Fragments of conversation float from all sides. Everyone has suggestions to make, but it seems to be no one's business to carry them out.
One's thoughts fly to those patients on the stretchers, and one wonders why this must be added to all they have already endured. Many of them will die of shock. It all seems so unnecessary. And all this time, silently and with dignity, the electric lights in the right wing of the great edifice burn on.
What are those old stone walls feeling as their invincible enemy creeps on? They who have seen so much of the levity of peace time, so much of the sorrow of war, have come to their end at last. They meet their fate bravely, unflinchingly, with the fortitude of the captain of an abandoned ship.
One thinks of all the comedies and tragedies that have been enacted within these walls, the laughing romances of summer days, the weary suffering. One recalls the months of valuable research work that have been carried on in the improvised laboratories—discoveries to benefit mankind—all may be irrevocably lost.
One thinks of all the things lying there—the little personal things—the treasures that can never be replaced—the lover's first gift, the parent's last letter.
The doomed building has been abandoned. The moon gleams red through the veil of sparks and smoke on to the crowd that has congregated on the beach. Watching the Ypres-like eddies of flame, one casts a thought at the surprise of the arrivals on incoming troopships; one wonders if folks at home, too, are watching the stupendous beacon.
It is all a matter of time now, and the watching is so full of suspense that the end is anxiously awaited by all. A wind is springing up with the oncoming sea, endangering the neighbouring buildings, more especially the adjacent infectious compound composed of carefully isolated bathing-boxes.
On the roof of each stands an orderly extinguishing the sparks as they fall by means of buckets of sand and water handed up by the crowd below.
To the horror of fire is added the horror of risk from infection, as the rudely awakened patients are hurried from their involuntary isolation. As the roaring flames draw nearer, ambulances reeking of disinfectants hurry backwards and forwards with their loads.