Tremendous as was the spectacle of the long line of fires extending out of eyescope to the City and beyond, there is no denying that the dominating feature of the climax of the raid was the Zeppelins themselves. Emboldened perhaps, by the absence of gun-fire, these had slowed down for their parting salvo so as to be almost “hovering” when the bombs were dropped opposite my vantage point. Brilliantly illuminated by the searchlights, whose beams wove about below them like the ribbons in a Maypole dance, the clean lines of their gaunt frameworks stood out like bas-reliefs in yellow wax. Every now and then one of them would lurch violently upward,—probably at the release of a heavy bomb,—but, controlled by rudders and planes, the movement had much of the easy power of the dart of a great fish. Indeed, there was strong suggestion of something strangely familiar in the lithe grace of those sleek yellow bodies, in the swift swayings and rightings, in the powerful guiding movements of those hinged “tails,” and all at once the picture of a gaunt “man-eater” nosing his terribly purposeful way below the keel of a South-Sea pearler flashed to my mind, and the words “Sharks! Sharks of the air!” leaped to my lips.
While the marauders still floated with bare steerage-way in flaunting disdain, the inexplicably delayed firing order to the guns was flashed around, and—like a pack of dogs baying the moon, and with scarcely more effect—London’s “air defence” came into action. Everything from machine-guns to three-and four-inchers,—not one in the lot built for anti-aircraft work,—belched forth the best it had. Up went the bullets and shrapnel, and down they came again, down on the roofs and streets of London. Far, far below the contemptuous airships the little stars of bursting shrapnel spat forth their steel bullets in spiteful impotence, and back they rained on the tiles and cobbles.
Suddenly a gruffer growl burst forth from the yelping pack, as the gunners of some hitherto unleashed piece of ordnance received orders to join the attack. At the first shot a star-burst pricked the night in the rear of the second airship, and well on a line with it; a second exploded fairly above it; and then—all at once I was conscious that the searchlights were playing on a swelling cloud of white mist which was trailing away into the north-east. The Zeppelin had evidently taken a leaf from the book of the squid.
The tinkle of shrapnel bullets on the roof sent me down at this juncture to join the gathering of my fellow guests on the ground floor, where, on the manager’s calling attention to the fact that my knees were shaking from the cold, I was glad to avail myself of the loan of his overcoat. I was not unappreciative of his delicacy in attributing the undeniable shiver in my frame to the cold, and I have not yet entirely made up my mind just to what extent the chill night air, standing in a twisted and cramped position in order to look up, and sheer funk shared the responsibility for it.
I have been under shell-fire on several occasions, and I confess quite frankly that I never before felt anywhere near so “panicky” as during that long half-minute in which the airships appeared certain to pass directly overhead. The explanation of this, it seems to me, may be found in the fact that, in the trenches or in a fort which is under fire, one is among cool, determined, and often callous men who are meeting the expected as a part of the day’s work, while in a Zeppelin raid one is more or less unconsciously affected by the unexpectedness of it, and by the very natural terror of the unhardened non-combatants. At any rate, to say that there was not a very contagious brand of terror “in the air” in the immediate vicinity of the swath of last night’s raid would be to say something that was not true of my own neighbourhood.
As soon as the firing ceased I slipped into my street clothes and hurried out, reaching the “Square” perhaps ten minutes after the last bomb had fallen. That terror still brooded was evident from the white, anxious faces at street doors and basement gratings, but a mounting spirit was recorded in the gratuitous advice shouted out by the “Boots” at a hotel entrance to a portly and not un-Teutonic-looking gentleman who went puffing under a street-light.
“No use hurryin’, mister,” chirped the young irrepressible. “Last Zepp fer Berlin’s just pulled out.”
At the end of a block my feet were crunching glass at every step, and a few moments later I was in the direct track of the raid. By a strange chance—it is impossible that it could have happened by intent—that last fierce rain of bombs had descended upon the one part of London where the hospitals stand thicker than in any other; and yet, while every one of these was windowless and scarred from explosions in streets and adjacent squares, not one appeared to have been hit. One large building devoted entirely to nervous disorders was a bedlam of hysteria, and the nurses are said to have had a terrible time in getting their patients in hand. From another, given over to infantile paralysis, hip-disease, and other ailments of children, came a pitiful chorus of wails in baby treble. The other hospitals, including one or two foreign ones, appeared to be proceeding quietly with their share of the work of succour, receiving and caring for the victims as fast as they could be hurried in.
The fires, except for a couple of wide glows in the direction of the City and a gay geyser of flame from a broken gas main in the next block, had disappeared as by magic, and most of the places where bombs had dropped in this vicinity could be located only by the little knots of people before the barred doors, or by following a line of hose from an engine.