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I should think that soil would be wrecked for years.

Well, it wasn't. They pumped it out. Somebody had made a discovery. In other years it would have been wrecked for years, but they had made a discovery-- somebody had made a discovery--which the Dutch took advantage of, of some chemical which can be mixed with the soil which very quickly helps it to readjust itself and absorbs the salt, and so forth. At any rate, it was a consdierable success.

Then we went back to England, and sailed--I forget the date, but towards the middle of December--and came back on one of the Queens, simply loaded with troops. I forget how many thousands there were on board, but they were just loaded, and the civilian passengers were confined to one deck. Not to one deck, but to one part of one deck, and there was a little bit of a lounge no bigger than this room --not as big as this room, really--which was the only lounge of any kind we had, and it was just jammed. Of course, we all had to listen to the public announcer system and do what we were told. We had fire drills and bomb drills and everything, every day certainly, twice a day sometimes. It was very much a part of it--because there were bombs loose in the ocean. Mines. That was known. It was one of the things that one had to remember.