The Lost Naval Papers - Bennet Copplestone
Civilians came north to examine the position on behalf of the Ministry
of Munitions; they came, wrung their hands, and reported in terror
that if dilution were pressed, a hundred thousand men would be "out."
Yet the risk had to be taken, for dilution must be pressed. Dawson was
hard at work sweeping into his widespread net all those whom he knew
to be enemy agents and all those whom he suspected. It was not an
occasion for squeamishness. With the consent of his official
superiors, he picked up with those prehensile fingers of his many of
the most troublesome of the union agitators, and deported them to safe
spots far distant, where they were constrained to cease from
troubling. Still the danger increased, and he saw that a few days only
could intervene between industrial peace and war. Already the
manufacture of heavy howitzers for the Spring Offensive had been
stopped--by a cunning embargo upon small essential parts--and the
moment had arrived for a trial of strength between authority and
rebellion. He made up his mind, plainly told his chiefs what his plans
were, obtained their whole-hearted concurrence, and went south by the
night train. By telegram he had sent an ultimatum which struck awe
into the official mind. "Unless," he wired, in code, "the Cabinet
wants a revolution, it had better meet at once and call me in. Unless
it does this at once I shall not go back here. I shall resign, and
leave the Government in the soup where it deserves to be."
Such a message from a man who in official eyes was no more than a
Chief Inspector of Police was in itself a portent. It revealed how
completely war had upset all official standards and conventions.
To the Chief, his Commissioner, he opened his mind freely. "I am about
fed up with politicians and lawyers," said he. "There is big trouble
coming, and not a man of them all has the pluck to get his blow in
first. I have always found that men will respect an order--they like
to be governed--but they despise slop. What the devil's the use of
Ministers going North and telling the men how well they have done, and
how patriotic they are, when the men themselves all know that they've
done damn badly and mean to do worse? I could settle the whole
business in twenty-four hours."
"They are frightened men, Dawson," said the Chief. "That is the matter
with the Government. They have been brought up to slobber over the
public and try to cheat it out of votes. They can't tell the truth.
When hard deadly reality breaks through their web of make-believe,
they cower together in corners and howl. I doubt if you will get a
free hand, Dawson. What do you want--martial law?"
"Yes. That, or something like it. If I have the threat of it at my
back, so that it rests with me, and me alone, to put it into force, I
shall not need to use it. But I must go North with the proclamation in
my pocket or I shall not go North at all. Here is my resignation."
Dawson tossed a letter upon the table, and laughed. The Chief picked
it up and read the curt lines in which Dawson delivered his last word.
"Good man," commented he; "that is the way to talk. They can't
understand how any man can have the grit to resign a fat job before he
is kicked out. They never do. They compromise. You may put starch into
their soft backbones, but personally I doubt the possibility. But at
least you will get your chance. There is to be a meeting of the War
Committee the first thing to-morrow morning and you are to be
summoned. I told the Home Secretary that I should resign myself if
they did not give you a full opportunity to state your case. I will
support you as long as I am in this chair."
Dawson held out his hand. "Thank you," he said simply. The two men
clasped hands and looked into one another's eyes. "It is a good
country, Dawson," said the Chief--"a jolly good country, and worth big
risks to oneself. It will be saved by plain, honest men if it is to be
saved at all. Our worst enemies are not the Germans, but our
flabby-fibred political classes at home. The people are just crying
out to be told what to do, and to be made to do it. Yet nobody tells
them. Don't let the Cabinet browbeat you, and smother you with
plausible sophistries. Just talk plain English to them, Dawson."
"I will. For once in their sheltered lives they shall hear the truth."
For what follows, Dawson is my principal, but not my sole authority. I
have tested what he told me in every way that I could, and the test
has held. Somehow--I am prepared to believe in the manner told by
him--he forced the Cabinet to give him the authority for which he
asked, and he used it in the manner which I shall tell of. He held
what is always a first-rate advantage: he knew exactly what he wanted,
no more or less, and was prepared to get it or retire from official
life. Those who gave to him authority gave it reluctantly--gave it
because they were between the devil and the deep sea. They would
gladly have thrown over Dawson, but they could not throw over the
civil and military powers who supported him in his demands. And had
they thrown him over they would have been left to deal by their
incompetent unaided selves with a strike in the midst of war which
might have spread like a prairie fire over the whole country. But
though they bent before Dawson, I am very sure that they did not love
him, and that he will never be the Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan
Police. Against his name in the official books stands a mark of the
most deadly blackness. Strength and success are never pardoned by
weakness and failure.
