“Will you please drive me to the ruined area?” The poor, ignorant fellow thought at first that it was the name of a public-house, and I had to enlighten him. “Where the bombs struck,” I said. “Oh, yes,” he said, brightening up, “I will ask a policeman where they fell.” “Do you mean to tell me,” I inquired, “that you don’t know? Perhaps you haven’t been to the City?” “Yes, sir,” he replied in the true boorish cabman spirit. “I’ve been to the City three times, but I ain’t seen no place where the bombs fell.” This of course was “eye-wash.” For my part I had removed all my archives from my office, and as that was on the edge of the City, I drove there first and was pleased to find that my office had not been touched. I drove up Ludgate Hill and apparently everything was as usual, and it was not until we had driven farther on and had penetrated a side street that I saw the wreckage of a house. It was pleasing and yet disappointing. A number of windows had been smashed, one house was in ruins and there was a big hole in a court-yard, but the damage was such as might have been caused by an explosion of gas. It took me a long time before I found the second place where a bomb had fallen, and here again the results were not as I expected. I spent the whole of that day wandering about looking for devastation. I went east and south, and north, and although I saw some damaged houses, the results of our gallant Zeppelins’ visit left much to be desired. Returning to my office I was called on the ’phone and a code message was sent through to me. As I expected, it was from Berlin asking for full particulars of the damage done, and very faithfully I described what I had seen, coded it and passed it on to the proper quarters. To my wrath and humiliation, the next evening brought a peremptory demand from Berlin. It had been sent by radio, picked up off the coast by a little steamer flying the flag of----, and was brought to me from an East Coast port by one of the couriers we employed for that purpose. The message was, as I say, peremptory, and there were tears in my eyes, tears of sorrow and injury as I read it. “Cannot understand your message. Our pilots report Westminster Abbey was bombed. Whole streets of the City are in flames, Houses of Parliament partly destroyed, also London Bridge and Tower of London. Several ships in docks hit and sunk. Please personally investigate and report.” Of course there was a chance that these cunning English had, by means of scene painters and workmen labouring through the night, removed all sign of the destruction, but I walked over London Bridge without any difficulty, and as far as I could see the Tower of London was uninjured. I reported the same, and three days later, had this message back: “Be on south side of Three Mile Wood, north-north-east Saffron Walden, at eleven o’clock on the night of October 7th.”