Short Plays · Press Cuttings (2/2) (2/2) (2/5)

| Balsquith | It turns out that the curate is well connected. Mitchener* staggers at the shock. He reels into his chair and buries his face in his hands over the blotter. Balsquith continues remorselessly, stooping over him to rub it in. He has three aunts in the peerage; Lady Richmond’s one of them; Mitchener punctuates these announcements with heartrending groans and they all adore him. The invitations for six garden parties and fourteen dances have been cancelled for all the subalterns in Chubbs’s regiment. Mitchener attempts to shoot himself. | | Balsquith | Seizing the pistol. No: your country needs you, Mitchener. | | Mitchener | Putting down the pistol. For my country’s sake. Balsquith, reassured, sits down. But what an infernal young fool Chubbs-Jenkinson is, not to know the standing of his man better! Why didn’t he know? It was his business to know. He ought to be flogged. | | Balsquith | Probably he will be, by the other subalterns. | | Mitchener | I hope so. Anyhow, out he goes. Out of the army. He or I. | | Balsquith | Steady, steady. His father has subscribed a million to the party funds. We owe him a peerage. | | Mitchener | I don’t care. | | Balsquith | I do. How do you think parties are kept up? Not by the subscriptions of the local associations, I hope. They don’t pay for the gas at the meetings. | | Mitchener | Man: can you not be serious? Here are we, face to face with Lady Richmond’s grave displeasure; and you talk to me about gas and subscriptions. Her own nephew!!!!! | | Balsquith | Gloomily. It’s unfortunate. He was at Oxford with Bobby Bessborough. | | Mitchener | Worse and worse. What shall we do? | | A Voice in the Street | Votes for Women! Votes for Women! | | | A terrific explosion shakes the building. They take no notice. | | Mitchener | Breaking down. You don’t know what this means to me, Balsquith. I love the army. I love my country. | | Balsquith | It certainly is rather awkward. | | | The Orderly comes in. | | Mitchener | Angrily. What is it? How dare you interrupt us like this? | | The Orderly | Didn’t you hear the explosion, sir? | | Mitchener | Explosion. What explosion? No: I heard no explosion: I have something more serious to attend to than explosions. Great Heavens! Lady Richmond’s nephew has been treated like any common laborer; and while England is reeling under the shock, a private walks in and asks me if I heard an explosion. | | Balsquith | By the way, what was the explosion? | | The Orderly | Only a sort of bombshell, sir. | | Balsquith | Bombshell! | | The Orderly | A pasteboard one, sir. Full of papers with Votes for Women in red letters. Fired into the yard from the roof of the Alliance Office. | | Mitchener | Pooh! Go away. Go away. | | | The Orderly, bewildered, goes out. | | Balsquith | Mitchener: you can save the country yet. Put on your full dress uniform and your medals and orders and so forth. Get a guard of honor⁠—something showy⁠—horse guards or something of that sort; and call on the old girl⁠— | | Mitchener | The old girl? | | Balsquith | Well, Lady Richmond. Apologize to her. Ask her leave to accept the command. Tell her that you’ve made the curate your adjutant or your aide-de-camp or whatever is the proper thing. By the way, what can you make him? | | Mitchener | I might make him my chaplain. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a chaplain on my staff. He showed a very proper spirit in punching that young cub’s head. I should have done the same myself. | | Balsquith | Then I’ve your promise to take command if Lady Richmond consents? | | Mitchener | On condition that I have a free hand. No nonsense about public opinion or democracy. | | Balsquith | As far as possible, I think I may say yes. | | Mitchener | Rising intolerantly and going to the hearthrug. That won’t do for me. Don’t be weak-kneed, Balsquith. You know perfectly well that the real government of this country is and always must be the government of the masses by the classes. You know that democracy is damned nonsense, and that no class stands less of it than the working class. You know that we are already discussing the steps that will have to be taken if the country should ever be face to face with the possibility of a Labor majority in parliament. You know that in that case we should disfranchise the mob, and if they made a fuss, shoot them down. You know that if we need public opinion to support us, we can get any quantity of it manufactured in our papers by poor devils of journalists who will sell their souls for five shillings. You know⁠— | | Balsquith | Stop. Stop, I say. I don’t know. That is the difference between your job and mine, Mitchener. After twenty years in the army a man thinks he knows everything. After twenty months in the Cabinet he knows that he knows nothing. | | Mitchener | We learn from history⁠— | | Balsquith | We learn from history that men never learn anything from history. That’s not my own: it’s Hegel. | | Mitchener | Who’s Hegel? | | Balsquith | Dead. A German philosopher. He half rises, but recollects something and sits down again. Oh, confound it: that reminds me. The Germans have laid down four more Dreadnoughts. | | Mitchener | Then you must lay down twelve. | | Balsquith | Oh yes: it’s easy to say that; but think of what they’ll cost. | | Mitchener | Think of what it would cost to be invaded by Germany and forced to pay an indemnity of five hundred millions. | | Balsquith | But you said that if you got compulsory military service there would be an end of the danger of invasion. | | Mitchener | On the contrary, my dear fellow, it increases the danger tenfold, because it increases German jealousy of our military supremacy. | | Balsquith | After all, why should the Germans invade us? | | Mitchener | Why shouldn’t they? What else has their army to do? What else are they building a navy for? | | Balsquith | Well, we never think of invading Germany. | | Mitchener | Yes, we do. I have thought of nothing else for the last ten years. Say what you will, Balsquith, the Germans have never recognized, and until they get a stern lesson, they never will recognize, the plain fact that the interests of the British Empire are paramount, and that the command of the sea belongs by nature to England. | | Balsquith | But if they won’t recognize it, what can I do? | | Mitchener | Shoot them down. | | Balsquith | I can’t shoot them down. | | Mitchener | Yes you can. You don’t realize it; but if you fire a rifle into a German he drops just as surely as a rabbit does. | | Balsquith | But dash it all, man, a rabbit hasn’t got a rifle and a German has. Suppose he shoots you down. | | Mitchener | Excuse me, Balsquith; but that consideration is what we call cowardice in the army. A soldier always assumes that he is going to shoot, not to be shot. | | Balsquith | Jumping up and walking about sulkily. Oh come! I like to hear you military people talking of cowardice. Why, you spend your lives in an ecstasy of terror of imaginary invasions. I don’t believe you ever go to bed without looking under it for a burglar. | | Mitchener | Calmly. A very sensible precaution, Balsquith. I always take it; and, in consequence, I’ve never been burgled. | | Balsquith | Neither have I. Anyhow, don’t you taunt me with cowardice. He posts himself on the hearthrug beside Mitchener, on his left. I never look under my bed for a burglar. I’m not always looking under the nation’s bed for an invader. And if it comes to fighting, I’m quite willing to fight without being three to one. | | Mitchener | These are the romantic ravings of a Jingo civilian, Balsquith. At least you’ll not deny that the absolute command of the sea is essential to our security. | | Balsquith | The absolute command of the sea is essential to the security of the principality of Monaco. But Monaco isn’t going to get it. | | Mitchener | And consequently Monaco enjoys no security. What a frightful thing! How do the inhabitants sleep with the possibility of invasion, of bombardment, continually present to their minds? Would you have our English slumbers broken in the same way? Are we also to live without security? | | Balsquith | Dogmatically. Yes. There’s no such thing as security in the world: and there never can be as long as men are mortal. England will be secure when England is dead, just as the streets of London will be safe when there’s no longer a man in her streets to be run over or a vehicle to run over him. When you military chaps ask for security you are crying for the moon. | | Mitchener | Very seriously. Let me tell you, Balsquith, that in these days of aeroplanes and zeppelin airships, the question of the moon is becoming one of the greatest importance. It will be reached at no very distant date. Can you, as an Englishman, tamely contemplate the possibility of having to live under a German moon? The British flag must be planted there at all hazards. | | Balsquith | My dear Mitchener, the moon is outside practical politics. I’d swap it for a coaling station tomorrow with Germany or any other Power sufficiently military in its way of thinking to attach any importance to it. | | Mitchener | Losing his temper. You are the friend of every country but your own. | | Balsquith | Say nobody’s enemy but my own. It sounds nicer. You really needn’t be so horribly afraid of the other countries. They’re all in the same fix as we are. I’m much more interested in the death rate in Lambeth than in the German fleet. | | Mitchener | You daren’t say that in Lambeth. | | Balsquith | I’ll say it the day after you publish your scheme for invading Germany and repealing all the Reform Acts. | | | The Orderly comes in. | | Mitchener | What do you want? | | The Orderly | I don’t want anything, governor, thank you. The secretary and president of the Anti-Suffragette League says they had an appointment with the Prime Minister, and that they’ve been sent on here from Downing Street. | | Balsquith | Going to the table. Quite right. I forgot them. To Mitchener. Would you mind my seeing them here? I feel extraordinarily grateful to these women for standing by us and facing the suffragettes, especially as they are naturally the gentler and timider sort of women. The Orderly moans. Did you say anything? | | The Orderly | No, sir. | | Balsquith | Did you catch their names? | | The Orderly | Yes, sir. The president is Lady Corinthia Fanshawe; and the secretary is