When at last Dawson was summoned to the sitting; of the War Committee,
he found himself in the presence of some half a dozen elderly and
embarrassed-looking gentlemen arranged round a big table. They had
been discussing him, and trying to devise some decent civil means to
get rid of him. He and his story of the coming strike in the North
were a distressful inconvenience, an intolerable intrusion upon a
quiet life. When he entered, he was without a friend in the room,
except the War Minister who loved a man who knew his own mind and was
prepared to accept big responsibilities. But even he doubted whether
it were possible to achieve the results aimed at with the means
required by Dawson.
Our friend suffered from no illusions. "I knew what I was up against,"
he said to me long afterwards. "I knew that they were all longing to
be quit of me and to go to sleep again. But I had made up my mind that
they should get some very plain speaking. I would compel them to
understand that what I offered was a forlorn chance of averting a
civil war, and that if they refused my offer they would be left to
themselves--not to stamp out a spark of revolution, but to subdue a
roaring furnace. They could take their choice in the certain knowledge
that if they chose wrongly the North would be in flames within
forty-eight hours. It was a great experience, Mr. Copplestone. I have
never enjoyed anything half so much."
Dawson was offered a chair set some six feet distant from the sacred
table, but he preferred to stand. His early training held, and he was
not comfortable in the presence of his superiors in rank or station
except when standing firmly at attention.
The Prime Minister fumbled with some papers, looked over them for a
few embarrassed minutes, and then spoke.
"Great pressure has been placed upon us, Mr. Dawson, to see you and to
hear your report. Great pressure--to my mind improper pressure. I have
here letters from Magistrates, Lords Lieutenant, competent military
authorities, naval officers superintending shipyards, officials of the
Munitions Department. They all declare that the industrial outlook in
the North is most perilous, and that at any moment a situation may
arise which will be fraught with the gravest peril to the country. We
have replied that the law provides adequate remedies, but to that the
retort is made that the men who are at the root of the grave troubles
pending snap their fingers at the law. We are pressed to take counsel
with you, though why the high officers who communicate with me should,
as it were, shift their responsibilities upon the shoulders of a Chief
Inspector of Scotland Yard I am at a loss to comprehend. What I would
ask of my colleagues is this: who is in fact responsible for the
maintenance of a due observance of law in the Northern district from
which you have come, and where you appear to discharge unofficial and
wholly irregular functions? Who is responsible? Perhaps my learned
friend the Home Secretary can enlighten us?" The Prime Minister
paused, and smiled happily to himself. He had at least made things
nasty for an intrusive colleague. But the Home Secretary, suave,
alert, was not to be caught. He at any rate was not prepared to admit
responsibility.
"It is possible, sir," he said, "that in some vague, undefined,
constitutional way I am responsible for the police service of the
United Kingdom. But happily my direct charge does not in practice
extend beyond England. The centre of disturbance appears to be on the
northern side of the Border, within the jurisdiction of the Secretary
for Scotland. It is possible that my right honourable friend who holds
that office, and whom I am pleased to see here with us, will answer
the Prime Minister's question. He is responsible for his obstreperous
countrymen." The Home Secretary paused, and also smiled happily to
himself. He had evaded a trap, and had involved an unloved colleague
in its meshes; what more could be required of a highly placed
Minister?
"God forbid!" cried the Scottish Secretary hastily. "These aggressive
and troublesome workmen are no countrymen of mine. It is true," he
added pensively, "that when I am in the North I claim that a somewhat
shadowy Scottish ancestry makes of me a Scot to the finger tips, but
no sooner do I cross the Border upon my return to London than I revert
violently to my English self. A kindly Providence has ordained that
the central Scottish Office should be in London, and my urgent duties
compel me to reside there permanently. Which is indeed fortunate. It
is true that technically my responsibilities cover everything, or
nearly everything, which occurs in the unruly North, but I do not
interfere with the discretion of those on the spot who know the local
conditions and can deal adequately with them. I am content to rest my
action upon the advice of those responsible authorities whose
considered opinions have been quoted by the Prime Minister."
