's Mansion
and the golden vaults of the Bank of England, transpired on the
sweltering night of which I write, one of the most witless and appalling
tragedies of the present war. Forever memorable in the hitherto
colorless calendar of Walthamstow will be this tragedy in the second
year of Armageddon.

[Sidenote: An ordinary hot night.]

[Sidenote: News of the war.]

Beyond the stenchful heat-stress of it, there was nothing up to
half-past eleven to mark this night as different from its fellows of the
past. From eight o'clock till ten the small activities of the town
centered chiefly about its tramway terminus, its smudgy station, its
three or four moving-picture theatres, and its fetid pubs. On the
pavements, in the roadways and at every crossing, corduroyed men yawned
and spat, and slatternly women, most of them with whimpering infants in
their arms, talked of shop or household cares and the frailties of their
neighbors. Some, more alive to the big events of a clashing world,
repeated the meagre news of the ha'penny press and dwelt with prideful
fervor on the latest bit of heroism reported from the front. Now and
again an outburst of raucous humor echoed above the babble of cockney
tongues. The maudlin clamor of "a pore lone lidy 'oos 'subing 'ad
desarted 'er" failed to arouse anyone's curiosity. Ladies in their cups
are not a rarity in Walthamstow. In side streets, lads in khaki, many of
them fresh from fields of slaughter "somewhere in Flanders," sported
boisterously with their factory-girl sweethearts or spooned in the
shadows. Everywhere grubby children in scant clothing shrilled and
scampered and got in the way. Humidity enveloped the town like a sodden
cloak and its humanity stewed in moist and smelly discomfort.

[Sidenote: Street lamps out.]

But shortly after eleven o'clock the whole place became suddenly and
majestically still and black. People who go to their work at sunrise
cannot afford the extravagance of midnight revelry, and there are few
street-lamps alight after ten o'clock in any London suburb in these
times of martial law. Walthamstow slept in heated but profound oblivion
of its mean existence. Beyond the town lay, like a prostrate giant
camel, the heat-blurred silhouette of the classic forest. Low over
Walthamstow hung the festoons of flat, humid clouds, menacing storm, but
motionless.

[Sidenote: The rhythm of the Zeppelin.]

[Sidenote: The train to serve as pilot to London.]

[Sidenote: