_"Yesterday hostile artillery shelled the town of_ ---- _some miles
behind our lines, without military result. Several civilians were
killed_."--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.
Two officers were cashing checks in the Bank of France and chatting
with the cashier, who was telling them about a bombardment of the town
the day before. The bank had removed itself and its business to the
underground vaults, and the large room on the ground floor, with its
polished mahogany counters, brass grills and desks, loomed dim and
indistinct in the light which filtered past the sandbags piled outside.
The walls bore notices with a black hand pointing downwards to the
cellar steps, and the big room echoed eerily to the footsteps of
customers, who tramped across the tiled floor and disappeared
downstairs to the vaults.
"One shell," the cashier was saying, "fell close outside there," waving
a hand up the cellar steps. "_Bang! crash!_ we feel the building
shake--so." His hands left their task of counting notes, seized an
imaginary person by the lapels of an imaginary coat and shook him
violently.
"The noise, the great c-r-rash, the shoutings, the little squeals, and
then the peoples running, the glasses breaking--tinkle--tinkle--you
have seen the smoke, thick black smoke, and smelling--pah!"
He wrinkled his nose with disgust. "At first--for one second--I think
the bank is hit; but no, it is the street outside. Little stones--yes,
and splinters, through the windows; they come and hit all round,
inside--rap, rap, rap!" His darting hand played the splinters' part,
indicating with little pointing stabs the ceiling and the walls.
"Mademoiselle there, you see? yes! one little piece of shell," and he
held finger and thumb to illustrate an inch-long fragment.
The two officers looked at Mademoiselle, an exceedingly pretty young
girl, sitting composedly at a typewriter. There was a strip of plaster
marring the smooth cheek, and at the cashier's words she looked round
at the young officers, flashed them a cheerful smile, and returned to
her hammering on the key-board.
"My word, Mademoiselle," said one of the officers. "Near thing, eh? I
wonder you are not scared to carry on."
The girl turned a slightly puzzled glance on them.
"Monsieur means," explained the cashier friendlily to her, "is it that
you have no fear--_peur_, to continue the affairs?"
Mademoiselle smiled brightly and shook her head. "But no," she said
cheerfully, "it is nossings," and went back to her work.
"Jolly plucky girl, I think," said the officer. "Nearly as plucky as
she is pretty. I say, old man, my French isn't up to handling a
compliment like that; see if you can--"
He did not finish the sentence, for at that moment there was a faint
far-off _bang_, and they sensed rather than felt a faint quiver in the
solid earth beneath their feet. The cashier held up one hand and stood
with head turned sideways in an attitude of listening.
"You hear?" he said, arching his eyebrows.
"What was it?" said the officer. "Sounded like a door banging
upstairs."
"No, no," said the cashier. "They have commenced again. It is the same
hour as last time, and the time before."
Mademoiselle had stopped typing, and the ledger clerk at the desk
behind her had also ceased work and sat listening; but after a moment
Mademoiselle threw a little smile towards them--a half-pleased,
half-deprecating little smile, as of one who shows a visitor something
interesting, something one is glad to show, and then resumed her
clicking on the typewriter. The ledger clerk, too, went back to work,
and the cashier said off-handedly: "It is not near--the station
perhaps--yes!" as if the station were a few hundred miles off, instead
of a few hundred yards. He finished rapidly counting his bundle of
notes and handed them to the officer.
When the two emerged from the bank they found the street a good deal
quieter than when they had entered it. They walked along towards the
main square, noticing that some of the shopkeepers were calmly putting
up their shutters, while others quietly continued serving the few
customers who were hurriedly completing their purchases. As the two
walked along the narrow street they heard the thin savage whistle of an
approaching shell and a moment later a tremendous _bang_! They and
everybody else near them stopped and looked round, up and down the
street, and up over the roofs of the houses. They could see nothing,
and had turned to walk on when something crashed sharply on a roof
above them, bounced off, and fell with a rap on the cobble-stones in
the street. A child, an eager-faced youngster, ran from an arched
gateway and pounced on the little object, rose, and held up a piece of
stone, with intense annoyance and disgust plainly written on his face,
threw it from him with an exclamation of disappointment.
The two walked on chuckling. "Little bounder!" said one. "Thought he'd
got a souvenir; rather a sell for him--what?"
In the main square, they found a number of market women packing up
their little stalls and moving off, others debating volubly and looking
up at the sky, pointing in the direction of the last sound, and clearly
arguing with each other as to whether they should stay or move. A
couple of Army Transport wagons clattered across the square. One
driver, with the reins bunched up in his hand and the whip under his
arm, was busily engaged striking matches and trying to light a
cigarette; the other, allowing his horses to follow the first wagon,
and with his mouth open, gazed up into the sky as if he expected to see
the next shell coming. A few civilians scattered about the square were
walking briskly; a woman, clutching the arm of a little boy, ran,
dragging him, with his little legs going at a rapid trot. More
civilians, a few men in khaki, and some in French uniform, were
standing in archways or in shop-doors.
There was another long whistle, louder and harsher this time, and
followed by a splintering crash and rattle. The groups in the doorways
flicked out of sight; the people in the open half halted and turned to
hurry on, or in some cases, without looking round, ran hurriedly to
cover. Stones and little fragments of débris clacked down one by one,
and then in a little pattering shower on the stones of the square. The
last of the market women, hesitating no longer, hurriedly bundled up
their belongings and hastened off. The two officers turned into a café
with a wide front window, seated themselves near this at a little
marble table, and ordered beer. There were about a score of officers in
the room, talking or reading the English papers. All of them had very
clean and very close-shaven faces, and very dirty and weather-stained,
mud-marked clothes. For the most part they seemed a great deal more
interested in each other, in their conversations, and in their papers,
than in any notice of the bombardment. The two who were seated near the
window had a good view from it, and extracted plenty of interest from
watching the people outside.
Another shell whistled and roared down, burst with a deep angry bellow,
a clattering and rending and splintering sound of breaking stone and
wood. This time bigger fragments of stone, a shower of broken tiles and
slates rattled down into the square; a thick cloud of dirty black
smoke, gray and red tinged with mortar and brick-dust, appeared up
above the roofs on the other side of the square, spread slowly and
thickly, and hung long, dissolving very gradually and thinning off in
trailing wisps.
In the café there was silence for a moment, and many remarks about
"coming rather close" and "getting a bit unhealthy," and a jesting
inquiry of the proprietor as to the shelter available in the cellar
with the beer barrels. A few rose and moved over to the window; one or
two opened the door, to stand there and look round.
"Look at that old girl in the doorway across there," said one. "You
would think she was frightened she was going to get her best bonnet
wet."
The woman's motions had, in fact, a curious resemblance to those of one
who hesitated about venturing out in a heavy rainstorm. She stood in
the doorway and looked round, drew back and spoke to someone inside,
picked up a heavy basket, set it down, stepped into the door, glanced
carefully and calculatingly up at the sky and across the square in the
direction she meant to take, moved back again and picked up her basket,
set it firmly on her arm, stepped out and commenced to hobble at an
ungainly cumbersome trot across the square. She was no more than
half-way across when the shriek of another shell was heard approaching.
She stopped and cast a terrified glance about her, dumped the basket
down on the cobbles, and resumed the shambling trot at increased speed.
A soldier in khaki crossing the square also commenced to run for cover
as his ear caught the sound of the shell; passing near the woman's
basket, he stooped and grabbed it and doubled on with it after its
panting owner.
A group of soldiers standing in the archway shouted laughter and
encouragement, pretending they were watching a race, urging on the
runners.
"Go on, Khaki! go on!--two to one on the fat girl; two to one--I lay
the fie-ald." Their cries and clapping shut off, and they disappeared
like diving ducks as the shell roared down, struck with a horrible
crash one of the buildings in a side-street just off the square, burst
it open, and flung upward and outward a flash of blinding light, a
spurt of smoke, a torrent of flying bricks and broken stones. Through
the rattle and clatter of falling masonry and flying rubbish there
came, piercing and shrill, the sound of a woman's screams. They choked
off suddenly, and for some seconds there were no sounds but those of
falling fragments, jarring and hailing on the cobble-stones, of broken
glass crashing and tinkling from dozens of windows round the square.
