The Lost Naval Papers - Bennet Copplestone
He flew away to Chatham as fast as a deliberate railway service
permitted, and found upon arrival that an urgent telegram from the
Adjutant-General had preceded him. Dawson was shown at once to the
Commandant's quarters, and there explained his requirements. "Eighty
men, two sergeants, and a regular lieutenant. Not one of less than
five years' service. Also a sea-service kit with a captain's stars for
me. The mess-sergeant will fit me out. He trades in second-hand
uniforms."
"You have the advantage of me, Mr. Dawson," said the Commandant,
smiling, "in your profound knowledge of the functions of a mess
sergeant."
"I was a recruit here, sir, when you were a second lieutenant. I know
the by-ways of Chatham and the perquisites of mess-sergeants. I was a
sergeant myself once."
"I remember you, Dawson," said the Commandant kindly, "and am proud to
see one of us become so great a man. By the regulations a temporary
officer should wear khaki."
"No khaki for me, sir, please," implored Dawson. "I should not feel
that I belonged to the old Corps in khaki. In my time it was the red
parade tunic or the sea-service blue."
"Wear any kit you please. This is your day, not mine. I have been
ordered to place myself and all Chatham at your disposal, though what
your particular game is I have not a notion. I won't ask any questions
now, but please come and dine with me in mess when you return, and let
me have the whole story."
"I will, sir," cried Dawson heartily, "and thank you very much. I have
waited at the mess, but never dined with it The old Corps is going
with me to do a pretty bit of work, different from anything that it
has ever done before."
"That would not be easy; we have been in every scrap on land or sea
since the year dot."
Dawson looked round carefully, and then whispered, "Those eighty
Marines of mine are going to cut off a snake's head and stop a bloody
revolution. They've done that sort of thing many times at the ends of
the earth, but never, I believe, in England."
"I wish that I were again a lieutenant," growled the Commandant, "for
then I would volunteer to come with you."
"You shall choose my second-in-command yourself, sir," conceded Dawson
handsomely.
Captain Dawson chose his men with discrimination. All those above five
years' service were paraded in the barrack square, and Dawson,
assisted by the Commandant, to whom his men were as his own children,
picked out the eighty lucky ones at leisure. Those who were rejected
shrugged their stiff square shoulders and predicted disaster for the
expedition. In one small detail Dawson changed his plans. He had
intended to take two sergeants only, but in Chatham there were four
who had served with him in the ranks, and he could not withstand their
pleadings. When all was settled, Dawson went to the Commandant's
quarters to be introduced to his second-in-command, and surprised
there that officer endeavouring to squeeze his rather middle-aged
figure within the buttoned limits of a subaltern's tunic. Since the
senior officers of Marines never go to sea, the Commandant's own
official uniform was the field-service khaki of a Staff officer. "It
is all right," explained he, laughing. "I have become a lieutenant
again, and am going north with you. But I wish that your friend the
mess-sergeant had a pattern B tunic which would meet round my middle.
My young men must be devilish slim nowadays. I have been on to the
A.-G. by 'phone. He pretends to be derisory, but I am convinced that
really he is desperately jealous. He would love to go too. You seem,
my good Dawson, to have stirred up Whitehall and Spring Gardens in a
manner most emphatic."
"But you can't serve under me, sir," cried Dawson, aghast.
"Can't I!" retorted the new Lieutenant. "If admirals can joyfully go
afloat as lieut.-commanders, as lots of them are doing, what is to
prevent a Colonel of Marines serving as a subaltern? I am on this job
with you, Dawson, if you will have me."
"With four sergeants and eighty Marines," said Dawson slowly, "you and
I could have held Mons."
"We could that," cried the Colonel-Lieutenant, who had by now
completed the reduction of his rank to that of Captain Dawson's
subordinate. "Nothing, nothing, is beyond the powers of the Sea
Regiment!"
At about 11.30 that night the wide roof of St. Pancras echoed to the
disciplined tramp of Dawson's detachment, which marched straight to
coaches reserved by order from Headquarters. "Marines don't talk,"
said Dawson, "but I am not taking risks. I don't want to sully the
virtue of my old Sea Pongos by mixing them up with raw land Tommies."
