Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/163

 thought; when he asked himself, 'What have I been doing? What have I done? What has this world done for me? It has made me a murderer. It has tortured me and wasted me And I meant well by it'

"Whether he thought at all about the making of the submarine, the numberless ingenuities and devices, the patience and devotion, that had gone to make that grim trap in which he had been caught at last, I cannot guess Probably he took it as a matter of course

"So it was that our German youngster who dreamt dreams, who had ambitions, who wished to serve and do brave and honourable things, died So five thousand men at least have died, English some of them as well as German, in lost submarines beneath the waters of the narrow seas

"There is a story and a true story. It is more striking than the fate of most men and women in the world, but is it, in its essence, different? Is not the whole life of our time in the vein of this story? Is not this story of youth and hope and possibility misled, marched step by step into a world misconceived, thrust into evil, and driven down to ugliness and death, only a more vivid rendering of what is now the common fate of great multitudes? Is there any one of us who is not in some fashion aboard a submarine, doing evil and driving towards an evil end?

"What are the businesses in which men engage? How many of them have any likeness to freighted ships that serve the good of mankind? Think of the