Morning came, and with it our disappointment to find that we had been stationary most of the night and had not covered more than sixty miles from Wuchang. Hungry, we began to prepare breakfast with the food we had brought when we were suddenly startled by an air raid alarm. In Hankow it was not an unfamiliar sound, so in an orderly and somewhat leisurely manner we clambered out of the train and took to the fields—a mixed and expectant crowd.
For about an hour we wandered around on that cool and cloudless September morning and then gradually drifted back to the train thinking there was nothing to worry about; we had had the same experience often enough in Hankow. The train began to move again, but in a very disturbing manner.
On for a few uneasy furlongs and then back again, till, at about 11 a.m. another alarm sent us scampering across country again. This time the sound of planes could be heard, so we stumbled down the embankment as best we could to take refuge in some sparse bushes at the bottom when the planes roared high overhead making in a westerly direction. They disappeared in the haze and we heard the sound of bombs bursting in the distance.
Back to the train again, but we had hardly settled down when the alarm was repeated. We lost no time in taking the six-foot drop to the track and had barely reached the foot of the embankment when we saw nine planes coming over. A soldier under a bush shouted to us to take cover, so we scrambled across the rough to a small clump of what proved to be holly and brambles. Mrs. Ramsay, who was with me, pushed her way in first and I followed, both of us scratching Our faces, arms and legs with the thorns.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.