Our
only continuing sound was the persistent mewing of a cat one of the men
had rescued from a floating hayrick near Zaandam. We kept a southward
course by a watch-chain compass Mylius had produced....
'I do not think any of us felt we belonged to a defeated army, nor had
we any strong sense of the war as the dominating fact about us. Our
mental setting had far more of the effect of a huge natural catastrophe.
The atomic bombs had dwarfed the international issues to complete
insignificance. When our minds wandered from the preoccupations of our
immediate needs, we speculated upon the possibility of stopping the use
of these frightful explosives before the world was utterly destroyed.
For to us it seemed quite plain that these bombs and the still greater
power of destruction of which they were the precursors might quite
easily shatter every relationship and institution of mankind.
'"What will they be doing," asked Mylius, "what will they be doing?
It's plain we've got to put an end to war. It's plain things have to be
run some way. THIS--all this--is impossible."
'I made no immediate answer. Something--I cannot think what--had brought
back to me the figure of that man I had seen wounded on the very first
day of actual fighting. I saw again his angry, tearful eyes, and that
poor, dripping, bloody mess that had been a skilful human hand five
minutes before, thrust out in indignant protest.
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