Together they picked him up, fumbling in the darkness, and laid him on the ground beside his bed. Then Vane took her arm, and shouted in her ear, "Lie down, I tell you, lie down . . . quite flat." Obediently she lay down, and he stretched himself beside her on the ground. To the crashing of the bombs were now added the shouts and curses of men outside; and once Margaret made an effort to rise. "The patients, Derek. Let me go." With his one sound arm he kept her down by force. "You can do nothing," he said roughly. He felt her trembling against him, and a wave of fury against the airmen above took hold of him. He was no novice to bombing; there had been weeks on end when the battalion had been bombed nightly. But then it had been part of the show--what they expected; here it was so different. A sense of utter impotence filled his mind, coupled with a raging passion at the danger to the girl beside him. And suddenly his lips sought hers. "It's all right, my dear," he kept on saying, "quite all right. It'll be over soon." And so almost unconscious of what they said or did, they lay and listened to the tornado of Death around them. . . . It is on record that one man once said that he thought it was rather amusing to be in a raid. That man was a liar. He was also a fool. . . . To be bombed is poisonous, rather more poisonous than to be shelled. If there are no dug-outs there is only one thing to be done, and that is what Vane was doing. To lie flat on the ground minimises the danger except from a direct hit; and a direct hit is remarkably sudden. And so--since every occupant of Number 13 was well aware of this fact, approximately five seconds elapsed after the light went out before all the patients who could move, and most of those who couldn't, were lying on the floor beside their beds. Gradually the explosions became fewer and fewer; though the earth still shook and throbbed like a living thing, and at last it seemed to Vane that the raid was over. He was lifting himself on his elbow preparatory to going outside and exploring, when an ominous whistling noise seemed to pierce his very brain. He had just time to throw himself on to the girl beside him so that he partially covered her, when the last bomb came. He heard the top of the marquee rip: there was a deafening roar in his ears: a scorching flame enveloped him. He lay stiff and rigid, and the thought flashed through him that this was the end. The next moment he knew he was safe, and that it was merely another close shave such as he had not been unaccustomed to in the past. The bomb had burst in the tent, but the Fate which ordained things had decided it should miss him. It had done so before, and Vane laughed to himself . . .