She smiled slightly. ‘I knew most of this before. Why are you so ominous today?’
‘Perhaps because war is in the air.’ He gave her a queer strained glance. ‘Besides, it will be a bitter battle.’
Her smile deepened. ‘Neither you nor I are afraid of a battle.’
There was a silence. He glanced away. ‘Of course, I am thinking of ourselves, exposed here outside the city walls – if Wai attacks Pai-tan we shall be in the middle of it. But I am thinking more of the people – so poor, so helpless and so hungry. I have come to love them here with all my heart. They only beg to be left in peace, to get a simple living from the soil, to live in their homes quietly with their families. For years they’ve been oppressed by one tyrant. Now, because another appears on the scene, guns are being thrust into their hands, yes, into the hands of the men of our congregation, flags are being waved, the usual cries are already raised – Freedom and Liberty. Hatreds are being worked up. Then, because two dictators wish it, these poor creatures will fall upon one another. And to what purpose? After the slaughter, when the smoke and the shooting have cleared away, there will be more taxation, more oppression, a heavier yoke than before.’ He sighed, ‘Can one help feeling sad for poor mankind?’
She moved somewhat restively. ‘You have not a great opinion of war. Surely some wars can be just and glorious? History proves it. My family has fought in many such.’
He did not answer for a long time. When at last he turned to her the lines about his eyes had deepened. He spoke slowly, heavily. ‘It is strange you should say that at this moment.’ He paused, averting his eyes. ‘Our little trouble here is only the echo of a greater disorder.’ He found it difficult, most difficult, to continue. But he forced himself on. ‘Mr Chia has had word by special courier from his business associates in Sen-siang. Germany has invaded Belgium and is at war with France and Britain.’
There was a short pause. Her face altered, she did not speak, but stood silent, her head immobile, unnaturally arrested.
At length he said: ‘The others will soon know. But we must not let it make any difference to us at the mission.’
‘No, we must not.’ She answered mechanically, as though her gaze were fixed thousands of miles away.
The first sign came some days later: a small Belgian flag, sewn hurriedly with coloured threads upon a square of silk, and placed prominently in Sister Martha’s bedroom window. That same day, indeed, Martha scurried in early to the Sisters’ house from the dispensary, with her new eagerness, then gave a cluck of nervous satisfaction. They had come – what she looked forward to with all her soul: the newspapers. It was the Intelligence, an American daily published in Shanghai, and it arrived, in batches, erratically, about once a month. Hurriedly, her fingers trembling between expectation and apprehension, she undid the wrappers at the window.
For a minute she turned the pages, hastily. Then she gave an outraged cry.
‘What monsters! Oh my God, it is insupportable!’ She beckoned urgently, not lifting her head, to Clotilde, who had come quickly into the room, drawn by the same magnetic force. ‘Look, Sister! They are in Louvain – the Cathedral is in ruins – shelled to pieces. And Metrieux – ten kilometres from my home – destroyed to the ground. Oh, dear God! Such a fine and prosperous town!’
Linked by common calamity, the two Sisters bent over the sheets, punctuating their reading with exclamations of horror.
‘The very altar blown to pieces!’ Martha wrung her hands. ‘Metrieux! I drove there with my father in the high cart when I was a little thing of seven. Such a market! We bought twelve grey geese that day … so fat and beautiful … and now …’
Clotilde, with dilated eyes, was reading of the battle of the Marne. ‘They are slaughtering our brave people. Such butchery, such vileness!’
Though Reverend Mother had entered and seated herself quietly at the table, Clotilde remained unconscious of her presence. But Martha saw her, from the corner of her eye, and Martha was beside herself.
Suffused with indignation, her voice shaking, she pointed her finger to a paragraph. ‘ Consider this, Sister Clotilde. ‘It is reliably reported that the convent of Louvain was violated by the German invaders. Unimpeachable sources confirm the fact that many innocent children have been mercilessly butchered.’
