From the summit of this steep English upland 1 see only a white fleet of clouds drifting on its course, resplendent and serene. 'The ocean below is still, a dark floor tilted against the bright vault.' Not a ship, not 2 smear of smoke, marks the emptiness' of one of the world's busiest highways. There is not a movement anywhere of the business of men. Far below on the beach, where the children played Jast summer, are endless coils of barbed wire. It looks odd, with nobody in sight where the fun used to be.
The earthworks and barrows of a folk Tong yone are about me. A young friend found a token of them—a flint arrowhead. The man who Tost it lived here when' Abraham journeyed south to Egypt. For this English promontory has witnessed much. Upon one night a beacon flared, when at last the Armada of Spain was inthe Channel, Not Jong after that a ship called the Mayower was insignificant in the distance, bound for what no watcher on this height could say. And when Napoleon's army was over the way, ready to ¢ross and march on London, from here another ship was watched, the Victory, fading west and south on her' way to Trafalgar.
rizon is sharp and perfect, and the en. That news seems trifling. Yet wind and weather have acquired significance. From out there comes a threat that our ancient ways of life are to be ended. Beyond the horizon is. hate.
Something has happened, The atmosphere placed, The reek at my. back was The xuns! We could see neither smoke nor target. Then my companion points t0 what over the sea, at a blinding height, appears to be a scurry of rooks at smote and leisurely evolutions. We hear the rapid uttering of machine-gun fire. Raiders are up there, and our men are among, them; but all dissolve in the radiance. 'The strangest thing in war is that earth and sky remain aloof, unaffected. 'They make no sign that they are with us, or against us, 'The Uirifl nods its head' drowsily, as in peace, ud a gull is poised and then sheers oblique We seo and hear no more. We wait for the next thing. Tu what shape will it come, and when, and where?
We scramble down the foreland. Below, a wooded valley, the only signs are of immemorial tranquility. 'This place once' waited the coming of Napoleon, a bogy still surviving locally in nursery rhymes; there even a Tegend that the great man landed near here one night and was seen and recognized. But now, across a mead, a girl is getting the cows home, and a husbandman is hoeing among his marigolds. Yet there in a hedge, added to the tangle of honeysuckle and. bryony, is a vine more determinate, its roots im the hidden hut of a signaller. A young xergvant in baltic dress stops us and wants to know what we saw on the foreland. He wears a decoration, but ix coo young to have won it at Ypres or on the Somme. He is perfunctory about it. "Dunkirk," he explains. But he does venture a little of what was lone by his small body of British volunteer infa.tey, really in their last ditch, to a mob of young Germans who continually chanted "Hitler," as if tranced, but did not use their weapons. And his story was shockingly dis cordant with an ancient setting which seemed not to have heard of We are confronted by a revolution against those traditional sanctities without which could) not imagine communal life.
Honoun, in the enemy's language, can mean the same ax treachery, and an aller is to him aw any yaming table, This new revolutionary ardour is not for liberty but appeals to the innate baseness of men. T still think war an obscene outrage on the intelligence. But this challenge by the Nazis is ultimate If they have their way, then there will be no right of wrong, neither ood nor evil; even the priest at the altar may be one of the secret police. Slavery is bearable, but the mind in chains is not. 'The heritage of the Renaissance and. the' Reformation—the foundation of Christendom, if you like—either will be Kept on the British coast or will perish in Europe. T know that British tradi-Hions and altairs may perish if this. is rested, but h if no rosistinee in "That is all the choice wwe have, We lave but one certainty today, apart from & multitude of simple and dutiful men such as that young, sergeant, We can depend only on the faith and resolution we can muster for another and a better beginning. ow lovely was the carly summer in There never was a more viv burueoning. One could hardly believe it. What. stilt with us, the comeliness of life? Not in mourning for us? Tt seemed to be a mockery, ike all else, Cherry and apple blossom, hawthorn, lilac, Jaburnum. One had to turn away. Iwas in the garden we! knew, but it was not ours, It belonged to 1d, wh one, We, were into it where all was lies, except evil.