Dawson and his subaltern were moving towards the sleeping-coach in
which a double berth had been assigned to them, when two tall
gentlemen in civilian dress slipped out of the crowd and stood in
their path. Dawson, at the sight of them, glowed with pride, his chest
swelled out under his broad blue tunic, and his hand flew to the peak
of his red-banded cap. The Colonel-Lieutenant gasped. "Good luck,
Dawson," whispered the bigger of the strangers; "I would give my baton
to be going north with you."
"Colonel ---- has given up his crowns," replied Dawson, as he
introduced his companion.
The Field-Marshal smiled and shook hands with the sporting Commandant.
"This is all frightfully irregular," said he, "but I sympathise.
Still, if I know our friend Dawson here, there won't be any fighting.
You have no idea of his skill as a diplomatist. He tells the truth,
which is so unusual and startling that the effect is overwhelming. He
is a heavy human howitzer. I envy you, Colonel."
"I have not a notion what we are to be at," said the Colonel.
"I am not very clear myself. It is Dawson's picnic, not ours, and we
have given him a free hand. You won't get any fighting, but there will
be lots of fun."
Meanwhile the First Lord had drawn Dawson to one side. "Good luck,
Captain Dawson; you have not wasted any time, and I have the best of
hopes. We had a beautiful row after you left us this morning. It did
my poor heart good. The P.M. declares that if you put martial law into
force, he will hand in his checks to the King. So, my poor friend, you
carry with you a mighty responsibility. But stick it out, don't
hesitate to follow your judgment, and wire me how you get on."
"Don't worry, sir," said Dawson, "I shall not fail. If it had not been
for you and his lordship here, I should not have had this great
chance. I won't let you down."
"Sh!" whispered the other. "Not so loud. We are conspirators, strictly
incog., dressed in the shabbiest of clothes. We had to see you off,
for I enjoyed the tussle of this morning beyond words. I would not for
anything have missed the P.M.'s face when he found himself driven to
act suddenly and definitely. I am eternally your debtor, Captain
Dawson of the Red Marines."
"My word," exclaimed the Colonel-Lieutenant, when the visitors had
slipped away like a couple of stage villains, with soft hats pulled
down over their eyes--"the Field-Marshal and the First Lord! You have
some friends, sir."
"I am only a ranker," said Dawson humbly, "with very temporary stars;
not a pukka officer and gentleman like you. I hope that you do not
mind sharing' a sleeper with me?"
"I should be proud to share with you the measliest dug-out in a
Flanders graveyard," replied the Colonel emphatically. The two
officers, so anomalously associated, entered their berth the best of
friends and talked together far into the night. And as they talked,
the Colonel, now a Lieutenant, made the same discovery which had
startled Dawson's two powerful supporters of the morning. In the
police officer, rough, half-educated, vain, tender of heart, he also
had discovered a Man. "But for me and my Red Marines," said Dawson, as
they turned in for some broken sleep, "those poor fools up yonder
would get themselves shot in the streets. But I shall save them, and
in saving them I shall save the country."
* * * * *
It was the afternoon of the following day, just twenty-four hours
after Dawson had commandeered the resources of Chatham, and the scene
was a public hall in a big industrial city. In the body of the room
sat two hundred and thirty-four men--shop stewards and district trade
union officials--and their faces were gloomy and anxious. They had
come for a last meeting with the officers of the Munitions Dept, and
to declare that the men whom they represented were resolved not to
permit of any further dilution of labour. The great majority of them
were not unpatriotic, their sons and brothers and friends had joined
the Forces, and had already fought and died gallantly, but they were
intensely suspicious. To them the "employer," the "capitalist," was a
greater, because more enduring and insidious, enemy than the Germans.
Dilution of labour had become in their eyes a device for destroying
all their hardly won privileges and restrictions, and for delivering
them bound and helpless to their "capitalist oppressers." To this
sorry pass had the perpetual disputes of peace brought the workmen
under stress of war! Rates of pay did not enter into the
dispute--never in their lives had they earned such wages--its origin
led in a queer perverted sense of loyalty to the trade unions, and to
those members who had gone forth to fight. "What will our folks say,"
asked the men of one another, "when they come home from the war, if we
have given away in their absence all that they fought for during long
years?" When it was attempted to make clear that the lives of their
own sons in the trenches were being made more hazardous by their
obstinacy, they shook their heads and simply did not believe. "We can
make all the guns and the shells that are wanted without giving up our
rules. We value our sons' lives as much as you do. We love our country
as much as you do. The capitalists are using a plea of patriotism to
get the better of us." It was a pitiful deadlock--honest for the most
part; yet it was a deadlock which, as Dawson said, brought very near
the day when English artillery would be firing shotted guns in English
streets.
