The Impregnable Women, page 17
‘And yet,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘there is logically no reason why we should refrain from shelling those tiresome women. Many of their male relatives have been under fire for nearly a year, and the privilege of equal citizenship, for which their mothers fought so strenuously, should surely be accompanied by equal liabilities.’
‘No, no,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘You can’t be serious. The idea is intolerable. The populace would be up in arms. There is not a man in Britain who could be persuaded to fire on them, misguided though the poor creatures are. The unrest amongst our troops, to which you have already referred, is due to their reluctance to be used against women. The Englishman, and even the Scotchman and the Welshman, is essentially a chivalrous being.’
‘I wonder,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I sometimes think that the real reason why so many men refrain from hitting their sisters and their wives is simply fear of the consequences. You praise our fellow-countrymen for their chivalry; but I wonder whether we should not rather esteem them for their prudence?’
It was Mr Curle who brought them back to earth. ‘You must have forgotten,’ he told the Prime Minister, ‘that my wife is in the Castle.’
‘So she is. Then of course we cannot bombard it.’
There was a note of regret in Lord Pippin’s voice, for he did not like Mrs Curle, and though his opinion of her husband was none too high, he had often wondered why Curle had been so foolish as to marry her. She was accounted pretty, he supposed, but she was not sympathetic. She had no brains, and he had been told that she had no money. But she had found a husband, and then a lover. Poor Curle. ‘“I feel that as to fortune, he might have done much better, and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not have done worse”,’ he murmured; and wished that his colleagues would hurry up and go, and leave him in the pleasanter company of Jane Austen.
‘Then what do you suggest?’ asked the General.
‘The ordinary industrial strike,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘often collapses when the strikers’ funds are exhausted. This – ah! this love-strike – may expire when the strikers are bankrupt of resolution. A conventual seclusion is not agreeable to the majority of women. They prefer a mixed company. Marriage, as you know, was ordained as a remedy against sin, and women have discovered that a less binding association may be equally efficacious against boredom. I venture to suggest that we give them time. Time to be bored. Let us be patient, gentlemen. There are women in the Castle, I do not doubt, who are as capable of long-sustained resolution as any of us. But others, I am equally sure, are not so capable; and those who have not the gift of continency – how greatly the Prayer Book has enriched our common speech! – may defeat the rest and solve our problem for us.’
‘But the war!’ exclaimed Mr Curle, finding his voice at last. ‘How can we carry on the war when we can’t get into the War Office? How do you think we’re going to maintain Organization? Or direct Operations and Intelligence when we don’t know who’s doing which and why? We don’t know anything. For weeks past we’d been making elaborate calculations of enemy losses, but nobody can remember what they came to. What are the enemy’s movements? We don’t know. What are the movements of our own divisions? We don’t know – and we can’t find out, because even if we do get information it will be in code, and we’ve lost the code-books. What’s going to happen to Personal Services and Military Training when everybody’s records have disappeared and we don’t know who or what we’ve got to train? How is the Director of Movements and Quartering going to move and quarter when he hasn’t the least idea where anybody is, and where they ought to go, and how many there are? We may not have lost the war yet, but we’ve lost everything that proves there is a war. The C.I.G.S. is wandering about looking like a Belgian refugee, and the streets are full of G.S.O.I.’s without a home. At this very moment the Adjutant-General’s playing snooker with the A.Q.M.G., because they’ve nothing else to do, and the Master-General of the Ordnance has started to write his reminiscences. You can’t stir without running into private secretaries, under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, and deputy-assistant-under-military secretaries. Yesterday, my God, the D.G.A.M.S. and an A.D.O.S. were arrested for loitering! We can’t go on like this, and the war can’t go on either. We must face facts. Either we regain possession of the War Office, or we’ve got to stop the war!’
