Prelude For War

the noise of a world gone mad. This is the climax of two thousand years of progress. This is why philosophers have searched for wisdom, and poets have revealed beauty, and martyrs have died for freedom -—so that whole nations that call themselves intelligent human beings can exchange their brains for a brass band, and tax themselves to starvation to buy bombs and battle­ships, and live in a mental slavery that no physical slave in the old days was ever condemned to. And be so carried away by it that most of them really and honestly believe that they're proud crusaders building a new and glorious world. ... I know you can wipe out two thousand years of education with one generation of censorship and propa­ganda. But what is this sickness that makes one nation after another in Europe want to wipe them out?'

The bugles blared again and the feet marched against the tapping of the drums, in mocking denial of an answer. And then he touched the switch and the noise ceased.

Peace came back into the night with a strange softness, as if on tiptoe, fearful of a fresh intrusion. Once more there was only the murmuring hiss of the smooth-running engine and the rustle of the passing air, not even loud enough to blanket the hoot of an indignant owl scared from its perch on an overhanging bough; but it was a peace like waking from an ugly dream, with their ears still haunted by what they had heard before. It was some time before Patricia spoke though Simon knew she was wide awake now.

'What was it?' she asked at last, in a voice too even to be wholly natural.

'That was the Sons of France—Colonel Marteau's blue-shirt gang. You remember, they grew out of the breakup of the old Croix de Feu, only about ten times worse. They've been holding a midnight jamboree outside Paris, with torches and bonfires and flags and bands and everything. What we cut in on must have been the grand finale— Colonel Marteau's pep talk to the assembled cannon fodder.'

He paused.

'First Russia, then Italy, then Germany, then Spain,' he said soberly. 'And now France is next. There, but for the grace of God, goes the next tin-pot dictator, on his way to make the world a little less fit to live in. ... There are almost enough of them now—marching mobs of idiots backwards and forwards and building guns and armies because they can't build anything else, and because it's the perfect solution to all economic problems so long as it lasts. How can you have peace and progress when fighting is the only gospel they've got to preach ? ... If you wanted to be pessimistic, you could feel that Nature had got the whole idea of progress licked from the start; because as soon as even the dumbest mass of people had just got educated. to the futility of modern warfare and the stupidity of patriotism, she could turn round and come back with some strutting monomaniac to sell the old stock all over again under a new trade mark and put the whole show back where it started from.'

'But why?'

He shrugged.

'As far as the Sons of France are concerned, you could be pretty cynical if you wanted to. The present French socialist government is rather unpopular with some of our leading bloodsuckers because it's introducing a new set of laws on the same lines Roosevelt started in America, to take all the profit out of war by nationalizing all major industries directly it starts. The whole idea, of course, is too utterly communistic and disgusting for words. Hence the Sons of France. All this blood-and-fire business tonight was probably part of the graft to get the Socialists chucked out and leave honest businessmen safe to make their fortunes out of murder. It's a lovely idea.' 'Are they going to get away with it?' 'Who is to stop it?' asked the Saint bitterly. And when he asked the question he could imagine no answer. But afterwards he would remember it. This was, as has been said, one of his precarious interludes of peace. Twice already in his lawless career he had helped to snatch away the threat of war and destruction from over the heads of an unsuspecting world, but this time the chance that the history of Europe could be altered by anything he did seemed too remote to be given thought. But in the same mood of grim clairvoyance into which the interruption had thrown him he gazed sombrely down the track of the head­lights, still busy with his thoughts, and seeing the fulfilment of his half-spoken prophecy. He saw the streets swarming with arrogant strangely uniformed militia, the applauding headlines of a disciplined press, the new breed of sycophan­tic spies, the beginnings of fear, men who had once been free learning to look over their shoulders before they spoke their thoughts, neighbour betraying neighbour, the mid­night arrests, the third degree, the secret tribunals, the fantastic confessions, the farcical trials, the concentration camps and firing squads. He saw the hysterical ranting of yet