THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS
"WHY SHOULDN'T THEY, SINCE THEY WERE ENGLISHMEN?"
The next flash as of lightning that revealed to
us the progress of the drama of the past 365
days came at the end of the first month of the
war with the terrible story of Mons. That
touched us yet more closely than the tragedy
of Belgium, for it seemed at first to be our own
tragedy. Between the departure of an army
and the first news of victory or defeat there is
always a time of exhausting suspense. At what
moment our first Expeditionary Force had left
England no one quite knew, but after we learned
that it had landed in France we waited with
anxious hearts and listened with strained ears.
We heard the tramp of the gigantic German army, pouring through the streets of Brussels, fully equipped down to its kitchens, its smoking coffee-wagons, its corps of gravediggers, and, of course, its cuirassiers in burnished helmets that were shining in the autumn sun. The huge, interminable, apparently irresistible multitude! Regiment after regiment, battalion after battalion, going on and on for hours, and even days——the mighty legions of the nation that a few days before had "never so much as dreamt" of war!
At last we had news of our men. Against overwhelming odds they had fought like heroes—why shouldn't they, since they were Englishmen?—
