The Winslow mail., 1914-10-03

innumerable motor barges in the canal
wed with the eventfulness of the
roadways, and everywhere in solitary
steadings, amid ricks and barns, in
groups by the wayside, in struggling
villages, each with it's fine old church.
or in compact towns laced with canals
and abounding in bridges and clipped
trees, were human habitations.
The people of this countryside were
not belligerents. The interests and
sympathies alike of Holland had been
so divided that to the end she remain
ed undecided and passive in the strug-
gle of the world powers. And every
where along the roads taken by the
marching armies clustered groups and
crowds of impartially observant spec
tators, 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 soldering 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 slow
ly. 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 provf-
sionings and detrainments and tho
long. bustling caterpillars of cavalry
and infantry, the maggot-like wagoI 81
the huge beetles of great guns cray Ii
ing under the poplars along the dika4j
and roads northward, along ways Inns
ed by the neutral, unmolested, ambig-
uously 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 extravagant festival of animated
toys.
AS the sun sank westward the spec
tacle must have become a little indis-
tinct because of a golden haze; every
thing must have become warmer and
more glowing, and because of the
lengthening of the shadows more mani
festly 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 deepen
ing blue, came the night-the night
at first obscurely simple, and then with
faint points here and there, and then
jeweled in darkling splendOr with a
hundred thousand lights. Out OF that
mingling of darkness and ambiguous
glares the noise of an unceasing ac-
tivity would have arisen, the louder
and palmer now because there was no
longer any distraction of sight.
1t 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 procivity, assuredly on
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
oh of 10 Of
and suddenly about him. above and
below, with cries and uproar rushing
out Of the four quarters of heaven
striking, plunging, overseeing, 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 to
gether and now he threw them as
a giant might fling a handful of ten
thousand knives over the low country.
And amidst that swarming fight 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 re
sponse and swept down upon this sud
den attack. SO it was that war in the
air began. Men rode upon the whir-
wind that night and slew and fell like
archangels The sky raiued 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 tri-
umph, this headlOng swOOp to death?
And then athwart this whirIing rush
of aerial duels that sWO0ped and lock
ed 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 dikes and struck between
land and sea and fiared up again in
enormous columns of glare and Grim
sOned smoke and steam.
And out Of the darkness leaped the