II.
The intermittent rumble of heavy guns had sounded continuously all through the night, and with the approach of dawn and the commencement of the usual 'early morning hate,' the intensity of the dull reverberations increased. The Mariner and her consorts were within about twelve miles of the spot where the long line of opposing trenches debouched into the North Sea; but even at this distance they could see the brilliant illumination caused by the star-shell as they burst. The dark-blue sky above the horizon to the south-east was never free of them.
'Lor'!' said Billings in an awed whisper, watching the blue-white flashes as they burst suddenly out in the air, hung for a moment, and then waned slowly away, to be replaced by others; 'some poor blokes ain't arf gittin' it in the neck!'
There was a romance and an interest about the spectacle which it is rather difficult to define. For one thing, it was the closest they had ever been to the front; but here, on board the ship, everything was going on in the same old way, and the men went about their business as usual. But there, a bare twelve miles off, the deep-throated murmur of the guns showed that men were striving to kill each other, while the star-shell must have been flooding the closely packed trenches with unwelcome light. It seemed a little difficult to realise it, somehow.
The morning was cloudless and calm. The light increased, and as the sun neared the horizon a band of pale rose-madder and dull orange slowly began to encroach on the dark blue of the upper sky to the eastward. Before long they could see the hostile coast itself as a thin, blue-gray streak punctuated here and there by the spires and houses of the coast towns, magnified out of all proportion by the deceptive light. Hanging in the air, and all but invisible to the naked eye, was the bloated, caterpillar-shape of a German observation balloon. It looked ominous and menacing, and the Hun in the basket suspended beneath it was evidently going aloft to see whom his guns might devour for breakfast. The coast was reputed to bristle with weapons, some of them of prodigious range, and the men in the destroyer hoped fervently that they might not be victims of his wrath.
Then, quite suddenly, the dull blue above the broadening band of colour began to twinkle and sparkle with little spurts and splashes of bright yellow flame. They did not appear in ones, twos, or threes, but in batches of twenty or thirty at a time. The rumbling of the guns started afresh, for the flashes were the bursts of the enemy's anti-aircraft shell, fired at a swarm of allied aeroplanes making an early morning bombing attack; and, from the look of things, somebody was getting a tolerably hot time. More killing! It was rather like watching a gladiatorial combat in the arena; but it was a fine sight, and the 'Mariners' would not have missed it for worlds.
Presently, when the rosy light of the dawn had mounted up into space, the thudding of the distant guns ceased. The attack was over, and the bombs had evidently been dropped; but the clear sky over the shore was still flecked and stained with hundreds of smoke-puffs slowly dissolving on the gentle breeze. They showed blue and purple against the vivid contrasting colour beyond.
Air raids, and their subsequent reprisals, were a speciality of this locality. They took place nearly every morning and evening the Mariner was there; and as the visiting machines had a comparatively short distance to travel before reaching their objective, they were carried out by too many aeroplanes, and with too great a frequency, to be pleasant.
In the French town within reach of the aerial Hun business went on as usual; but at the first wailing of the warning hooter the inhabitants bolted to earth like rabbits to their burrow. Every house which possessed a cellar showed a small red flag over the doorway, and any one who cared to claim admittance was given shelter. Trams stopped and disgorged their living freights. Adipose tram conductors, elderly women dragging frightened children, ancient male civilians, poilus in their slate-blue uniforms, any one and every one, made a bee-line for the nearest symbol of a cellar and safety. It was a wise precaution which must have saved many lives; for, though the Hun may be given the credit of only wishing to damage places of 'military importance,' and to kill members of 'the armed forces of the enemy,' his bombs, as often as not, were liberally sprinkled upon the residential and commercial portions of the town. Added to this, every anti-aircraft gun in the neighbourhood—and there were many of them—sent its shell hurtling skywards to drive the invaders away. The bits had to fall somewhere; and if a jagged morsel of steel weighing one ounce falls on the head of a human being from a height, say, of ten thousand feet, there is nothing for it but a funeral and mourners. So it is wise to keep indoors in any case, wiser still to repair to somebody else's cellar if you do not possess one of your own.
But after the raids, when the inhabitants emerged from their burrows, the small boys and girls collected splinters and sold them as mementoes. The trade was very brisk, and prices sometimes ran high. Bomb fragments—and one could not help suspecting that many of these were manufactured at home in the quiet intervals—commanded fabulous sums. I still treasure a fleeting vision of a British army captain in khaki, flourishing five-franc notes, pursuing a sky-blue poilu down the street in the midst of an air raid. The Frenchman hugged to his bosom the dangerous remains of an aeroplane bomb, a wicked-looking affair painted bright yellow, and filled with some devilish compound guaranteed to kill or to cure. The Englishman wanted it badly, and, being the faster of the two, eventually overtook his quarry, and obtained the relic for fifteen francs. What he did with it I cannot say. One can hardly think that it was received with gratitude by his loving parents, or that it occupied the niche of honour in the hall of his rich but nervous aunt.
But whatever we may have said about bombing attacks at sea, air raids on a town are not the least bit amusing until afterwards. The whistle of a descending bomb is the most uncanny and unpleasant sound it is possible to imagine, far and away nastier than the howling and screeching of a passing shell. Moreover, in an air raid on a town the visitors can hardly fail to hit some one or something, and it may possibly be us.