This message gave especial pleasure from its being couched
in the first person, when, as was universally remarked, the task of
sending such congratulations might so easily have been relegated to one
of Her Majesty's Ministers. I really think that no one except a
shipwrecked mariner, cast away on a desert island, and suddenly
perceiving a friendly sail, could have followed our feelings of delight
on that occasion. We walked about thinking we must be dreaming, and
finding it difficult to believe that we were in such close contact with
home and friends. In less than ten minutes posters were out, and eager
groups were busy at the street-corners, discussing the news, scrappy
indeed, and terribly deficient in all details, but how welcome, after
all the vague native rumours we had had to distract us during the past
weeks! We were content then to wait any length of time, and our lives
varied very little as the weeks slipped by. The bombardment was resumed
with vigour, and the old monster gun cruised right round the town and
boomed destruction at us from no less than five different points of
vantage. When the shelling was very heavy, we used to say to ourselves,
"What a good thing they are using up their ammunition!" when again for a
few days it was slack, we were convinced our foes had had bad news.
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