Page:Armistice Day.djvu/271

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THE UNKNOWN SOLIDER
249

like the tower of Albert Church until it fell into a heap under the fury of gun-fire.

Presently the sun shone brighter so that the picture of Whitehall was etched with deeper lines. On all the buildings flags were flying at halfmast. The people who kept moving about the cenotaph were there for mourning, not for mere pageantry. The Grenadier officers, who walked about with drawn swords, wore crape on their arms.

Presently they passed the word along, "Reverse arms," and all along the line of route soldiers turned over their rifles and bent their heads over the butts. It was when the music of the Dead March came louder up the street.

A number of black figures stood in a separate group apart from the admirals and generals, "people of importance, to whom the eyes of the crowd turned while men and women tiptoed to get a glimpse of them." Men foremost in the Government of the British Empire stood in that group:

The Prime Minister and Ministers and ex-Ministers of England were there—Asquith, Lord Curzon, and other statesmen who in those years of conflict were responsible for all the mighty effort of the nation, who stirred up its passion and emotions, who organized its labor and service, who won that victory and this peace. I