The presence of an anti-aircraft battery somewhere near the Granada estate and the attentions being paid to it by a relay of large Japanese bombers made progress beyond that point inadvisable, since there was the spasmodic bursting of shrapnel overhead and bombs were dropping on both sides of the road. So the party concentrated on examining in detail the damage done to houses in that vicinity.
In one visited, which can be taken as typical of many, every door had been forced. The windows had been splintered by explosions. The garage had been hit by a shell, but little damaged structurally. In the rooms ere was chaos. The owner had been fortunate in removing most of his valuables before the district became a danger zone, but there were many pieces of heavy furniture id bookcases filled with books which had to be left behind.
Every drawer had been forced.
Furniture had been piled one piece on top of the other. The book-cases had been pulled down and the books piled in the middle of the floor.
Some of their covers had been torn off. apparently because they pretty pictures"—most of the books having suffered in this ay being designed for children.
In one room a hole had been made through the ceiling into the room above. This seemed such a useless proceeding seeing that ere was a perfectly good staircase, that it was suggested that some bright inquirer might have torn up the floor of the room upstairs and, noting the gap between the floor and the ceiling of the room below, ye stepped down to see what there hidden in this dark chamber and fallen through. The owner of the building—a man noted for his general philanthropy and genial out-"I hope he did." of course, he could not to enjoy the detached the other observers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.