fate were, however, quietly holding their places. Faces, emotionally
divided between fear and strong interest, peered at us as we ran by,
disappearing at the first whistle of a bomb, for all the world like
hermit-crabs into their shells. A whistle sent us both scurrying into a
passageway; the shell fell with a wicked hiss, and, scattering the
paving-stones to the four winds, blew a shallow crater in the roadway. A
big cart horse, hit in the neck and forelegs by fragments of the shell,
screamed hideously. Right at the bridge, the sentry, an old territorial,
was watching the whole scene from his flimsy box with every appearance
of unconcern.

Not the station itself, but a kind of baggage-shed was on fire. A hose
fed by an old-fashioned seesaw pump was being played on the flames.
Officials of the railroad company ran to and fro shouting unintelligible
orders. For five minutes more the German aeroplanes hovered overhead,
then slowly melted away into the sky to the south-east. The raid had
lasted, I imagine, just about twenty minutes.

That night, fearing another raid, all lights were extinguished in the
town and at the barracks. Before rolling up in my blankets, I went out
into the yard to get a few breaths of fresh air. Through the night air,
rising and falling with the wind, I heard in one of the random silences
of the night a low, distant drumming of artillery.




Chapter X