I went along keeping close to the cliff and not thinking, and then I suddenly realised that I was right under the lee of the big guns, and facing the big guns of the fort just across the water; and the searchlights over there suddenly started playing and picked me out.
I got frightened, absolutely scared.
I could have screamed.
Every minute I expected to see those big guns fire; only the month before a German spy in woman's clothes had been found wandering just where I stood.
I knew the marines behind the searchlights could see me quite clearly, probably even my white mackintosh. I had asked father to let me go to the fort. He wasn't keen. I'm twenty-three, but he pretends to himself that I'm not "out"—it saves dresses, so I never go anywhere.
I was in an absolute panic, and I felt as if all the muscles of my knees had suddenly turned to water, which wibble-wobbled every time I moved them.
I turned back; and those searchlights never left me alone, one steady bar of brilliant, dazzling light kept me focussed the whole time, and I could not see to walk in it. I felt as though every step might be a drop into space.
It was a perfectly beastly experience, and every minute I expected the guns to belch out at me.
I suppose I must have been crying. I seemed to have noticed myself making a funny little bleaty noise; I know I screamed when a very curt voice said: "What the devil are you doing here? You know perfectly well you aren't allowed!"
"The searchlights!" I stammered. "The searchlights!"