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The World Set Free Chapter 2 - The Last War Part 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter two of the World Set Free by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Adam Rcitach, June two
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  Speaker 1: thousand nine, Alexandria, Virginia, The World Set Free by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter the second The Last War, Section five. A recent
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  Speaker 1: historical writer has described the world of that time as
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  Speaker 1: one that believed in established words and was invincibly blind
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  Speaker 1: to the obvious in things. Certainly, it seems now that
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  Speaker 1: nothing could have been more obvious to the people of
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  Speaker 1: the earlier twentieth century than the rapidity with which war
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  Speaker 1: was becoming impossible. And certainly they did not see it.
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  Speaker 1: They did not see it until the atomic bombs burst
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  Speaker 1: in their fumbling hands. Yet the broad facts must have
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  Speaker 1: glared upon any intelligent mind. All through the nineteenth and
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  Speaker 1: twentieth centuries, the amount of energy that men were able
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  Speaker 1: to command was continually increasing. Applied to warfare, that meant
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  Speaker 1: that the power to inflict a blow, the power to
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  Speaker 1: destroy was continually increasing. There was no increase whatever in
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  Speaker 1: the ability to escape every sort of passive defense, armour, fortifications,
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  Speaker 1: and so forth, was being outsmarted by this tremendous increase.
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  Speaker 1: On the destructive side, destruction was becoming so facial that
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  Speaker 1: any little body of malcontents could use it. It was
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  Speaker 1: revolutionizing the problems of police and internal rule. Before the
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  Speaker 1: last war began, it was a matter of common knowledge
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  Speaker 1: that a man could carry about in a handbag an
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  Speaker 1: amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city.
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  Speaker 1: These facts were before the minds of everybody. The children
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  Speaker 1: in the streets knew them. And yet the world, still,
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  Speaker 1: as the Americans used to phrase it, fooled around with
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  Speaker 1: the paraphernalia and pretensions of war. It is only by
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  Speaker 1: realizing this profound, this fantastic divorce between the scientific and
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  Speaker 1: intellectual movement on the one hand, and the world of
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  Speaker 1: the lawyer politician on the other, that the men of
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  Speaker 1: a later time can hope to understand this preposterous state
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  Speaker 1: of affairs. Social organization was still in the barbaric stage.
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  Speaker 1: There were already great numbers of actively intelligent men, and
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  Speaker 1: much private and commercial civilization, but the community as a
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  Speaker 1: whole was aimless, untrained, and unorganized to the pitch of imbecility.
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  Speaker 1: Collective civilization. The modern state was still in the womb
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  Speaker 1: of the future. Section six. But let us return to
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  Speaker 1: Frederick Barney's Vandryar and its account of the experiences of
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  Speaker 1: a common man during the wartime. While these terrific disclosures
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  Speaker 1: of scientific possibility were happening in Paris and Berlin, Barney
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  Speaker 1: and his company were industriously entrenching themselves in Belgium Luxembourg.
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  Speaker 1: He tells of the mobilization and of his summer day's
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  Speaker 1: journey through the north of France and the Ardonns in
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  Speaker 1: a few vivid phrases. The country was browned by a
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  Speaker 1: warm summer, the trees a little touched with autumnal color,
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  Speaker 1: and the wheat already golden. When they stopped for an
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  Speaker 1: hour at Herson. Men and women with tricolor badges upon
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  Speaker 1: the platform distributed cakes and glasses of beer to the
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  Speaker 1: thirsty soldiers, and there was much cheerfulness. Such good cool
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  Speaker 1: beer it was, he wrote, I had nothing to eat
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  Speaker 1: nor drink, since epsom A number of monoplanes, like giant swallows,
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  Speaker 1: he notes, were scouting in the pink evening sky. Barney's
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  Speaker 1: battalion was sent through the Sedan country to a place
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  Speaker 1: called Virton, and thence to a point in the woods
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  Speaker 1: on the line to Jamai. Here they detrained, beivouacked uneasily
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  Speaker 1: by the railway. Trains and stores were passing along it
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  Speaker 1: all night and next morning. He marched through a cold,
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  Speaker 1: overcast dawn in a morning first cloudy and then blazing,
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  Speaker 1: over a large, spacious countryside interspersed by forests towards Arlonne.
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  Speaker 1: There the infantry were set to work upon a line
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  Speaker 1: of masked entrenchments and hidden rifle pits between Saint Hubert
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  Speaker 1: and Verton that were designed to check and delay any
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  Speaker 1: advance from the east upon the fortified line of the Mouse.
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  Speaker 1: They had their orders, and for two days they worked
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  Speaker 1: without either a sight of the enemy or any suspicion
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  Speaker 1: of the disaster that had abruptly decapitated the armies of
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  Speaker 1: Europe and turned the west of Paris and the center
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  Speaker 1: of Berlin into blazing miniatures of the destruction of Pompeii.
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  Speaker 1: And the news, when it did come, came attenuated. We
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  Speaker 1: heard there had been mischief with airplanes and bombs in Paris.
