were flung through solid attic blinds and
others were catapulted through brick walls a foot in thickness. A hole
as big as a moving-van burned into the road at one place. In a side
street an impromptu fountain squirted playfully into the dust-burdened
air, the result of a central water-pipe punctured by a slug from one of
the bomb's iron entrails. But these things were not noted until dawn and
comparative peace had returned to Walthamstow and men could count with
some degree the cost of the reckless invasion.

[Sidenote: British aeroplanes pursue.]

Before the clouds had swallowed up the hateful visitant the noise of its
attack had aroused the military guards across Epping Forest, in
Chingford village, and, aided by a search-light, the anti-aircraft-gun
opened its unavailing fire on the Zeppelin--ineffective, except that its
returning shrapnel smashed up several roofs and battered some innocent
heads. The Germans had gauged their skyward path to London along which,
apparently, they felt reasonably safe from gun-reach. But they had
barely headed homeward before a flock of army aeroplanes, rising from
all points of the compass, were in hot pursuit. One of the Britishers
was shot down by the men aboard the Zeppelin. Neither speed nor daring
counts for much in an encounter between flying-machines and swift
dirigibles of the latest types. The advantage lies solely with the one
that can overfly his adversary. This can be achieved by a biplane or
monoplane pilot only if he has a long start from the ground and time
enough to surmount his opponent. This is difficult even in daylight with
a cloudless sky. Given darkness and clouds, the chances for success are
tremendously against the smaller craft.

[Sidenote: The old switchman a victim.]

Eight bombs in all were launched on Walthamstow--two of them
ineffectual. The sixth bomb fell into a field close beside the railway
line and worked a hideous wonder. It blew into never-to-be-gathered
fragments all that was mortal of old Tom Cumbers, the signalman. They
found only his left hand plastered gruesomely against the grassy bank of
the railway cut--not a hair nor button else.

* * * * *

The great series of attacks by the massed German Army against the mighty
forces of Verdun began in February, 1917, and continued throughout the
following months. Taken as a whole, it was the most dramatic effort in
all its phases which took place between the German