As I hastened through Covent Garden, Blackfriars and Billingsgate, more and more people joined the painful exodus. Sad, weary women, their children stumbling and streaked with tears, their men bitter and angry, the rich rubbing shoulder with beggars and outcasts. Dogs snarled and whined, the horses' bits were covered with foam…... and here and there were wounded soldiers, as helpless as the rest. We saw tripods wading up the Thames, cutting through bridges as though they were paper - Waterloo Bridge, Westminster Bridge…... One appeared above Big Ben.