down the staircase to the cellar for safety.

[Pg xii]

As I passed an open door, I heard a woman call loudly, “Oh, won’t somebody come and help me?” I went in to find, as I turned my flashlight about the room, a pretty, golden-haired lady, an American, with big deep blue eyes, struggling to get into a black dress. One of her arms was in a sling and she was having trouble. She looked ill and weak, but seemed a perfectly plucky and determined little person. I slipped her heavy coat over her shoulders, wondering, at the time, where I had seen her before. As we started for the door, she remembered something she had left, and said, “Wait—take this,” putting a small morocco bag into my hands, while she ran back to find something she wanted.

[Pg xiii]

[Pg xiii]

“Hurry!” I begged, for the air raid was a bad one and I was alarmed.

“I will, I will,” she assured me. “You go down and I will join you in a minute.”

“We’ll meet in the hotel cellar,” I answered.

Barely had I reached the first floor when there was a terrific crash; the front door flew open and several panic-stricken people rushed in from the street, seeking shelter. A bomb had struck near by.

Forgetting the woman upstairs (but still carrying the bags, hers and my own) I ran out to see if I could be of any use to those who had been hurt. Someone remarked as I passed, “Crazy American—imagine going out now!”

Airplanes were buzzing overhead; searchlights were meeting in the sky while anti-aircraft guns banged away. Bombs were bursting and shrapnel was falling. It was the worst raid I had seen. “‘Crazy American’ was right,” I told myself, and ducked into a low entrance marked “Cave.” It led into a wine-cellar, and a number of people were already there, all as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. The walls were lined with dusty bottles and the[Pg xiv] place was dimly lighted by candles stuck round here and there. Some of the people sat at tables playing cards, while others, wrapped in blankets, were making themselves comfortable on mattresses that lay about. The crashes continued, so I stayed there till the dawn crept into a small window before I ventured back to the hotel.

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