Walked back to the Stobarts’ camp for lunch.  A French aeroplane had come over from Belgrade too late; now it rose slowly in the air and sailed off.  Saw the two dead aviators; both had evidently been killed at once, for they were charred, not blistered.

Colonel Phillips, ex-Governor of Scutari, and English military attache, came up with the Italian attache.  A bomb had fallen just before the colonel’s house and missed his servant by a hair’s-breadth.  The Italian was in a room opposite the Crown Prince’s palace; he thought that the falling machine was going to crash through the roof, but it fell in the street not ten yards away.  The camp itself was packing hard, for Mrs. Stobart had just decided to form a “flying field ambulance.”

Mr. Berry and I had a tent assigned to us.

October 4th.  Awoke to sounds like some one hitting a board with a mallet.  Ran outside.  One found the aeroplane from the little clouds of shrapnel, for it was flying very high, and was like a speck.  Clouds of smoke were rolling from one quarter of the town, and we thought that a big fire was beginning, but it was extinguished.  Another aeroplane came later.  The guns began long before it could be seen.  It dropped two bombs over the powder factory, and two in the town.  Mrs. Stobart ordered everybody from the camp; but nobody left except the patients, who were driven a mile out and dumped in a wood.  A long procession of townsfolk filed continuously by, running from the danger.  The aeroplane dropped two more bombs in the town, and came back flying right over the camp.  It was a queer feeling, staring right up at the plane, and wondering if another bomb were not falling silently towards one.

I went down to the arsenal to see about the car; and Mr. Berry and Miss Hammond went off to see the anti-aircraft guns.  Mrs. Stobart had asked me to go out on the Rudnik road to see a car which had broken down, and had promised to send a motor to fetch me.  Before we could leave, news was brought that another aeroplane had been telephoned.  Presently we could hear the guns beginning.  Hardinge turned up, and we looked out for the machine.  We saw the aeroplane coming straight towards us; everybody rushed for the cellars, but I wanted to stay outside for the last moment.  Hardinge was with me.  Suddenly I lost sight of the plane.  I ran farther out to look for it, and suddenly there was a report, and a great column of smoke just outside the arsenal.  There was another behind the rifle shops, and another behind the boiler sheds.  Now the aeroplane was overhead.  I heard a noise like tearing silk, and lay flat upon the ground shouting to Hardinge—­

“Lie flat, d——­n you!”

It seemed ages before it burst.  Dust and bits flew everywhere; the windows all sprang out into the yard.  I looked for Hardinge, but he was unharmed.  I had expected to be terrified, but I was feeling so bothered about Hardinge that I had no time to think about myself.