At a small table on a low platform at one end of the room sat three
civilians, and a few feet away, sitting a little back, was an officer
whose uniform and badges attracted the eyes of the curious. None of
the workmen knew this brown-skinned man with the small, dark moustache
who looked so very professional a soldier, yet Dawson knew them, every
man of them, and had moved among them in their works many times. Ten
of those present were actually his own agents, working among their
fellow unionists and agitating with them--hidden sources of
information and of influence at need--and yet not one of those ten
knew that the Marine Captain upon the platform was his own official
chief. The chairman rose to speak to the men for the last time, and
Dawson sat listening and studying a small slip of paper in his hand.
The chairman said nothing that the men had not been told many times
during the past few days, but there was in his speech a note of solemn
appeal and warning which was new. The hearers shuffled their feet
uneasily, for most of them felt uneasy; they were, as I have said,
most of them honest men. But when the chairman had sat down, and the
men began, one after another, to reply, it appeared at once that there
was present an element not honest, even seditious. Dawson smiled to
himself, and studied his slip of paper, for the snake, whose head he
had come to cut off, was beginning to rear itself before him. Hints
began to appear that there was a strong minority at least which was
unwilling both to fight and to work for a country which was none of
theirs--"What has this country done for us that we should bleed and
sweat for it? It has starved us and sweated us to make profits out of
us, and now in its extremity slobbers us with fair words." At last one
man rose, a thin-faced, wild-eyed man, who, under happier conditions,
might have been a preacher or a writer, and delivered a speech which
was rankly seditious. "The workers," he declared, "are being shackled,
gagged, and robbed. Our enemy is not the German Kaiser. Our enemy
consists of that small, cunning, treacherous, well-organised, and
highly respectable section of the community who, by means of the money
power, compels the workers to sweat in order that their bellies may be
full and their fine ladies gowned in gorgeous raiment. They pass a
Munitions Act to chain the worker to his master. They 'dilute' labour
to call into being an invisible army which can be mobilised at short
notice to defeat the struggles of striking artisans. The attack of the
masters must be resisted. The workers must fight. There is a
fascinating attraction in the idea of meeting force with force,
violence with violence. It is undeniable that many of the more
thoughtful among the toilers would consider that their lives had not
been spent in vain if they organised their comrades to drilled and
armed rebellion."
The speaker paused. He was encouraged by a few cheers, but the mass of
his hearers were silent. He glanced at Dawson, whose face was set in
an expressionless mask. Cheers came again, and he went on, but with
less assurance. "The worker's labour power is his only wealth. It is
also his highest weapon. But the workers need not think of using this
weapon so long as they are split and divided into sects and groups and
crafts. To be effective they must organise as workers. An organisation
that would include all the workers, skilled and unskilled, throughout
the entire country, would prove irresistible. But as matters stand at
present I do not advocate armed rebellion. I advocate and herewith
proclaim a general strike."
He sat down, and there was a long silence. The die had been cast. If
the meeting broke up without the emphatic assertion of the
Government's authority, then a general strike upon the morrow was as
certain as that the sun would rise. It was for this moment, this
intensely critical moment, that Dawson had worked and fought in
London, and for which he was now ready. The chairman sighed and wiped
his face, which had become clammy. He looked at Dawson, who nodded
slightly, and then rose.
"I call," said he solemnly, "upon Captain Dawson. He is now in supreme
authority."
Dawson sprang to his feet, alert, decided, and picked up a large roll
of papers which had rested behind him upon his chair. He placed the
roll upon the table and faced the audience, who knew at once, with the
rapid instinct of a crowd, that the unexpected was about to happen.
Dawson pulled down his tunic, settled himself comfortably into his Sam
Browne belt, and rested his left hand upon the hilt of his sword.--It
was a pretty artistic touch, the wearing of that sword, and exactly
characteristic of Dawson's methods. I laughed when he told me of
it.--There were two doors to the room--one upon Dawson's left hand,
the other at the far end behind the workmen. He raised his right hand,
and the chairman, who was watching him, pressed an electric bell. Then
events began to happen.
