The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“For instance, dear,” she went on, “the forces of evil–of degeneration, ignorance, envy, ferocity, are gathering like a tornado in Russia. Virtuous example, sucking its thumbs and minding its own business, will be torn to fragments when the storm breaks.”

“The Bolsheviki?”

“The Reds. The Terrorists, I mean. You know as well as I do what they really are–merely looters skulking through the smoke of a world in flames–buzzards on the carcass of a civilisation dead. But, Palla, they do not sit still and suck their thumbs and say, ‘I am a Terrorist. Behold me and be converted.’ No, indeed! They are moving, always in motion, preoccupied by their hellish designs.”

“In Russia, yes,” admitted Palla.

“Everywhere, dearest. Here, also.”

“I believe there are scarcely any in America,” insisted Palla.

“The country crawls with them,” retorted Ilse. “They work like moles, but already if you look about you can see the earth stirring above their tunnels. They are here, everywhere, active, scheming, plotting, whispering treason, stirring discontent, inciting envy, teaching treason.

“They are the Russians–Christians and Jews–who have filtered in here to do the nation mischief. They are the Germans who blew up factories, set fires, scuttled ships. They are foreigners who came here poisoned with envy; who have acquired nothing; whose greed and ferocity are whetted and ready for a universal conflagration by which they alone could profit.

“They are the labour leaders who break faith and incite to violence; they are the I. W. W.; they are the Black Hand, the Camorra; they are the penniless who would slay and rob; the landless who would kill and seize; the ignorant, nursing suspicion; the shiftless, brooding crimes to bring them riches quickly.

“And, Palla, your Law of Love and Service is good. But not for these.”

“What law for them, then?”

“Education. Maybe with machine guns.”

Palla shook her head. “Is that the way to educate defectives?”

“When they come at you en masse, yes!”

Palla laughed. “Dear,” she said, “there is no nation-wide Terrorist plot. These mental defectives are not in mass anywhere in America.”

“They are in dangerous groups everywhere. And every group is devoting its cunning to turning the working masses into a vast mob of the Black Hundred! They did it in Russia. They are working for it all over the world. You do not believe it?”

“No, I don’t, Ilse.”

“Very well. You shall come with me this evening. Are you busy?”

The thought of Jim glimmered in her mind. He might feel aggrieved. But he ought to begin to realise that he couldn’t be with her every evening.

“No, I haven’t any plans, Ilse,” she said, “no definite engagement, I mean. Will you dine at home with me?”

“Early, then. Because there is a meeting which you and I shall attend. It is an education.”

“An anarchist meeting?”

“Yes, Reds. I think we should go–perhaps take part–”

“What?”

“Why not? I shall not listen to lies and remain silent!” said Ilse, laughing. “The Revolution was good. But the Bolsheviki are nothing but greedy thieves and murderers. You and I know that. If anybody teaches people the contrary, I certainly shall have something to say.”

Palla desired to purchase silk for sofa pillows, having acquired a chaise-longue for her bedroom.

So she and Ilse went out into the sunshine and multi-coloured crowd; and all the afternoon they shopped very blissfully–which meant, also, lingering before store windows, drifting into picture-galleries, taking tea at Sherry’s, and finally setting out for home through a beflagged avenue jammed with traffic.

Dusk fell early but the drooping, orange-tinted globes which had replaced the white ones on the Fifth Avenue lamps were not yet lighted; and there still remained a touch of sunset in the sky when they left the bus.

At the corner of Palla’s street, there seemed to be an unusual congestion, and now, above the noise of traffic, they caught the sound of a band; and turned at the curb to see, supposing it to be a military music.

The band was a full one, not military, wearing a slatternly sort of uniform but playing well enough as they came up through the thickening dusk, marching close to the eastern curb of the avenue.

They were playing The Marseillaise. Four abreast, behind them, marched a dingy column of men and women, mostly of foreign aspect and squatty build, carrying a flag which seemed to be entirely red.

Palla, perplexed, incredulous, yet almost instantly suspecting the truth, stared at the rusty ranks, at the knots of red ribbon on every breast.

Other people were staring, too, as the unexpected procession came shuffling along–late shoppers, business men returning home, soldiers–all paused to gaze at this sullen visaged battalion clumping up the avenue.

“Surely,” said Palla to Ilse, “these people can’t be Reds!”

“Surely they are!” returned the tall, fair girl calmly. Her face had become flushed, and she stepped to the edge of the curb, her blue, wrathful eyes darkening like sapphires.

A soldier came up beside her. Others, sailors and soldiers, stopped to look. There was a red flag passing. Suddenly Ilse stepped from the sidewalk, wrenched the flag from the burly Jew who carried it, and, with the same movement, shattered the staff across her knee.

Men and women in the ranks closed in on her; a shrill roar rose from them, but the soldiers and sailors, cheering and laughing, broke into the enraged ranks, tearing off red rosettes, cuffing and kicking the infuriated Terrorists, seizing every seditious banner, flag, emblem and placard in sight.

Female Reds, shrieking with rage, clawed, kicked and bit at soldier, sailor and civilian. A gaunt man, with a greasy bunch of hair under a bowler, waved dirty hands above the mêlée and shouted that he had the Mayor’s permission to parade.

Everywhere automobiles were stopping, crowds of people hurrying up, policemen running. The electric lights snapped alight, revealed a mob struggling there in the yellowish glare.

Ilse had calmly stepped to the sidewalk, the fragments of flag and staff in her white-gloved hands; and, as she saw the irresponsible soldiers and blue-jackets wading lustily into the Reds–saw the lively riot which her own action had started–an irresistible desire to laugh seized her.

Clear and gay above the yelling of Bolsheviki and the “Yip–yip!” of the soldiers, peeled her infectious laughter. But Palla, more gentle, stood with dark eyes dilated, fearful of real bloodshed in the furious scene raging in the avenue before her.

A little shrimp of a Terrorist, a huge red rosette streaming from his buttonhole, suddenly ran at Ilse and seized the broken staff and the rags of the red flag. And Palla, alarmed, caught him by the coat-collar and dragged him screeching and cursing away from her friend, rebuking him in a firm but excited voice.

Ilse came over, shouldering her superb figure through the crowd; looked at the human shrimp a moment; then her laughter pealed anew.

“That’s the man who abused me in Denmark!” she said. “Oh, Palla, look at him! Do you really believe you could educate a thing like that!”

The man had wriggled free, and now he turned a flat, whiskered visage on Palla, menaced her with both soiled fists, inarticulate in his fury.

But police were everywhere, now, sweeping this miniature riot from the avenue, hustling the Reds uptown, checking the skylarking soldiery, sending amused or indignant citizens about their business.

A burly policeman said to Ilse with a grin: “I’ll take what’s left of that red flag, Miss;” and the girl handed it to him still laughing.

Soldiers wearing overseas caps cheered her and Palla. Everybody on the turbulent sidewalk was now laughing.

“D’yeh see that blond nab the red flag outer that big kike’s fists?” shouted one soldier to his sweating bunkie. “Some skirt!”

“God love the Bolsheviki she grabs by the slack o’ the pants!” cried a blue-jacket who had lost his cap. A roar followed.