ZEPPELINS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17264, 4 September 1916, Page 10

ZEPPELINS.

A IIAll) OX EDINBURGH. A letter received List weal; by a. lady resident, in Dunodin from a relative in Scotland, describes a recent, Zeppelin raid, states the ''Otago Daily Times." The writer says : ■ " I saw in the ' Scotsman ! an article on the weather, and it said we had not. had a winter like it for thirty-five years. All the time, however, we had j our little surface grumbles, we had an j underlying belief that the storms were ! sent to keep away the Zeppelins. Why ! wo should be* preserved from Zeppelins J while others suffer we cannot toll, but so it has boon. Wo have boon wonder- I fully preserved, although Ihey have ! como to our very doors at last, Somo ] of us wore thinking a few bombs would I bo necessary to wake peoplo up to the j situation. "Wo were in real earnest when we thought that." Some people will not wake up so long as they can got a. comfortable -pillow to lay Lhoir head upon, even if they had to drag it from under someone else's head. Well, we rjyu our waking up a month ago. It was a lovely evening— \ tho first we had had for months. Think of tho very worst thunderstorm you over experienced, when the cloud bursts right overhead and the lightning blinds your eyes, and add to that ten thousand tin trays crashing down upon your own roof,, and you have some idea of what waked me at 11.45 p.m. I said to myself, ' That's Zeppelins. I rose and looked out, and just at that moment there was another brilliant flash of light, and a dark object fell just in front of the window. There was an explosion, but not nearly such it loud ono a,i. I expected, and 1 said to myself, ' Dear me, if that is a bomb, it is not very bad.' I know now that it dropped into the boiler of the_infirmtvry laundry, and thus did not explode. That itself was a, very wonderful thing, as it was an incendiary bomb. "By this time my friend,and I were preparing to go down to the basement. VV-iulo we were going, there was another terrific explosion, that shook the whole building. All the neighbours wore gathered in the basement. We stood between the walls of tho passage leading to tho green. There wo had a little prayer meeting. We prayed very specially for tho people in the infirmary. It was of them we were thinking. We also repeated verses of Scripture to encourage each other. ' Thou shalt not bo afraid of the terror by night' had a meaning it never had before. Explosion after explosion occurred, and the ground trembled under our feet; and the walls seemed to rock. You will ask, What wero the 'ten thousand tin trays ' battering down ? They were tho glass breaking. A school, just heside us. hud every window broken, and tho building was badly damaged. Two bombs fell on it. Then the infirmary hod ono or two largo windows broken, but they were in the operating rooms, so, of course, had no ono near at that hour. A doctor's house not a stoiie's-throw from here was wreckedonly the walls left standing. I do not know how they escaped, but no one was seriously hurt in it. All round about us windows were smashed, including our own, of course. Three men were killed in a street, and somo buildings were wrecked.' All tho windows in a Baptist chapel wero broken. "We wero all prepared for another visitation this week. A.man came from the fire station to warn us— : All lights out.' Streets pitch dark, objects looming up in front of ono now and then—these are. street cars and 'buses, and vehicles standing, all lights out—everyone hurrying along silently, no gathering iu groups, no spoaking, no whistle of an engine—silonce--it gets on ono's nerves. We know that, so long as we hear the trams and ,hear engines whistle, etc., we may cuddle down in safety; so,' when we wako up in. the night wo listen for these—and how welcome they are."