rs. I must, however,
sketch them in broadest outline for the continuity of this personal
narrative of the parts played by my friends and myself in the dire
and astounding affair which was soon to bring chaos, not only to
little Bermuda but to the great United States as well, and a near
panic everywhere in the world.

On this evening of May 15th, 1938, the White Invaders showed
themselves for the first time as rational human enemies. The
residential suburb of Paget lies across the little harbor from the
city of Hamilton. It is a mile or so by road around the bay, and a
few minutes across the water by ferry. The island in the Paget
section is a mere strip of land less than half a mile wide in most
places, with the sheltered waters of the harbor on one side, and the
open Atlantic with a magnificent pink-white beach on the other. The
two are divided by a razor-back ridge--a line of little hills a
hundred feet or so high, with narrow white roads and white stone
residences set on the hill-slopes amid spacious lawns and tropical
gardens; and with several lavish hotels on the bay shore, and others
over the ridge, fronting the beach.

The invaders landed on the top of the ridge. It seemed that, without
warning, a group of white-clad men were in a cedar grove up there.
They spread out, running along the roads. They seemed carrying small
hand-weapons from which phosphorescent-green light-beams flashed
into the night.

The first reports were chaotic. A few survivors appeared in Hamilton
who claimed to have been very close to the enemy. But for the most
part the descriptions came from those who had fled when still a mile
or more away. The news spread as though upon the wings of a gale.
Within an hour the hotels were emptied; the houses all along the
shore and the bayside hill-slope were deserted by their occupants.
Boats over there brought the excited people into Hamilton until no
more boats were available. Others came madly driving around the
harbor road, on bicycles, and on foot--and still others escaped
toward distant Somerset.

* * * * *

A thousand people or more came in within that hour. But there were
others who did not come--those who were living in the score or two
of houses up on the ridge in the immediate neighborhood of where the
invaders appeared....

Don and I met Mr. Dorrance at the police station within a few
minutes after the news of the Paget attack reached us. We hurried
ba