We were just settling down for sleep, cabin door open and fans full on in the hope of freshening the stale atmosphere, when the wretched' old Banshee started to wail. Every night and twice during the day, always at the same hour, Nazi bombers were raiding the docks where we embarked.
Passengers began to pass the cabin door with rolls of blankets and pillows, making for the best concentration point in the ship—the dining saloon, There. you have maximum protection overhead, and, as it is nearly at water's-edge, it is good for bomb splinters rising from a detonation alongside We didn't join the saloon-seekers. After many raids one gets used to disregarding the sirens till noises start. They: mean A.A. fire and bombs—then' it is wise to scurry to cover. The bombs dropped some distance away. The "all clear" filled the night with its melodious ronotone, and woke us from a fitful attempt to sleep in a very stuffy atmosphere.
By diagram, our cabin had seemed to be well selected. Actually it was a poor pick, being too close to the smoking-room, that gas chamber of male privilege. which in ordinary times pollutes the ocean air through open windows.
Our ready cash, travellers' cheques and small valuables, rings and so forth, were wrapped in' waterproof oiled silk every night and tied to the life belt. The idea was that in a sudden rush they would not be forgotten, and thus. if we had to take to the boats, we would not land penniless.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.