THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 29, 1989
best place to put the Beadle dugout. I played chess for Hertfordshire, was
THE HOPKINS In accordance with my usual custom quite a modest, unassuming fellow.
MANUSCRIPT
(Continued from Page 18)
At the December meeting of the Lunar Society, the president told us that shortly after Christmas the moon would have approached within 150,000 miles. Its increased size and general appearance would then become so ob- vious to the naked eye that it was certain to end 'the Secret.
I arranged to spend Christmas my Uncle Henry and Aunt Rose Notting Hill.
with
at
The unsettled weather had turned to snow and I journeyed to London over a lovely mantle of whiteness.
*
洳
*
*
No longer was it the flat, silver disc that man had known since man began to live. It was a ball-a great shining ball whose centre seemed nearer to us than its rim. It was no longer set firmly in the sky; it had broken loose from its time-rusted moorings in the heavens and seemed to hover in qui- yering uncertainty between sky and
I stared up with them. Heaven knows I should have expected, what I saw, and yet of all that group I must have been the most surprised and hor- rified. For the past week the snow- Jessie was a good-natured soul, andladen clouds had permitted the moon it was a wonderful evening-an even to grow to its full in secret-and here ing that is enshrined in my memory it was, blazening its awful message to because it was the last--the very last | the earth'at, last. upon which I heard carefree laughter around me. I have heard laughter As I walked down the platform at since, but it has been the laughter or Waterloo I saw Colonel Parker, who heroism or the laughter of insanity.
My uncle had hired a car for the lives at the Manor House opposite to
With occasion, but knowing from our jour- me across the valley at home. him was a tall boy of about sixteenney to the theatre how uncomfortably That would be three months before | whom I recognised as his nephew crowded it was with five persons in it, I insisted upon walking part of the My retired life had never brought way home and picking up a taxi ai
touch me into close
with Colonel Piccadilly-circus. Parker, but I knew that since early newspapers childhood Robin and his sister Pat had startled me. They announced: "DUG-lived with him-their father, a major OUTS FOR ALL," and for a moment in the Indian Army, having been kill-"Jessie, dear!" I did not resent
ed upon the North-West Frontier, and their mother, I understood, having died when Robin was born.
the end.
A few days afterwards the Prime Minister made a remarkable speech in Parliament.
The headlines in the
I thought the Secret was out. But as I read the speech I realised what a clever move had been made.
The danger of air attack by foreign enemy, said the Prime Minister, was at last to be given vigorous attention and every town and village in Great Britain was to have its dugout for the protection of its citizens against bombs and gas.
Robin.
the
earth..
་
Its old familiar face had gone and in its place were those craters of awe- inspiring beauty that until now the telescope alone had revealed.
that little
the
Jessie Philpotts called out, "Behave yourself!" as she climbed into the car. and although her husband exclaimed,
of I think the silence pleasantry, with its implied sugges-group was more torturing than
Here stood humanity tion that I was a dark horse when left sight above me.
-facing at last its awful test, and it neither moved nor spoke. I had to speak.. . I had to make some sound to break that uncanny stillness. I turned to one of the unshaven men beside me.
alone.
It was
I had watched the boy and girl grow
the loveliest night imagin- up; I had seen them galloping across able. A crisp trost lay underfoot and Anc the downs with a contemptuous dis- the rooftops glistened with the regard for their necks, and I had al-sparkle of snow that had fallen in the ways admired them for their abundant | afternoon. All along the Strand went galety and vigour.
merrymakers, singing together, in arm, and people were gushing from the theatres. The whole scene was in- toxicating, and I lingered amid it, re- luctant to end a delightful evening.
In terrible days, soon to come now, I was to know those young people in from conditions tragically different this gay atmosphere of Christmas.
At Notting Hill in their cosy dining- room Uncle Henry and Aunt Rose were as delightful an old couple as ever. I always called them connois- seurs of happiness, for Uncle Henry was in comfortable circumstances and had been retired from the Office
Every community was immediately to set up its "dugouts committee" and work was to begin at once under the supervision of local engineers who would receive full details and specifi- cations from the Ministry of Defence. Personally I was delighted with this vigorous and sensible move. It meant that preparations would proceed in an orderly manner, free from the risk of panic, and when the truth had to be told the dugouts would be so far ad- We had a delightfully boisterous vanced that the news would act solely Christmas dinner, and on Boxing Day as a stimulus for completion.
I went with my uncle and aunt to see It also made my
with secret infinitely the pantomime at Drury Lane more exciting and important, for I Sidney and Jessie Philpotts. The Phil- could undoubtedly assist (without di-potts were old friends of my family, vulging the Secret) by suggesting the and Sidney, although he had once
Works for several years.
of
TRIP! TO SOUTH AFRICA
& SOUTH AMERICA
BY
*
*
→
arm
Trafalgar-Square was almost desert- ed, but my attention was drawn to a silent little group beneath the Nelson Column
an incongruous little group of people drawn together in the common bond of curiosity. There were a few ragged wayfarers; two or three ordinary-looking men, who may have been clerks on their way to night duty; a messenger boy, and some people in evening dress. And all were silently staring into the sky.
"What is it?" I asked. He turned a pair of dull, hollow eyes towards me and jerked his head up- wards.
"Ask yourself," he said.
There was no more to say. From the surrounding streets came the sound of singing. Big Ben, down by the river, began to strike the hour of midnight; cars purred around the square, and I walked on alone.
The Secret was out. It was
It belonged to the longer my secret.
world.
TO-MORROW:
"The world learns
the truth"
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