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"You see," he said to Christine, "it was not a Zeppelin.... We shall be quite safe here." But in that last phrase he had now confessed to her the existence of an air-raid. He knew that he was not behaving with the maximum of sagacity.
"No, father," said Hilda shortly, and bent over her plate. "'Xtraordinary thing. He's a smart chap, and I should have thought he'd have been full of it. Perhaps he's too far back." "He was in a big town he doesn't name the other day, in an air-raid, and a man was killed in his carriage." "Good Lord! you don't say so? When did you hear that? I thought we had command of the air."
The scalp hung over the forehead loosely like an enormous flap, the red, jagged edge nearly touching the eyebrows. Since then I thought of this man every time there was an air-raid. The event increased our uneasiness. After each "bombing-stunt" we thought: "We were lucky this time it will be our turn next though." Moreover, we began to realize our helplessness.
One characteristic of the American soldier in France is his absolute fearlessness about dangers. He doesn't know how to be afraid. He wants to see all that is going on. The French tap their heads and say he is crazy, a gesture they have learned from America. And they have reason to think so. When the "alert" blows for an air-raid the French and English have learned to respect it.
He damped a handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed away some of the whitewash where the letters were least legible and read: AID LTER. ULANCE & T AID. This was evidently half an inscription which had been cut off exactly in the middle. To the left there was no sign of lettering. He puzzled the letters for a few moments before he came to an understanding. "Air-raid shelter.
There can be no doubt about it: we are blighted by the great destructiveness. All attempts to keep the war from our thoughts are destined to fail. Without being struck in an air-raid or torpedoed on the high seas, there is a sufficiency of destructive force in the daily events and in our accommodation to live on for them or in spite of them. Hence the universal demand for reconstruction.
We had a mild air-raid one night, but no damage was done. My faithful friends kept me well posted with all the news, and I often wonder on looking back if it had not been for them how ever I could have borne life. The leg still jumped when I least expected it, and of course I was never out of actual pain for a minute.
The evening was cold and bright, with twinkling stars which on air-raid nights in London would have caused much perturbation among average householders and their families. Our "Kaiserin" had gone home, so I rose, put on my overcoat, switched off the lights and descended the stairs to Hammersmith Bridge.
The group vanished, crestfallen, round another corner. G.J. laughed to Christine. Then the noise of guns was multiplied. That he was with Christine in the midst of an authentic air-raid could no longer be doubted. He was conscious of the wine he had drunk at the club.
G.J. said, with bland supremacy: "But it is necessary that thou shouldst forget them. Master thyself. Thou knowst now what it is an air-raid. It was an ordinary air-raid. There have been many like it. There will be many more. For once we were in the middle of a raid by chance. But we are safe that is enough." "But the deaths?" He shook his head. "But there must have been many deaths!"
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