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 was an interchange of rifle shots.
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