We get no rest. There is a distant boom, followed by a crash overhead.
Cries are heard--the cries of women and children. They are running
frantically--running to observe the explosion, and if possible pick
up a piece of the shell as a souvenir. Sometimes there are not enough
souvenirs to go round, and then the clamour increases.
We get no rest, I say--only frightfulness. British officers, walking
peaceably along the pavement, are frequently hustled and knocked aside
by these persons. Only the other day, a full colonel was compelled to
turn up a side-street, to avoid disturbing a ring of excited children
who were dancing round a beautiful new hole in the ground in the
middle of a narrow lane.
If you enter into a café or estaminet, a total stranger sidles to your
table, and, having sat down beside you, produces from the recesses
of his person a fragment of shrapnel. This he lays before you, and
explains that if he had been standing at the spot where the shell
burst, it would have killed him. You express polite regret, and pass
on elsewhere, seeking peace and finding none. The whole thing is a
public scandal.
Seriously, though, it is astonishing what contempt familiarity can
breed, even in the case of high-explosive shells. This little town
lies close behind the trenches. All day long the big guns boom. By
night the rifles and machine-guns take up the tale. One is frequently
aroused from slumber, especially towards dawn, by a perfect tornado
of firing. The machine-guns make a noise like a giant tearing calico.
Periodically, too, as already stated, we are subjected to an hour's
intimidation in the shape of bombardment. Shrapnel bursts over our
heads; shells explode in the streets, especially in open spaces, or
where two important streets cross. (With modern artillery you can
shell a town quite methodically by map and compass.)
Brother Bosche's motto appears to be: "It is a fine morning. There is
nothing in the trenches doing. We abundant ammunition have. Let us a
little frightfulness into the town pump!" So he pumps.
But nobody seems to mind. Of course there is a casualty now and then.
Occasionally a hole is blown in a road, or the side of a house is
knocked in. Yet the general attitude of the population is one of
rather interested expectancy. There is always the cellar to retire to
if things get really serious. The gratings are sandbagged to that end.
At other times--well, there is always the pleasing possibility of
witnessing the sudden removal of your neighbour's landmark.
Officers breakfasting in their billets look up from their porridge,
and say,--
"That's a dud! _That's_ a better one! Stick to it, Bill!"
It really is most discouraging, to a sensitive and conscientious Hun.
The same unconcern reigns in the trenches. Let us imagine that we are
members of a distinguished party from Headquarters, about to make a
tour of inspection.
We leave the town, and after a short walk along the inevitable
poplar-lined road turn into a field. The country all round us is
flat--flat as Cheshire; and, like Cheshire, has a pond in every field.
But in the hazy distance stands a low ridge.
"Better keep close to the hedge," suggests the officer in charge.
"There are eighty guns on that ridge. It's a misty morning; but
they've got all the ranges about here to a yard; so they _might_--"
We keep close to the hedge.
Presently we find ourselves entering upon a wide but sticky path
cut in the clay. At the entrance stands a neat notice-board, which
announces, somewhat unexpectedly:--