Evening star., 1940-11-28

VI tllc engagements WdllGcQ W
I asked every one I met In and ou
Of the government how many Lon
doners slept in shelters and how
many slept in their homes. No one
had any idea. There are no sta.
tistics available. Estimates of the
number who slept in shelters, how
ever, varied from so per cent to 81
per cent.
Few Get Normal Sleep.
The only thing you can be sure o1
Is that very, very few-practically
none-sleep normally, night after
night, In their own beds in their own
rooms.
HouSeholders who do not take to
shelters go down to the hall down
stairs, or into the cellar. In hotels
you find people sleeping in the halls
presumably to get away from the
noise and the possibility Of flying
glass from the windows.
Even leaving out the fear of being
out during heavy raiding you must
also realize the difficulty of moving
about a complicated city like Lon
don during blackout. There are
taxis that cruise all night, but they
are few. Few also are the buses and
the trains and the tubes.
It was, for instance, altogether
natural that when I had radio
talk to dictate during my second
week and young lady pubic
stenographer came to type it for
me and the work went on without
either of us noticing the time until
suddenly the maid came in and drew
the curtains for the blackout, Ben
and should offer her our couch to
sleep on. And she should debate
for some minutes before deciding
her roommate might be worried
and she didn't mind taking the bus
anyway.
Comfort in Numbers.
A house lent to a young officer
friend of mine, by his aunt never
had less than q dozen inhabitants
a night, and never the same dozen.
You must realize what'it does to
convention to take in first relatives,
then acquaintance and finally
strangers who were bombed out.
And you must also realize-per-
haps the most important thing OF
all-that when the night is full OF
noise no one wants to be alone.
The presence of other human beings
Is comforting.
I think the only time I was really
all out frightened-iterally pam
icked-was when I came in alone
one late afternoon and Ben Robert
son, who was to join me, did not
show up for several hours. 1t was
the night new and still larger gun
moved into the park opposite. I was
told a 6-inch navy gun.
It began to 60 off right after the
first alarm. I went to watch from
my bathroom darkroom. There was
a storm over London and the wind
howled through the open window.
Shells from the gun burst directly
overhead, so that I ducked each
time, sure the shrapnel would fall
where was. If it did I heard none
Of it. But the crash Of the gun
was first deafening and then sud-
denly terrifying.
How 1t Feels to Be Scared.
I bolted the window and went in
and tried to read the evening paper.
The gun kept crashing and crashing
and crashing. All of a sudden it
came-a terrific desire to 60 some
other place. I went out and rang
for the elevator. 1t was about $50.
I knew what I wanted to do. I
wanted to go down into the boiler
room, get into corner and curl up
where I couldn't hear that gun. I
thought If I did, when Ben came in
he would be ashamed of me.
I said to myself, Look here.
You've decided that If you're going
to be hit you're going to be hit. If
you play it any other way you're
sure to lose. Like changing your
stake gambling"
I said to myself, You may be
scared, but you know very we'll that
the odds of a bomb hitting you are
approximately seven or eight mill
lions to one." I went back upstairs
and felt much better. Presently
Ben came in with Helen Kirkpat-
rick of the Chicago Daily News.
They had been talking to somebody.
Fear Passes Quickly.
The point about being afraid dur
ing bombardment in which you
know the chances Of being killed
are minute is this: That after you've
been frightened a few times you
know being frightened is just an
unreasonable temporary emotion,
that it will pass and that in a
little while you will feel all right
again. Like getting unreasonably
mad at a telephone girl giving you
the wrong number.
The time when I was alone with
the gun noise in the Dorchester was
the only time I felt panic, but four
or five times in any given night,
even though they were relatively
quiet, I was scared and each time
after while the fear would pass
and I'd feel all right again.
Because I was always with people
who, If they were scared didn't show
It, and we went about what we de-
cided was our business and every