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  Speaker 1: Barney relates, but it didn't seem to follow that they
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  Speaker 1: weren't still somewhere elaborating their plans and issuing orders. When
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  Speaker 1: the enemy began to emerge from the woods in front
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  Speaker 1: of us, we cheered and blazed away, and didn't trouble
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  Speaker 1: much more about anything but the battle in hand. If
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  Speaker 1: now and then one cocked up an eye into the
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  Speaker 1: sky to see what was happening there, the rip of
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  Speaker 1: a bullet soon brought one down to the horizontal again.
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  Speaker 1: That battle went on for three days, all over a
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  Speaker 1: great stretch of country between Luvon on the north and
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  Speaker 1: Longwy to the south. It was essentially a rifle and
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  Speaker 1: infantry struggle. The airplanes did not seem to have taken
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  Speaker 1: any divisive share in the actual fighting for some days,
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  Speaker 1: though no out. They affected the strategy from the first
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  Speaker 1: by preventing surprise movements. They were aeroplanes with atomic engines,
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  Speaker 1: but they were not provided with atomic bombs, which were
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  Speaker 1: manifestly unsuitable for field use, nor indeed had they any
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  Speaker 1: very effective kind of bomb. And though they maneuvered against
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  Speaker 1: each other, and there was rifle shooting at them and
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  Speaker 1: between them, there was little actual aerial fighting. Either the
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  Speaker 1: airmen were indisposed to fight, or the commanders on both
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  Speaker 1: sides preferred to reserve these machines for scouting. After a
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  Speaker 1: day or so of digging and scheming, Barney found himself
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  Speaker 1: in the forefront of a battle. He had made his
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  Speaker 1: section of rifle pits, chiefly along a line of deep,
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  Speaker 1: dry ditch that gave him means of intercommunication. He had
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  Speaker 1: had the earth scattered over the ageat field, and he
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  Speaker 1: had masked his preparations with tussocks of corn and poppy.
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  Speaker 1: The hostile advance came blindly and unsuspiciously across the fields below,
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  Speaker 1: and would have been very cruelly handled, indeed, if some
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  Speaker 1: one away to the right had not opened fire too soon.
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  Speaker 1: It was a queer thrill when these fellows came into sight,
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  Speaker 1: he confesses, and not a bit like maneuvers. They halted
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  Speaker 1: for a time on the edge of the wood, and
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  Speaker 1: then came forward in an open line. They kept walking
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  Speaker 1: nearer to us, and not looking at us, but away
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  Speaker 1: to the right of us. Even when they began to
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  Speaker 1: be hit and their officer's whistles broke upon them, they
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  Speaker 1: didn't seem to see us. One or two halted to fire,
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  Speaker 1: and then they all went back towards the wood again.
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  Speaker 1: They went slowly at first looking round at us. Then
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  Speaker 1: the shelter of the woods seemed to draw them and
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  Speaker 1: they troded. I fired rather mechanically and missed. Then I
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  Speaker 1: fired again, and then I became earnest to hit something,
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  Speaker 1: made sure of my sighting and aimed very carefully at
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  Speaker 1: blue black that was dodging about in the corn. At
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  Speaker 1: first I couldn't satisfy myself and didn't shoot. His movements
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  Speaker 1: were so spasmodic and uncertain. Then I think he came
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  Speaker 1: to a ditch or some such obstacle and halted for
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  Speaker 1: a moment. Got you, I whispered and pulled the trigger.
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  Speaker 1: I had the strangest sensation about that man in the
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  Speaker 1: first instance. When I felt that I had hit him,
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  Speaker 1: I was irradiated with joy and pride. I sent him spinning.
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  Speaker 1: He jumped and threw up his arms. Then I saw
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  Speaker 1: the corn waving and had glimpses of him flapping about.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly I felt sick I hadn't killed him. In some way,
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  Speaker 1: he was disabled and smashed up, and yet able to
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  Speaker 1: struggle about. I began to think for nearly two hours
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  Speaker 1: that Prussian was agonizing in the corn. Either he was
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  Speaker 1: calling out or someone was shouting to him. Then he
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  Speaker 1: jumped up. He seemed to try to get up upon
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  Speaker 1: his feet with one last effort, and then he fell
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  Speaker 1: like a sack and lay quite still and never moved again.
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  Speaker 1: He had been unendurable, and I believe someone had shot
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  Speaker 1: him dead. I had been wanting to do so for
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  Speaker 1: some time. The enemy began sniping the rifle pits from
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  Speaker 1: shelters they made for themselves in the woods below. A
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  Speaker 1: man was hidd in the pit next to Barney and
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  Speaker 1: became cursing and crying out in a violent rage. Barney
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  Speaker 1: crawled along the ditch to him and found him in
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  Speaker 1: great pain, covered with blood, frantic with indignation, and with
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  Speaker 1: the half of his right hand smashed to a pulp.
