"About one o'clock the German general sent word to me that he thought an attack quite possible during the afternoon, and that he strongly advised me to get all the women and children out of the town--for the time being at any rate. This was evidently well meant, but it was a pretty difficult matter to arrange for, to say nothing of raising a panic among the inhabitants. However, in an hour and a half's time I had contrived to marshal several hundred of them together, and to get them out on the road to Mundon. The weather was warm for the time of the year, and I thought, if the worst came to the worst, they could spend the night in the old church. I left the sad little column of exiles--old, bent women helped along by their daughters, tiny children dragged along through the dust, clutching their mothers' skirts; infants in arms; and other older and sturdier children staggering beneath the weight of the most precious home adornments--and made the best of my way back to arrange for the forwarding to them of their rations. "At every step on my homeward way I expected to hear the cannonade begin again. But beyond the twittering of the birds in the trees and hedgerows, the creak and rumble of a passing cart, and the rush of a train along the railway on my left--just the usual sounds of the countryside--nothing broke the stillness. As I stepped out on the familiar highway, I could almost bring myself to believe that the events of the past twenty-four hours were but the phantasmagoria of a dream. After interviewing some of the town councillors who were going to undertake the transport of provisions to the women and children at Mundon, I walked round to my own house. "My wife and family had driven over to Purleigh on the first alarm, and had arranged to stay the night with some friends, on whatever shake-downs could be improvised, since every house in the peninsula harboured some of the ubiquitous German officers and men. I wandered through the familiar rooms, and came out into the garden, or rather, what had been the garden. There I saw that the Saxon gunners were all standing to their pieces, and one of my none too welcome guests accosted me as I left the house. "'If you'll take my advice, sare, you'll get away out of this,' he said in broken English. "'What! are you going to fire?' I asked. "'I don't fancy so. It wouldn't hurt you if we were. But I think your English friends from Colchester are about to see if they can draw us.' "As he spoke I became aware of a sharp, hissing noise like a train letting off steam. It grew louder and nearer, passed over our heads, and was almost instantly followed by a terrible crash somewhere behind the house. A deeper and more muffled report came up from the valley beyond Heybridge. "'Well, they've begun now, and the best thing you can do is to get down into that gun epaulment there,' said the German officer. "I thought his advice was good, and I lost no time in following it.