Chapter XXI: The Queen's Retreat

From the time our Lady's actual reign began, we saw the ruined land stir into being. For money she gave us "Queen's promises," that is to say, the old coins of the realm, which her Majesty vowed to redeem at their former value. With these coins, after she made proclamation on the thirteenth of the Terror, wages were earned and paid, the traffic moved again, shops opened for trade, and factories went to work. It was all done in a timid way at first, then with more confidence, and at last in full flood of recovery.

For those still out of work, her Majesty founded the Administration of Hope. To the municipal councils she granted powers for seizure of provisions, employment of workers, and service of rations to them and to their families. So the dead were buried, the streets and roads were cleared, ships were discharged, the markets stocked with produce from the shires, and London was fortified.

She founded the Administration of Succour, opening pawnshops for the loan of money, hospitals for the sick, camps for the destitute, and a service of military transport.

So daily, hourly, the Queen's dominion spread until the three kingdoms rang from end to end with feverish industry and courageous life.

It was all so gallantly done, and so hopeless. Nothing but the instant peril of invasion could have bound the people together while they were starving. The dying realm lived by her surgery, was healed, was saved, but then the price must be paid--and three armies were marching against the Capital. Our Lady's flotilla of rams shattered their covering fleets--but even etheric vessels could not charge battleships of the line without being injured; caught in the bursting magazines, they were racked to pieces. The fleets of the League were destroyed, but of the three rams which survived not one could float again.

Four shires, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex, were laid waste, changed into desert where all the water was poisonous, but the armies of the invasion were only delayed until they could add tanks to their transport. Then the armies came against the outer defences of London--a web of hedges, ditches and canals, a labyrinth of suburbs which swallowed brigade after brigade, and sent back only wreckage of lost regiments. Our Imperial army was--ever since the beginning of the Twentieth Century--an army of marksmen--sharp-shooters who mowed down the poor conscripts of Europe, even as the swaths of wheat fell at the harvesting.

Behind her chain of fortresses our Lady was arming her people for defensive war; mines, mills, and factories, villages and towns sent their contingents of men to be drilled in her camps; the Midlands seethed with preparation of arms, and explosives; and every weapon capable of use added a man's strength to the great defence.

As Margaret called in her outposts, garrison troops came in daily from Halifax, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and were sent with their guns to the front.

France and Germany called up their fleet reserves, but the Mediterranean Squadron dealt with the French above Rouen, and turning eastward, caught the Germans in Hanover.

So the battle raged for weeks, over land and sea, but the vortex of this dread Armageddon was Margaret's Capital. The French army was in the outer southern suburbs, the Russians held the northern suburbs, the Germans were in the east, and the marshals of the invasion slowly mile by mile forced their way to the westward, closing down upon London. Another week would see the Metropolis surrounded, and the siege commenced. We knew that the end was near.

It was the bombardment of the East End which brought the council of war to plead with her Majesty for the desperate policy of retreat. They begged her to withdraw westward, to evacuate London, and, laying the land waste, fall back upon the Midlands.

"Fall back!" said Margaret bitterly. "Gentlemen, I cannot understand your military terms, but if that means run--I won't!"

"Madam," Lord Fortescue had a valued gift of persuasion. "We want to run away, leading the enemy inland until we catch him in a trap."

"That sounds well," said our Lady, pursing her lips doubtfully. "Are the traps always far inland?"

"Madam, if we are caught here in London, it means surrender."

"London, then, is a trap?"

"A perfect death-trap."

"A perfect death-trap." Margaret repeated the words doubtfully; then, like a flash--"If any army is caught in London, it means surrender!"

"Good gracious, madam!" exclaimed the Commander-in-Chief.

"Let me feel my way--perhaps it is nonsense. A million people are being shelled--murdered in the East End. Suppose we clear the East End--here, see on this map--from Stratford say, to Aldgate. I could send the women and children to Windsor Forest--they need a holiday, poor things. Any way we could spare that district to the Germans. Then there's the City and this West-Central district up to Charing Cross--a heap of ruins. We could spare all that to the Germans--enough room for them to lose their whole army. They would rush in to capture our main positions on the Hampstead and Sydenham Hills. They would find themselves in a low valley blocked with ruins, under the fire of a thousand guns, every line of escape blocked by our barricades, the river on their left too broad to swim. Then they would try to get back to their camps--and find their camps fortified with their own guns against them!"

"Madam!"

"My lord, have these Germans any mercy on my poor women and children? I want to capture their army."

"We couldn't possibly feed two hundred thousand prisoners."

"I want no prisoners, I want rifles for my reserves, Lord Fortescue, rifles and powder, and all the provisions in the German camps. As to the----"

"Madam," said Strangford, "a couple of hundred thousand German prisoners sent as a present into the hungry Russian lines might,--well, Russia loves Germany none too well as it is."