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  Speaker 1: Look at this, he kept repeating, hugging it and then
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  Speaker 1: extending it. Damned foolery, damned foolery, My right hand, sir,
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  Speaker 1: my right hand. For some time Barney could do nothing
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  Speaker 1: with him. The man was consumed by his tortured realization
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  Speaker 1: of the evil silliness of war, the realization which had
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  Speaker 1: come upon him in a flash with the bullet that
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  Speaker 1: had destroyed his skill and use as an artificer. Forever
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  Speaker 1: he was looking at the vestiges with a horror that
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  Speaker 1: made him impenetrable to any other idea. At last, the
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  Speaker 1: poor wretch let Barney tie up his bleeding stump and
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  Speaker 1: help him along the ditch that conducted him deviously out
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  Speaker 1: of range. When Barney returned, his men were already calling
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  Speaker 1: out for water, and all day long the line of
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  Speaker 1: pits suffered greatly from thirst for food. They had chocolate
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  Speaker 1: and bread. At first, he says, I was extraordinarily excited
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  Speaker 1: by my baptism of fire. Then as the heat of
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  Speaker 1: the day came on, I experienced an enormous tedium and discomfort.
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  Speaker 1: The flies became extremely troublesome, and my little grave of
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  Speaker 1: a rifle pit was invaded by ants. I could not
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  Speaker 1: get up or move about, for someone in the trees
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  Speaker 1: had got a mark on me. I kept thinking of
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  Speaker 1: the dead Prussian down among the corn, and of the
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  Speaker 1: bitter outcries of my own man. Damned foolery. It was
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  Speaker 1: damned foolery. But who was to blame? How had we
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  Speaker 1: got to this? Early in the afternoon, an aeroplane tried
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  Speaker 1: to dislodge us with dynamite bombs, but she was hit
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  Speaker 1: by bullets once or twice, and suddenly dived down over
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  Speaker 1: beyond the trees from Holland to the Alps. This day
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  Speaker 1: I thought there must be crouching and lying between half
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  Speaker 1: a million of men trying to inflict irreparable damage upon
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  Speaker 1: one another. The thing is idiotic, to the pitch of impossibility.
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  Speaker 1: It is a dream. Presently I shall wake up. Then
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  Speaker 1: the phrase changed itself in my mind. Presently mankind will
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  Speaker 1: wake up. I lay speculating just how many thousands of
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  Speaker 1: men there were among these hundreds of thousands, Those spirits
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  Speaker 1: were in rebellion against all these ancient traditions of flag
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  Speaker 1: and empire. Weren't we perhaps already in the throes of
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  Speaker 1: the last crisis, in that darkest moment of a nightmare's horror,
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  Speaker 1: before the sleeper will endure n more of it and wakes.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how my speculations ended. I think they
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  Speaker 1: were not so much ended as distracted by the distant
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  Speaker 1: thudding of the guns that were opening fire at long
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  Speaker 1: range upon Namur Section seven. But as yet Barney had
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  Speaker 1: seen no more than the mildest beginnings of modern warfare.
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  Speaker 1: So far, he had taken part only in a little shooting.
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  Speaker 1: The bayonet attack by which the advanced line was broken,
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  Speaker 1: was made at a place called kraw Roje, more than
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  Speaker 1: twenty miles away, and that night, under cover of darkness,
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  Speaker 1: the rifle pits were abandoned and he got his company
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  Speaker 1: away without further loss. His regiment fell back, unpressed behind
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  Speaker 1: the fortified lines between Namur and Sedan, entrained at a
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  Speaker 1: station called Mettee, and was sent northward by Antwerp and
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  Speaker 1: Rotterdam to Harlem. Hence they marched into North Holland. It
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  Speaker 1: was only after the march into Holland that he began
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  Speaker 1: to realize the monstrous and catastrophic nature of the struggle
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  Speaker 1: in which he was playing his undistinguished part. He describes
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  Speaker 1: very pleasantly the journey through the hills and open land
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  Speaker 1: of Brabant, the repeated crossing of arms of the Rhine,
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  Speaker 1: and the change from the undulating scenery of Belgium to
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  Speaker 1: the flat, rich meadows, the sunlit dike roads and the
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  Speaker 1: countless windmills of the Dutch levels. In those days there
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  Speaker 1: was unbroken land from Alkmar and Leiden to the Dollar.
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  Speaker 1: Three great provinces South Holland, North Holland and zuider Zeeland
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  Speaker 1: reclaimed at various times between the early tenth century and
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, and all many feet below the level
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  Speaker 1: of the waves outside the dikes, spread out their lush
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  Speaker 1: polders to the northern sun, and sustained a dense, industrious population.
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  Speaker 1: An intricate web of laws and custom and tradition insured
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  Speaker 1: a perpetual vigilance and a perpetual defense against the beleaguering sea.
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  Speaker 1: For more than two hundred and fifty miles from Walkerin
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  Speaker 1: to Friesland stretched a line of embankments and pumping stations.
