6.
215
every screaming shell seemed to be directed straight at my
head and there was a miserable dragging compulsion to duck and
hide.
My "bravest" day was when I learned that the military
situation was definitely hopeless and that surrender was only
a matter of time. For the ensuing twenty-four hours I found
it not only possible but easy to disregard entirely the enemy's
actions and to walk calmly and steadily on any side of the street
as in peace. I remember descending to the centre of the town
from the "battle-box" after that grim conference. It was mid-
afternoon and planes were doing a concentrated dive-bombing
attack on the near-by Naval Yard. We had guns on the Cricket
Club ground and they were defiantly spitting up everything they
had. It was bedlam: the bark of the guns, the angry roar of
the diving planes and the crash of the bombs.
would have sought my lair by the quickest route:
Ordinarily I
but this
afternoon I felt impelled to saunter over to the cricket club
railings and, leaning there, to watch the gun crews working a
few feet away. This silly performance, which I did not repeat,
gave me some obscure satisfaction at the time.
One's friends were also interesting. At the prick of
danger some expanded to twice their peace-time stature, and
others shrank to half.
Very few remained unchanged. Civilians
on the whole did well: a great many of them persisted resolutely
and quietly in dangerous jobs. They drove food lorries under shell/