and clipped trees, were human habitations.
The people of this country-side were not belligerents. The

interests and sympathies alike of Holland had been so divided
that to the end she remained undecided and passive in the

struggle of the world powers. And everywhere along the roads
taken by the marching armies clustered groups and crowds of

impartially observant spectators, women and children in peculiar
white caps and old-fashioned sabots, and elderly, clean-shaven

men quietly thoughtful over their long pipes. They had no fear of
their invaders; the days when 'soldiering' meant bands of

licentious looters had long since passed away....
That watcher among the clouds would have seen a great

distribution of khaki-uniformed men and khaki-painted material
over the whole of the sunken area of Holland. He would have

marked the long trains, packed with men or piled with great guns
and war material, creeping slowly, alert for train-wreckers,

along the north-going lines; he would have seen the Scheldt and
Rhine choked with shipping, and pouring out still more men and

still more material; he would have noticed halts and
provisionings and detrainments, and the long, bustling

caterpillars of cavalry and infantry, the maggot-like wagons, the
huge beetles of great guns, crawling under the poplars along the

dykes and roads northward, along ways lined by the neutral,
unmolested, ambiguously observant Dutch. All the barges and

shipping upon the canals had been requisitioned for transport. In
that clear, bright, warm weather, it would all have looked from

above like some extravagantfestival of animated toys.
As the sun sank westward the spectacle must have become a little

indistinct because of a golden haze; everything must have become
warmer and more glowing, and because of the lengthening of the

shadows more manifestly in relief. The shadows of the tall
churches grew longer and longer, until they touched the horizon

and mingled in the universal shadow; and then, slow, and soft,
and wrapping the world in fold after fold of deepening blue, came

the night--the night at first obscurely simple, and then with
faint points here and there, and then jewelled in darkling

splendour with a hundred thousand lights. Out of that mingling of
darkness and ambiguous glares the noise of an unceasing activity

would have arisen, the louder and plainer now because there was
no longer any distraction of sight.

It may be that watcher drifting in the pellucid gulf beneath the
stars watched all through the night; it may be that he dozed. But

if he gave way to so natural a proclivity, assuredly on the
fourth night of the great flank march he was aroused, for that

was the night of the battle in the air that decided the fate of
Holland. The aeroplanes were fighting at last, and suddenly

about him, above and below, with cries and uproar rushing out of
the four quarters of heaven, striking, plunging, oversetting,

soaring to the zenith and dropping to the ground, they came to
assail or defend the myriads below.

Secretly the Central European power had gathered his flying
machines together, and now he threw them as a giant might fling a

handful of ten thousand knives over the low country. And amidst
that swarming flight were five that drove headlong for the sea

walls of Holland, carrying atomic bombs. From north and west and
south, the allied aeroplanes rose in response and swept down upon

this sudden attack. So it was that war in the air began. Men
rode upon the whirlwind that night and slew and fell like

archangels. The sky rained heroes upon the astonished earth.
Surely the last fights of mankind were the best. What was the

heavy pounding of your Homeric swordsmen, what was the creaking
charge of chariots, beside this swift rush, this crash, this

giddy triumph, this headlong swoop to death?
And then athwart this whirling rush of aerial duels that swooped

and locked and dropped in the void between the lamp-lights and
the stars, came a great wind and a crash louder than thunder, and

first one and then a score of lengthening fiery serpents plunged
hungrily down upon the Dutchmen's dykes and struck between land

and sea and flared up again in enormouscolumns of glare and
crimsoned smoke and steam.

And out of the darkness leapt the little land, with its spires
and trees, aghast with terror, still and distinct, and the sea,

tumbled with anger, red-foaming like a sea of blood....
Over the populous country below went a strange multitudinous

crying and a flurry of alarm bells... .
The surviving aeroplanes turned about and fled out of the sky,

like things that suddenly know themselves to be wicked....
Through a dozen thunderously flaming gaps that no water might

quench, the waves came roaring in upon the land....
Section 8

'We had cursed our luck,' says Barnet, 'that we could not get to
our quarters at Alkmaar that night. There, we were told, were

provisions, tobacco, and everything for which we craved. But the
main canal from Zaandam and Amsterdam was hopelessly jammed with

craft, and we were glad of a chance opening that enabled us to
get out of the main column and lie up in a kind of little harbour

very much neglected and weedgrown before a deserted house. We
broke into this and found some herrings in a barrel, a heap of

cheeses, and stone bottles of gin in the cellar; and with this I
cheered my starving men. We made fires and toasted the cheese and

grilled our herrings. None of us had slept for nearly forty
hours, and I determined to stay in this refuge until dawn and

then if the traffic was still choked leave the barge and march
the rest of the way into Alkmaar.

'This place we had got into was perhaps a hundred yards from the
canal and underneath a little brick bridge we could see the

flotilla still, and hear the voices of the soldiers. Presently
five or six other barges came through and lay up in the meer near

by us, and with two of these, full of men of the Antrim regiment,
I shared my find of provisions. In return we got tobacco. A

large expanse of water spread to the westward of us and beyond
were a cluster of roofs and one or two church towers. The barge

was rather cramped for so many men, and I let several squads,
thirty or forty perhaps altogether, bivouac on the bank. I did

not let them go into the house on account of the furniture, and I
left a note of indebtedness for the food we had taken. We were

particularly glad of our tobacco and fires, because of the
numerous mosquitoes that rose about us.

'The gate of the house from which we had provisioned ourselves
was adorned with the legend, Vreugde bij Vrede, "Joy with Peace,"

and it bore every mark of the busy retirement of a comfort-loving
proprietor. I went along his garden, which was gay and delightful

with big bushes of rose and sweet brier, to a quaint little
summer-house, and there I sat and watched the men in groups

cooking and squatting along the bank. The sun was setting in a
nearly cloudless sky.

'For the last two weeks I had been a wholly occupied man, intent
only upon obeying the orders that came down to me. All through

this time I had been working to the very limit of my mental and
physical faculties, and my only moments of rest had been devoted

to snatches of sleep. Now came this rare, unexpected interlude,
and I could look detachedly upon what I was doing and feel

something of its infinite wonderfulness. I was irradiated with
affection for the men of my company and with admiration at their

cheerful acquiescence in the subordination and needs of our
positions. I watched their proceedings and heard their pleasant

voices. How willing those men were! How ready to accept
leadership and forget themselves in collective ends! I thought

how manfully they had gone through all the strains and toil of
the last two weeks, how they had toughened and shaken down to

comradeship together, and how much sweetness there is after all
in our foolish human blood. For they were just one casual sample

of the species--their patience and readiness lay, as the energy
of the atom had lain, still waiting to be properly utilised.

Again it came to me with overpowering force that the supreme need
of our race is leading, that the supreme task is to discover

leading, to forget oneself in realising the collective purpose of
the race. Once more I saw life plain....'

Very characteristic is that of the 'rather too corpulent' young
officer, who was afterwards to set it all down in the Wander