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  Speaker 1: That was the admiration of the world. If some curious
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  Speaker 1: God had chosen to watch the course of events in
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  Speaker 1: these northern provinces while that flanking march of the British
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  Speaker 1: was in proper, he would have found a convenient and
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  Speaker 1: appropriate seat for his observation upon one of the great
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  Speaker 1: cumulus clouds that were drifting slowly across the blue sky
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  Speaker 1: during all these eventful days before the great catastrophe. For
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  Speaker 1: that was the quality of the weather. Hot and clear,
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  Speaker 1: with something of a breeze, an underfoot, dry, and a
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  Speaker 1: little inclined to be dusty. This watching God would have
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  Speaker 1: looked down upon broad stretches of sunlit green sunlit save
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  Speaker 1: for the creeping patches of shadow cast by the clouds
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  Speaker 1: upon sky, reflecting mirrors fringed and divided up by masses
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  Speaker 1: of willow, and large areas of silvery weeds, upon white
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  Speaker 1: roads lying bare to the sun, upon a tracery of
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  Speaker 1: blue canals. The pastures were alive with cattle. The roads
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  Speaker 1: had a busy traffic of beasts and bicycles and gaily
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  Speaker 1: colored peasants automobiles. The hues of the innumerable motor barges
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  Speaker 1: in the canal vied with the eventfulness of the roadways.
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  Speaker 1: And everywhere in solitary steadings, among ricks and barns, in
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  Speaker 1: groups by the wayside, in straggling villages, each with its
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  Speaker 1: fine old church, or in compact towns laced with canals
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  Speaker 1: and abounding in bridges and cliffed trees, were human habitations.
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  Speaker 1: The people of this countryside were not belligerents. The interests
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  Speaker 1: and sympathies alike of Holland had been so divided that
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  Speaker 1: to the end she remained undecided and passive in the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: struggle of the world powers. And everywhere along the roads
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  Speaker 1: taken by the marching armies, clustered groups and crowds of
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  Speaker 1: impartially observant spectators, women and children in peculiar white caps,
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  Speaker 1: and old fashioned and elderly, clean shaven men quietly thoughtful
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  Speaker 1: over their long pipes. They had no fear of their invaders.
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  Speaker 1: The day when soldiering meant bands of licentious looters had
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  Speaker 1: long since passed away. That watcher among the clouds would
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  Speaker 1: have seen a great distribution of khaki uniformed men and
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  Speaker 1: khaki painted material over the whole of the sunken area
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  Speaker 1: of Holland. He would have marked the long trains packed
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  Speaker 1: with men or piled with great guns and war material,
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  Speaker 1: creeping slowly alert for train wreckers. Along the north going lines.
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  Speaker 1: He would have seen the shelt and rhine choked with
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  Speaker 1: shipping and pouring out still more men and still more material.
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  Speaker 1: He would have noticed halts and provisionings, indie trainments in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the long, bustling caterpillars of cavalry and infantry, the maggot
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  Speaker 1: like wagon, the huge beetles of great guns crawling under
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  Speaker 1: the poplars, along the dikes and roads northward, along ways
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  Speaker 1: lined by the neutral, unmolested, ambiguously observant Dutch, all the
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  Speaker 1: barges and shipping upon the canals had been requisitioned for transport.
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  Speaker 1: In that clear, bright, warm weather, it would all have
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  Speaker 1: looked from above like some extravagant festival of animated toys.
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  Speaker 1: As the sun sank westward, the spectacle must have become
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a little indistinct. Because of a golden haze. Everything must
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: have become warmer and more glowing, and because of the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: lengthening of the shadows, more manifestly in relief. The shadows
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: of the tall churches grew longer and longer until they
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: touched the horizon and mingled in the universal shadow. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: then slow and soft and wrapping, the wars whirled, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: fold after fold of deepening blue came the night, the night,
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  Speaker 1: at first obscurely simple, and then with faint points here
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  Speaker 1: and there, and then jeweled in darkening splendor with one
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand lights. Out of that mingling of darkness and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: ambiguous glares, the noise of an unceasing activity would have
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  Speaker 1: arisen the louder and plainer now, because there was no
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  Speaker 1: longer any distraction of sight. It may be that watcher
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  Speaker 1: drifting in the pellucid gulf beneath the stars watched all
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: through the night. It may be that he dozed, but
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  Speaker 1: if he gave way to so natural a proclivity, assuredly
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: on the fourth night of the Great Flank March he
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: was aroused. For that was the night of the Battle
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in the air that decided the fate of Holland. The
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: aeroplanes were fighting at last, and suddenly about him above
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and below, with cries and uproar, rushing out of the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: four quarters of heaven, striking, plunging, oversetting, soaring to the zenith,
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  Speaker 1: and dropping to the ground, they came to a sail
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  Speaker 1: or defend the myriads below. Secretly, the central European power
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  Speaker 1: had gathered his flying machines together, and now he threw
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: them as a giant might, fling a handful of ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand knives over the low country. And amidst that swarming
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  Speaker 1: flight were five that drove headlong for the sea walls
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  Speaker 1: of Holland, carrying atomic bombs from north and west and south.
