Mr. Moggridge decided to sleep at the top of the house—alone. He had moved up there and sent down two of the girls to sleep with their mother, because he regarded the upper rooms as the most dangerous, and he was not lacking in courage. He regarded it as his mission in life to protect those who looked to him for protection. In his mind's eye, Mr. Moggridge saw himself the saviour of thirteen lives, possibly fourteen if he had not to give up his own in the attempt.
Each night it was his self-imposed task to examine "the defences" as his daughter, Mollie, called them. On every landing and outside every door were baths, wash-tubs, basins, pails and other vessels containing water. Even when the lights were on, it was a matter of some delicacy to thread one's way through these watery entanglements. The servants grumbled at the additional work involved; but Mr. Moggridge had silenced them with "a Zeppelin bonus," as he called it, and furthermore he had mobilised his whole family to assist in this work of protection against fire.
"When I've saved your worthless lives, you'll be grateful perhaps," he had exploded, and it had taken "Mother" all the next morning to explain to her domestic staff that "valuable" and not "worthless" was the adjective her husband had used.
Outside his own bedroom-door Mr. Moggridge had placed the large dinner gong on which to sound the alarm, and at the head of the stairs an enormous tin-bath full of water. It was so placed that the slightest push would send bath and contents streaming down the stairs. Mr. Moggridge argued that no fire could live in such a deluge.
In time Mr. Moggridge came to regard himself as something between a Sergeant O'Leary and the Roman Sentry, with a leaning towards the sentry; for there would be no reward for him. He saw his family safe and sound, whilst his neighbours lay maimed and dying.
"We are at war, my dears," he would inform his family, "and war is different from peace," and there were none who felt they could question this profound truth.
II
The night of November 5th was bleak and cold and misty, and as Mr. Moggridge prepared for the night he shivered, and prayed that no Zeppelins might come. He disliked the cold intensely, and pictured to himself the unpleasantness of sitting for hours in a damp cellar with very few clothes on. Sleep always came readily to Mr. Moggridge's eye-lids, and within five minutes of extinguishing the light and slipping into bed, his heavy breathing announced that he was in the land of wonder that knows and yet does not know a Zeppelin.
How long he had slept Mr. Moggridge had no idea; but he was awakened by what he afterwards described as "a terrific explosion" just beneath his window.
"At last!" was his mental comment as he sprang out of bed, sniffing the air like a cat that smells fish. He rushed to the window and looked out. There were no search lights to be seen; but another explosion, apparently in his own garden sent him bounding from the window to the door. Seizing the handle he tore it open and, grasping the leather-headed hammer, began to pound the dinner-gong as if his salvation depended upon his efforts. "Zeppelins," he yelled, "Zeppelins." There were sounds of doors opening, a babel of voices, a scream and then a soft-padded rush upstairs. "Don't come up here! Go down to the cellar," he shouted and, seizing the gong, he dashed for the stairs. There was another report, and an "Oh my God!" from the cook, followed by a peal of hysterical laughter from the younger of the maids.