at they were on a
short trip to Paris. A man from Cook's promised them a "good time!"
There were plenty of pretty girls in Paris. They slapped him on the
back and called him "old chap!"

A quiet gentleman seated opposite to me on a leather lounge--I met
him afterwards at the British Embassy in Paris--caught my eye and
smiled.

"They don't seem to worry about the international situation. Perhaps it
will be easier to get to Paris than to get back again!"

"And now drinks all round, lads!" said one of the trippers.

On deck there were voices singing. It was the hymn of the
Marseillaise. I went up towards the sound and found a party of young
Frenchmen standing aft, waving farewells to England, as the syren
hooted, above a rattle of chains and the crash of the gangway which
dropped to the quayside. They had been called back to their country
to defend its soil and, unlike the Englishmen drinking themselves
fuddled, were intoxicated by a patriotic excitement.

"Vive l'Angleterre!"

An answer came back from the quayside:

"Vive la France!"

It was to this shout that we warped away from the jetty and made for
the open sea. A yacht with white sails all agleam as it crossed the bar
of a searchlight so that it seemed like a fairy ship in the vision of a
dream, crept into the harbour and then fluttered into the darkness
below the Admiralty pier.

"That's a queer kind of craft to meet to-night!" I said to the second
mate. "What is she doing?"

"I'd like to know. She's got a German skipper and crew. Spies all of
them, I guess. But nobody seems to bother."

There were spies watching our own boat as we went across the
Channel, but they were on English vessels. Searchlights from many
warships turned their rays upon us, staring at us from stem to stern,
following us with a far-flung vigilance, transmuting the base metal of
our funnel and brasswork into shining silver and burnished gold. As I
stared back into the blinding rays I felt that the eyes of the warships
could look into my very soul, and I walked to the other side of the boat
as though abashed by this scrutiny. I looked back to the shore, with
its winking lights and looming cliffs, and wished I could see by some
kind of searchlight into the soul of England on this night of fate.
Beyond the cliffs of Dover, in the profound darkness of the night,
England seemed asleep. Did not her people hear the beating of
Death's war drums across the fields of Europe, growing louder