Beyond the cliffs of Dover, in the profound darkness of the night,
England seemed asleep. Did not her people hear the beating of
Death's war drums across the fields of Europe, growing louder and
louder, so that on a cross-Channel boat I heard it booming in my
ears, louder than the wind?




Chapter II
Mobilization



1


The thunderbolt came out of a blue sky and in the midst of a brilliant
sunshine which gleamed blindingly above the white houses of Paris
and flung back shadows from the poplars across the long straight
roads between the fields of France. The children were playing as
usual in the gardens of the Tuileries, and their white-capped nurses
were sewing and chatting in the shade of the scorched trees. The old
bird man was still calling "Viens! Viens!" to the sparrows who came to
perch on his shoulders and peck at the bread between his lips, and
Punch was still performing his antique drama in the Petit Guignol to
laughing audiences of boys and girls. The bateaux mouches on the
Seine were carrying heavy loads of pleasure-seekers to Sèvres and
other riverside haunts. In the Pavilion Bleu at St. Cloud elegant little
ladies of the demi-monde sipped rose-tinted ices and said for a