Clotilde was pale as ivory. ‘In the Franco-Prussian War it was the same. They are inhuman. No wonder, in this good American journal, they already call them Huns.’ She hissed the word.
‘I cannot allow you to speak in such terms of my people.’
Clotilde spun around, supporting herself on the window frame, taken aback. But Martha was prepared.
‘Your people, Reverend Mother? I would not be so proud to own them if I were you. Brutal barbarians. Murderers of women and little children.’
‘The German Army is comprised of gentlemen. I do not believe that vulgar sheet. It is not true.’
Martha spread her hands on her hips; her harsh peasant voice grated with resentment. ‘ Is it true when the vulgar sheet reports the ruthless invasion of a little peaceful country by your gentlemanly army?’
Reverend Mother was paler now than Clotilde.
‘Germany must have her place in the sun.’
‘So she kills and plunders, blows up cathedrals, and the market place I went to as a girl, because she wants the sun and the moon, the greedy swine –’
‘Sister!’ Dignified even in her agitation, Reverend Mother rose up. ‘ There is such a thing as justice in this world. Germany and Austria have never had justice. And do not forget that my brother is fighting even now to forge the new Teutonic destiny. Therefore I forbid you both, as your superior, to speak any such slanders as have just defiled your lips.’
There was an intolerable pause, then she turned to leave the room. As she reached the door Martha cried: ‘Your famous destiny isn’t forged yet. The Allies will win the war.’
Maria-Veronica gave her a cold and pitying smile. She went out.
The feud intensified, fanned by the stray news that filtered to the far-off mission itself under threat of war. Though the French Sister and the Belgian had never greatly liked each other, now they were linked in bosom friendship. Martha was protective towards the weaker Clotilde, solicitous for her health, dosing her troublesome cough, giving her choice pieces from every dish. Together, openly, they knitted mittens and socks to be sent to the brave blessés. They would talk of their beloved countries, over Reverend Mother’s head, with many sighs and innuendoes – careful, oh so careful to give no offence. Then Martha with a strange significance would remark: ‘Let us go over a moment to pray for our intention.’
Maria-Veronica endured it all with a proud silence. She, too, prayed for victory. Father Chisholm could see the three faces in a row, beatifically upturned, praying for opposing victories while he, careworn and harassed, watching Wai’s forces march and countermarch amongst the hills, hearing of Naian’s final mobilization, prayed for peace … safety for his people … and enough food for the children.
Presently Sister Clotilde began to teach her class the Marseillaise. She did it secretly, when Reverend Mother was engaged in the basket room at the other end of the mission. The class, being imitative, picked it up quickly. Then, one forenoon as Maria-Veronica came slowly across the compound, her air fatigued and noticeably constrained, there burst, through the open windows of Clotilde’s classroom, to the accompaniment of a thumped piano, the full-throated blast of the French national anthem.
‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’
For an instant Maria-Veronica’s step faltered; then her figure, which showed signs of softening, became steeled. All her fortitude was summoned to sustain her. She walked on with her head high.
One afternoon towards the end of the month, Clotilde was again in her schoolroom. The class, having given its daily rendering of the Marseillaise, had now concluded its catechism lesson. And Sister Clotilde, following her recently instituted custom, remarked:
‘Kneel
down, dear children, and we will say a little prayer for the brave French soldiers.’
The children knelt down obediently and repeated the three Hail Marys after her.
Clotilde was about to signal them to rise when, with a slight shock, she became aware of Reverend Mother standing behind her. Maria-Veronica was calm and pleasant. Gazing across Sister Clotilde’s shoulder she addressed the class.
‘And now, children, it is only right that you should say the same prayer for the brave German soldiers.’
Clotilde turned a dirty green. Her breath seemed to choke her.
‘This is my classroom, Reverend Mother.’
