One regiment had
steel caps with wide trims, something like the old barbers' basins.
Another lot had knights' tilting helmets on, closed up so that you
couldn't see their faces. Most of them wore metal gauntlets, either of
steel rings or plates, and they had steel over their boots. A great
many had things like battle-maces swinging by their sides, and all
these fellows carried a sort of string of big metal balls round their
waist. Then a dozen regiments went by, every man with a steel shield
slung over his shoulder. The last to go by were cross-bowmen."
In fact, it appeared to Delamere Smith that he watched the passing of
a host of men in mediaeval armour before him, and yet he knew--by the
position of the sun and of a rosy cloud that was passing over the
Worm's Head--that this vision, or whatever it was, only lasted a
second or two. Then that slight sense of shock returned, and Smith
returned to the contemplation of the physical phenomena of the
Pembrokeshire coast--blue waves, grey St. Margaret's, and Caldy Abbey
white in the sunlight.
It will be said, no doubt, and very likely with truth, that Smith fell
asleep on Giltar, and mingled in a dream the thought of the great war
just begun with his smatterings of mediaeval battle and arms and
armour.
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