is
there, up high," he cried excitedly. I looked, but a blinding light
seemed to fill all space, the yard was lit up and I remember wondering
if the people in the Zepp. would see us in our white overalls. The
rushing sound was directly over our heads; there was a crash, the very
walls against which we were leaning rocked, and to show what one's mind
does at those moments, I remember thinking that when the Cathedral
toppled over it would just fit nicely into the Hospital square.
Instinctively I put my head down sheltering it as best I could with my
arms, while bricks, mortar, and slates rained on, and all around, us.
There was a heavy thud just in front of us, and when the dust had
cleared away I saw it was a coping from the Cathedral, 2 feet by 4!
Notre Dame had remained standing, but the bomb had completely smashed in
the roof of the chapel, against the walls of which we were leaning! It
was only due to their extreme thickness that we were saved, and also to
the fact that we were under the protection of the wall. Had we been
further out the coping would assuredly have landed on us or else we
should have been hit by the shrapnel contained in the bombs, for the
wall opposite was pitted with it. The dust was suffocating, and I heard
Pierre saying, "Come away, Mademoiselle." Though it takes so long to
describe, only a few minutes had elapsed since leaving to cross the
yard. The beautiful East window of the Cathedral was shivered to atoms,
and likewise every window in the Hospital. All our watches had stopped.

Crashing over broken glass to the surgical side, we pantingly asked if
everyone was safe. We met Porter coming down the stairs, a stream of
blood flowing from a cut on her forehead. I hastily got some dressings
for it. Luckily it was only a flesh wound, and not serious. Besides the
night nurses at the Hospital, the chauffeurs and housekeeper slept in
the far end of the big room at the top of the building. They had not
been awakened (so accustomed were they to din and noise), until the
crash of the bomb on the Cathedral, and it was by the glass being blown
in on to their stretcher beds that Porter had been cut; otherwise no one
else was hurt.

I plunged through the debris back to the typhoids, wondering how 23 had
got on, or rather got out, and, would you believe it, his delirium had
gone and he was sleeping quietly like a child! The only bit of good the
Boche ever did I fancy, for the shock seemed to cure him and he