BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



waiting I became very much afraid. My sanity 

 told me this was only a practice bombing, but my 

 memory rushed me headlong to Trafalgar Square, 

 to the Place de la Concorde and to Verdun. I 

 wanted very much to get under a seat in the boat 

 or pull something over me, but I did not, and a frac- 

 tion of a minute later the whole sea near the target 

 rose in majestic volume, a super-fountain of silver 

 spray which sank or floated off in mist. For a long 

 time there was a mound on the horizon at that 

 point. 



The silver mote wheeled in a two-mile circle, 

 and this time I listened uneasily but attentively 

 to the sound. In past years I had never done this. 

 Dunsany has written of the hyena-like snarl of 

 certain shells. This began as a sound of twanged 

 wire — wire stretched taut to the breaking point. 

 Then there joined to this an angry, waspish hum, a 

 sinister rise to the beginning of the hyena's shriek 

 which, as suddenly, passed into inaudible waves 

 and the end was absolute silence — a terrible waiting 

 for the dull boom of the depth explosion with its 

 deep resonance. It was not nice to hear the 

 Haitians in their fishing boats jeer and mimic 

 the sound. Its terrible significance for me ad- 

 mitted, rather unreasonably, no excuse even for 

 their complete ignorance. 



When the last plane had dropped its load, it 

 grape-vined downward in steep side banks, waved 

 "all clear" to us, and rushed across the bay. We 

 started our engines full speed and soon caught 



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