Mrs. Banger. | | Mitchener | Abruptly. Mrs. what? | | The Orderly | Mrs. Banger. | | Balsquith | Curious that quiet people always seem to have violent names. | | The Orderly | Not much quiet about her, sir. | | Mitchener | Outraged. Attention! Speak when you’re spoken to. Hold your tongue when you’re not. Right about face. March. The Orderly obeys. That’s the way to keep these chaps up to the mark. The Orderly returns. Back again! What do you mean by this mutiny? | | The Orderly | What am I to say to the ladies, sir? | | Balsquith | You don’t mind my seeing them somewhere, do you? | | Mitchener | Not at all. Bring them in to see me when you’ve done with them: I understand that Lady Corinthia is a very fascinating woman. Who is she, by the way? | | Balsquith | Daughter of Lord Broadstairs, the automatic turbine man. Gave quarter of a million to the party funds. She’s musical and romantic and all that⁠—don’t hunt: hates politics: stops in town all the year round: one never sees her anywhere except at the opera and at musical at-homes and so forth. | | Mitchener | What a life! To the Orderly. Where are the ladies? | | The Orderly | In No. 17, Sir. | | Mitchener | Show Mr. Balsquith there; and send Mrs. Farrell here. | | The Orderly | Calling into the corridor. Mrs. Farrell! To Balsquith. This way sir. He goes out with Balsquith. | | | Mrs. Farrell*, a lean, highly respectable Irish charwoman of about fifty, comes in. | | Mitchener | Mrs. Farrell: I’ve a very important visit to pay: I shall want my full dress uniform and all my medals and orders and my presentation sword. There was a time when the British Army contained men capable of discharging these duties for their commanding officer. Those days are over. The compulsorily enlisted soldier runs to a woman for everything. I’m therefore reluctantly obliged to trouble you. | | Mrs. Farrell | Your meddles ’n’ ordhers ’n’ the crooked sword widh the ivory handle ’n’ your full dress uniform is in the waxworks in the Chamber o’ Military Glory over in the place they used to call the Banquetin’ Hall. I told you you’d be sorry for sendin’ them away; and you told me to mind me own business. You’re wiser now. | | Mitchener | I am. I had not at that time discovered that you were the only person in the whole military establishment of this capital who could be trusted to remember where anything was, or to understand an order and obey it. | | Mrs. Farrell | It’s no good flattherin’ me. I’m too old. | | Mitchener | Not at all, Mrs. Farrell. How is your daughter? | | Mrs. Farrell | Which daughther? | | Mitchener | The one who has made such a gratifying success in the Music Halls. | | Mrs. Farrell | There’s no music halls nowadays: they’re Variety Theatres. She’s got an offer of marriage from a young jook. | | Mitchener | Is it possible? What did you do? | | Mrs. Farrell | I told his mother on him. | | Mitchener | Oh! What did she say? | | Mrs. Farrell | She was as pleased as Punch. Thank Heaven, she says, he’s got somebody that’ll be able to keep him when the supertax is put up to twenty shillings in the pound. | | Mitchener | But your daughter herself? What did she say? | | Mrs. Farrell | Accepted him, of course. What else would a young fool like her do? He inthrojooced her to the Poet Laureate, thinkin’ she’d inspire him. | | Mitchener | Did she? | | Mrs. Farrell | Faith, I dunna. All I know is she walked up to him as bold as brass ’n’ said, “Write me a sketch, dear.” Afther all the throuble I’ve took with that child’s manners she’s no more notion how to behave herself than a pig. You’ll have to wear General Sandstone’s uniform: it’s the ony one in the place, because he won’t lend it to the shows. | | Mitchener | But Sandstone’s clothes won’t fit me. | | Mrs. Farrell | Unmoved. Then you’ll have to fit them. Why shouldn’t they fitchya as well as they fitted General Blake at the Mansion House? | | Mitchener | They didn’t fit him. He looked a frightful guy. | | Mrs. Farrell | Well, you must do the best you can with them. You can’t exhibit your clothes and wear them too. | | Mitchener | And the public thinks the lot of a commanding officer a happy one! Oh, if they could only see the seamy side of it. He returns to his table to resume work. | | Mrs. Farrell | If they could only see the seamy side o’ General Sandstone’s uniform, where his flask rubs agen’ the buckle of his braces, they’d tell him he ought to get a new one. Let alone the way he swears at me. | | Mitchener | When a man has risked his life on eight battlefields, Mrs. Farrell, he has given sufficient proof of his self-control to be excused a little strong language. | | Mrs. Farrell | Would you put up with bad language from me because I’ve risked me life eight times in childbed? | | Mitchener | My dear Mrs. Farrell, you surely would not compare a risk of that harmless domestic kind to the fearful risks of the battlefield. | | Mrs. Farrell | I wouldn’t compare risks run to bear livin’ people into the world to risks run to blow dhem out of it. A mother’s risk is jooty: a soldier’s is nothin but divilmint. | | Mitchener | Nettled. Let me tell you, Mrs. Farrell, that if the men did not fight, the women would have to fight themselves. We spare you that at all events. |