On the way to the hospital this morning, I overtook Nora Bolitho returning from the D & E. She had just bought a paper & read in it of the bombardment of the Dardanelles. Alverin’s ship, the Irresistible, being one of the battleships. She said she had not heard from him for 3 weeks & did not know until that moment where he was. This shelling of the Dardanelles by the Anglo-French fleet will mean the downfall of Constantinople.

Some people say that it will fall one day this week. Robert Worthington told us to night that Charlotte had told him that under St Sophia’s in the crypt are numbers of manuscripts that have lain there ever since the Turks took the city. No one has been allowed to get at them, & so no one knows what is there.