Saturn who begot him
shall devour him in his turn....

'I was roused from these thoughts by the sudden realisation of the
presence of a squadron of aeroplanes far away to the north-east and very
high. They looked like little black dashes against the midnight blue.
I remember that I looked up at them at first rather idly--as one might
notice a flight of birds. Then I perceived that they were only the
extreme wing of a great fleet that was advancing in a long line very
swiftly from the direction of the frontier and my attention tightened.

'Directly I saw that fleet I was astonished not to have seen it before.

'I stood up softly, undesirous of disturbing my companions, but with my
heart beating now rather more rapidly with surprise and excitement.
I strained my ears for any sound of guns along our front. Almost
instinctively I turned about for protection to the south and west, and
peered; and then I saw coming as fast and much nearer to me, as if they
had sprung out of the darkness, three banks of aeroplanes; a group
of squadrons very high, a main body at a height perhaps of one or two
thousand feet, and a doubtful number flying low and very indistinct. The
middle ones were so thick they kept putting out groups of stars. And I
realised that after all there was to be fighting in the air.

'There was something extraordinarily strange in this swift, noiseless
convergence of nearly invisible combatants above the sleeping hosts.
Every one about me was still unconscious; there was no sign as yet of
any agitation among the shipping on the main canal, whose whole course,
dotted with unsuspicious lights and fringed with fires, must have been
clearly perceptible from above. Then a long way off towards Alkmaar I
heard bugles, and after that shots, and then a wild clamour of bells. I
determined to let my men sleep on for as long as they could....

'The battle was joined with the swiftness of dreaming. I do not think it
can have been five minutes from the moment when I first became aware of
the Central European air fleet to the contact of the two forces. I saw
it quite plainly in silhouette against the luminous blue of the northern
sky. The allied aeroplanes--they were mostly French--came pouring down
like a fierce shower upon the middle of the Central European fleet.
They looked exactly like a coarser sort of rain. There was a crackling
sound--the first sound I heard--it reminded one of the Aurora Borealis,
and I supposed it wa