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Page 50
The next morning, about breakfast time, the first shell burst near the
camp--a short rapid squeal followed by a sharp report. The second shell
burst a few minutes after, throwing up earth and smoke. A steel fragment
came sailing over in a wide parabola and struck the foot of a man
standing in the breakfast queue. He limped to the first-aid hut, looking
very pale. When he got there, he had some difficulty in finding his
wound, it was so slight.
We paraded and marched off. Several shells burst in the neighbouring
fields. We reached the ration dump and began to load the train. A
civilian arrived with the newspapers. Our N.C.O.'s were powerless to
stop the general stampede that surged towards the paper-vendor.
The Germans had advanced on a wide front ... Armenti�res had fallen. The
news was several days old and much might have happened since.
We went back to our work and discussed events. We were bullied and
threatened with arrest, but we talked in groups while we carried cases
of rations. Would we be involved in the advance? We might even be
captured--that would at least be an experience and a change.
In the evening a few of us went to the St. Martin to see if the old
woman and her daughter had been able to fetch their property away. We
observed that the windows, where tinned fruit, chocolate, cakes, soap,
postcards, and other articles used to be exhibited, had been cleared
completely. We entered and found one of the girls in tears:
"All gone--all gone--I show you--you come into de cellar--all de wine
gone--bottles all, all broken. English soldiers come in de night and
take everysing 'vay--ve nussing left--it's de soldiers in de camp over
zair in de field--zey plenty drunk dis morning--ve lose everysing--ve
poor now."
Besides the windows, the till and the shelves had been cleared, and
empty drawers and boxes had been thrown on to the floor. We went down
into the cellar. All the cases had been opened and the stone floor was
littered with empty and broken bottles. The girl began to sob again when
she saw the ruin that had been inflicted:
"All gone, all gone--ve poor now."
"Why don't you complain to the Town Major?" one of us suggested.
"Complain?--vat's de use complain?--de Town Major, he nice man, he kind
to us, but he no find de soldiers dat come, and if he find zem he punish
zem but ve get nussing. Vat's de use punish zem if ve get nussing? All
gone, ve poor now--oh, dis var, dis var--dis de second time ve
refugeess--ve lose eversing 1914, ve come here from Zandvoorde and ve
start again--ve do business vis soldiers, soldiers plenty money, ve do
goot business, and now ve refugeess again and ve novair to go. If de
Shermans come, ve do business vis de Shermans--but de shells come first
and ve all killed--ah, dis var, dis var! Vat's de use fighting? All for
nussing! Var over, me plenty dance!"
We ascended the cellar stairs. The mother was in the main room, wiping
her eyes. We said good-bye to her and her daughter, feeling ashamed of
our uniforms, and walked out into the street.
A mass of French cavalry were galloping past. It was growing dark. The
cannonade had become deafening. Over the town a few miles off there was
a crimson glare in the sky.
A horde of civilians was thronging the main street of the village. Old
men and women were carrying all that was left to them of their property
on their backs. Others were pushing wheelbarrows heaped up with clothes
and household utensils. Girls were carrying heavy bundles under their
arms and dragging tired, tearful children along. White-faced, sorrowful
mothers were carrying peevish babies. Great wagons, loaded with
furniture and bedding, and whole families sitting on top, were drawn by
lank and bony horses. A little cart, with a pallid, aged woman cowering
inside, was drawn painfully along by a white-haired man. They passed by
us in the gathering gloom, and there seemed to be no end to these
straggling multitudes of ruined, homeless people who were wandering
westwards to escape the disaster that threatened to engulf us all.
The eastern sky flickered with vivid gun-flashes and scintillated with
brilliant shell-bursts. The night was full of rustling noises and sullen
thunder-claps, while a more distant roaring and rumbling seemed to break
against some invisible shore like the breakers of a stormy sea.
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