The Prime Minister wore an expression of appropriate gravity. His manner was both soothing and firm. ‘The situation is difficult,’ he said. ‘None of us can deny that. But we all know, my dear Curle, that we can rely on you to do your best. We know, moreover, that the greater the task, the greater is your aptitude for it. Again and again I have seen you accept the challenge of seeming impossibility, and marvelled at your eventual triumph. You will, I feel sure, discover some device of – shall we say mollifying? – of mollifying the horns of the dilemma that you stated, and meanwhile, as I said before, we must exercise our patience. Time, gentlemen, is on our side, but a woman’s chief enemy. The mutineers are young, and youth always demands: Da nobis hodie. – And that reminds me that I also have much to do. Da nobis hodie. Yes, indeed. And so I wish you good morning, gentlemen. Good morning.’
Three minutes later the Prime Minister was happily engaged with Miss Woodhouse and Mr Knightley, and his Ministers, slowly and somewhat disconsolate, were walking towards George Street. Before they had left Charlotte Square, however, they encountered Mr Percy Small, the Minister for Munitions, whose demeanour was even more melancholy than theirs, and whose manner was oddly furtive. Company was what he needed – human company, he sadly specified – but he feared it also, for what was human was likely to be critical. It was the strike, of course, that was to blame for his condition: Ivy’s desertion had quite unmanned him. She was a lovely girl – he told himself so a hundred times a day – and she had always attracted such a lot of attention when he took her out to dinner. It made him feel that he was somebody important, important in himself, apart from being a Cabinet Minister. And now she had gone, and he was desolate.
He didn’t really want to speak to Curle and Sir Joseph, and certainly not to Puffin-Lumkyn, but he was glad of the chance to postpone, if only for a minute or two, the visit to which he had nerved himself. He stopped, and without cordiality they exchanged a few casual remarks.
Then Curle said cruelly, ‘I suppose you’re going to see the Prime Minister?’
‘Well,’ said Mr Small uncomfortably, ‘as a matter of fact I would like to talk over a few things with him. There’s a difficult situation in the munition industry, now that a lot of girls have refused to work alongside of men, or take orders from them; and two heads are better than one, as they say. But what sort of a mood is he in this morning?’
‘Relentless and irresponsible urbanity,’ said Sir Joseph bitterly.
‘The sort of mood that he talks Latin in?’ asked Mr Small with growing unhappiness.
‘Next door to it,’ said the General.
‘I’d only be wasting my time then, I expect.’
‘Not if you succeed in worrying him another hour towards his grave,’ said Curle.
But Mr Small, his courage failing him, went past the Prime Minister’s residence with the air of a man who was walking only for the sake of his health, and turned with deep relief down St Vincent Street. He was afraid of the Prime Minister, but with obscure emotion deeply revered him. Old Pippin was one of the few people, he felt, whose mere presence could be a comforting thing – so long as you didn’t want him to do anything, that is – and he wished that he had the confidence to go in and talk to him as man to man. Not that he’d dream of telling him about Ivy of course, but talking things over in a general way would help a lot. In a world gone arsey-versy all of a sudden, the P.M. was like something that knew how to keep its balance, no matter what happened. That was all he did do, perhaps; keep his balance. Still, it would be comforting to know how he managed it, if he’d only tell you. But he wouldn’t, of course. He’d look at you like an old rosy-cheeked Buddha, and say something sarcastic. In Latin, if he was in one of his bad moods.
Mr Small made the circuit of Moray Place, tried to persuade himself that all men were born equal, came out at a tangent, crossed Queen Street with momentary resolution, and with a spirit already failing started up North Charlotte Street. He stopped at the corner, breathing heavily, and made a last effort to be brave. But with no success. A vision of the Prime Minister daunted him, and admitting his cowardice he turned eastward to walk to the North British Hotel, in which his Ministry was now situated.
Mr Curle and the General had in the meantime taken a cab to the Castle Esplanade to see Lysistrata’s noon parade. This had become the most numerously attended event of the day in Edinburgh, though it was a bitter pleasure that it gave to the multitude who watched it. The two Ministers had a good long time to wait, for the rebel women did not always come punctually to their exercises.
