Under the soft grey windswept sky, Between two rows of yellow trees Soddenly dripping; The brown backs of an army Go marching.

Like an enormous snake with undulatory movement, Past the old church with scarlet ivy hooding its stiff grey walls, Past the drowsy churchyard, Where wet leaves cling to the stones, Up the hill and past the village, Through the curving lines of hedgerows, Beyond the brow of the hill, lost in brown stubble, The brown backs of an army Go writhing into the distance.

Under the flying clouds that hide the eastern sky, Footfalls, footfalls, repeated clamour of footfall;-- One, two, left, right, the road is full of them-- And the noise rises and strives to cling To the wet wind-blown branches, It penetrates the empty church and echoes up the aisle. Whirling leaves drift over the endless footfalls, Striving to hush them to quiet; O agonised hands!

Under the soft grey rainy sky Of October; Under the swirling leaves that fall and settle amid them, Silent files of men, stiffly-backed and sombre, With a jagged fringe of rifles projecting from every shoulder, Move like an immense machine with a million feet; Marching, Into the darkness steadily marching, Incessantly swinging and falling, Swallowed up in the twistings of the hills, Vanishing amid the confused brown stubble of the earth.

And the old earth holds its breath and listens: Was that a shot, a sob, a strangling cry? Silence. Only the trees hold out their empty arms in yearning, And a flight of rooks across them goes clanging away before night.

F. S. FLINT

SEARCHLIGHT

There has been no sound of guns, no roar of exploding bombs; but the darkness has an edge that grits the nerves of the sleeper.

He awakens; nothing disturbs the stillness, save perhaps the light, slow flap, once only, of the curtain dim in the darkness.

Yet there is something else that drags him from his bed; and he stands in the darkness with his feet cold against the floor and the cold air round his ankles. He does not know why, but he goes to the window and sees a beam of light, miles high, dividing the night into two before him, still, stark and throbbing.

The houses and gardens beneath lie under the snow quiet and tinged with purple.

There has been no sound of guns, no roar of exploding bombs; only that watchfulness hidden among the snow-covered houses, and that great beam thrusting back into heaven the light taken from it.

ZEPPELINS

The bedroom is darkness. A dim cloud in one direction is the window with its curtains; the leaves of the trees outside rustle on one another. I fall to sleep.

How long have I slept? A voice calls, a bell rings; the clamour and the ringing lengthen; I turn; it continues; not mine the name I hear, and yet there is alarm in it that concerns me? Am I awake? Over my nightdress I huddle my clothes; thrust my bare feet into slippers; and run down the stairs.

From a blur of female faces distraught eyes stand out, and a woman’s voice cries: “The Zeppelins--they are attacking us; Avenue Road[A] is alight, High Mydelton[A] is burning. Did you not hear the guns? Oh, what shall we do?”

[A] Fictitious names.

We make jokes to reassure them. I shiver: chill? excitement? fear?

Am I awake? My mind has been washed by sleep and left limp. The trees in the gardens opposite stand out behind the houses, a dark fretwork against the sky; and everywhere is stillness.

Yet something slinks overhead through the sky; men will say that they saw it pass, and then a flash, a thud,-- a house has been cleft through three stories, and burns; and children burn in their beds, and men are burned rescuing them, an old man and woman are burned to death because the staircase has been smashed away.

But we do not know this yet; we have only heard explosions, and have seen the glow of fires in the sky, quickly gone.

We climb upstairs to the top story,-- to see! There is nothing to see ... But the silence and stillness are sinister. What has been taken away, what added? Brick and stone have become unreal, and only the primæval trees remain, with the primæval fear behind them and among them....