Evening star., 1940-09-03
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.


By Thomas r. Henry.
"Corn rigs and barley rigs
And corn rigs are bonny-"
The harvest moon rose blood-red out
Of the German ocean. To the edge Of
the tapping waters extended the Scotch
wheat and barley fields with their ricks
of yellow grain and occasional long. low,
white-washed stone farmhouses, nghtless
and solitary. Lyrically unearthly was
the toneless music Of the washed
hillsides apd beaches. The scene was a
succession Of stanzas Of harvest time
idyl with recurrent notes OF old, un-
happy, far-off things.
Into the timeless melancholy Of har-
vest and moonlight plunged a smoke
belching ogre of time in an aura of
ghastly blue. 1t gas the Edinburgh
London train. three hours late, only
single dim blue lights burning in each
compartment. carrying into depths OF
q haunted darkness a few hundred
strangers. They looked eerie to each
other. men and women huddled together
In the blue-tinted dark. They were,
for the most part, silent, looking out Of
the windows at the red moon rising
higher and higher up the eastern sky
out Of the sea. The night before most
Of them had seen it rise over the tur.
rets Of Edinburgh Castle, mixing its
silver effulgence with the red Of the
geraniums in the gardens that stretch
along Princess street, and shining upon
, the Mound" where wild-brained and
unkempt fanatics were Grating Of hell
and Judgment to come or extolling the
glories Of a prince of peace who was not
the white-robed Gallilean but bloody
handed Tartar in Moscow who had
checked the war-mongering Of a faith
less Britain. The moon had been silver
then. 1t had been high in the heavens
when the bugles of the garrison at the
castle blew taps and the cracked voices
Of the open-air preachers tried to lead
a milling crowd in I've Been Saved by
the Blood"
The moon had been silver as 1t rose
through the night mists around the
castle. The lights Of Edinburgh had
burned brightly. 1t was red, blood red.
tonight and 1t was rising out of an east
over which already had been cast a
black blanket Of mystery. This was
the last night Of August and the sum-
mer was over and done.
Beside the moon as evening progressed
there foated a single star 1t was red
also. The Scotch doctor who had studied
astronomy said he thought it was the
war planet Mars. This was the first
blackedout train southwark. 1t carried
reservists In olive-drab bonnets and kits
called to join their regiments. nurses
recalled to their hospitals from holi-
days in the Highlands, colonial officials
eager to return to their posts In Africa
and India while transportation still was
available, mothers worried about their
children in London, Americans trying
to get to the London steamship offices
on the off-chance that there might be
Cancelled reservations.
From time to time these ghostly fig
ures tried to converse with one another.
But talk failed, for the minds of all
were haunted by the same vague shad-
ows of thoughts which were wordless,
!. called out of the subconscious depths by
the red moon and the red star in the
east. 1t was too clearly a symbol of
coming war, and none of them had any
real hope any more that war would be
averted. The blue train sped through
black towns and stopped at stations too
dimly Lit for one to distinguish the
vague figures on the platforms. The
huddled strangers were being carried at
40 miles an hour into land of ghosts
and cities Of dreadful night.
Some of the reservists tried to sing.
They had a parody on a popular ditty
of the summer training camps, which
promised for a few weeks to be the
"Mademoiselle From Armentiers" of 1889:
Under the spreading chestnut tree,
Here sit on Chamberlain's knee"
There were all sorts of pornographic
variations, somewhat modified in def
erence to ladies in the compartment.
But not even the good, foul earthliness
of soldier songs could break through the
spell Of the unearthly cast over the land
by the red moon rising. Nor could gen.
erous swigs of Scotch whisky from bot
ties given the boys as parting gifts by
fathers and uncles. The head of one
finally dropped on the lap Of hatchet-
faced nurse and she sat quietly so as
not to disturb the drunken sleep which
was a refuge from the melancholy en-
chantment Of the moon and the star.
Thus sped the train southwark through
the harvest of barley into the harvest
Of the bodies and souls of men. Al
ready the red moon was at its zenith
over the black woodlands east Of the
Vistula and over the darkened villages
and cities across the Rhine between
which were speeding other blue-auraed
trains filled with silent men in green
uniforms on their way to reap harvest
which the red moon already had ripened.
The train pulled into the darkened
Euston Station and the strangers in the
compartments dispersed, still strangers
after the mystic experience they had
shared, to make their way to their desti-
nations in a shadowed metropolis-the
worlds biggest conglomeration of hui
man beings transported suddenly out
of a century of light into the night