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[Page 50]
-19-
my sympathy to outrun my judgment, for no sooner had two of the women left their bed, than there was a crash of broken glass and two spiked pieces of shrapnel from our own Anti Air Craft hit the pillows where they had been lying.
Falling shrapnel was always a source of danger particularly in day-time, when it fell from the guns attacking enemy photographers. They frequently came over about noon tide when the streets were thronged, and it was such a temptation to watch the combat that often the curious were killed by their own fool-hardiness.
From my own window, I have watched the enemy aeroplanes, when tight pressed they would, dive, wriggle, soar, and eventually fly away looking like big silver winged birds with all around them bursts of shrapnel flecking the sky like bunches of cotton-wool.
Though our women had to work hard, there were many compensations. A Lena Ashwell concert party was always welcomed with great glee. They came about once a month, and numbered among them some of the leading musical and vaudeville artists of London. In one of them I was agreeably surprised to meet Elsie Hall (now Mrs. Dr. Storr) our own brilliant Melbourne pianist. They visited the Soldier's Convalescent Camps and some went even up the line to entertain men who were out of the trenches resting.
There had been no word from Ron for several days, and I concluded that "No news was good news" but was more than surprised when I received a wire from London that he was in the R.F.C. Hospital. Later, the report came that he was suffering from neuristhenia [neurasthenia] and that, being common among air men working at so great a strain as long distance bombing I was consoled that at least he was out of danger for a time. Gradually it was revealed to me that the trouble was more serious, and he was suffering from a bad concussion that he had received through his control being shot away, and he fell from a distance of several thousands of feet.