Evening star., 1940-11-20
Continued From First Page)

not seen it as I drove into London,
although that is probably because I
was in a closed car. I do not know
what other people who have only
read of the balloon barrage imagine
it's like. but 1 had always thought
of it as ring Of balloons around the
outskirts of the city.
Here, There and There.
In London it is no ring at all.
Balloons shoot up all over the city
like stalks of a badly planted as
paragus bed. That first day scores
of them f1oated over the city in the
sunlight. here. there. there, here.
there. there. l guessed they were
about 4O00 feet up-four Empire
State Building lengths. They all
rested at about the same altitude.
Their arrangement in the sky
except for the fact that they are
the same height, makes no sense and
changes every day For the balloons
themselves go up from trucks which
move about, so that the incoming
dive bombers will not know where
to expect them.
Although Ben Robertson was not
there to meet me I was pretty sure
he would show up for lunch. I de-
cided had time to see what "regis-
tering with the police" was like. I
thought might get the Ministry of
Information to do it for me, but that
it will be more interesting to walk
in cold I went down to have the
doorman call taxi.
No Ordinary Station.
The place Of registration was no
ordinary police station, but tempor-
ary quarters consisting Of q long
counter behind which six or eight
extremely busy policemen sat facing
equally busy and much more anxious
aliens who seemed to have a ten
dency to shift from one foot to an
other and lean across the counter
to explain things.
I was almost at the top of the line
when the first air raid came. I did
not hear the siren-most of the time
when you are indoors you do not
hear the siren. A policeman from
the street simply stuck his head in
the door and blew like hell on a po-
lice whistle. I jumped.
The room was suddenly still. The
sergeant in the middle of the coun-
ter chanted in a monotonous voice
without looking up: AN air raid
alarm has been sounded. There is a
shelter underneath this building.
The man at the door will show you
the way to it. If you do not choose
to go to the shelter we will carry on "
Nobody went. The buzz of conver-
sation resumed I thought every one
was very brave, myself included.
Later I found out that no one in
London ever pays any attention to
daylight raids unless he is on the
street and hears the plane directly
overhead or sees it diving toward
him.
The officer who registered me
when my turn came was very cheer
full. He had relatives who lived in
Connecticut. He said he had been
meaning to visit them for years.
Career Fire Fighters.
One night we drove across the
river to see the fire department.
It's headquarters are in an enormous
modern blocklike building, almost
as good a target as the Batter
sea power station, commonly known
as Lofts Road station. Germans
keep trying, but they have not hit it
yet. Ben Robertson told me the
city was divided into two districts
east and west of the river-and that
the heads of each were young men
in their middle 3Os. Their names
are Fordham and Blackstone. He
called one of them up and we were
invited over.
We found Messrs. Fordham and
Blackstone in a comfortably fur
nished apartment on the seventh
floor. New York has never seen
fire chiefs like them. They are uni
versity career men in fire fighting.
At one end of the drawing room in
which we sat. while one of them
vent off to find some beer for us,
hung a large oil painting of Mr.
Fordham in uniform-he was in
multi when he received us-hold-
ing his enormous brass helmet ir