midnight on the twelfth of March
Meanwhile Gilbert Lennard passed his peaceful though anxious days between Bolton and Whernside , while Auriole , Margaret Holker , Norah Castellan and Mrs O'Connor , with hundreds of other heroines , were doing their work of mercy in the hospital camps at the different bases behind the fighting front . Lord Westerham , who had worked miracles in the way of recruiting , was now in his glory as one of General French 's Special Service Officers , which , under such a Commander , is about as dangerous a job as a man can find in the whole bloody business of war . And still , as the pitiless human strife went on with its ceaseless rattle of rifle fire , and the almost continuous roar of artillery , day by day the Invader from Space grew bigger and brighter in the great reflector , and day by day the huge cannon , which , in the decisive moment of the world 's fate , was to do battle with it , approached completion . At midnight on the twelfth of March Tom Bowcock had announced that all was ready for the casting . Lennard gave the order by electric signal . The hundred converters belched their floods of glowing steel into what had once been Great Lever pit ; night was turned into day by a vast glow that shot up to the zenith , and the first part of the great work was accomplished . At breakfast the next morning Lennard received the following cablegram from Pittsburg : `` All ready .