It was at Chilwell that the huge bombs were filled which were destined for Berlin. There were 100 of them to be carried in twenty-five Handley Page machines. Each bomb was capable of excavating 350 tons at the spot where it fell, and in a trial trip one which was dropped in the central courtyard of a large square building left not a stone standing around it. Berlin was saved by a miracle, which she hardly deserved after the irresponsible glee with which she had hailed the devilish work of her own Zeppelins. The original hundred bombs sent to be charged had the tails removed before being sent, and when they were returned it was found to be such a job finding the right tail for the right bomb, the permutations being endless, that it was quicker and easier to charge another hundred bombs with tails attached. This and other fortuitous matters consumed several weeks. Finally, the bombs were ready and were actually on the machines in England, whence the start was to be made, when the Armistice was declared. Possibly a knowledge of this increased the extreme haste of the German delegates. Personally, I am glad it was so, for we have enough cause for hatred in the world without adding the death of 10,000 German civilians. There is some weight, however, in the contention of those who complain that Germans have devastated Belgium and France, but have never been allowed to experience in their own persons what the horrors of war really are. Still, if Christianity and religion are to be more than mere words, we must be content that Berlin was not laid in ruins at a time when the issue of the war was already decided.
Here we are at Suez once again. It would take Loti or Robert Hichens to describe the wonderful shades peculiar to the outskirts of Egypt. Deep blue sea turns to dark green, which in turn becomes the very purest, clearest emerald as it shallows into a snow-white frill of foam. Thence extends the golden desert with deep honey-coloured shadows, stretching away until it slopes upwards into melon-tinted hills, dry and bare and wrinkled. At one point a few white dwellings with a group of acacias mark the spot which they call Moses Well. They say that a Jew can pick up a living in any country, but when one surveys these terrible wastes one can only imagine that the climate has greatly changed since a whole nomad people were able to cross them.