Not Peace But A Sword (Paperback)

VINCENT SHEEAN NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD Doubleday, Doran Company, Inc. New York 1939 PRINTED AT THE Country Life Press, GARDEN CITY, N. v., u. 8. A. CL COPYRIGHT, 1939 BY VINCENT SHEEAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying. Ye shall have peace whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul. JEREMIAH IV, 10 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man 9 s foes shall be they of his own household. MATTHEW X, 34-36 Contents CHAPTER I The Thirteen Bus I CHAPTER II The Ebro 42 CHAPTER III By the Rivers of Babylon 89 CHAPTER IV Madrid 14.0 CHAPTER v The Wayside Inn 200 CHAPTER VI The Last Volunteer 235 CHAPTER VII Seberov 94 271 CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII The Triumph of the Swastika 302 CHAPTER IX Last Day on the Ebro 326 CHAPTER X Epilogue 342 viii NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD CHAPTER I The Thirteen Bus LHE DISTRICT of Maida Vale, according to the English novels of twenty or more years ago, was inhabited by light ladies, aspiring playwrights and gentlemen who were likely at any moment to be arrested by the police. If this was ever so and you cant always tell about English novels it is no longer so. The region exposes an innocent face to whatever sun it can get in a London December its . wide streets and blank brick houses, sometimes with gardens and oftener without, appear to harbor a population of blame less citizens. But then we Americans are always being taken in by English literature it is what they call our heritage. Millions of us who have never seen London feelthe cold thrust of mystery down our necks at the mention of Baker Street we hear the roll of the printing press when one street is named, the chink of coin when we read of an other. If Maida Vale is, after all, no odder than any pros perous district in New York or Chicago, and gives shelter and leg room to an equal number of merchants, bankers, film stars and legislators, we are wrong to be disappointed. NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD The fault lies partly in our gullible selves and partly with those English novels of the days before and just after the war of 1914-18, which purported to tell us what life in London was like and misled us so badly that we are always craning our necks from the top of the bus to exclaim So that is the Strand So that is Pall Mall In years of casual visits to London I had never beheld Maida Vale when I did it reminded me of Chicago. I might have written a letter of discovery to The Times, but didnt, for my only practical interest in Maida Vale was that somewhere near there was where you got the Thirteen Bus. I heard about the Thirteen Bus from a sound authority. When I have relatives up from the provinces, the sound authority said, I always take them for a nice ride on the Thirteen Bus. You go right through London and can do all your sight-seeing without getting off. It starts at Golders Green or Hendon or some such place, but you get on in the Abbey Road. Ive tried them all, and the Thirteen Bus is best. Well, I have tried it now, too, and am prepared to give a report. I can hardly do so without paying a fervent tribute to the London General Omnibus Company and to the Traffic Combine of which it forms a part for the solidity of its rolling stock for the unfailingcourtesy of its hired hands and for the extreme latitude permitted in such mat ters as smoking and lolling about on the top deck. No General Omnibus Company in the world indeed, no Traffic Combine can do you better for fivepence. Maida Vale is respectable upper-middle-class, with the wintry sun trickling down on well-fed people who are not 2