A MILE HIGH OVER LONDON.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 110, 19 November 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MILE HIGH OVER LONDON.

And then she was gone. It did not look, so very high up. It was as long as thy diameter of my thumb nail (or more), when held at arm s length. It came nearly over us, and its last bomb landed about two thousand leet or less to tlio south-west; whereas when 1 lirst saw it it was to tho east of our location, and working northerly. Evidently it stole along the sky—a ■a uiilo higli in the dark—and was not icon till the first bomb fell. This revealed them, and ouco discovered they jf course dumped the whole string as last as possible, and then got out. The whole affair lasted perhaps six or eight minutes.

Even from my high and completely tommanding window —tho sky all aglow with tho fires to the south-east, the smoke making the long searchlight beams plain as they held steady on the white target—the roaring of the gun* and flashing of tlie aerial explosions - it was one of the most complete and Iramatic things that possibly could be.

The street was rather livelier than 1 have seen it, all going, like mo, to see, what? Around the corner, and to the rignt along Theobald's Road, I went, towards a big glow of fire just near by ■over there. The sidewalks wero full ot smashed glass, jarred out by the explosions. Near the tiro tho police wero holding the crowd back, by a string or them takmg hold of hands.

IN THE VERY HEART OF THE CITY. Turning back, I went oif toward tta other red glow, south-west, toward the Cathedral and tho very heart of London. After about half a mile I began fu go through (streets strewn with .\iuaciied glass and whole rows of shop fronts shattered by air concussions. In places the whole fronts of buildings wore festooned with tho wrecks of window casings and blinds —blown outward from within and dangling by a hinge or other trifling hold. Thousands of men and women were swarming along just as I wa» towards the centre of excitement, but I don't .think I saw one run —uor did I hear n 'oud word, or an excited word, look, or gesture anywhere. You could feel that everybody had his ears pricked up •i bit— but that was all. I got down -through wrecked shops and lifter to where firemen were attacking the worst of tho fires. The crowd was not all rigidly kept back, and I got in as far as the fire wagon, and then past that, and in toward the fire, and then following tht' lines ofnose, around into and up an alley at the end of wh : o}i .tho conflagration wa.-. "One line of hose being moved, hut inadequately manned, others and niy*elf took a hand at handling il pawing it' aloug, hand over band, like a great snake. Tho?r ahead shouted their wants down the line, and wo passed tin' word on bark and Mien those bad; posed word forward in thesaino way; and, as noed was, we hauled tho hoeo this way and that. And, as it dragged about, on the ground in the slop and debris and broken glass, it brought , /hits of glass along with it, and my fin-

gers are even yet bloody with the snags tney got. 1-HJfl BIG HTJLE IN THE TRIANGLE.

" Beyond tine, 1 passed still closer to the tire, and round the alley opened into an open 'square' (.only it was triangular)—about two or three hundred reet across. Tins space was full of dirt, hose, and more or leas firemen, policemen, army people, and few stragglers like me. Some people were leading a blindfolded horse out, and we let the hose go down on the ground so he could walk over it.

"In the middle ot this triangle, which had an asphalt pavement, was a ragged hole about 12 teet across ana three feet or a little more in depth. In the hole were water pipes, and one broken one was making a sort of horizontal fountain. As the walls on all sides ol this triangle were pretty thoroughly spattered up, and all the window* absent, 1 judge the hole was exactly t!:j work of one German bombone' oi the first I had heard as I lay m bed 30 minutes previously. "On the way back there were two or three other fires, and at one I saw some summary procedures used to hold the crowd out of an alley—but nothing to hurt one

*-I got back home to find the porter und one of the borders chatting amiably just outside the front door. My electric light, giving me some trouble, the porter, and then the-hoivsekeeper, joined me in fussing with it, and we got it right, and laughing they went off and 1 sat down and wrote this." NEAR HOSPITALS AND MUSEUM.

A supplementary letter, written next morning, shows how near at least one of the bombs came to the Museum: — "This morning I went up Guilford Street, about two hundred yards, and found' the fronts of whole rows of houses minus any window-glass, and some minus the sash also. Just here is Russell Square—a minute park about 175 feet wide und 400 feet long—and surrounded almost exclusively by good buildings occupied as hospitals. Squarely in the middle of this green park a '•omb had exploded, and you could see the crater of brown earth in the green grass, partly obscured by the heavy layer of leaves which the shock ripped from the trees. Most of tho hospitals lost all their front lgass and sash. Some showed deep scars in the masonry as though the bomb had been loaded with urape-hot. Housemaids, with perfect equanimity, were sweeping up the litter in their upper porches, and two English women were calmly pressing the electric button in a doorway where they were almost ankle deep in the wreck. And this was within bowshot o{ the British Museum."