A warship lay in the upper harbor. Small boats were clustered around it. Over its decks and within its structure, men were frantically rushing. It stood there, a shadow on the shadowy water, the embodiment of impregnable power; the small anxious boats around it like milling pygmies trying futilely to help its distress.
Then men began pouring from it. The little boats took them and made off. Alone it lay there. Motionless. Then there came a surge of its giant bulk upward—a torrent waterspout as of a great mine exploding beside it. Bow down, it began to sink.
The Statue of Liberty fell. Head down, with torch plunging like a falling symbol....
The great Fort Wadsworth guarding the Narrows, as though an earthquake had torn it apart, rose and shook itself and fell into a shapeless mass. A small police boat was scurrying by in a panic. The tumbling white waves engulfed it....
The Brooklyn Bridge lay broken and fallen. Its dangling cables hung like rent cobwebs ripped apart by a giant, ruthless hand.... Figures of men were clinging to parts of it.
Death, destruction everywhere. But there were soldiers grimly standing in Battery Park. Machine guns idly standing. Another warship, unattacked, belching belligerent smoke, moving majestically around the Battery from one river to another.
A harried lion. Undaunted. But helpless to fight.
Beneath the shadows of the lower Hudson we came upon Brutar and his clustered cohorts. The devastation was slackening; the bricks had done their work. Brutar was doubtless thinking of rejoining his people up there under the little Westchester town. He saw our shapes, and started north. We followed. Urging him on, but not attacking.
Thone began, "Once we get them all together up there—all of them together—" But he did not finish.