“Of course not, She has no fleet.”
“Then do you agree with the—er Spanish
Colonel, who goes about saying that Spain’s
honour will never be safe until she has a fleet as
big as England’s?”
“That’s ridiculous. They couldn’t
possibly.”
“Then what could Spain do in the circumstances?”
“Well, she—er—she could—er—protest.”
“And would that be consistent with the honour
of a small nation like Spain?”
“In the circumstances,” said the Colonel
unwillingly, “er—yes.”
“So that what it comes to is this. Honour
only demands that you should attack the other man
if you are much bigger than he is. When a man
insults my wife, I look him carefully over; if he is
a stone heavier than I, then I satisfy my honour by
a mild protest. But if he only has one leg, and
is three stone lighter, honour demands that I should
jump on him.”
“We’re talking of nations,” said
the Colonel gruffly, “not of men, It’s
a question of prestige.”
“Which would be increased by a victory over
Spain?”
The Major began to get nervous. After all, I
was only a subaltern. He tried to cool the atmosphere
a little.
“I don’t know why poor old Spain should
be dragged into it like this,” he said, with
a laugh. “I had a very jolly time in Madrid
years ago.”
“O, I only gave Spain as an example,”
said the Colonel casually.
“It might just as well have been Switzerland?”
I suggested.
There was silence for a little.
“Talking of Switzerland——”
I said, as I knocked out my pipe.
“Oh, go on,” said the Colonel, with a
good-humoured shrug. “I’ve brought
this on myself.”
“Well, sir, what I was wondering was—What
would happen to the honour of England if fifty English
women were murdered at Interlaken?”
The Colonel was silent.
“However large an army we had——”
I went on.
The Colonel struck a match.
“It’s a funny thing, honour,” I
said. “And prestige.”
The Colonel pulled at his pipe.
“Just fancy,” I murmured, “the Swiss
can do what they like to British subjects in Switzerland,
and we can’t get at them. Yet England’s
honour does not suffer, the world is no worse a place
to live in, and one can spend quite a safe holiday
at Interlaken.”
“I remember being there in ’94,”
began the Major hastily....
Although our village is a very small one, we had fifteen
men serving in the Forces before the war was over.
Fortunately, as the Vicar well said, “we were
wonderfully blessed in that none of us was called upon
to make the great sacrifice.” Indeed, with
the exception of Charlie Rudd, of the Army Service
Corps, who was called upon to be kicked by a horse,
the village did not even suffer any casualties.
Our rejoicings at the conclusion of Peace were whole-hearted.
