The Mystery of the Green Ray
By William Le Queux
“What I can’t understand,” growled Dennis as we stepped into one of the punts and paddled idly across to the lock, “is how any young idiot can treat the whole thing as a terrific joke. If we go to war with Germany—and it seems we must—it will be——Good Heavens! Who knows what it’s going to be!”
“Meaning,” said Tom, who never allowed any thought to remain half-expressed, “meaning that we are not prepared, and they are. We must step straight into the ring untrained to meet an opponent who has been getting ready night and day for the Lord knows how many years.”
“Still, you know,” said Jack, who invariably found the bright spot in everything, “we never did any good as a nation until we were pushed.”
“We shall be pushed this time,” I replied, “and if we do go to war, we shall all be wanted.”
“And wanted at once,” Tom added.
“Which brings me to the point which most concerns us,” said Dennis, with a severe face. “What are we going to do?”
“It seems to me,” I replied, “that we can do only one thing. If the Government declares war, it is in your cause and mine, and who is to fight our battles but you and me?”
“That’s it, old man, exactly,” said Dennis. “We must appear in person, as you lawyers would say. I’m afraid there’s not the slightest hope of peace being maintained now, and, given the circumstances, I should prefer to say there is not the slightest fear of it. We can’t honourably keep out, so let us hope we will step in immediately.”
Jack’s muttered “hear hear” spoke for us all, and there was silence for a minute or two. My thoughts were very far away from the peaceful valley of the Thames; they had flown, in fact, to a still more peaceful glen in the Western Highlands—but of that anon. I fancy the others were thinking of something far removed from the ghastly horror of war. Jack was sitting with an open cigarette case, gazing wistfully at the bank to which we had moored the boat. There was a “little girl” in the question. Poor chap; I knew exactly what he was thinking; he had my sympathy! The silence became uncomfortable, and it was Jack who broke it.
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William Le Queux
William Tufnell Le Queux (2 July 1864 – 13 October 1927) was an Anglo-French journalist and writer.
Biography.
He was also a diplomat (honorary consul for San Marino), a traveler (in Europe, the Balkans, and North Africa), a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his station long before radio was generally available; his claims regarding his abilities and exploits, however, were usually exaggerated. His best-known works are the anti-French and anti-Russian invasion fantasy The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and the anti-German invasion fantasy The Invasion of 1910 (1906), the latter becoming a bestseller.
Early life
Le Queux was born in London. His father was a French draper’s assistant and his mother was English. He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio (or Ignace) Spiridon in Paris. He carried out a foot tour of Europe as a young man before supporting himself by writing for French newspapers. In the late 1880s, he returned to London where he edited the magazines Gossip and Piccadilly before joining the staff of The Globe as a parliamentary reporter in 1891. In 1893 he abandoned journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. His partial French ancestry did not prevent him from depicting France and the French as the villains in works of the 1890s, though later he assigned this role to Germany.
Career
Le Queux mainly wrote in the genres of Romance, mystery, thriller, and espionage, particularly in the years leading up to World War I, when his partnership with British publishing magnate Lord Northcliffe led to the serialized publication and intensive publicizing (including actors dressed as German soldiers walking along Regent Street) of pulp-fiction spy stories and invasion literature such as The Invasion of 1910, The Poisoned Bullet, and Spies of the Kaiser. These works were a common phenomenon in pre-World War I Europe, involving fictionalized stories of possible invasion or infiltration by foreign powers; Le Queux’s specialty, much appreciated by Northcliffe, was the German invasion of Britain. He was also the original editor of Lord Northcliffe’s War of the Nations.
William Le Queux
