we had approached the incredible spectacle of a
civilisation in arms against itself. What would
the next day bring? Or the next?
Abruptly we realised that war for the individual has the quality of a perpetual and tragic disaster. Later, in the cities of Europe, in the devastated districts, in the towns under bombardment, in the front line trenches, that truth was forced upon me. So I have remembered chiefly the human incidents and impressions that will have a real meaning for the individual, who has had the foresight to visualise himself, his family, and his friends entangled in the struggle.
For it isn't easy to understand war in America. The entrance to the pier in New York teaches you that. Beyond comes a mental alteration as pronounced as the change from brilliant sunshine to the sombrc obscurity of the shed. It is accented by the tight line before the gangway, by the suspicious examination of passports and luggage, by the unstudied talk among the inspectors of bombs, of spies, of the possibility of submarines. And the gangway is the threshold of war.
On all boats bound for Europe these days there is an atmosphere of difficult partings, a reluctance to discuss the future. There are, moreover, people who bring war home to you.
That afternoon of the drill, for instance, I
