Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

Have you heard what’s happened in Germany? The whole damned system’s collapsed. People are hoarding their small change. Runs on the savings banks. A hundred million lost overnight on the Berlin Exchange. Banks closing and refusing to hand over gold. Norddeutsche Handelsbank shut down. Can you imagine? Who would have thought it? Did you ever meet August Saal? No? A fine fellow, exceedingly clever. Went to his bank in Weimar and shot himself. What’s that? Eugen Bieber? Yes, I knew him quite well. Met him in Potsdam, something to do with railways in Patagonia. We were in talks about the stocks. What? Killed his wife? And himself? Potassium cyanide? Lost thirteen thousand in two days? Oh good Lord. I hadn’t heard about that.

Just goes to show, doesn’t it? All you need is someone in charge who wants an empire and doesn’t understand money, and the whole damn country goes to Hell in a handcart. And you can’t make a mess in one country without messing up the rest. God save us from emperors, that’s what I say. Makes you feel grateful for Asquith, eh? Never thought I’d hear myself say that.

Still … think what happened back at the end of July. Consols fell 4 per cent, Canadian Pacific fell 6½ per cent, Shell Oil fell 10 per cent, Malacca Rubber fell 17 per cent, De Beers fell 6½ per cent, and Russo-Asiatic fell 23 per cent.

I think there might be some opportunities here. I don’t think I’d go for Russo-Asiatic at a time like this, and let’s face it, no one needs diamonds in wartime. But think of all the vehicles they’ll need for ferrying the troops around, and they say there are going to be huge numbers of aeroplanes involved, and war being war, a lot of these will inevitably be destroyed, and furthermore I hear they’re beginning to build oil-fired battleships.

I’m going to buy into Malacca Rubber and Shell Oil, and I’d advise you to do the same. One should turn catastrophe to advantage. Another dram? If there’s not a shortage already, of course. Canadian Pacific’s an excellent bet too. The right time to buy, definitely.

Did I tell you, I’ve had an idea for a new kind of golf ball? I’m hoping it won’t go rock hard after a few months, like the ones we have at present.

I AM MILLICENT, if you’ll excuse me, and I came to the McCoshes when I was a little mite of fourteen. It was expected that I’d go into service and I always knew that I would, so I’m not complaining. It weren’t no good with me mum and dad anyhow, and Mum never got over coming down one day and catching the rats eating my baby brother’s face. You couldn’t leave a kid for a second where we was, on account of them rats. The baby died thank God and I don’t remember him much, but me mum went half barmy and she never recovered, and now she’s always ill anyway. Dad was on the docks and he was a big strong fellow. He didn’t ’alf drink, but he wasn’t barmy like me mum. I can read and write a little bit and had some education from the little charity dame school, and I know I left when I was only ten, but I think I done pretty well, considerin’.

It was a few days after the war got goin’, and I went into Miss Rosie’s room, thinking that she weren’t there, but she was. She was crying her eyes out, poor thing, and I thought, ‘Oh gawd, someone’s been killed already,’ and I said, ‘So sorry, Miss Rosie. Shall I come back and do your room later?’ and she said, ‘I’m sorry, Millie. I didn’t mean you to catch me like this,’ and I said, ‘Are you all right, miss? I hope nothing bad has come about,’ and she said, ‘It’s the Pope. He’s just died,’ and I looked around and she had a candle all lit in front of a little statue of the Virgin Mary, and I said, ‘Have you become a Roman papist then?’ and she said, ‘No, but the Pope’s died, and he was a very good man, and I am so very upset about it. Silly of me, I know.’

I said, ‘I don’t know nothing much about it, miss.’

Miss Rosie said that this dead Pope said we was to renew all things in Christ, and that the best way was through the Virgin, and she said that once he filled up the Vatican with people what had been done in by an earthquake.

I didn’t know what this Vatican was. I didn’t like to ask, but I suppose it was quite big. Miss Rosie said, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this,’ and she pointed at the Virgin and the candle. ‘Mother and Father might be upset, because we’re Anglicans.’

I said, ‘I won’t say nothing, Miss Rosie. Why would I?’

Don’t ask me what she was on about. Our Miss Rosie always did have God pretty badly. We all went to church with the family in a big gaggle twice every Sunday, but us lot used to sit in the back, and I used to have a little sleep if I could. I was fair worn out usually.

It was better than a lot of families what made the servants go to a different church altogether, even if it meant they had to walk for bleedin’ miles, and I heard that in the posh houses they make the servants turn and face the wall when there’s family passing. Well, I wouldn’t’ve put up with that. In them days you either were a servant or you had some servants yourself, and there was big houses where the grander servants had servants themselves, and every family had its own way, and ours was all right, if you ask me.

I HAD FELT a kind of loneliness, in amongst all that joyful and righteous patriotism. There didn’t seem any chance of America joining in. It wasn’t our scrap. I was a Yank from Baltimore, I was twenty-five years old and I hadn’t made any mark in the world since leaving school. There I’d been brilliant, especially in athletics, but afterwards I’d never managed anything much. My father was in shipping, and I was working in his office with a view to taking over when he eventually packed it in. There was no sign of that. If he lived to be a hundred he would still be in charge. I was chaffing for some action.

My fondest memory of the outbreak of the war, however, was the reaction of Mrs McCosh. I came to The Grampians the morning after the ultimatum ran out, and she was in a considerable tizz. She was wringing her hands in the drawing room, exclaiming, ‘We can’t possibly be at war with Germany, we just can’t, it’s not possible. The Kaiser is the grandson of the Queen!’

Of course she meant Queen Victoria, not Alexandra or Mary. By ‘the Queen’ she always meant Victoria, and the other two were referred to as ‘Queen Alexandra’ and ‘the present Queen’. She had a touching faith that royal alliances must inevitably prevent wars, unless someone along the line was mad. In retrospect I wonder if she was right; you’d have to be mad to plunge the whole of Europe into war quite deliberately. And the Kaiser was the son of the Princess Royal. He can’t have had any family-feeling at all.

Like everyone else I shared in the ecstasy and euphoria when war broke out. Like everyone else, I went to Buckingham Palace and Downing Street and we cheered and sang the British national anthem until we were all hoarse. We sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to the King when he appeared on the balcony. I sang my heart out even though I’m a Yank. He was dressed as an Admiral of the Fleet, and Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales came out too. We waved our hats and jostled each other, and men who were unacquainted shook hands and clapped each other on the back. I came over in a strange sweat of enthusiasm. The ultimatum was to expire at eleven, so we made our way to Whitehall, and I had my first taste of fighting. I got into a sort of jostling match with a protester just by Nelson’s Column, who carried a placard saying ‘This Is Not Our War’.