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  Speaker 1: The Allied aeroplanes rose in response and swept down upon
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  Speaker 1: this sudden attack. So it was that war in the
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  Speaker 1: air began. Men rode upon the whirlwind that night and
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  Speaker 1: slew and fell like archangels. The sky reigned heroes upon
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  Speaker 1: the honished earth. Surely the last fights of mankind were
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  Speaker 1: the best. What was the heavy pounding of your Homeric swordsmen,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: What was the creaking charge of chariots? Beside this swift rush,
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  Speaker 1: this crash, this giddy triumph, this headlong swooped to death.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And then athwart this whirling rush of aerial duels that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: swooped and locked and dropped in the void between the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: lamplights and the stars, came a great wind and a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: crash louder than thunder. And first one and then a
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: score of lengthening, fiery serpents plunged hungrily down upon the
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  Speaker 1: Dutchman's dikes, and struck between land and sea, and flared
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  Speaker 1: up again in enormous columns of glare and crimson, smoke
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and steam, And out of the darkness leapt the little
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  Speaker 1: land with its spires and trees, aghast, with terror still indistinct.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And the sea tumbled with anger, red foaming like a
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: sea of blood. Over the populous country below went a strange,
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  Speaker 1: multitudinous crying and flurry of alarm bells. The surviving aeroplanes
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  Speaker 1: turned about and fled out of the sky like things
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  Speaker 1: that suddenly know themselves to be wicked through a dozen
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: thunderously flaming gaps that no water might quench. The waves
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: came roaring in upon the land. We had cursed our luck,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: says Barney, that we could not get to our quarters
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: at Elkmar that night. There we were told were provisions,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: tobacco and everything for which we craved. But the main
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: canal from Zandam and Amsterdam was hopelessly jammed with craft,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and we were glad of a chance opening that in
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: enabled us to get out of the main column and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: lie up in a kind of little harbor, very much neglected,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and we'd grown before a deserted house. We broke into
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: this and found some herrings in a barrel, a heap
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of cheeses, and stone bottles of gin in the cellar,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And with this I cheered my starving men. We made
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: fires and toasted the cheese and grilled our herrings. None
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of us had slept for nearly forty hours, and I
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: determined to stay in this refuge until dawn, and then,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: if the traffic was still choked, leave the barge and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: march the rest of the way into Alkmar. This place
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: we had got into was perhaps one hundred yards from
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the canal, and underneath the little brick bridge we could
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: see the flotilla still and hear the voices of the soldiers. Presently,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: five or six other barges came through and lay up
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: in the mirror near by us, And with two of these,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: full of men of the Antrim regiment, I shared my
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: find of provisions. In return we got tobacco. A large
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: expanse of water spread to the westward of us, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: beyond were a cluster of roofs and one or two
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: church towers. The barge was rather cramped for so many men,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and I let several squads thirty or forty perhaps altogether
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: bivouac on the blank I did not let them go
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: into the house on account of the furniture, and I
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: left a note of indebtedness for the food we had taken.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: We were particularly glad of our tobacco and fires, because
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of the numerous mosquitoes that rose about us. The gate
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of the house from which we had provisioned ourselves was
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: adorned with the legend rug Dee big Frede joy with peace,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and it bore every mark of the busy retirement of
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a comfort loving proprietor. I went along his garden, which
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was gay and delightful, with big bushes of rose and sweetbriar,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to a quaint little summer house, And there I sat
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and watched the men in groups, cooking and squatting along
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the bank. The sun was setting in a nearly cloudless sky.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: For the last two weeks, I had been a wholly
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: occupied man, intent only upon obeying the orders that came
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: down to me. All through this time I had been
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: working to the very limit of my mental and physical faculties,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and my only moments of rest had been devoted to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: snatches of sleep. Now came this rare, unexpected interlude, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I could look detachedly upon what I was doing and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: feel something of its infinite wonderfulness. I was irradiated with
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: affection for the men of my company, and with admiration
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: at their cheerful acquiescence in the subordination and needs of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: our positions. I watched their proceedings and heard their pleasant voices.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: How willing those men were, how ready to accept leadership
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and forget themselves in collective ends. I thought, how manfully
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: they had gone through all the strains and toil of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the last two weeks. How they had toughened and shaken
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: down to comradeship together. And how much sweetness there is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: after all in our foolish human blood. For they were
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: just one casual sample of the species. Their patience and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: readiness lay as the energy of the atom had lain,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: still waiting to be properly utilized. Again, it came to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: me with overpowering force, that the supreme need of our
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: race is leading, that the supreme task is to discover, leading,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to forget oneself. In realizing the collective purpose of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: race once more, I saw life plain. Very characteristic is
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: that of the rather too corpulent young officer who was
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: afterwards to set it all down in the vanderyard. Very characteristic, too,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: it is of the change in men's hearts that was
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: even then preparing a new phase of human history. He
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: goes on to write of the escape from individuality in
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: science and service, and of his discovery of this salvation.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: All that was then, no doubt very moving and original.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Now it seems only the most obvious commonplace of human life.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: The glow of the sunset faded, the twilight deepened into night,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the fires burnt the brighter, and some irishmen away across