Maria-Veronica ignored her. ‘Come now, dear children, for the brave Germans, “ Hail Mary full of Grace …”’
Clotilde’s breast heaved, her pale lips retracted from her narrow teeth. Convulsively, she drew back her hand and slapped her superior on the face.
There was a terrified hush. Then Clotilde burst into tears and ran sobbing from the room.
Maria-Veronica moved not a muscle. With that same agreeable smile she said to the children:
‘Sister Clotilde is unwell. You see how she knocked against me. I will finish the class. But first, children, three Hail Marys for the good German soldiers.’
When the prayer concluded she seated herself, unruffled, at the high desk and opened the book.
That evening, entering the dispensary unexpectedly, Father Chisholm surprised Sister Clotilde measuring herself a liberal dose of chlorodyne. She whipped round at his step and almost dropped the full minim glass, her cheek flooded by a painful flush. The episode in the classroom had strung her to breaking pitch.
She stammered: ‘I take a little for my stomach. We have so much to worry us these days.’ He knew, from the measure and her manner, that she was using the drug as a sedative.
‘I wouldn’t take it too often, Sister. It contains a good deal of morphine.’
When she had gone he locked the bottle in the poison cupboard. As he stood in the empty dispensary, torn by the anxiety of their danger here, weighed down by the sheer futility of that far-off, awful war, he felt a slow surge of anger at the senseless rancour of these women. He had hoped it would settle. But it had not settled. He compressed his lips in sudden resolution.
After school that day he sent for the three Sisters. He made them stand before his desk, his face unusually stern, choosing his words, almost with bitterness.
‘Your behaviour at a time like this is greatly distressing me. It must cease. You have no justification for it whatsoever.’
There was a short pause. Clotilde was shaking with contention. ‘But we have justification.’ She fumbled in the pocket of her robe and agitatedly thrust into his hand, a much-creased, cut-out section of newsprint. ‘Read this, I beg of you. From a prince of the Church.’
He scanned the cutting, slowly read it aloud. It was the report of a pronouncement by Cardinal Amette, from the pulpit of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. ‘“Beloved Brethren Comrades in Arms of France and her Glorious Allies, Almighty God is upon our side. God has helped us to our greatness in the past. He will help us once again in our hour of need. God stands beside our brave soldiers in the battlefield, strengthening their arms, girding them against the enemy. God protects his own. God will give us victory …”’
He broke off, he would go no further.
A rigid silence followed. Clotilde’s head trembled with nervous triumph and Martha’s face was dogged with vindication. But Maria-Veronica remained undefeated. Stiffly, from the black cloth bag she wore upon her girdle, she unfolded a neat square clipping.
‘I know nothing of the prejudiced opinion of any French Cardinal. But here is a joint statement to the German people of the Archbishops of Cologne, Munich and Essen.’ In a cold and haughty voice she read: ‘“Beloved people of the Fatherland. God is with us in this most righteous struggle which has been forced upon us. Therefore we command you in God’s name to fight to the last drop of your blood for the honour and glory of our country. God knows in his wisdom and justice that we are in the right and God will give us …”’
‘That is enough.’
Francis stopped her, struggling for self-control, his soul suffused by wave upon wave of anger and despair. Here, before him, was the essence of man’s malice and hypocrisy. The senselessness of life seemed suddenly to overwhelm him. Its hopelessness crushed him.
He remained with his head resting upon his hand, then in a low voice he said: ‘God knows God must get sick of all this crying out to God!’
