Next morning the children ran to the window, but the British Fleet had gone, vanished as silently as it had come, and the sea was almost clear.
“What has happened? Why have the ships gone?” The children pressed my friend with eager questions, and as you will also want to put the same questions, I cannot do better than tell you what she told them.
The great war with Germany had begun, and the British Fleet had gone eastwards to the North Sea, there to watch for the German Fleet!
But the most wonderful thing was that now, after a hundred years, British soldiers were going to fight again on the Continent. Almost exactly a hundred years ago Wellington, aided by German troops, had finally crushed Napoleon on the field of Waterloo. But now the British and the French were fast friends, and they were going to fight shoulder to shoulder against the German hosts.
A great writer, who was even greater as a poet, George Meredith, wrote some noble lines on this new-found friendship. I quote one verse:
“Joy that no more with murder’s frown
The ancient rivals bark apart.
Now Nelson to brave France is shown
A hero after her own heart:
And he now scanning that quick race