“Well, the noise of the guns was terrific,” his wife went on. “Fortunately there was no panic whatever in the theatre. The people were splendid. The manager at once came on the stage and urged us all to keep our seats—and most people did so. But it was most alarming—wasn’t it, Herbert?”
“Yes, dear, it really was,” replied her husband, who, turning to me, asked: “What were you doing at that time, Munro?”
“Well, Sir Herbert, to tell the truth I happened to be out at Hendon with my friend Ashton, preparing for a flight this morning. I got hold of a military biplane which had just been finished and had only had its last tests that afternoon, but as I had no bombs, and not even a rifle, I was unable to go up.”
“And if you had gone?” Eastwell chimed in. “I fear, Claude, that you would never have reached them in time. They flew far too high, and were, I understand, moving off before our men could get up. Our Flying Corps fellows were splendid, but the airships were at too great an altitude. They rose very high as they approached London—according to all reports.”
“And the reports are pretty meagre,” I remarked. “I only know that I was anxious and eager to go up, but as I had not the necessary defensive missiles it was utterly useless to make the attempt.”
“Nevertheless, I believe our anti-aircraft guns drove them off very quickly, didn’t they?” Lionel asked.
“Not before they’d done quite enough damage and killed innocent old persons and non-combatants. Then they went away, and bombed other defenceless towns as they passed—the brutes!” said Lady Lethmere.
“And writers in to-day’s papers declare that all this is really of no military significance,” remarked Sir Herbert, glancing fiercely across the table, a stout, red-faced man, full of fiery fight.
“Military significance is an extremely wide term,” I ventured to remark. “London heard the bombs last night. To-day we are no longer outside the war-zone. We used, in the good old Victorian days, to sing confidently of our ‘tight little island.’ But it is no longer tight. It seems to me that it is very leaky—and its leakage is towards those across the North Sea who have for so long declared themselves our friends. Friends! I remember, and not so very long ago, standing on the Embankment and watching the All-Highest Kaiser coming from the Mansion House with a huge London crowd cheering him as their friend.”
“Friend!” snorted Sir Herbert. “He has been far too clever for us. He has tricked us in every department of the State. Good King Edward knew; and Lord Roberts knew, but alas! our people were lulled to sleep by the Kaiser’s pretty speeches to his brave Brandenburgers and all the rest, and his pious protests that his only weapon was the olive branch of peace.”