"And is he still there?" exclaimed the superintendent quickly, amazed at the motorist's statement.
"Yes. I asked him to wait for a few moments in order to speak to you, sir."
"Good. I'll go at once. Perhaps you'd like to come also, Mr. Fergusson?"
And all three ran up to the gallery, where the huge switchboards were ranged around, and where the night operators, with the receivers attached to one ear, were still at work.
In a moment the superintendent had taken the operator's seat, adjusted the ear-piece, and was in conversation with Ipswich. A second later he was speaking with the man who had actually witnessed the cutting of the trunk line.
While he was thus engaged an operator at the farther end of the switchboard suddenly gave vent to a cry of surprise and disbelief.
"What do you say, Beccles? Repeat it," he asked excitedly.
"Beccles says that German soldiers--hundreds of them--are pouring into the place! The Germans have landed at Lowestoft, they think."
All who heard those ominous words sprang up dumbfounded, staring at each other.
The assistant-superintendent dashed to the operator's side and seized his apparatus.
"Halloa--halloa, Beccles! Halloa--halloa--halloa!"
The response was some gruff words in German, and the sound of scuffling could distinctly be heard. Then all was silent.
Time after time he rang up the small Suffolk town, but in vain. Then he switched through to the testers, and quickly the truth was plain.
The second trunk line to Norwich, running from Ipswich by Harleston and Beccles, had been cut farther towards London.
But what held everyone breathless in the trunk telephone headquarters was that the Germans had actually effected the surprise landing that had so often in recent years been predicted by military critics; that England on that quiet September Sunday morning had been attacked. England was actually invaded. It was incredible!
Yet London's millions in their Sunday morning lethargy were in utter ignorance of the grim disaster that had suddenly fallen upon the land.
Fergusson was for rushing at once back to the "Dispatch" office to get out an extraordinary edition, but the superintendent, who was still in conversation with the motorist, urged judicious forethought.