"
I hinted at the possibilities of blockade. The Colonel was scornful.
"Sitting down under an insult for months and months," he called it,
until you starved the enemy into surrender. He wanted something much
more picturesque, more immediately effective than that. (Something,
presumably, more like the Somme.)
"But give me an example," I said, "of what you mean by `insults'
and `honour'."
Whereupon he gave me this extraordinary example of the need for a
large army.
"Well, supposing," he said, "that fifty English women in Madrid
were suddenly murdered, what would you do?"
I thought for a moment, and then said that I should probably decide
not to take my wife to Madrid until things had settled down a bit.
"I'm supposing that you're Prime Minister," said the Colonel, a
little annoyed. "What is England going to do?"
"Ah!... Well, one might do nothing. After all, what is one to do? One
can't restore them to life."
The Colonel, the Major, even the Adjutant, expressed his contempt for
such a cowardly policy.
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