An air raid on Calais, packet-boat nearly sunk, torpedoes off Boulogne—it almost seems as if we are going to see the real thing.
Martial law here has become very strict. The roads are guarded so that one cannot move an inch without showing passports. Lights have to be out by 9 P.M., and even my diary has to be penned behind a screen of bedclothes with the aid of a candle stump. Seeing that we only finish work at 9 P.M., have to get home, eat our supper, and go to bed in the dark, it is rather tiresome, and we are now engaged in rigging up light-proof curtains.
On returning to work after my first committee meeting—the very existence of which proves the method that is creeping into the erstwhile chaos—I was greeted by the news of our Dardanelles Expedition which is now occupying all our attention.
[CHAPTER VI]
March, 1915
March 5th. March was inaugurated by an amusing incident. At about midnight the alarm was given—a Taube or Zeppelin signalled from Calais—bells rang, guns boomed, the whole of the French population turned out, and the police raided a nurse's room because a light was visible—and, after all, nothing happened.
That the Germans still have hopes of getting to Calais is obvious from their Press comments on the range of their coast guns.
"The chief point of which lies in the suggestion that from Calais the harbour defences of Dover can be bombarded over a front of five and a half miles!" (See extract from Daily Mail.) Their preparations for billeting a number of troops in Belgium are large: "At Liége 20,000 men are expected." The order has been given for the Wimereux hospitals to be cleared.
"It is our duty to keep the men here and feed the front," said one of the C.O.s to-day. "And when we are told to clear it means a big move."