The Prime Minister smiled no more. The wheel which he had jogged so
agreeably had come full round, and, in colloquial speech, had biffed
him in the eye. He fumbled the papers once more, and frowned.
"It seems to me," plaintively put in the First Lord of the Admiralty
(a political chief very different from the one whom Dawson encountered
in Chapter XII), "though I am a child in these high matters, that no
one is ever responsible for the exercise of those duties with which he
is nominally charged. For, consider my own case. Though I am the First
Lord, and attend daily at the Admiralty, I am convinced that the
active and accomplished young gentleman whom I had the misfortune to
succeed regards himself as still responsible to the people of this
country for the disposition and control of the Fleets. At least that
is the not unnatural impression which I derive from his frequent
speeches and newspaper articles."
There was a general laugh, in which all joined except the War Minister
and Dawson. They were not politicians.
"If there is a big strike," growled the War Minister, "the Spring
Offensive will be off. It is threatened now, very seriously. I am
months behind with my howitzers."
His colleagues looked reproachfully at the famous warrior, and shifted
uneasily in their chairs. He had an uncomfortable habit of blurting
forth the most unpleasant truths.
"Yes," put in the Minister for Munitions, "we are behind with the
howitzers and with ammunition of all kinds. But what can one do with
these savage brutes in the North? I went there myself and spoke
plainly to them. By God's grace I am still alive, though at one moment
I had given up myself for lost. At one works where I made a speech the
audience were armed with what I believe are called monkey wrenches,
and showed an almost uncontrollable passion for launching them at my
head. I was hustled and wellnigh personally assaulted. Like my
patriotic friend the Scottish Secretary, I was very happy indeed when
I got south of the Border. The central office of the Munitions
Department is happily in London, and my urgent duties compel me to
reside there permanently. I have no leisure for roving expeditions."
"This is very interesting," broke in the First Lord, who lay back in
his chair with shut eyes. "There appears to be no eagerness on the
part of any one of us to stick his hands into the northern hornets'
nest, or to admit any responsibility for it. All of us, that is,
except our courageous and silent friend Mr. Dawson." He opened his
eyes and smiled most winningly towards Dawson. "Would it not be well
if we gave him an opportunity of telling us what his views are?"
"I have been waiting for him to begin," growled the War Minister.
"We are at your service, Mr. Dawson," said the Prime Minister
graciously.
Dawson, standing stiffly at attention, had closely followed the
conversation, and, as it proceeded, his heart sank. He despaired of
discovering courage and quick decision in the group of Ministers
before him. Yet when called upon he made a last effort. If the country
were to be saved, it must be saved by its people, not by its
politicians, and he was a man of the people, resolute, enduring, long
suffering.
"Gentlemen," said he, "we are threatened with a strike in the Northern
shops and shipyards which will cripple the country. It will begin
within forty-eight hours. I can stop it if I go North to-night with
the full powers of the Government in my pocket, and with the means for
which I ask. All the authorities in the North, civil, military and
naval, have approved of my plans. I ask only leave to carry them out."
"Your plans are?" snapped the War Minister.
"To get my blow in first," said Dawson simply.
The First Lord again looked at Dawson, and a glint of fighting light
flashed in his tired eyes. "Thrice armed is he who has his quarrel
just; and four times he who gets his blow in first. How would you do
it, Mr. Dawson."
"Yes, how?" eagerly inquired the War Minister.
"I have served," said Dawson, "in most parts of the world. When in
West Africa one is attacked by a snake, one does not wait until it
bites. One cuts off its head."
"You have served?" asked the War Minister. "In what Service?"
"The Red Marines," proudly answered Dawson.
"Ah!" The War Minister was plainly interested, and Dawson had, during
the rest of the interview, no eyes for any one except for him and for
the First Lord. He recognised these two as brother fighting men. The
others he waved aside as civilian truck. "Ah! The Red Marines. Long
service men, the best we have. So you would cut off the snake's head
before it can bite."
"To-morrow afternoon," explained Dawson, "I must attend a meeting of
shop stewards, over two hundred of them. They contain the head of the
snake. Give me powers, a proclamation of martial law which I may show
them, and I will cut off the snake's head."
