This notwithstanding, I did ask Barbara to arrange a dinner; and I am only sorry that I did not make the invitation more urgent.
“Is anything the matter?,” she asked in some surprise, for Hornbeck had dined with us only two or three nights before.
“Not at the moment; but there may be trouble if some one doesn’t spike that fellow Griffiths’ guns. In his way, the man’s right: as the government has no remedy, you can’t find an answer to people who say they’ll take the remedy into their own hands. But the common sense of the world won’t allow that. Griffiths will be refused a hearing; the mob may break a few windows; and then the police will clear the streets. It’s not worth marching an army three hundred miles to learn that old lesson.”
“Until they’ve learnt it, they’ll go on believing in men like Griffiths,” said Barbara.
“But it will be a more costly lesson than they realize. With the best intentions in the world, he’s marching them into a trap. I want Hornbeck to stop the march and break up the units before they can collect in force.”
We telephoned to the Admiralty; but Hornbeck had left. When I got in touch with him next day, he was engaged for several nights ahead. Rather shamefacedly, I told him my fears; and he promised to enquire what steps were being taken, though I felt I had wholly failed to communicate my dread of the wasted little fanatic Griffiths. In the middle of the following week I read that the great “hunger-march” had begun; and, when Hornbeck dined with us, he explained that Griffiths was being given enough rope to hang himself, but no more. One army had reached Nottingham, a second was on the outskirts of Coventry and a third was halting on the east side of Newbury; but they would not be allowed to reach London. Since my interview with him, the leader and spokesman had abandoned his former caution; and Hornbeck told me that the police were waiting to prosecute him for inciting to crime.
“It’s a pity to wait,” I said.
“What else can one do?,” asked Hornbeck.
Perhaps my memory is biased by the events of the following week, perhaps my instinct was right in warning me that Griffiths was one of the most dangerous firebrands that I had ever met. He haunted me, as the shadow of Marat must have haunted the well-to-do citizens of Paris; and I felt an equal, unreasoning impatience with the departments that ignored him and with the papers that advertised him. For two or three days the great march was reported mile by mile, with a list of the victories won by “Griffiths’ armies” over the powerless custodians of such county halls, municipal libraries and public baths as they occupied on their way. For the same period the government maintained a calm and dignified silence. Then new interests demanded attention and space.
By the time that the various units joined forces in the open country beyond Neasden, hunger-marching commanded no price in the ever-changing tariff of news-items. London was shopping for Christmas; the Lausanne conference was becoming every day more firm and ineffectual; Signor Mussolini was in England; Germany had defaulted again; and the prime ministers of the late allies were discussing with their financial experts new and final methods of settling the problem of reparations.