righton two hours ago. The
Automobile Club in the first hour collected two hundred cars and turned
them over to the Guards in Bird Cage Walk. Cody and Grahame-White and
eight of his air men left Hendon an hour ago to reconnoitre the south
coast. Admiral Beatty has started with the Channel Squadron to head off
the German convoy in the North Sea, and the torpedo destroyers have been
sent to lie outside of Heligoland. We'll get that back by daylight. And
on land every one of the three services is under arms. On this coast
alone before sunrise we'll have one hundred thousand men, and from
Colchester the brigade division of artillery, from Ipswich the R. H.
A.'s with siege-guns, field-guns, quick-firing-guns, all kinds of guns
spread out over every foot of ground from here to Hunstanton. They
thought they'd give us a surprise party. They will never give us another
surprise party!"

On the top of the hill at Overstrand, the headwaiter of the East Cliff
Hotel and the bearded German stood in the garden back of the house with
the forbidding walls. From the road in front came unceasingly the tramp
and shuffle of thousands of marching feet, the rumble of heavy cannon,
the clanking of their chains, the voices of men trained to command
raised in sharp, confident orders. The sky was illuminated by countless
fires. Every window of every cottage and hotel blazed with lights. The
night had been turned into day. The eyes of the two Germans were like
the eyes of those who had passed through an earthquake, of those who
looked upon the burning of San Francisco, upon the destruction of
Messina.

"We were betrayed, general," whispered the head-waiter.

"We were betrayed, baron," replied the bearded one.

"But you were in time to warn the flotilla."

With a sigh, the older man nodded.

"The last message I received over the wireless," he said, "before I
destroyed it, read, 'Your message understood. We are returning. Our
movements will be explained as manoeuvres. And," added the general, "The
English, having driven us back, will be willing to officially accept
that explanation. As manoeuvres, this night will go down into history.
Return to the hotel," he commanded, "And in two months you can rejoin
your regiment."

On the morning after the invasion the New York Republic published a map
of Great Britain that covered three columns and a wood-cut of Ford that
was spread over five. Beneath it was printed: "Lester Ford, our London
correspond