Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1914-10-21
BY H. G. WELLS

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project. Nothing Of this was known to
such pawns in the game as Barnet and
his company, whose business it was TO
do what they were told by the mystic
| rious intell1gences at the direction Of
things In Paris, to which city the
Whitehall staff had also been trans
ferred. From first to last these direct
ing intelligences remained mysterious
to the body Of the army, yelled under
the name Of Orders" There was no
| Napoleon, no Caesar, to embody enthu
siasm. Barnet says: 1--WE talked Of
them. They are sending us up into
Luxembourg. They are going to turn
| the central European right"
Behind the veil of this vagueness the
little group Of more or less worthy men
which constituted headquarters was
beginning to realize the enormity of
the thing 1t was supposed to control.
In the great hall of the war control,
whose windows looked out across the
Seine to the Trocadero and the palaces
Of the western quarter, series Of big
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tables to display the whole seat Of war,
| and the staff officers Of the control
| were continually busy shifting the
little blocks which represented the con-
tending troops, as the reports and in
telligence came drifting In to the vari-
| Gus telegraphic bureaus in the adjacent
| rooms. In other smaller apartments
there were maps Of less detailed Sort
! upon which, for example, the reports
Of the British admiralty and Of the
Slav commanders were recorded as
they kept coming to hand. Upon these
maps, as upon chessboards, Marshal
Dubois, in consultation with General
Ward and the Earl Of Delhi, was to
play the great game for world suprem-
acy against the central European
| powers. Very probably he had def
mite idea Of his game; very probably
he had coherent and admirable plan.
But he had reckoned without a
proper estimate either Of the new
strategy Of aviation or of the pos
sibilities Of atomic energy that Hol-
stem had opened for mankind. While
he planned intrenchments and inva-
sions and a frontier war the central
European generalship was striking at
the eyes and the brain. And while, with
a certain difdent hesitation, he de-
veloped his gambit that night upon the
| lines laid down by Napoleon and Mott
Ike, his own scientific corps in state
Of mutinous activity was preparing a
blow for Berlin. These old foolsv' was
| the key in which the scientific corps
was thinking.
The war control In Paris on the night
Of July 2 was an impressive display of
the paraphernalia of military organiza-
ton as the first half Of the twentieth
century understood 1t. To one human
being at least the consulting command.
ers had the likeness Of world welding
gods.
She was a skilled typist, capable of
nearly sixty words minute, and she
had been engaged in relay with other
similar women to take down orders in
duplicate and hand them over to the
Junior officers in attendance to be for
warded and filed. There had come q
lull, and she had been sent out from
the debating room to take the air upon
the terrace before the great hall and to
eat such scanty refreshment as she
had brought with her until her serv.
ices were required again.
From her position upon the terrace
this young woman had view not only
of the wide sweep Of the river below
her and all the eastward side Of Paris
from the Arc de Triomphe to St. Cloud
great blocks and masses Of black or
pale darkness with pink and golden
flashes Of Illumination and endless In.
terlaclng bands Of dotted lights under
a still and starless sky, but also the
whole spacious interior Of the great
hall with its slender pillars and gra-
c1ous arching and clustering lamps
was visible to her. There over a will
derness Of tables lay the huge maps
done on so large a scale that one might
fancy them small countries. The mes.
sengers and attendants went and came
perpetually, altering, moving the little
pieces that signifed hundreds and
thousands Of men, and the great com
mander and his two consultants stood
amid all these things and near where
the fighting was nearest, scheming, dl
recting. They had but to breathe 6
word and presently away there in the
world of reality the punctual myriads
moved. Men rose up and went for
ward and died. The fate of nations
lay behind the eyes of these three men
Indeed, they were like gods.
Most godlike of the three was Du
bofs. 1t was for him to decide; thu
others at most might suggest. Hel
woman's soul went out to this grave
handsome, tall, old man, in passion OF
instructive worship.
Once she had taken words of in
struction from him direct. She ha(
awaited them in an ecstacy of happi
ness-and fear-for her e1altation wa
made terrible by the dread that som,
error might dishonor her.
She watched him now through tn,
glass with all the unpenetrating mi
nuteness of an impassioned woman
observation.
He said little, she remarked II,
looked but little at the maps. TIL,
tall Englishman beside him was mani
testify troubled by swarm of ideas
conflicting ideas. He craned his necl
at every shifting of the little red, blue
black and yellow pieces on the boart
and wanted to draw the commander