The doors flew open, and through each of them filed a line of smart
men in blue, equipped with rifles and side arms. Twenty men and a
sergeant passed through each door, which was then closed. The ranks of
each detachment were dressed as if on parade, and when all were ready,
Dawson gave a sharp order. Instantly forty-two rifle-butts clashed as
one upon the floor, and the Marines stood at ease. At this moment the
door at the far end might have been seen to open, and an officer to
slip in who, though white of hair, had not apparently reached a higher
rank than that of lieutenant. "It was all very fine, Dawson," he
explained afterwards, "your plan of leaving me outside with the rest
of the Marines, but it wasn't good enough. I didn't come north to be
buried in the reserves."
"You should have obeyed orders," replied Dawson severely.
"I should," cheerfully assented the Colonel-Commandant of Chatham,
"but somehow I didn't."
While Dawson's body-guard of Marines was getting into position before
the doors, the workmen, surprised and trapped, were on their feet
chattering and gesticulating. The unfamiliar appearance of the
blue-uniformed men, not one of whom was less than five feet nine
inches in height, their well-set-up figures and stolid professional
faces, gave a business-like, even ominous flavour to the proceedings
which chilled the strike leaders to the bone. They would have cheered
an irruption of kilted recruits in khaki tunics as the coming of old
friends, and would have felt no more than local patriotic hostility
towards a detachment of English or Irish soldiers. But these blue men
of the Sea Regiment, an integral part of the great mysterious silent
Navy, had no part or lot with British workmen "rightly struggling to
be free." They represented some outside authority, some potent,
overpowering authority, as no khaki-clad soldiers could have
represented it. The surprise was complete, the moral effect was
staggering, and Dawson, who had counted upon both when he brought his
Marines north, smiled contentedly to himself. He stepped forward, with
that little slip of paper in his hand, and began to read from it. One
by one he read out twenty-three names, the very first being that of
the man who had made the speech which I have reported.
As name after name dropped from Dawson's lips, the wonder and terror
grew. Who was this strange officer who could thus surely divide the
goats from the sheep, who was picking out one after another the
self-seekers and fomenters of sedition, who, while he omitted none who
were really dangerous, yet included none who were honest though
mistaken? As the list drew towards its end, quite half the listeners
were smiling broadly. They could not have drawn up a more perfect one
themselves, and they did not love most of those whose names were found
upon it.
"Now," said Dawson, when he had finished, "I must ask all those
gentlemen to step forward." Not a man moved. "Let me warn you that
every man whose name I have read out is personally known to me. If I
have to come and fetch you, I shall not come alone." There was still
some hesitation, and then those upon the proscribed list began to move
forward. They would willingly have hidden themselves, had that been
possible, but to be known and to be dragged out by those hard-faced
Marines would have added humiliation to terror. They came forth, until
all the twenty-three were ranged up before Dawson. Then the man, whose
name was first upon the list, rasped out, "What is your authority for
this outrage upon a peaceful meeting? I demand your authority."
"You shall have it," serenely replied Dawson. And, going up to the
pile of papers which he had laid upon the table, he drew one forth and
held it up so that all might see. It was a large placard, boldly
printed, a proclamation in cold, terse language of Martial Law, signed
by the Secretary for War himself.
"Martial Law! This is sheer militarism," cried the first of those
arrested.
"For you and for these other twenty-two upon my list it is Martial
Law," replied Dawson. "But for the rest it will be as they choose
themselves. Sergeant, remove the prisoners." A sergeant stepped out,
the line of Marines before the door divided, and the prisoners were
led away. Dawson put the proclamation back upon the table, squared his
shoulders, and turned towards his audience, now silent, subdued, and
purged. His plans were working very well.
"I am no speaker," he began; "I am a man of the people, one of
yourselves. I have made my own way, and though I wear the uniform and
stars of a Captain of Marines, I am really an officer of police, Chief
Detective Inspector Dawson of Scotland Yard." He paused to allow time
for this astonishing fact to sink in. So that was why he had known the
names and faces of all the ring-leaders of sedition! And if he knew so
much, what more might he not know! Even the most innocent among his
audience began to feel loose about the neck.
