‘We will whack
And we will smack,
And we will otherwise attack
All traitors to the Union Jack.
For we defend the Union Jack.’
and charged again and again into the ranks of the enemy, which were gradually falling away before their determined onslaught. The cowardly Pacifists, armed to the teeth though they were, could stand up to the Jackshirts’ fists no longer. They began to retire in extreme confusion, which ended in an utter rout. They fled, leaving in possession of the Comrades a battlefield on which were scattered a quantity of white wigs, white feathers and wounded men.
‘How wonderfully realistic that was,’ said Lady Chalford, appreciatively. ‘One might almost believe that some of those poor fellows were actually hurt.’ She surveyed the scene through her lorgnettes, and addressed the Duke of Driburgh, who stood at her side. ‘Mr Aspect,’ she continued, ‘has evidently inherited all your talent for writing, my dear Driburgh – I have never forgotten the pretty Valentines you composed so charmingly in those days.’
‘Very kind of you, my dear,’ said the Duke. ‘I presume that what we have just witnessed is the Battle of Waterloo, with your dear little Eugenia in the part of Boadicea, such a clever notion.’
The Social Unionists, in spite of their wounds (and hardly one had escaped injury) now went quite mad with excitement. They hoisted Eugenia upon their shoulders and carried her, with loud cheers, to the platform, from which point of vantage she made a stirring speech. She urged that all who had witnessed this cowardly attack upon the peaceful Social Unionists should join their party without more ado. ‘We are your only safeguard against Pacifism in its most brutal form,’ she cried; ‘do you want your streets to run with blood, your wives to be violated and your children burnt to death? No? Then join the Union Jack defenders here and now –’ She pointed to her tattered flag, saying that in time it would surely be one of the most honoured relics of the Movement. She told the Comrades that their scars were honourable scars, received on a great occasion and in defence of a great cause. Their names would go down to history, she said, and become famous; they would boast in after years to their children and their children’s children that they had been privileged to fight beneath the Union Jack in the Battle of Chalford Park.
This speech was received with the utmost enthusiasm, not only by the Comrades themselves but by members of the public, many of whom now hastened to become recruited to the Social Unionist party, Eugenia herself pinning the little emblem to their bosoms. Such Pacifists as had fallen into their enemies’ hands were presently led away and treated to enormous doses of ‘Ex-Lax’, the ‘Delicious Chocolate Laxative’, which was the only substitute for castor oil to be found in Nanny’s medicine-chest.
The victims of Pacifist atrocities now began to stagger back one by one. They told hair-raising tales of the treatment which they had received, and were hailed as martyrs and heroes by Eugenia, who wrote their names down in a small exercise book. When their wounds had been dressed, and the more serious cases had been put to bed in Lady Chalford’s spare rooms (her ladyship having by this time retired, fatigued by the day’s excitements, to her own), Eugenia, at Jasper’s suggestion, led a contingent of Social Unionists to the cellar, and several cases of vintage champagne were carried on to the lawn.
The Olde Englyshe Fayre from now on became more like an Olde Englyshe Orgy. An enormous bonfire was made, on which Karl Marx and Captain Chadlington (the local Conservative Member of Parliament) were burnt together in effigy amid fearful howls and cat-calls from the Comrades. ‘Down with the Pacifists! Down with the Communists! Down with non-Aryans! Down with the Junket-fronted National Government! We defend the Union Jack, we will whack and we will smack and we will otherwise attack all traitors to the Union Jack –’
Everybody danced with everybody else, some people even danced alone, certain sign of a good party, while the Rackenbridge brass band moaned out ‘Night and Day’, its latest number, for hours on end. The visitors from Peersmont became as drunk as the lords they were, and, each with a pretty girl on his arm, refused to budge when the curator said that it was time to go home. Lady Marjorie and Mr Wilkins disappeared together for a while; when they rejoined the throng of merrymakers it was to dance a jig and announce their engagement. The Comrades cheered and sang their Union Jackshirt songs until they could cheer and sing no more, and it was not before one o’clock in the morning that they finally packed themselves into their charabancs and drove away, hoarse but happy.
Silence at last fell upon the park. Under a full moon Poppy and Jasper staggered hand in hand towards the Jolly Roger. In spite of their extreme exhaustion they still went on talking over the events of that sensational afternoon.
‘Did you adore the fight?’ asked Poppy; ‘I did. I dug my heel into a fallen Pacifist’s face – remind me to tell Eugenia that, by the way. It ought to give me a leg up in the Movement. And what were you up to? I never saw you.’
‘No,’ said Jasper, ‘because I was hiding underneath the platform all the time. I can’t bear being hurt.’
‘Darling Jasper, you never let one down for a moment, do you?’
‘Are you going to marry me?’
‘Honestly, I don’t see how I can help it. It would seem a bit wasteful not to keep you about the place, considering that you are the only person I’ve ever met who makes me laugh all the time without stopping.’
‘Good,’ said Jasper, ‘we’ll sell the tiara then, shall we?’
‘Yes, darling!’
‘And
