me as many white feathers as they liked, I wasn't going to be swept
away by the general hysteria. Besides, where would be the sense in
joining? Everybody said that our fellows would be home for Christmas.
Our chaps who were out there ought to know; in writing home they
promised it themselves.

The next part of the music-hall performance was moving pictures of the
Germans' march into Brussels. I was in the Promenade and had noticed a
Belgian soldier being made much of by a group of Tommies. He was a
queer looking fellow, with a dazed expression and eyes that seemed to
focus on some distant horror; his uniform was faded and
torn--evidently it had seen active service. I wondered by what strange
fortune he had been conveyed from the brutalities of invasion to this
gilded, plush-seated sensation-palace in Leicester Square.

I watched the screen. Through ghastly photographic boulevards the
spectre conquerors marched. They came on endlessly, as though
somewhere out of sight a human dam had burst, whose deluge would never
be stopped. I tried to catch the expressions of the men, wondering
whether this or that or the next had contributed his toll of violated
women and butchered children to the list of Hun atrocities. Suddenly
the silence of the theatre was startled by a low, infuriated growl,
followed by a shriek which was hardly human. I have since heard the
same kind of sounds when the stumps of the mutilated are being dressed
and the pain has become intolerable. Everybody turned in their
seats--gazing through the dimness to a point in the Promenade near to
where I was. The ghosts on the screen were forgotten. The faked
patriotism of the songs we had listened to had become a thing of
naught. Through the welter of bombast, excitement and emotion we had
grounded on reality.