“Bombs,” was the reply; “three or four of them. And, I think, gun-fire. The Zepps must be nearer London than they have been at any time since last October. Let’s get down to the Embankment. We can see from there, if anywhere. They never wander far from the ‘river road.’”
The Strand, packed with the crowds from the emptying theatres, was plainly oblivious and unalarmed, and I promptly taxed Horne with letting either the wine or the “perfect air conditions” go to his head. He said nothing, but, all the way down the black little canyon of a street along which we threaded our way, appeared to be listening intently. Not until we were about to emerge into the brighter blankness of the Embankment did he speak again.
“There have been no more bombs,” he said, “but I think the guns are going right along. If the sound is too faint for your ‘unattuned’ ear, perhaps the fact that you hear no shunting of trains or whistling at Charing Cross or Waterloo (you know of the new order which halts all trains during air-raids) will convince you that the Zepps are about. Or if not that, then come along here and have some ocular evidence. What do you say to that?” And Horne pointed off down past the looming mass of St. Paul’s to where the stationary beam of a single searchlight laid low along the eastern horizon.
“I see the searchlight plainly enough,” I said, “but where’s the Zepp?”
“Take my glass,” said Horne, handing me a small pair of semi-collapsible binoculars which was evidently a constant companion. “Now focus on that point of brighter glow, with a shadow behind it, half-way down the shaft—right there, straight over the back of the right-hand lion at the foot of the Obelisk.”
I did as directed, fairly to gasp with astonishment as a tiny blur, so indistinct as to go unnoticed by the passers-by on the Embankment, sharpened to a long, yellow-ribbed pencil, with pin-points of light—fireflies escorting a glow-worm—flashing out and disappearing above and below and round about it.
“The first Zepp to get over London in six months,” I ejaculated excitedly. “How long will she take to get here? Hadn’t we better get away from the river and under cover? But no,” I went on, peering through the glass again; “I don’t think she’s coming this way. Seems to be standing still. Probably hovering over W——, the old objective.”
“London! W——!” laughed Horne. “Do you realise that you didn’t hear any bombs, and that none of these people have any idea that there’s a raiding Zeppelin, with shells bursting about it, squarely in their range of vision? That fellow’s all of twenty-five miles away, and as for its ‘hovering,’ you may rest assured that when you see a Zepp with incendiary shells bursting above it, it is either badly hit or else doing seventy miles an hour toward the home hangars. As a matter of fact, I’ve been expecting to see this fellow begin to drop at any moment. He’s evidently run into better guns and gunners than he counted on. Ah! No hope!” (Horne snatched his glass and turned it quickly on the now agitated searchlight beam.) “He’s gone. Even the light’s lost him.”
Horne turned around disgustedly, led the way to a bench by the curb, pushed along a somnolent “match dame” to make room for him, and wearily sat down.
“He’s slippery game—the Zepp,” he observed presently, after watching the futile flounderings of the questing searchlight. “I didn’t tell you, did I, that it was through trying to get a Zepp that I came that last cropper of mine over Belgium?”