"I know you all," he went on. "There is not a man among you whom I do
not know. You--or you--or you." He addressed those near to him by
name. "We sympathise with you and have reasoned with you. But you
proved obdurate. The King's Government must be carried on; the war
must be carried on if our country is to be saved. And those who have
given power to me--the power which you have seen set out upon these
papers, the powers of Martial Law--will exercise them unflinchingly if
there appears to be no other way. But there is another and a better
way. You must obey the laws which Parliament has passed for the
defence of the country and for the provision of munitions. Your rights
are protected under them. After the war is over, your privileges will
be restored. For the present they must be abandoned. Willingly or
unwillingly they must be abandoned. I said just now that it is for you
to choose whether Martial Law shall take effect or not. The moment
those placards are posted in the streets the military authorities
become supreme, but they will not be posted if you have the sense to
see when you are beaten. What I have to ask, to require of you, is
that to-morrow, at the mass meeting of the men which is to be held,
you will advise them to surrender unconditionally, to work hard
themselves, and to allow all others to work hard. There must be no
more holding up of essential parts of guns, no more writing and
talking sedition. Our country needs the whole-hearted service of us
all. If you here and now give me your promise that you will use every
effort--no perfunctory, but real effort--to stop at once all these
threats of a strike, I will let you go now and wish you God-speed. If
you fail, then Martial Law will be proclaimed forthwith. Make this
very clear to the men. Tell them that you have seen the proclamation,
signed by the Field-Marshal himself, and that I, Captain and Chief
Inspector Dawson, will post the placards in the streets with my own
hands. If you will not give me your promise--I do not ask for any
hostages or security, just your promise as loyal, honourable men--I
shall arrest you all here and now, and deport you all just as those
twenty-three have been arrested and will be deported. You will not see
those men for a long time; you know in your hearts that you are well
quit of them. If I arrest you all, I shall not stop my arrests at that
point. There are many others--many who are not workmen from whom has
come money for your strike funds and to offer bail when arrests have
been made. I shall pick them all up. Nothing that you can now do will
affect the fate of those who have been taken from this room. Whatever
loyalty you may owe to them has been discharged, and I will give you a
quittance. Their chapter has been closed. What you have to consider
now is the fate of yourselves and of many beside yourselves, of all
those who look to you for advice and guidance. Take time, talk among
yourselves, consult one another. I am not here to hurry you unduly,
but before you are allowed to leave this room there must be a complete
and final settlement."
He sat down. The men split into groups, and the buzz of talk ran
through the room. There was no anger or excitement, but much
bewilderment. They had come to the meeting as masters, strong in
numbers, to dictate terms, yet now the tables had been turned
dramatically upon them. No longer masters, they were in the presence
of a Force which at a word from Dawson could hale them forth as
prisoners to be dealt with under the mysterious shuddering powers of
Martial Law. They thought of those twenty-three, a few minutes since
so potent for mischief, now bound and helpless in the hands of the
Blue Men from the Sea.
At last an elderly grey-locked man stepped forward, and Dawson rose to
meet him. "We admit, sir," said he, "that you have us at a
disadvantage. We did not expect this Proclamation nor those Marines of
yours. We did not believe that the Government meant business. We
thought that we should have more talk, talk, and we are all sick of
talk. We are true patriots here--you have taken away all those who
cared nothing for their country--and we feel that if you are prepared
to use Martial Law and the forces of the Crown against us, that you
must be very much in earnest. We feel that you would not do these
terrible things unless the need were very urgent. We do not agree that
the need is urgent, but if you, representing the Government, say that
it is, we have no course open to us but to submit. If we now surrender
unconditionally and promise heartily to use every effort to bring the
mass of the men to our views, will you in your turn give us your
personal assurance that all our legitimate grievances will be fully
considered, and that every effort will be made to meet them? You may
crush us, sir, but you will not get good work from men whose spirit
has been broken."
"I cannot make conditions," replied Dawson gently, "but ask yourselves
why I brought my Marines all the way from Chatham to deal with this
meeting? Was it not that I would not put upon you the pain and
humiliation of arrest at the hands of your own sons and brothers?
Though I stand here with gold stars on my shoulders I am one of you.
My father worked all his life in the dockyard at Portsmouth, and I
myself as a boy have been a holder-on in a black squad of riveters. I
can make no conditions, but if you will leave yourself entirely in my
hands, and in those of my superiors, you may be assured that there
will be no attempt made to crush you, to break your spirit."