But Lord Fortescue objected, protesting that "London was full of foreign spies, and that we could never conceal our preparations."

"Permit me, madam," cried Strangford, eagerly. "My dear Lord Fortescue, here we have the complete plans for the evacuation of London. I could get the papers sold privately to the French, and we could so shape our preparations as to make the Allies believe we were in full retreat to the Midlands. Afterwards we shall have both Russians and Germans accusing the French of treachery. We shall split the League!"

There is no need to tell again the story of our Lady's stratagem. During the five days of its preparation, the armies of the League closing down through the western suburbs, cut off all hope of retreat, all chance of succour. No help could reach us from the outer world, and lost in the valley of death, we could send no word to salve the fear of England, or to restrain despair. So much we lost.

Then came the thirty-ninth of the Terror, when the German forces, a hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched into the capital.

From the Palace towers we watched the red sun rise, heard the first gun, and waited minute after minute until the silence became agony. Then came a sudden blaze from a thousand guns, the Palace reeled under the crash, and over the ruins of central London went up a cloud of dust. Of the German forces, thirty-one thousand men are supposed to have perished in that cloud, fifteen thousand escaped in panic flight, a hundred and four thousand prisoners were released starving into the hungry Russian lines.

Our Lady was pleased to dine that night with the Bodyguard. The tables, for lack of room elsewhere, had been set in the guardroom upon the alabaster stairs, and in her Majesty's honour we twined garlands of rose and laurel about the lamps, brought out the gold plate, and used some of that old, gracious pageantry which graced the bygone times. Outside, the guns were firing a salute, the bells of London pealed for victory, and our trumpets pealed as we rose to drink to the Queen. Then Sir Myles Strangford came, attended by his staff, and from the upper stairway read the report of our triumph.

"A hundred and fourteen thousand stand of arms, the German siege train, Woolwich Arsenal, three thousand wagons of military stores, twenty-two million rations----"

The harsh call of a bugle cut short his words, a quick, imperative summons at the very gates of the Palace. No English bugle was sounded in such a place.

When an attendant had been sent to make inquiries, Sir Myles went on reading the proclamation of victory, news that would bring comfort to the besieged, hope to all Britain. His voice was fervent in thanksgiving; a storm of cheering drowned his closing words. Standing with drawn swords we sang the National Anthem, thinking most of us of the women folk at home, our mothers and sisters in danger, and our dread sovereign Lady whom we served. Then the song died on our lips, our swords drooped, and there was silence while a vague fear gripped us at the throat.

A Russian general officer had come up the stairway attended by a trooper bearing the white flag on a lance.

"Gentlemen," he said, in broken English, "I have the honour--I bear a letter to her Britannic Majesty."

His eyes followed ours as we directed him, and perhaps, after all, the Russians pleaded for an armistice. The Allies were ready to fly at each other's throats, there was hatred within the League more than against ourselves. And yet the Russian's bearing boded no good to us, and as our Lady read we saw her face turn grey.

She beckoned the envoy to retire--told him to await her pleasure at the gates, kept silence until he was gone.

"Strangford!" she cried, "Strangford! Come here!"

She thrust the paper into Strangford's hand, and we saw him too grow cold before our eyes.

"Madam," he groaned, "I fear this is the end."

"Gentlemen," our Lady lay back in her chair very faint and ill. "Gentlemen of the Guard, you who have never failed me--never failed me," she started up, a new thought lighting her face. "You're the only men in the Empire who have not failed me. I appeal to you--I want ships--I want a squadron of ships. Help me! help me!"

Not a man moved, for how could we find her ships? We had given our yachts, those who had them, and had not failed her when our lives were needed--but ships! At the beginning the Channel Fleet was lost, but the fleets of the League were destroyed by etheric rams. The reserve fleets of France and Germany had been defeated by the Mediterranean Squadron. Victorious in a hundred aerial fights, the ships which remained to England were on guard, lest the French and Germans attempt a last attack. We dared not withdraw one cruiser lest our enemies take the air again--and that meant ruin. There was no squadron left even for the Queen's most vital need--or else the siege of London had been impossible. There were no ships.

A slow tear trickled down our Lady's face.

"We dared to hope," she said, "to hold out until Mr. Brand comes back--as he will come back! Oh, must he come too late?"

That was the most piteous thing of all, that our Lady still believed Brand would come back.

Sergeant Dymoke went to the Queen, and, bending his knee--

"Madam," he cried, "we are ready to go on fighting."

"How can we fight?" said Margaret angrily. "What can we do against the Siberian Fleet? Can we ride horses upon the clouds, charge nineteen battleships of the line with rifles, float up our fortress guns to fight the stars?"

And all the bells of London were pealing for victory!