Mastered by his emotion he rose abruptly and began to pace the room. ‘I can’t refute the contradictions of cardinals and archbishops with still more contradictions. I wouldn’t presume to. I’m nobody – an insignificant Scottish priest stuck in the wilds of China on the edge of a bandit’s war. But don’t you see the folly and the baseness of the whole transaction? We, the Holy Catholic Church – yes, all the great Churches of Christendom – condone this world war. We go further – we sanctify it. We send millions of our faithful sons to be maimed and slaughtered, to be mangled in their bodies and their souls, to kill and destroy one another, with a hypocritical smile, an apostolic blessing. Die for your country and all will be forgiven you. Patriotism! King and Emperor! From ten thousand smug pulpits: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s …”’ He broke off, hands clenched, eyes remotely burning. ‘There is no Caesar nowadays – only financiers and statesmen who want diamond mines in Africa and rubber in the slave-driven Congo. Christ preached everlasting love. He preached the brotherhood of man. He did not climb the mountain and shout, “ Kill! Kill! Go forth in hatred and plunge a bayonet into thy brother’s belly!” It isn’t His voice that resounds in the churches and high cathedrals of Christendom today – but the voice of time servers and cowards.’ His lips quivered. ‘How in the name of the God we serve can we come to these foreign lands, the lands we call pagan, presuming to convert the people to a doctrine we give the lie to by our every deed? Small wonder they jeer at us. Christianity – the religion of lies! Of class and money and national hatreds! Of wicked wars!’ He stopped short, perspiration beading his brow, his eyes dark with anguish. ‘Why doesn’t the Church seize her opportunity? What a chance to justify herself as the Living Bride of Christ! Instead of preaching hatred and incitement, to cry, in every land, with the tongues of her pontiff and all her priests: “Throw down your weapons. Thou shalt not kill. We command you not to fight.” Yes, there would be persecutions and many executions. But these would be martyrdoms – not murders. The dead would decorate, not desecrate, our altars.’ His voice dropped, his attitude was calmer, strangely prophetic. ‘The Church will suffer for its cowardice. A viper nourished in one’s bosom will one day strike that bosom. To sanction the might of arms is to invite destruction. The day may come when great military forces will break loose and turn upon the Church, corrupting millions of her children, sending her down again – a timid shadow – into the Catacombs.’
There was a strained stillness when he concluded. Martha and Clotilde hung their heads, as though touched, against their will. But Maria-Veronica, with something of the arrogance that marked those early days of strife, faced him with a cold clear gaze, hardened by a glint of mockery.
‘That was most impressive, Father … worthy of these cathedrals you decry … But aren’t your words rather empty if you don’t live up to them … here in Pai-tan?’
The blood rushed to his brow, then quickly ebbed. He answered without anger.
‘I have solemnly forbidden every man in my congregation to fight in this wicked conflict which threatens us. I have made them swear to come with their families inside the mission gates, when trouble breaks. Whatever the consequences I shall be responsible.’
All three Sisters looked at him. A faint tremor passed over Maria-Veronica’s cold still face. Yet, as they filed from the room, he could see they were not reconciled. He suddenly felt a shiver of unnameable fear. He had the strange sensation that t
ime swung suspended, balanced in fateful expectation of what might come to pass.
IX
On a Sunday morning, he was awakened by a sound which he had dreaded for many days – the dull concussion of artillery in action. He jumped up and hurried to the window. On the western hills, a few miles distant, six light field-pieces had begun to shell the city. He dressed rapidly and went downstairs. At the same moment Joseph came running from the porch.
‘It has begun, Master. Last night General Naian marched into Pai-tan and the Wai forces are attacking him. Already our people are arriving at the gates.’
He glanced swiftly over Joseph’s shoulder. ‘Admit them at once.’
While his servant went back to unlock the gates he hastened over to the home. The children were collected at breakfast and amazingly undisturbed. One or two of the smaller girls whimpered at the sudden distant banging. He went round the long tables, forcing himself to smile. ‘It is only firecrackers, children. For a few days we are going to have big ones.’
The three Sisters stood apart at the head of the refectory. Maria-Veronica was calm as marble but he saw at once that Clotilde was upset. She seemed to hold herself in, and her hands were clenched in her long sleeves. Every time the guns went off she paled. Nodding towards the children, he joked expressly for her. ‘If only we could keep them eating all the time!’