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the mirror started singing, But Barney's men were too weary
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: for that sort of thing, and soon the bank and
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the barge were heaped with sleeping forms. I alone seemed
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: unable to sleep. I suppose I was over weary, and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: after a little feverish slumber by the tiller of the barge,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: eyes sat up, awakened, uneasy. That night, Holland seemed all sky.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: There was just a little black lower rim to things,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a steeple perhaps, or a line of poplars, And then
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the great hemisphere swept over us, as at first the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: sky was empty. Yet my uneasiness referred itself in some
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: vague way to the sky. And now I was melancholy.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I found something strangely sorrowful and submissive in the sleepers
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: all about me, those men who had marched so far,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: who had left all the established texture of their lives
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: behind them, to come upon this mad campaign, this campaign
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: that signified nothing and consumed everything, this mere fever of fighting.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I saw how little and feeble is the life of man,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a thing of chances, preposterously unable to find the will
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to realize even the most timid of its dreams. And
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I wondered if always it would be so, if man
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: was a doomed animal who would never, to the last
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: days of his time, take hold of fade and change
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it to his will. Always it may be he will
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: remain kindly but jealous, desirous but discursive, able, and unwisely impulsive,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: until Saturn, who begot him, shall devour him in his turn.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I was roused from these thoughts by the sudden realization
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of the presence of a squadron of airplanes far away
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to the northeast and very high. They looked like little
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: black dashes against the midnight blue. I remember that I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: looked up at them at first, rather idly, as one
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: might notice a flight of birds. Then I perceived that
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: they were only the extreme wing of a giant fleet
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: that was advancing in a long line, very swiftly from
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the direction of the frontier, and my attention tightened. Directly
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I saw that fleet. I was astonished not to have
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: seen it before. I stood up softly, undesirous of disturbing
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: my companions, but with my heart beating now rather more
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: rapidly with surprise and excitement, I strained my ears for
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: any sound of guns along our front. Almost Instinctively, I
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: turned about for protection to the south and west and peered.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And then I saw, coming as fast and much nearer
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to me, as if they had sprung out of the darkness,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: three banks of aeroplanes, a group of squadrons very high,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: a main body at a height perhaps of one or
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: two thousand feet, in a doubtful number flying low and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: very indistinct. The middle ones were so thick they kept
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: putting out groups of stars, and I realized that, after all,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: there was to be fighting in the air. There was
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: something extraordinarily strange in this swift, noiseless convergence of nearly
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: invisible combatants above the sleeping hosts. Every one about me
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: was still unconscious. There was no sign as yet of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: any agitation among the shipping on the main canal, whose
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: whole course dotted with unsuspicious lights and fringed with fires
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: must have been clearly perceptible from above. Then, a long
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: way off towards Alkmar, I heard bugles, and after that shots,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and then a wild clamor of bells. I determined to
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: let my men sleep on for as long as they could.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: The battle was joined with the swiftness of dreaming. I
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: do not think it can have been five minutes from
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the moment when I first became aware of the Central
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: European air fleet to the contact of the two forces.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I saw it quite plainly in silhouette against the luminous
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: blue of the northern sky. The Allied aeroplanes, they were
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: mostly French, came pouring down like a fierce shower upon
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the middle of the Central European fleet. They looked exactly
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: like a coarser sort of rain. There was a crackling
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: sound the first sound I heard. It reminded one of
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the Aurora borealis, and I supposed it was an interchange
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: of rifle shots. There were flashes like summer lightning, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: then all the sky became a whirling confusion of battle
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that was still largely noiseless. Some of the Central European
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: aeroplanes were certainly charged and overset. Others seemed to collapse
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and fall, and then flare out with so bright a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: light that it took the edge off one's vision and
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: made the rest of the that'll disappear as though it
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: had been snatched back out of sight. And then, while
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I still peered and tried to shake these flames from
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: my eyes with my hand, and while the men about
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: me were beginning to stir, the atomic bombs were thrown
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: at the dikes. They made a mighty thunder in the air,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and fell, like Lucifer in the picture, leaving a flaring
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: trail in the sky. The night, which had been pellucid
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and detailed and eventful, seemed to vanish, to be replaced
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: abruptly by a black background to these tremendous pillars of fire.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Hard upon the sound of them, came a roaring wind,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: and the sky was filled with flickering lightnings and rushing clouds.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: There was something discontinuous in this impact. At one moment
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I was a lonely watcher in a sleeping world. The
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: next saw everyone about me afoot, the whole world awake
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: and amazed. Then, when the wind had struck me, a
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: buffet taken my helmet and swept aside the summerhouse of
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Brugda big Vrede. As a side sweeps away grass, I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: saw the bombs fall, and then watched a great crimson
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: flare leap responsive to each impact, and mountainous masses of
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: red lit steam and flying fragments climber up towards the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: zenith against the glare. I saw the countryside for miles
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: standing black and clear, churches, trees, chimneys, and suddenly I
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: understood the Central Europeans had burst the dikes. Those flares
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: meant the bursting of the dikes, and in a little
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: while the seawater would be upon us. He goes on
