Short Fiction · Chapter
The Dazzling Light explained
Lieutenant Delamere Smith, while on holiday in Pembrokeshire at the start of World War I, experiences a strange vision on Giltar Point: he sees a vast army in medieval armor marching through a fenland.
What happens
Lieutenant Delamere Smith, while on holiday in Pembrokeshire at the start of World War I, experiences a strange vision on Giltar Point: he sees a vast army in medieval armor marching through a fenland. Later, serving as a liaison officer in France, he witnesses the same scene in reality—French troops with bomb-throwers and crossbows—confirming his earlier vision.
Themes in this chapter
The Power of Storytelling and Art
The chapter explores how war generates legends and the myth-making faculty, with Smith's vision blurring the line between dream, art, and reality.
Supernatural and the Divine
Smith's vision of a medieval army and its later fulfillment suggests a supernatural or prophetic element, akin to divine intervention or a mystical glimpse.
Characters to notice
- Delamere Smith
Now Lieutenant Delamere Smith; experiences a prophetic vision of medieval-armored soldiers on Giltar Point, later confirmed in France.
Key passages
“The war is already a fruitful mother of legends. Some people think that there are too many war legends...”
The war has spawned many myths, and some complain there are too many, but the old tradition of myth-making persists.
Introduces the theme of war legends and the narrator's defense of myth-making.
“I thought I was standing by what looked as if it had been a farmhouse; but it was all battered to bits, just a heap of ruins and rubbish. All that was left was one tall round chimney...”
Smith saw a ruined farmhouse with a single round chimney, surrounded by thousands of armored soldiers marching by.
Key vision detail later confirmed in France.
“Ten days ago I was ordered to ⸻. I got there early in the morning, and had to wait a bit before I could see the General. I looked about me, and there on the left of us was a farm shelled into a heap of ruins, with one round chimney standing...”
Smith later saw the exact same ruined farmhouse and the armored soldiers in France, confirming his vision.
Climactic revelation that the vision was prophetic.