. "Belgium?" he gasped. "But they're neutral!"
"Germany announces that she is not to be bound by scraps of paper."
Gardiner sat down on his stool and took his head in his hands. Roche had heard a part of his story; not enough to explain his emotion. He laid his hand on the prisoner's shoulder. "You wish you were free to go and help?" he said, his deep musical voice vibrating. "Poor fellow, so do I—so do I."
One queer by-product of the war was the general eagerness to bear one another's burdens, the Christmas Carol atmosphere of good temper and good-will. In prison this feeling worked a miracle; it drew together prisoners and warders. The day's news was whispered without rebuke under the very noses of the guardians of silence; sometimes they even whispered it themselves. Roche went boldly to the governor (he did not lack courage, that young man; he had already half-a-dozen quarrels on his hands, including one with Leonard Scott about vestments), and by special permission started his Sunday service each week with a summary of news. There was not much to tell in that first month. On the 6th The Times gravely stated that mobilization could not be completed till the 16th; on the 18th came the announcement that the whole Expeditionary Force was already across the water. Liège was making its gallant defense; the Russians were pouring into East Prussia; there was a battle near Dinant in which the French were victorious. Next, the evening papers of the 24th baldly announced the fall of Namur. Heart-shaking news. It shook England; it was then that the recruits began to pour in, thirty thousand a day, so that the height limit had to be raised to check the flow. All these things Roche reported to a congregation which hung upon his lips.