"You soldiers are always prating about martial law," grumbled the
Prime Minister. "We have given to you the amplest powers under the
Defence of the Realm Act and the Munitions Act to punish strikers.
Those are sufficient. I have no patience with plans for enforcing a
military despotism."
"Excuse me, sir," said Dawson patiently, as to a child, "but if a
hundred thousand men go out on strike, your Acts of Parliament will be
waste paper. You cannot lock up or fine a hundred thousand men, and if
you could you would still be unable to make them work. No means have
ever been devised to make unwilling men work, except the lash, and
that is useless with skilled labour. No one in the North cares a rap
for Acts of Parliament, but there is a mystery about martial law which
carries terror into the hardest heart and the most stupid brain. I
want a signed proclamation of martial law, but I undertake not to
issue it unless all other forms of pressure fail. I must have it all
in cold print to show to the shop stewards when I strike my blow.
Without that proclamation I am helpless, and you will be helpless,
too, by Friday next. This is Wednesday. Unless I cut off the snake's
head to-morrow, it will bite you here even in your sheltered London."
The Prime Minister fumbled once more with the papers before him, but
they gave him no comfort. All advised the one measure of giving full
authority to Dawson and of trusting to his energy and skill. "Dawson
is a man of the people, and knows his own class. He can deal with the
men; we can't." So the urgent appeals ran.
"And if you do not succeed? If you proclaim martial law and we have to
enforce it, where shall we be then?"
"No worse off than you will be anyhow by Friday," said Dawson curtly.
"So you say. But suppose that we think you needlessly fearful. Suppose
that we prefer to wait until Friday and see; what then?"
"You will see what has not been seen in our country for over a hundred
years," retorted Dawson. "You will see artillery firing shotted guns
in the streets."
The Prime Minister shrugged his shoulders, but the War Secretary
turned to his pile of maps and picked up one on which was marked all
the depots and training camps in the northern district. "How many men
do you want?" he asked.
"No khaki, thank you," replied Dawson. "It is not trained, and the
workmen are used to it. To them khaki means their sons and brothers
and friends dressed up. I want my own soldiers of the _Sea Regiment_
in service blue. I want eighty men from my old division at Chatham."
"Eighty!" cried the War Minister--"eighty men! You are going to stop a
revolution with eighty Red Marines!"
"I could perhaps do with fewer," explained Dawson modestly. "But I
want to make sure work. Give me eighty Marines, none of less than five
years' service, a couple of sergeants, and a lieutenant--a regular
pukka lieutenant. Give them to me, and make me temporarily a captain
in command, and I will engage to cut off the snake's head. You can
have my own head if I fail."
The Great War Minister rose, walked over to Dawson, and shook his
embarrassed hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dawson," said he.
The First Lord, now fully awake, sat up and stared earnestly at the
detective. Those two, the chiefs of the Navy and the Army, had grasped
the startling fact that for once they were in the presence of a Man.
The others saw only a rather ill-dressed, intrusive, vulgar police
officer.
"I have rarely met a man with so economical a mind," went on the War
Minister, who resumed his seat. "If you had asked me for eight
thousand, I should not have been surprised." He turned to the Prime
Minister. "If our resolute friend here can stop a revolution with
eighty Red Marines, let him have them in God's name."
"Oh, he can have the Marines," growled the Prime Minister--"if the
First Lord agrees. They are in his department. And if it pleases him
to dress up as a temporary captain, that is nothing to me; but I draw
a firm line at any proclamation of martial law."
"Well," asked the War Minister of Dawson, "what say you?"
"I must have the proclamation, my lord," replied Dawson. "Not to put
up in the streets, but to show to the shop stewards. They won't
believe that the Cabinet has any spunk until they see the proclamation
signed by you. They know that what you say you do."
["Great Heavens," I said to Dawson, when he recounted to me the
details of his surprising interview with the War Committee, "tact is
hardly your strong suit. You could not have asked more plainly to be
kicked out. The flabbier a Cabinet is, the more convinced are its
members of adamantine resolution."
"If I had to go down and out," replied Dawson, "I had determined to go
fighting. I was there to speak my mind, not to flatter anybody."]