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to tell with a certain perlxity of the steps he took,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and all things considered, they were very intelligent steps to
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: meet this amazing crisis. He got his men board and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: hailed the adjacent barges. He got the men who acted
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: as barge engineer at his posts, and the engines working.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: He cast loose from his moorings. Then he besought himself
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of food and contrived to land five men, get in
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a few dozen cheeses, and ship his men again before
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the inundation reached them. He is reasonably proud of this
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: piece of coolness. His idea was to take the wave
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: head on and with his engines full speed ahead, and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: all the while he was thanking heaven. He was not
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: in the jam of traffic in the main canal. He rather,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: I think, overestimated the probable rush of waters. He dreaded
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: being swept away. He explains, and smashed against houses and trees.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: He does not give any estimate of the time it
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: took between the bursting of the dikes and the arrival
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of the waters, but it was probably an interval of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: about twenty minutes or half hour. He was working now
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: in darkness save for the light of his lantern, and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: in a great wind. He hung out head and stern lights.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Whirling torrents of steam were pouring up from the advancing waters,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: which had rushed It must be remembered through nearly incandescent
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: gaps in the sea defenses, and this vast uprush of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: vapor soon veiled the flaring centers of explosion altogether. The
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: waters came at last in advancing cascade. It was like
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a broad roller sweeping across the country. They came with
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: a deep, roaring sound. I had expected a niagara, but
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the total fall of the front could not have been
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: much more than twelve feet. Our barge hesitated for a moment,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: took a dose over her bows, and then lifted. I
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: signaled for full speed ahead, and brought her head upstream,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and held on like grim death to keep her there.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: There was a wind about us as strong as the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: flood and I found we were pounding against every conceivable
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: buoyant object that had been between us and the sea.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: The only light in the world now came from our lamps.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: The steam became impenetrable at a score of yards from
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the boat, and the roar of the wind and water
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: cut us off from all remoter sounds. The black, shining
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: waters swirled by, coming into the light of our lamps,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: out of an ebony blackness, and vanishing again into impenetrable black.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: And on the waters came shapes, came things that flashed
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: upon us for a moment, now a half submerged boat,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: now a cow, now a huge fragment of a house's timberings,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: now a muddle of packing cases and scaffolding. The things
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: clapped into sight like something shone by the opening of
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: a shutter, and then bumped shatteringly against us. A rushed
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: by us. Once I saw very clearly a man's white face.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: All the while, a group of laboring, half submerged trees
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: remained ahead of us, drawing very slowly nearer. I steered
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a course to avoid them. They seemed to gesticulate a
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: frantic despair against the black steam clouds behind. Once a
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: great branch detached itself and tore shuddering by me. We
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: did on the whole make headway. The last I saw
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of Vrugda big Vreda before the night swallowed it was
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: almost dead astern of us section. Nine morning found Barney
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: still afloat. The boughs of his barge had been badly strained,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and his men were pumping or baling in relays. He
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: had got about a dozen half drowned people aboard whose
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: boat had capsized near him, and he had three other
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: boats in tow. He was afloat and somewhere between Amsterdam
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and Alkmar, but he could not tell where. It was
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: a day that was still half night. Gray waters stretched
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: in every direction under a dark gray sky, and out
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of the waves rose the upper parts of houses, in
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: many cases ruined the tops of trees, windmills, in fact,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the upper third of all the familiar Dutch scenery. And
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: on it there drifted a dimly seen flotilla of barges,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: small boats, many overturned furniture, rafts, timbering, and miscellaneous objects.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: The drowned were underwater that morning. Only here and there
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: did a dead cow or a stiff figure still clinging
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: stoutly to a box or chair or such like. Who
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: we hint at the hidden massacre. It was not till
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the Thursday that the dead came to the surface in
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: any quantity. The view was bounded on every side by
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: a gray mist that closed overhead in a gray canopy.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: The air cleared in the afternoon, and then far away
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: to the west, under the great banks of steam and dust,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: the flaming red eruption of the atomic bombs came visible
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: across the waste of water. They showed flat and sullen
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: through the mist, like London sunsets. They sat upon the sea,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: says Barney, like freight out water lilies of flame. Barney
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: seems to have spent the morning in rescue work along
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the track of the canal, in helping people who were adrift,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: in picking up derelict boats, and in taking people out
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: of imperiled houses. He found other military barges similarly employed.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: And it was only as the day wore on and
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the immediate appeals for aid were satisfied, that he thought
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of food and drink for his men, and what er
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: had better pursue. They had a little cheese, but no water.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Orders that mysterious direction had at last altogether disappeared. He
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: perceived he had now to act upon his own responsibility.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: One sense was of a destruction so far reaching, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of a world so altered that it seemed foolish to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: go in any direction and expect to find things as
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: they had been before the war began. I sat on
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the quarter deck with Miess, my engineer, and Kemp, and
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: two others of the non commissioned officers, and we consulted
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: upon our line of action. We were foodless and aimless.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: We agreed that our fighting value was extremely small, and
