"That you, Paul—what can it be?" answers a voice in the darkness from some near-by cabin.
"I'll go and see."
I step out of bed and walk to the door at the end of the hut. In bare feet and thin pyjamas I look straight out to the east, but faintly lighter than the dark skies above in which the stars still shine undimmed. The night is very cold and silent. On the left of Dunkerque a few pale searchlights move slowly across the sky. I see a few flashes and then hear the sharp reports of the guns. It must be an air-raid.
I hurry into bed again and call out: "Can't see much! must be a raid!" and then begin to drop off to sleep, when again I hear the wail of the hooter, followed by the dull reverberating crash.
Sleep comes with difficulty. Again and again I become conscious of tumult in the real world beyond my dreams. Again and again I hear the distant thunders. When I next wake it is getting light, so I walk to the door of the hut. Outside I now can see the flat countryside, desolate in the greyness of early morning. To the left are the towers and chimneys of Dunkerque, and on the little road running past the aerodrome are a few rough carts, piled high with bundles and shawled women, leaving the town.
Zoop-zoop wails the syren. Out leaps the sudden roar of an explosion, and suddenly I see towering high above the roofs a tall column of dust and smoke, from which little black fragments are dropping back in a shower.
"Bob! Bob!" I call out.
A sleepy "Hullo!" answers me behind my back.
"They're shelling Dunkerque! It must be a fifteen-inch gun!"
The pitiful column of refugees, of women taking their children and a few precious bundles of clothes, or articles of furniture, away to some place of safety, rapidly increases.