BUCHAREST IN BOMB TIME.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 26 January 1917, Page 2

BUCHAREST IN BOMB TIME.

STORY OF A NIGHT-MARE LIFE. TAUBES FOE BREAKFAST, ZEPPS FOE DINNER. After having been ten days under bombardment from the German Zeppelins and aeroplanes w&ich came to Buch arest at all hours of the day with the regularity of clockwork, Mr Kennedy Jones, who has made his mark as a journalist and a business man, has just returned to London from Roumania. "People in this country can hardly have any idea of the difficulty of conducting any business negotiotions," he explained in an interview with the Weekly Despatch "with aeroplanes and Zeppelins overhead except for an hour on two's respite. The aeroplanes would be signalled just as one's breakfast was brought in, and that hardly conduced to as efficient a service as one would desire. They would be back again by lunch with a fresh supply of bombs,, and at dinner time the mad work would be continued by Zeppelins. In the short intervals between allowing for an hour's conversation to disculss each visitation, business and normal life would resume. "It is always a surprising revelation to a man how much he can endure, and certainly it was a revelation to mo to what extent business could be conducted under these trying conditions. A WAR TIME JOURNEY. "I had passed through Russia charged with a Red Cross mission to Roumania, where business interests of my own also called me, noting in passing what a fruitful field for railway development Russia presents. The courtesy of a French railway official had facilitated the last part of my journey to the frontier.

"From Jassy to Bucharest the atmosphere of train conversation immediately changed;- it became heavy with the talk of the German aeroplanes and the death noil they had exacted in the Roumanian capital the preceding day. At night we travelled in gloom to escape being made th e target of a vagrant Zeppelin, and the talk resolved itself into an earnest debate of the risks of being killed. "I knew then that my stay in Bucharest would not suffer by reason of any lack or* excitement, and I was given a foretaste of what I had to expect when we passed through Ploesti, whose importance a study of the Roumanian map only throws up in the right light when its geographical situation in relation to the Predeal Pass is properly noted. '"At Ploesti our arrival was coincident with a spirited effort by a Zeppelin to bomb the oil reservoirs. This settledMhe mood in which we were to make acquaintance with our destination. PEACE—AND PERIL A ''Bucharest rose out of the morning sunshine a smiling vista "of modernity, its white buildings clearly marked in the bright light, and the suggestion of Paris very vivid. The balm of the warm summer-like air and the deep blue of the sky seemed remote from such sinister mechanism as aerial frightfulness. ' ; I had just finished my bath and was with some appetite waiting my breakfast when I became unpleasantly aware that the usual daily programme was ',>bcut to begin. In the medley of noises that assaulted the ear one could distinguish the clatter of horse hoofs on the road, the bustle and scurry of rushing crowds, the metallic shriek of innumerable police whistles, and the rasping sound of iron shop shutters being hurriedly pulled down. It was for all the world as if some great disaster was about to overtake Bucharest. "At that moment, by way of prosaic relief, the figure of the boy waiter, breakfast tray in hand, was discovered in the doorway. He gave me one swift look and then, without hesitation, dropped coffee, eggs, toast, and all on the carpet and vanished, leaving me alone and hungry. "As swiftly as the noise had grown SO' it subsided. Bucharest became still, all life and accessories of life magically melting away. I remember distinctly how my ears clutched for relief at the slightest sign of noise. I , looked through the window and saw only empty streets. No human faces met my own, so completely had Buch-* arest made its way "underground," warned by the previous day's terrible toll .of a thousand victims—4oo dead, 800 injured. WHEN THE TAUBES Cx\ME. "At such moments one's instinct is J to step out in the street,, the suspense always being worse than the actual event, but before I had time to act. upon, it there came a whir and the ■ throb of engines, followed by the crash- I ing noise of an. exploding bomb. j "The. Taul.os had arrived for break- | fast, r. squdaron of five, a blazing hot j Bummer's morning making Bucharest, from an altitude of 7000 feet, the easi- j est of targets. They were almost spoilt ■ for choice where to drop their bombs. \ Their intention apparently was to bomb place? of military importance, but their aim was not very accurate, and what i

] the railway station missed a cinema show received, and what was the arsenal's good fortune was the bad luck of the Red Cross hospital. "Yet with the city at their mercy, save for the forts' guns, the Taubes did comparatively little damage. A few buildings were partially destroyed and thirty people in all were added to the death-roil, dreadful enough in all conscience, but really insignificant when compared to the opportunity. '•Having exhausted their supply of bombs the Taubes disappeared in the direction of Rustchuk, their supply base, and for an hour afterwards tiie one topic of conversation, as can be well understood, was the amenities of frighifulness. Then rapidly the city took on its customary aspects, the traffic rolled through the streets mice more, and what was a city of the dead an hour previously was now a great, pulsating capital. WHAT THE PEOPLE THINK. "And what of the people of Bucharest —their emotions? Were they panicstricken? Did the novelty of the experience unnerve them? Not at all. , They were merely sent into a white | heat of anger, and the explosive character of their temperament found an outlet in a burning resolve to take revenge on the cold-blooded murderous brood which is the enemy of the human race. "I saw this burning resentment in the eyes and manner of all to whom 1 | spoke, and I knew that Roumania • w r ou!d be with us to the end. From the guns of the fcrts had come a stream of shrapnel, but a Taube 7000 ft in the air is not a facile target. But with the spitting of the shrapnel curiosity prevailed over prudence and from my balcony window I saw the people slowly emerge from their shelters to watch the unequal duel in the air. "It was always like this. Whenever the Taubes or the Zeppelins were signalled for the first five minutes the animate side of Bucharest would disappear out of sight; the guns would snarl, and then the people would slowly troop out of doors again to watch and .to curse the slayers of their wives and husbands. "As the novelty of the ordeal wore off the people became as little concerned about the Taubes and Zepps as we in London. They became hardened to them; the risks were more or less accurately estimated. And with the seasoning process Went a Russian like indifference to consequences. The police liad difficulty in clearing the streets when the aeroplanes were an- j nounced; the people resented being told to move. At least they wanted to see what death from the air looked like. "I am not going to say 1 relished the ordeal. Far from it. A nerve-racking ! sort of business, it worried one like the attentions of mosquitos; it intruded uncomfortably on one's thoughts; it militated against that calmness of manner in which one should apply oneself to the day's duties. "I could sympathise with the feelings of the gendarme who vented his anger by shooting his revolver aimless ly against the sky. If I -had a revolver I daresay I should have done the same thing. "Normally Bucharest is an interesting town, and its people as attractive and engaging as all members of the Latin race. But you felt the monotony of an existence that hung on the one note of whether the air raiders Avculd be back for dinner, or would take an evening's holiday and leave you undisturbed for the night; you felt the farce of discussing business when you guessed that your companion's thoughts were, 'What kind of Zep pelin night will it be?' "It was all very unreal. How could such a phantasmagoria of existence, one mused, overtake a city sparkling in all its shimmering white modernity in the oppressive sunshine? You adapted your life to a weird set of conditions, adjusting it to the Taubes and Zeppelins. Their programme shaped yours. You took your walks when you knew they would not be about; you did your business when they had retired to their nests. The fashionable hour was the hour when Bucharest was free of the air invader; the correct business hour was the evening hour when the Zepp. was back at Rustchuk—all very tantalising and provoking, but still you managed."