Tt was curious. after Tistening at the radio to more news and worse, in those months, to look round vaguely, only to see that the objects in one's own room were as usual. They were unaffected, so far. Had they not heard? The implications of those Taconic messages from France needed courage to confess aloud. That was so especially to a listener who had been in the other war.!
The places named had associations which gave them, to some men, the sound of an incantation. Tt was useless to talk about them, for they meant more than could be! said.' Away they were going now, out of sight, dead litter in the storm. One day, without a prelude, we were advised coolly by an impersonal voice that Arras and Amiens were occupied by the enemy. Why. was reality monstrous? Amiens in flames? That cathedral?
We began to breathe freely again on that June evening when we heard we stood alone: on the night when we had fo confess, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us but only thou, © God." Confidence returned. A. neighbour peered over his wall next morning, and remarked to me, "Now we know where we are." Now we had nobody but ourselves to lose. Tt was amusing, when midnight was at a standstill, and as black as the pi to know that the people around were begin= hing to find themselves, were bracing up: to. hear subdued grim laughter. When the onl look is worse than dark, when the sky is like the prelude to downfall and eclipse, then for youth 0 cheer what confronts it may be: 8 good an intimation as any other of im= mortality. It was clear they must fight for their lives, For their lives? That had become a lesser matter, past considering. Tt was for the treasure of life they must stand up. not for themselves. If the right (0 use the mind were to be lost, as over most of Europe it was already lost, what apology would be left to mankind for its occupation of the earth? With reason no longer attempting (0 guide the offsirs of men, who Instead would be driven by the engines of pow then death already had re of mind under the stars more content in the hours of the day. No more a book in solitude heard to direct us to seck of life could not have been thquake. Yet how life! Their work done. villagers leave home of an evening 10 patrol their fields and hills. At dusk one meets them sauntering off, with rifles and shotguns, not knowing what may drop from the sky while their tamiles sleep, Despite all doubt, and the sad fallibility of news, and despite the dismaying certainty that our' enemy ix such that he overwhelmed the] formidable army of France in twelve days, we have found that we must continue to live by faith, We see our troops, for they us, but very little of our seamen 2 Occasionally they: show, but only distant look seaward to the weather at dawn—for another day has come, and we are still here—and glimpse one good reason why our night was undisturbed. On the skyline the far shapes of the naval patrol show black in the pallor. We don't know what our ships are doing, for distance gives them a casual and melting presence; but occasionally window curtains bulge, the air is displaced by gunfire, when distant haze veils a convoy of merchant ships and the Navy has put its arm round them, The afternoon was stormy, with breakers plunging over the rocks. It was not the invasion. We have reason to love sea more than ever. Nor was it a day for flying: the coiling was too Yow and dark, and only the ashing of the combers showed Where the ocean was. Then an object sud= denly appeared, skimming just above the smother of black and white, like a sea bird yin the tumult. One of our Spitfires, What madness, to be at play the spume! T'watehed him, alarm, while he circled round mounted to disappear in the scud. An hour later T learned that the moment when T saw him first he had sent an enemy bomber into' the waves, and was searching for any servi vor to report.
Faith is but knowledge surpassed. Well, have some knowledge on which to support faith. Enough has happened at sea to {ell us that what Englishmen used to do with ships can still be done by our seamen. It fas if our mariners have never lost' the abrupt disconcerting wit of youth. Perhaps freedom, salt, and sunlight are preservative. We have also learned that the kind of men who long ago drove the Spaniards up-Channel, have taken their lively devices to the clouds, and spend day and night cruising the sky between our land and Germany.
Democracy is not old and worn, Never believe it. "It is still in its carly stage.
adventure as this it shows its juvenile bility, sprightliness, and temeri At the Cinema Sur (at movie): Lock at Robert Taylor, honey Mises exactly the way you kiss and then ile sigh the same ar you do, after
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.