As the noises of the explosion died away, figures crowded out anxiously
into the doorways again, and stood there and about the pavements,
looking round, pointing and gesticulating, and plainly prepared to run
back under cover at the first sign of warning. The half-dozen men who
had cheered the race across the square emerged from the archway, looked
around, and then set off running, keeping close under the shelter of
the houses, and disappearing into the thick smoke and dust that still
hung a thick and writhing curtain about the street-end in the corner of
the square.
The two officers who had sat at the café window looked at one another.
"You heard that squeal?" said one.
"Yes," said the other; "I think we might trot over. You knowing a
little bit about surgery might be useful."
"Oh, I dunno," said the first. "But, anyhow, let's go."
They paid their bill and went out, and as they crossed the square they
met a couple of the soldiers who had disappeared into the smoke. They
were moving at the double, but at a word from the officers they halted.
Both wore the Red Cross badge of the Army Medical Corps on their arms,
and one explained hurriedly that they were going for an ambulance, that
there was a woman killed, one man and a woman and two children badly
wounded. They ran on, and the two officers moved hastily towards the
shell-struck house. The smoke was clearing now, and it was possible to
see something of the damage that had been done.
The shell apparently had struck the roof, had ripped and torn it off,
burst downwards and outwards, blowing out the whole face of the upper
story, the connecting-wall and corner of the houses next to it, part of
the top-floor, and a jagged gap in the face of the lower story. The
street was piled with broken bricks and tiles, with splinters of stone,
with uprooted cobbles, with fragments and beams, bits of furniture,
ragged-edged planks, fragments of smoldering cloth. As the two walked,
their feet crunched on a layer of splintered glass and broken crockery.
The air they breathed reeked with a sharp chemical odor and the stench
of burning rags.
The R.A.M.C. men had collected the casualties, and were doing what they
could for them, and the officer who was "a bit of a surgeon" gave them
what help he could. The casualties were mangled cruelly, and one of
them, a child, died before the ambulance came.
The shells began to come fast now. One after another they poured in,
the last noise of their approach before they struck sounding like the
rush and roar of an express train passing through a tunnel. No more
fell near the square; but the two officers, returning across it, with
the terrifying rush of its projectiles in their ears, moved hastily and
puffed sighs of relief as they reached the door of the café again.
"I just about want a drink," said the one who was "a bit of a surgeon."
"Thank Heaven I didn't decide to go into the Medical. The more I see of
that job the less I like it."
The other shuddered. "How these surgeons do it at all," he said, "beats
me. I had to go outside when you started to handle that kiddie. Sorry I
couldn't stay to help you."
"It didn't matter," said the first. "Those Medical fellows did all I
wanted, and anyhow you were better employed giving a hand to stop that
building catching light."
The two had their drink and prepared to move again.
"Time we were off, I suppose," said the first. "Our lot must be getting
ready to take the road presently, and we ought to be there."
So they moved and dodged through the quiet streets, with the shells
still whooping overhead and bursting noisily in different parts of the
town. On their way they entered a shop to buy some slabs of chocolate.
The shop was empty when they entered, but a few stout raps on the
counter brought a woman, pale-faced but volubly chattering, up a ladder
and through a trapdoor in the shop-floor. She served them while the
shells still moaned overhead, talking rapidly, apologizing for keeping
them waiting, and explaining that for the children's sake she always
went down into the cellar when the shelling commenced, wishing them, as
they gathered up their parcels and left, "bonne chance," and making for
the trap-door and the ladder as they closed the shop-door.
About the main streets there were few signs of the shells' work, except
here and there a litter of fragments tossed over the roofs and sprayed
across the road. But, passing through a small side square, the two
officers saw something more of the effect of "direct hits." In the
square was parked a number of ambulance wagons, and over a building at
the side floated a huge Red Cross flag. Eight or nine shells had been
dropped in and around the square. Where they had fallen were huge round
holes, each with a scattered fringe of earth and cobble-stones and
broken pavement. The trees lining the square showed big white patches
on their trunks where the bark had been sliced by flying fragments,
branches broken, hanging and dangling, or holding out jagged white
stumps. Leaves and twigs and branches were littered about the square
and heaped thick under the trees. The brick walls of many of the houses
round were pitted and pocked and scarred by the shell fragments. The
face of one house was marked by a huge splash, with solid center and a
ragged-edged outline of radiating jerky rays, reminding one immediately
of a famous ink-maker's advertisement. The bricks had taken the
impression of the explosion's splash exactly as paper would take the
ink's. Practically every window in the square had been broken, and in
the case of the splash-marked house, blown in, sash and frame complete.
