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 princ.i.p.al 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-cla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sociation to be intimately acquainted. He did not spare me a badge or a b.u.t.ton. 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.
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 sc.r.a.p 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, a.s.sisted 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 b.u.t.toned 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 a.s.signed 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.