Griffith, in England, wrote that he had wanted to enlist, but was being urged by English officials, Lloyd George and others, to do a war picture as propaganda. He might send for Lillian, soon.

“Intolerance” had made a stir in London, and the war situation had made a stir in Griffith. Like his ancestors, he wanted to carry a gun—to go into the trenches and pull a trigger. Lord Beaverbrook said to him:

“That is nonsense. You can do a thousand times more for the cause by making a picture that will show the need of American intervention on the largest possible scale.”

Griffith already had a story in mind—one he had planned on a night when he had been reading of the German desolation of Belgium and the French frontier.

“We will help you,” Lloyd George and other high officials told him. “We will give you the use of our soldiers and training camps; we will put you on the front lines in France.”

Griffith was ever a wary person. Never one to close a door behind him ... to make an irrevocable decision, to fire until charged and primed. He wrote Lillian that he was looking for a location in Paris, guardedly adding that he would not begin work until the war ended. On the strength of which, Lillian, by this time in New York, paid a brief, happy visit to Nell, then living on the “Blue Dog Houseboat,” at Miami.

Two weeks later, with her mother, she was on her way across the Atlantic. In eight days they were in Liverpool where they sat down to wait for Dorothy. It was not decided when they sailed that Dorothy was to have a part in the new picture.

Dorothy sailed May 28. With her was Bobby Harron; also, Griffith’s faithful camera man, Gottlieb Wilhelm Bitzer, a terrible name to carry into England and France. The ship was the Baltic—General Pershing and staff aboard.

“Tell me,” Pershing said to Dorothy, “how one can learn to face calmly a moving-picture camera.” Everyone is afraid of something.

The Baltic zigzagged across the ocean in thirteen days. Lillian and her mother became frantic, waiting. Dorothy, arriving, was shocked at her mother’s appearance. Her face was haggard with anxiety. Then, presently, they were on their way to London.

It was the first time any of them had been abroad. England in June: the tiny fields, the trim hedges, the stately trees, the thatched villages—picture-book land. At London they went directly to the Savoy Hotel, and were given a room on the Embankment, overlooking the Thames. Little did they guess what they were to see from those windows. All seemed quiet enough. They did some sight-seeing.

A few days later, they had a call from a post-office official, concerning a package from America. A courteous man, they asked him about the raids, on London. There would be no more, he said. The Zeppelins had proved easy targets, the Germans would not send them again. And he added: “Don’t mind if you should hear gun-fire at eleven o’clock; that will be our anti-aircraft gun practice.”

Barely were the words out of his mouth, when there came a far-off boom from the eastward. He looked at his watch. “Very extr’ord’nary,” he said, “they are beginning the practice half-an-hour ahead of time.” A moment later, he was gone.

The firing kept up. Lillian and Dorothy ran down the corridor, to a balcony. A waiter, passing, told them that the East End was being raided. He let them look through his binoculars. High in the air, to the eastward, one could make out a small, black speck—eighteen thousand feet up, he said.

They hurried down and got into a taxi, to see the raid. On the way to Whitechapel, they came to a post-office which had been struck. A corner of it was blown off—a number of persons killed. A great crowd had collected. They were told that much greater damage had been done in Whitechapel. They found there a schoolhouse, where ninety-six children had been killed. Crazed mothers swarmed about, looking for fragments of their dead.

Other bombs had fallen in the neighborhood. People were insane from grief. A schoolmaster carried out his own child. A woman standing near had just discovered that her boy was among the victims. Her face was distorted—it was as if someone had pulled it out of shape.