The vault was pitted with woolly tufts of shrapnel and
beautiful dead-whitesmoke-wreaths from the phosphorescent bombs. These
spread their sinuous toils high and low and seemed to fill the skies. On
both sides the aerial combatants were going home to roost, exchanging
challenges by the way. And all the time, hidden in a hundred woods and
brakes, the Archies sang in chorus. These evening voluntaries, including
the winding-up of a good many aerial sausages, were competing with the
last rays of the glorious indolent, setting sun, and were made complete
and appropriate by a good deal of "field music" from the big guns. But
even this, though it was a reminder of war, seemed to those who watched
rather part of the setting of a dramatic fantasia of the sky than a real
cannonade. It was one of the most wonderful pageants of the sky that
human eyes ever beheld. Even Staff Officers stopped their cars and got
out to look. A series of accidents: a gorgeous sunset, a clear sky,
great visibility, all combined to make the empyrean into an operatic
"set" which Wagner might have envied but could never have imitated.
In November, 1915, I also paid a visit to the front. I had some exciting
moments, but here again I want to give, not war reminiscences which will
seem very small beer to half the population of the United Kingdom, but
merely to describe an incident which combined the picturesque and the
entertaining.
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