One ambulance wagon lay a torn and splintered wreck, and pieces of it
were flung wide to the four corners of the square. Another was
overturned, with broken wheels collapsed under it, and in the Red Cross
canvas tilts of others gaped huge tears and rents.
At one spot a pool of blood spread wide across the pavement, and still
dripping and running sluggishly and thickly into and along the stone
gutter, showed where at least one shell had caught more than brick and
stone and tree, although now the square was deserted and empty of life.
And even as the two hurriedly skirted the place another shell hurtled
over, tripped on the top edge of a roof across the square and exploded
with an appalling clatter and burst of noise. The roof vanished in a
whirlwind of smoke and dust, and the officers jumped from the doorway
where they had flung themselves crouching, and finished their passage
of the square at a run.
"Hottish corner," said one, as they slowed to a walk some distance
away.
"Silly fools," growled the other. "What do they want to hoist that huge
Red Cross flag up there for, where any airman can see it? Fairly asking
for it, I call it."
When they came to the outskirts of the town they found rather more
signs of life. People were hanging about their doorways and the shops,
fewer windows were shuttered, fewer faces peeped from the tiny grated
windows of the cellars. And up the center of the road, with lordly
calm, marched three Highlanders. The smooth swing of their kilts, their
even, unhurried step, the shoulders well back, and the elbows a shade
outturned, the bonnets cocked to a precisely same angle on the upheld
heads, all bespoke either an amazing ignorance of, or a bland
indifference to, the bombardment. Their march was stopped by a sentry,
who shouted to them and moved out from the pavement. Some sort of
argument was going on as the officers approached, and in passing they
heard the finish of it.
"You were pit there tae warn folk," a Highlander was saying. "Weel,
ye've dune that, so we'll awa on oor road. We're nae fonder o' shells
than y'are yersel. But we'd look bonnie, wouldn't we, t' be tellin' the
Cameron lads we promised to meet, that we were feared for a bit
shellin'...."
And after they had passed, the officers looked back and saw the three
Scots swinging their kilts and swaggering imperturbably on to the town,
and their meeting with the "Cameron lads."
There were no more shells, but that afternoon a Taube paid another of
its frequent visits and vigorously bombed the railway station again,
driving the inhabitants back once more to the inadequate shelter of
their cellars and basements. And yet, as the same two officers marched
with their battalion through the town towards the firing-line that
evening, they found the streets quite normally bustling and astir, and
there seemed to be no lack of light in the shops and houses and about
the streets. Here and there as they passed, children stood stiffly to
attention and gravely saluted the battalion, young women and old turned
to call a cheery "Bonne Chance" to the soldiers, to smile bravely and
wave farewells to them.
"Plucky bloomin' lot, ain't they, Bill?" said one man, and blew a kiss
to three girls waving from a window.
"I takes off my 'at to them," said his mate. "What wi' Jack Johnsons
and airyplane bombs, you might expec' the population to have emigrated
in a bunch. The Frenchmen is a plucky enough crowd, but the women--My
Lord."
"Airyplanes every other day," said the first man. "But I don't notice
any darkened streets and white-painted kerbs; and we don't 'ear the
inhabitants shrieking about protection from air raids, or 'Where's the
anti-aircraft guns?' or 'Who's responsible for air defense?' or 'A baa
the Government that don't a baa the air raids!' 'say la gerr,' says
they, and shrugs their shoulders, and leaves it go at that."
They were in a darker side-street now, and the glare of the burning
house shone red in the sky over the roof tops. "Somebody's 'appy 'ome
gone west," remarked one man, and a mouth-organ in the ranks answered,
with cheerful sarcasm, "Keep the Home Fires Burning!"