CO129-590-25 Accounts of events leading up to surrender and subsequent treatment of prisoners- etc 23-4-1942 - 28-9-1943 — Page 187

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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/