'The Dazzling Light', 1918 (c)

Chromolithograph reproduction of an original by Alfred Pearse, 1918 (c), published as part of a mounted set, 'The Angels at Mons', by S H and Company Limited, Clerkenwell, London, 1920 (c).

A man, 'Delamere Smith', in civilian dress holding a newspaper lies dozing on the Pembrokeshire coast at Giltar Point, near Tenby in August 1914. Above him appears an apparition of a medieval army on the march.

The image is mounted onto thin card, with the title and an extract from 'The Dazzling Light', a chapter in 'The Angels of Mons' by Arthur Machen, printed below. Machen records Delamere Smith's vision, describing a host of ghostly men-at-arms: 'they were all dressed in armour, and thousands and tens of thousands went marching by and the last to go by were cross-bowmen'.

Machen's story records how Delamere Smith joined up in 1914 and, when serving as a liaison officer with the French Army, bore witness as 'the men in armour marched by, just as I had seen them—French regiments. The things like battle-maces were bomb-throwers, and the metal balls round the men's waists were the bombs. They told me that the cross-bows were used for bomb-shooting'.

From a collection of items relating to the career of George Arthur William Kennard who served with The Buffs (East Kent Regiment).