The Second Fire of London
THE SECOND FIRE OF LONDON
DECEMBER 29th 1940
'I looked at my watch; it was five-thirty. My eyes sought the grimy window, and I was looking once again at those huddled forms on the platform of the Elephant and Castle tube station. It was a piteous sight that met my eyes; sitting, lying, standing, with scarcely any room to breathe, from old men with bald, shiny heads to whimpering babes-in-arms, they waited there until the morning would see them for one more day living their humdrum existence at their office, home, or shop. It was the first time I had travelled by the London Underground since the war, but I promised myself that it would be the last.
At length the train drew slowly out, and as I sat back, still stunned and rather sick at the horrible scene I had just witnessed, little did I realise that every turn of the wheels was taking me nearer to the place where, as unwilling but helpless onlooker, I was to watch HISTORY being made.
I glanced up at the name-plate, as the train jolted to a standstill, and saw that it was Waterloo. "What's that guard shouting?" my mother asked. "All change here," father said. As we stepped out on to the platform, we were informed that a raid was in progress, and the platform was for shelter ticket holders only, but our railway tickets would see us through on any bus we took. I looked at my watch: it was six.
We mounted the escalators and went out into the dark streets. It was the first time I had been out in a raid, and as we attempted to make our way along the road I felt too excited to be nervous.
Suddenly, without warning, it happened. Boomp-boomp went the guns, pitter-patter fell the shrapnel. The gunfire sounded like the banging together of many dustbin lids, and I imagined, rather comfortingly, the Dorniers and Messerschmitts crashing to their doom. At first we saw only a dim red glow, becoming brighter as thousands of incendiaries burst into tiny fragments, showering their deadly fire over many innocent and unsuspecting buildings, which proceeded to burn furiously.
With bombs and shrapnel bursting all around us, we reached the end of the road and boarded an unlit bus which was to take us to Oxford Circus. Slowly we drew away from the mass of burning girders and concrete, and I was not the only one to heave a sigh of relief when we crossed the river.
The rest of the journey, except for one stop, owing to intense gunfire, passed uneventfully, though not monotonously.
It is now February, 1941, and just as Wordsworth could never forget the
beauteous sight of many daffodils, I will never forget the horrible sight I witnessed when, through no choice of my own, I watched HISTORY BEING MADE.'
FREDA GOTTLIEB (L.V, 1940).
BURLINGTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
