my's attack. Our men must have seen them
from the towers of our own fleet; they must have known what the red swarm
meant, as it came like rolling, fire-lit smoke far out in the sky--and
they must have read plainly their own helplessness as they saw our
thousand planes go down. They were overwhelmed--obliterated!--and the red
horde of air-cruisers was hardly checked in its sweep.

Carnage and destruction, those blue seas of the north Atlantic have
seen; they could tell tales of brave men, bravely going to their death
in storm and calm but never have they seen another such slaughter as
that day's sun showed.

The anti-aircraft guns roared vainly; some few of our own planes that
had escaped returned to add their futile, puny blows. The waters about
the ships were torn to foam, while the ships themselves were changed
to furnaces of bursting flame--until the seas in mercy closed above
them and took their torn steel, and the shattered bodies that they
held, to the silence of the deep....

We got it all at Washington. I sat in a room with a group of
white-faced men who stared blindly at a radiocone where a quiet voice
was telling of disaster. It was Admiral Graymont speaking to us from
the bridge of the big dreadnaught, _Lincoln_, the flagship of the
combined fleet. Good old Graymont! His best friend, Bill Schuler,
Secretary of the Navy, was sitting wordless there beside me.

"It is the end," the quiet voice was saying; "the cruiser squadrons
are gone.... Two more battleships have gone down: there are only five
of us left.... A squadron of enemy planes is coming in above. Our men
have fought bravely and with never a chance.... There!--they've got
us!--the bombs! Good-by, Bill, old fellow--"

The radiocone was silent with a silence that roared deafeningly in our
ears. And, beside me, I saw the Secretary of the Navy, a Navy now
without ships or men, drop his tired, lined face into his hands, while
his broad shoulders shook convulsively. The rest of us remained in our
chairs, too stunned to do anything but look at one another in horror.

* * * * *

We expected them to strike at New York. I was sent up there, and it
was there that I saw Paul again. I met him on lower Broadway, and I
went up to him with my hand reaching for his. I didn't admire Paul's
affiliations, but he had warned me--he had tried to save my life--and
I wanted to thank him.

But his hand did not meet mine. There was a stran