e's afire."

The group gave a weak cheer.

Then the clouds cleared for an instant and revealed a crescent. G.J.
said:

"That's the moon, you idiots. It's not a Zeppelin."

Even as he spoke he wondered, and regretted, that he should be calling
them idiots. They were complete strangers to him. The group vanished,
crestfallen, round another corner. G.J. laughed to Christine. Then the
noise of guns was multiplied. That he was with Christine in the midst
of an authentic air-raid could no longer be doubted. He was conscious
of the wine he had drunk at the club. He had the sensation of human
beings, men like himself, who ate and drank and laced their boots,
being actually at that moment up there in the sky with intent to
kill him and Christine. It was a marvellous sensation, terrible but
exquisite. And he had the sensation of other human beings beyond the
sea, giving deliberate orders in German for murder, murdering for
their lives; and they, too, were like himself, and ate and drank and
either laced their boots or had them laced daily. And the staggering
apprehension of the miraculous lunacy of war swept through his soul.

Chapter 30

THE CHILD'S ARM

"You see," he said to Christine, "it was not a Zeppelin.... We shall
be quite safe here."

But in that last phrase he had now confessed to her the existence
of an air-raid. He knew that he was not behaving with the maximum
of sagacity. There were, for example, hotels with subterranean
grill-rooms close by, and there were similar refuges where danger
would be less than in the street, though the street was narrow and
might be compared to a trench. And yet he had said, "We shall be quite
safe here." In others he would have condemned such an attitude.

Now, however, he realised that he was very like others. An inactive
fatalism had seized him. He was too proud, too idle, too negligent,
too curious, to do the wise thing. He and Christine were in the
air-raid, and in it they should remain. He had just the senseless,
monkeyish curiosity of the staring crowd so lyrically praised by
the London Press. He was afraid, but his curiosity and inertia were
stronger than his fear. Then came a most tremendous explosion--the
loudest sound, the most formidable physical phenomenon that G.J. had
ever experienced in his life. The earth under their feet trembled.
Christine gave a squeal and seemed to subside to the ground, but he
pulled her up again, not in calm self-possession, but