Or a dog barking?
Richard told himself persistently it was only a dog barking, to smother the quality of vital contentment newborn in him and uprising with the nearer and yet nearer sound of the guns.
The darkness was lit with sinking star-shells; and through the thin white light which the rising half-moon spread over the estuary, the inland flight of little winged machines was clearly and delicately visible.
Richard stood stock-still, staring at these, till, in a surge of wild indignation, he found himself starkly confronted with the fact that they were the Gothas, and that they were over an English river, carrying death to an English city.
“Damn their insolence!” he shouted into the sky. “It’s our land——”
Our land, fizzing in a nightmare of flame; drowned in great gun-thunders. And these small black figures busy with their evening’s haul of fish not an hour ago, our fisherfolk—could we prevent them from being torn and hurt?
“Oh, Christ—that’s good!” as the barrage crashed from every side at once; and the giant gun on Canvey Island mouthed and reverberated above all the rest. Our barrage!... To Hell with these invaders....
Richard was all right. His at last, that blessed bias on the vision which he had forfeited, and so desperately sought. He was, thank God, incapable now of reason or justice or sanity—unconscious of himself and his position, oblivious of an enemy point of view. Just English for all he was worth. One man for one land. A patriot ... and—in it!... He forgot that he was alone; the rending chaos all about him gave him the illusion of being a central participant; so his solitary figure jigged and capered on the flat sea-wall with incoherent vocal splutter of encouragement and fury and a very delirium of pleasure.
A shape of yellowish drab came scuttling along the wall, arms thrown up to shield the face.... “Hallo—look ahead!” Richard called warningly—then threw out his hand and clutched at the slipping figure. “You were nearly down then—I say, what’s the matter with you?” for the little soldier was clinging to him in a very frenzy of terror, with prayer and sob and blasphemy mingled....