ising what a big load of care he could carry.

Mrs. Craven, "Sister Pat," and Captain McMahon were leaders in the life
at St. Dunstan's. But the whole place was animated with the same spirit
that inspired them; the spirit that manifested itself in its fulness in
Sir Arthur Pearson, and in a lesser degree in every student. It made all
the boys workers, and created in them the desire to help others, to make
the world a little better for their being in it, even if they had to
work under a handicap.

CHAPTER VI

AIR RAIDS

When I left the shores of France I thought I was permanently out of
danger from the death-dealing missiles of the enemy; not that I cared
much then; I had received such a blow that I should not greatly have
regretted a stroke that would have ended my earthly career. But the arm
of Germany was long, the ingenuity of the War Lords great; by means of
their magnificent submarines they had carried the war to the shores of
England, so by their superb air force they were to bring it to the heart
of London; indeed, by their Zeppelins, those crowning failures of their
efficiency, they had already done that.

I had been in London but a short time when, on Saturday, July 21st,
1917, I had my first experience of an air raid in a crowded city. At the
time I was in St. Mark's Hospital, undergoing my preliminary training
for St. Dunstan's, at the moment in the ward receiving instruction in
Braille. Shortly before noon some one entered the room and exclaimed
jubilantly that a vast flock of aeroplanes, estimated at from thirty to
sixty, were manoeuvring at a great height in battle formation over the
city, and we were congratulating ourselves that the War Office had at
length aroused itself and was demonstrating its ability to cope with any
attack by heavier-than-air machines that the enemy might send over. As
we listened to the news and longed for our eyes that we might have a
sight of this spectacle, the thunderous report of a bursting bomb
undeceived us. These planes were not marked with the friendly
tricoloured circles, but with the ominous cross. There were cries of
terror, a hurrying of feet, a near panic as bomb succeeded bomb. Many of
us had been disciplined to war conditions, had dodged bombs at the Somme
and Vimy Ridge, dodged them when shrapnel was spraying about us and
machine-gun and rifle bullets made the air hiss on every side; but this
attack in the heart of a great city was not without its ter