August 29th 1940

Thursday August 29th

Yesterday Lake Chad, and today French Equatorial Africa and Cameroons, declared their allegiance to General de Gaulle. A bit of good news like this is very comforting to write especially as I have just at this moment (10.15pm) been watching searchlights following a German plane across our particular piece of sky far above my threatened head.

But the minor inconvenience we suffer of nights in disturbed rest – last night was a brute – is nothing compared with what my incomparable fellow countrymen in other parts of the country put up with day and night.