II
In the Castle Lysistrata was making her daily tour of inspection, accompanied by Lady Oriole, her second-in-command; Mrs Graham, her Quartermaster-General; the Officer of the Day; a couple of buxom women who had been appointed Regimental Sergeant-Major and Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant; and Horrocks, her faithful maid. It was rather unwillingly that Horrocks had joined the rebels, and for the first couple of days in the Castle she had been in a sour and petulant temper. But today she seemed so very happy that Lysistrata, when she had time to notice her, was puzzled by the change. Her attire was somewhat curious, but apparently designed to suggest that she was now an officer’s batman rather than a lady’s maid: she wore, in addition to a neat black costume, a Balmoral bonnet with a feather in it, and a sergeant’s red sash.
It was part of Lysistrata’s policy, however, that every member of her forces, except those in disgrace and certain duty detachments, should be encouraged to dress according to her own pleasure and style of beauty. The garrison, in consequence, presented a very gay and charming appearance, and its morale was daily strengthened by innocent competition and mutual admiration.
Lysistrata had made a circuit of the battlements, where the sentries stood like a border of tall bright flowers; she had seen the old military cook-houses, where by fastidious hands an excellent simple luncheon was being prepared; and she had inspected the ancient ablution-benches, whose dark severity was now concealed by a host of mirrors and a great array of powder boxes, skin creams and astringent fluids, sweet-smelling atomizers, crystal bottles, and many curious unguents, washes, and other nostrums. She had watched a score of defaulters doing foot-drill in khaki uniform; the uniform was a part of their punishment, as well as the sign of it. – All was going well, she thought, and she congratulated Mrs Graham in particular on her good work. As Quartermaster-General Mrs Graham had been responsible for the transport of thousands of wardrobe-trunks, hat-boxes, and suit-cases, for the mutineers had been told they would need all their best clothes; but she had not been able to provision the Castle against a siege of any duration. As yet the Government had not cut off supplies, partly because the Cabinet shrank from the inhumanity of such an action, and largely because it would be humiliating to admit that a mutiny of women was so serious as to call for really drastic measures; and so daily supplies of perishable foods were still brought to the Castle, and the butcher boys, the milkmen, and the greengrocers would stare through the great gateway with such a gnawing hunger as neither milk nor mutton nor new potatoes could wake or satisfy.
Having completed her inspection, Lysistrata with her Staff left the Citadel, and walked downhill toward the barracks. About a third of the garrison – perhaps a thousand women – were gathered on the broad causeway, of whom a couple of hundred were in military formation, while the rest walked to and fro or chatted in little groups. It was a spectacle bewildering to the eye, for all the colours of the rainbow and the laboratory were there, with the countless triumphs of the dressmaker, and such arms, legs, lovely bosoms, bright eyes, and glowing cheeks to show them off, that neither chemist nor couturier could suppose the Creator’s art one jot the less ingenious than theirs. For more than a minute Lysistrata stood looking at them, and never a general, reviewing his Guards or Cuirassiers or Legion, had more pride in his troops than she.
Then, calling to Lady Oriole, she asked if they were ready to move off.
Lady Oriole, who still wore her hunting costume, was oddly conspicuous in the bright throng. She saluted Lysistrata, and in a loud mannish voice called the parade to attention. This was the signal for most of the young women to take out their pocket-mirrors and assure themselves that their lips and cheeks were nicely coloured, their noses not; and presently they set off down the cobbled road, round the steep corner, and under the old Portcullis Gate. The guard turned out, the Main Gate was thrown open, and laughing gaily, loudly talking, the lovely mutineers marched over the drawbridge and on to the Esplanade.
From the crowd of waiting men, several thousands in number, who filled the lower half of it, there rose a hoarse and indescribable sound. So many ejaculations of desire – such gruff and hopeless longing – a sort of wistful moaning – the sharp intake of breath – all these combined to make a noise more dreadful than the groan of breaking icebergs; but a noise that strangely did not frighten the marching women, who indeed now trod with a lighter step and laughed more delightfully than ever.