The silence which followed this awful speech could be felt. The Prime
Minister gasped, flushed to the eyes, and half rose to dismiss Dawson
from the room. He himself thought for a moment that all was lost, when
through the tense atmosphere ran a ripple of gay laughter. It was the
First Lord who, with instant decision, had taken the only means to
save his new friend Dawson. He has a delightfully infectious silvery
laugh, and the effect was electrical. The War Minister opened his
great mouth, and bellowed Ha! Ha! Ha! The Minister of Munitions put
his head down on the table and shrieked. Even the Home Secretary, a
severe, humourless, legal gentleman, cackled. The Prime Minister,
whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw that anger would be
ridiculous in the midst of laughter. He admitted the First Lord's
victory, and forced a smile.
"You are not a diplomatist, Mr. Dawson," said he reprovingly.
"Like Marcus Antonius," whispered the First Lord, as he wiped his eyes
delicately, "he is a plain, blunt man."
The War Minister pulled a sheet of paper towards' him and began to
write. He scribbled for a few minutes, made a few corrections, and
then read out slowly the words which he had set down. All present saw
that the moment of acute crisis had arrived.
"That is all that I want," said Dawson. "If you will sign that paper,
my lord, I need not trouble you gentlemen any longer."
"I am one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State," observed
the War Minister. "Shall I sign, sir?"
"I believe," remarked the Home Secretary primly, "that if one has
regard for strict historical accuracy there is but one Secretary of
State, and that I am that one."
"I will not trouble you," said the War Minister.
"I am technically responsible for the country over which I am supposed
to rule," put in the Scottish Secretary plaintively. "I speak, of
course under correction, but north of the Border my signature might--"
"You are not a Secretary of State," growled the War Minister, "and
your seat is not safe. No one shall sign except myself, for I have no
need to seek after working-class votes. Dawson and I will face this
music."
"And if I decline to permit you to sign?" asked the Prime Minister
blandly. "This is not a Cabinet meeting, and we have no power to
commit the Government to so grave a step."
"You will require to fill up the vacant position of Secretary for
War," came the answer.
"And also the humble post of First Lord of the Admiralty," murmured
that high officer of State. "We are up against realities, and Cabinet
etiquette can go hang for me."
The War Minister again read aloud what he had written, signed it
carefully and deliberately, and rising up, handed it to Dawson. "Get
it printed at once and go ahead, Mr. Dawson."
"Captain Dawson, R.M.L.I.," corrected the First Lord, who also rose
and warmly shook hands with the new captain. "You shall be gazetted at
once. I will see the Adjutant-General myself and give orders to
Chatham."
"You have both made up your minds?" inquired the Prime Minister.
"Quite," said the War Secretary. The First Lord nodded.
"Very good," replied the Prime Minister; "I consent. We must above all
things preserve the unity of the Cabinet in these circumstances of
grave national crisis."
"Clear out, Dawson," whispered the First Lord.
Dawson cleared out.
CHAPTER XVI
DAWSON STRIKES
It was a little past noon, and Dawson had much work to do before he
could be free to speed north by the midnight train. First he skipped
across to the Yard and into the private room of his firm friend the
Chief. To him he showed the potent proclamation and recounted the
methods of its extraction. "I thought that I was in a company of
jackals," said he at the end; "but I was wrong--two of them were
lions."
"We should be in a bad way if there were no lions," commented the
Chief. "Those two, and another who is dead, saved South Africa; there
are one or two more, but not many. What shall you do with this?"
"We will set it up on our own private press, and run off a couple of
hundred placards. The secret must not leak out; I am playing for
surprises."
The Chief struck a bell, the order was given, and Dawson's priceless
proclamation vanished into the lower regions.
"Now?" inquired the Chief.
"Chatham," explained Dawson, "to pick up my men--and to get my
uniform." When telling the story, Dawson again and again described to
me his uniform, with which I happened by family association to be
intimately acquainted. He did not spare me a badge or a button. I am
convinced that no girl wore her first ball-dress with half the
palpitating pride with which Dawson surveyed himself in his captain's
kit. When I chaffed him gently, and hinted that the stars of a captain
were cheaply come by in these days, he had one retort always ready,
"Not in the Red Marines." He did not value his office of Chief
Detective Inspector a rap beside that temporary rank of Captain of Red
Marines. He had, you see, been a private in that proud exclusive
Corps, and its glory for him outshone all human glories.