Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/46

28 glanced curiously at the human river of the Strand.

Mere boys, here were veterans of such fighting as the world has seldom seen. It was disquieting to forecast.

In a few weeks how many more shadows would crowd the thinned ranks!

The Australians joined the New Zealanders. They marched to Westminster Abbey, where the Queen and King came to mourn with them, to share as far as possible in their sombre pride. The crowd filled the sidewalks and the streets. Men and women bent from windows, clung to railings, sought a precarious footing on the wheels of wagons, or about stalled omnibuses. It was as great as the crowd at a football game. It was as soundless as those who gape at the funeral procession of some imposing personage.

A group of wounded stood on the roof of a low building near the Abbey entrance. The Queen and King paced from the Abbey. The King wore a service uniform similar to the uniforms of the wounded on the low roof. As he stepped into his carriage a single hand protruded from the mangled group. A single voice cried out, piercingly, hysterically, as if the King must be made to hear and understand and perform a miracle:

"Think of my arm! Oh, think of my arm!"

The crowd was too dense to get fingers to ears. Nor would it have been any use, for from the