The Winslow mail., 1914-09-19

/ scale relief maps were laid out upon
! 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
teuigence came drifting in to the vari
Gus telegraphic bureaus in the adjacent
rooms. IN other smaller apartments
| there were maps of a 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 q
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
si0ns and frontier war the central
European generalship was striking at
the eyes and the brain. And while, with
certain difHdent hesitation, he de
velOped his gambit that night upon the
lines laid down by Napoleon and Molt
he, his own scientific corps in state
of mutinous activity was preparing a
blow for Berlin These Old fools!' was
the key in which the scientific corps
was thinking
The war control in Paris on the night
of July ? was an impressive display Of
the paraphernalia of military organiza
ton as the first half of the twentieth
century understood it. To one human
being at least the consulting command.
ers had the likeness of world welding
gods
She was skilled typist, capable of
nearly sixty words a 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 Sc9nty refreShment as she
had brought with her until her serv
ices were required again.
From her position upon the terrace
this young woman had a view not only
of the wide sweep of the river below
her and all the eastward side of Pari
from the Arc de Triomphe to st. Cloud
great blocks and masses of black o;
pale darkness with pink and colder
flashes of illumination and endless in
terlacing bands of dotted lights unde
a still and starleSs sky. but also th
whole spacious interior Of the grea
hall with its slender pillars and gra
cious arching and clustering lamp
was visible to her There over Il wi
derness of tables lay the huge maps
done on SO large a scale that one nigh
fancy them small countries The mes
sengers and attendants went and cam
perpetuallY, altering. moving the ittl
pieces that signiied hundreds an
thousands of men, and the great con
mander and his two cOnsultants StoG
amid all these things and near whe;
the fighting was nearest schcming d
recting. They had but to breathe
word and presently away there in IL
world of reality the punctua myriad
moved. Men rose up and went foi
ward and died The fate Of nation
lay behind the eyes of these three men
indeed they were Ike gods
Most godlike of the three was ID,
bois. 1t was for him to decide; I'll
others at most might suggest He
woman's soul went out to this gray,
handsome, tall, old man in passion 6
instructive worship.
Once she had taken words of il
struction from him direct She hi
awaited them il an ecstacy of happ
ness-and fear-for her eXatation WI
made terrible by the dread that SOP
error might diSh0nOr her
She watched him now through til
glass with all the unpenctratin2 III
nuteneSS OF an impaSSlOned woman
observation.
He said little. she remarked II
looked but little at the maps II!
tall EngliShman beside him WAS man
testify troubled by a swarm Of ideas
conflicting IDEAS He craned his nt,l
at every shifting of the little red, blu,
black and yellow pieces on the bourt
and wanted to draw the commanders
attention to this and that Dubois lis
tened, nodded, emitted word and be
came still again, brooding like the na
tional eagle
His eyes were so deeply sunken un
der his white eyebrows that she could
not see them and his mustache over
hung the mouth from which those
words of decision came. Ward, too
said little. He was dark man, with
dropping head and melancholy,
watchful eyes. He was more intent
upon the French right, which was
feeling its way now through Alsace to