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: that our first duty was to get ourselves in touch
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: with food and instructions. Again, whatever plan of campaign had
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: directed our movements was manifestly smashed. A bit Milius was
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: of opinion that we could take a line westward and
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: get back to England across the North Sea. He calculated
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that with such a motor barge as ours, it would
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: be possible to reach the Yorkshire coast within four and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: twenty hours. But this idea I overruled because of the
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: shortness of our provisions, and more particularly because of our
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: urgent need of water. Every boat we drew near now
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: hailed us for water. Their demands did much to exasperate
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: our thirst. I decided that if we went away to
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the south, we should reach hilly country, or at least
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: country that was not submerged, and then we should be
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: able to find land, find some stream drink, and get
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: supplies and news. Many of the barges adrift in the
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: haze about us were filled with British soldiers and had
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: floated up from the Nord Sea Canal, but none of
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: them were any better informed than ourselves of the course
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: of events. Orders had in fact vanished out of the sky.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Orders made a temporary reappearance late that evening in the
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: form of a megaphone hill from a British torpedo boat,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: announcing a truce and giving the welcome information that food
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and water were being hurried down the Rhine and were
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to be found on the barge flotilla lying over the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Old Rhine above Leyden. We will not follow Barney, however,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in the description of his strange overland voyage among trees
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and houses and churches by zandam in between Harlem and
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Amsterdam to Leyden. It was a voyage in a red
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: lit mist in a world of steamy silhouette full of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: strange voices and perplexity, and with every other sensation dominated
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: by a feverish thirst. We sat, he says, in a
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: little huddled group, saying very little, and the men forward
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: were mere knots of silent endurance. Our only continuing sound
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: was the persistent mewing of a cat one of the
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: men had rescued from a floating hay rack near Zandam.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: We kept a southward course by a watch chain compass
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Milius had produced. I do not think any of us
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: felt we belonged to a defeated army, nor had we
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: any strong sense of the war as a dominating fact
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: about us. Our mental setting had far more of the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: effect of a huge natural catastrophe. The atomic bombs had
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: dwarfed the international issues to complete insignificance. When our minds
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: wandered from the preoccupations of our immediate needs, we speculated
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: upon the possibility of stopping the use of these frightful
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: explosives before the world was utterly destroyed. For to us,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: it seemed quite plain that these bombs, and the still
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: greater power of destruction of which they were the precursors,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: might quite easily shatter every relationship and institution of mankind.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: What will they be doing, asked Milias, What will they
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: be doing? It's plain we've got to put an end
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to war. It's plain things have to be run some way.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: This all, this is impossible. I made no immediate answer.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Something I cannot think. What had brought back to me
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the figure of that man I had seen wounded on
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: the very first day of actual fighting. I saw again
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: his angry, tearful eyes in that poor, drippling, bloody mess
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that had been a skillful human hand five minutes before
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: thrust out an indign in protest. Damn foolery. He had
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: stormed and sobbed, damn follery. My right hand, sir, my
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: right hand. My faith had for a time gone altogether
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: out of me. I think we are too silly, I
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: said to Mylias ever to stop war. If we'd had
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: the sense to do it, we should have done it
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: before this. I think this. I pointed to the gaunt,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: black outline of the smashed windmill that stuck up, ridiculous
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and ugly above the blood lit waters. This is the
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: end Section ten. But now our history must part company
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: with Frederick Barney and his barged load of hungry and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: starving men. For a time in Western Europe at least,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it was, indeed, as if civilization had come to a
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: final collapse. These crowning buds upon the tradition that Napoleon
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: planted and Bismarck watered, opened and flared like water lilies
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: of flame, over nations destroyed, over churches, smashed or submerged towns,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: ruined fields lost to mankind forever, and a million weltering bodies.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Was this lesson enough for mankind? Would the flames of
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: war still burn amidst the ruins? Neither Barney nor his companions,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: it is clear, had any assurance in their answers to
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: that question. Already once in the history of mankind. In America,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: before its discovery by the Whites, an organized civilization had
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: given way to a mere cult of warfare, specialized and cruel,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: And it seemed, for a time to many a thoughtful man,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: as if the whole world was but to repeat on
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: a larger scale, this ascendancy of the warrior, this triumph
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: of the destructive instincts of the race. The subsequent chapters
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: of Barnay's narrative do but supply body to this tragic possibility.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: He gives a series of vignettes of civilization shattered it
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: seemed almost irreparably. He found the Belgian hills swarming with
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: refugees and desolated by cholera, the vestiges of the contending
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: armies keeping order under a truce, without actual battles, but
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: with the cautious hostility of habit and a great absence
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: of plan. Everywhere overhead, aeroplanes went on mysterious errands, and
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: there were rumors of cannibalism and hysterical fanaticisms in the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: valleys of the Samoi and the forest region of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: eastern Ardans. There was a report of an attack upon
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Russia by the Chinese and Japanese, and of some huge
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: revolutionary outbreak in America. The weather was stormier than men
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: had ever known it in those regions, with much thicker
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: lightning and wild cloud bursts of rain. End of Chapter
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: two