At 3.27 p.m.—I know the exact minute, because my watch was stopped then and I read the time from it afterwards—I was standing beside my desk, consulting some papers on a file. Suddenly I heard a high detonation, a sound so sharp that I can liken it to nothing familiar. The air seemed full of flying splinters of glass; and simultaneously I was wrenched from my foothold and flung with tremendous violence against my desk. Then, it seemed, a dead silence fell.
I found that my right hand was streaming with blood from various cuts made by the razor-edges of the broken glass of the window. More blood was pouring from a gash on my forehead; but my eyes had escaped injury. When I moved, I found I suffered acute pain; though no bones seemed to be broken. The concussion had completely deafened me; and, as I found afterwards, my left ear-drum had been perforated, so that even to this day I can hear nothing on that side.
All about me the office was in confusion. Every pane of glass had been blown inward from the windows and the place looked as though a whirlwind had swept through it, scattering furniture and papers in its track. The shock had dazed me; and for several minutes I stood gazing stupidly at the havoc around me. It was, I am sure, at least five minutes before I grasped what had happened. As soon as I did so, I made my way, still in intense pain, down the stairs and into the quadrangle.
The pavements were littered with fragments of broken glass which had fallen outward in the breaking of the windows; but there was not so much of this as I had expected, since most of the panes had been driven inward by the explosion. Quite a crowd of people were running out of the building and making in the direction of the new Chemistry Department in University Avenue. I followed them, noticing as I passed the Square that all the chimney-pots of the houses seemed to have been swept off, though I could see no traces of them on the ground. Later on, I found that they had been blown down on the further side of the terrace.
When I came in sight of the Chemistry building I was amazed, even though I was prepared for a catastrophe. One whole wing had been reduced to a heap of ruins, a mere pile of building-stone and joists flung together in utter confusion. Here and there among the debris, jets of steam and dust were spouting up; and from time to time came an eruption of small stones from the wreckage. The remainder of the edifice still stood almost intact save for its broken windows and shattered doors.
What astonished me at the time was that the whole scene recalled a cinema picture—violent motion without a sound to accompany it. I saw spouts of dust, falling masses of masonry, people running and gesticulating in the most excited manner; yet no whisper of sound reached me. It was only when someone came up and spoke directly to me that I discovered that I was temporarily stone deaf; for I could see his lips moving but could hear nothing whatever.
Like everyone else, I began to remove the debris. I think that we understood even then that it was hopeless to think of saving anyone from this wreckage, but we were all moved to do something which might at least give us the illusion that we were helping. As I pulled and tugged with the others, I began to appreciate the enormous power of the explosive which had been at work. In an ordinary concussion, iron can be bent out of shape; but here I came across steel rafters which were cut clean through as though by a knife. I remember thinking vaguely that the explosive must have acted, as dynamite does, against the solid materials around it instead of spending its force upwards; for otherwise the whole place would have suffered a bombardment from flying blocks of stone.
For some time I toiled with the others. I saw Nordenholt’s figure close at hand. Then the sky seemed to take on a tinge of violet which deepened suddenly. I saw a black spot before my eyes; and apparently I fainted from loss of blood.
Even now, the causes of the Chemistry Department disaster are unknown. Henley-Davenport and his two assistants perished instantaneously in the explosion—in fact Henley-Davenport’s body was never recovered from the wreckage at all. A third assistant, who had been in the next room at the time, lived long enough to tell us the exact stage at which the catastrophe occurred; but even he could throw no direct light upon its origin.