They were well guarded, of course. A hundred exceptionally stalwart young women, dressed severely in breeches and white shirts, stood in a long row across the Esplanade. They were armed with pikes and Jeddart axes, and they stood gravely still, bareheaded in the sunshine. Their serious demeanour and the simplicity of their attire gave them such a look of stern innocence as would have daunted most men; and their muscular arms, their formidable weapons, could probably have defeated any reckless minority. But for additional security there was a body of police on duty, a thin blue safety-line that tightly held in its place the reckless and unshapely mob of spectators. The police had retained their virtue and neutrality. They had, as always, a poor opinion of humanity, which to their understanding was divided into three sorts: the intemperate, the ill-conditioned, and the injudicious. But it was their duty to look after all sorts, prevent rioting, keep ideologues from each other other’s throats, and spectators from rushing in to see the fun; and they did it. For seventy shillings a week and their boots, the police enforced several of the Ten Commandments which no authority, spiritual or temporal, had ever made effective before – as well as innumerable items of more recent legislation – and set an example to the whole world. The police were wonderful.
It was noticeable, however, that they turned their backs to the love-strikers. It was, perhaps, necessary for them to watch every movement of the impassioned spectators; they may, on the other hand, have thought it prudent to ignore a spectacle that others found so painfully exciting.
It was scarcely a parade in the military sense of the word, for most of Lysistrata’s young ladies merely walked hither and thither in gay little groups, or slowly by two and two, talking so closely that everyone wondered what they could be discussing. The sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky, and a warm breeze blew softly with teasing eddies. The Esplanade was like the deck of a great galleon, almost becalmed in fine weather, and the Castle was its towering poop, the city far below was the murmurous level sea.
The tumult in the crowd grew still, and presently they stood in utter silence, hypnotized by the unsimple and allusive beauty of humankind. The strolling ladies, in their costumes like a parterre of tulips, withdrew to either side – to the parapet that overlooked the Grassmarket, to the pavement under the statues of Lord Haig and Queen Victoria’s Uncle York – and a company of dancers came into the sunny space between them. The dancers were dressed in pale tissues that floated as they moved, like the wings of dragonflies or the morning shadows of a wood that hamadryads lived in; and their dance was like the mingling of the leaves and their shadows in a breeze, with the whiteness of the hamadryads glancing through.
Then followed a troop of rosy girls in short tunics who leapt and ran and rhythmically stretched their sturdy arms as though in training for the decathlon. Singers next, who sang a sweet and melancholy air; and after them, blowing very strongly for women and fingering cleanly, a square of pipers marched into the middle, and immediately everyone else, in the highest of spirits and with loud exclamations of delight, ran for a partner, and lifting their skirts and tossing aside their hats, danced in a hundred sets an Eightsome Reel, and followed with The Dashing White Sergeant, that filled the whole ground with a storm of colour and movement. Nothing could have shown more clearly their confidence and gaiety and beautiful long legs. Nothing could better have demonstrated their certainty of victory and supple figures. Laughing still, and still dancing, they swept in a broad tideway of chiffon and singing, of perfume and colour and white arms waving, into the impregnable Castle; and as they disappeared a desperate wild shout rose from the infuriated spectators, who hurled themselves, too late, against the thin blue line of ever-virtuous constables.
It was Lysistrata’s habit to hold some such parade as this at noon, or soon after, whenever the weather was favourable. It was good for her rebels, who liked to show themselves off; and it kept the men, she thought, aware of what they were missing by their refusal to stop the silly war.
III
It would be an exaggeration to say that Britain was by now in a state of chaos. Some trains were still running, enough coal was hewed and distributed, milk was delivered, bread baked, and the postman came punctually. Indeed all but one of the essential services were decently maintained, and the Stock Exchange was still open; though prices had fallen as sharply as the spirit of its members, and there was a natural reluctance to provoke invidious attention by doing anything bullish. But despite an appearance of order and normality, the country was in a truly desperate condition. It was like a great ship that had struck a submerged wreck, and though the engines were still running, though the sailors dutifully went about their work, it was common knowledge that the water was gaining in every hold; and here and there a lesser riot broke out, the stokers were mutinous, the passengers but half-a-mood from panic.
