When the bombardment ceased, we rushed out to see for ourselves what the damages were, whilst our cannons continued firing in order to relieve the Koningshoyckt Fort, which had several of its pieces too much injured to use, and also the Tallaert redoubt, which was threatened with a frontal attack.
The archways were cracked everywhere and the paving-stones were torn up out of the ground, which was all furrowed and broken up. Some of the communication passages were destroyed. The diameter of the craters was greater than the distance which separated the jambs. These were all weakened and the heavy cement arches, deprived of their support, were absolutely broken, as though they had been hacked by a gigantic blow from an axe. This bombardment had not disturbed the equanimity of the soldiers much.
When the masonry or the cement was struck, a shower of bricks and of shingle covered the Fort, pouring through all the openings violently. The first time this happened, two men who were at the entrance of a postern were bruised by the shingles. A jocular man remarked: "Good, now they are putting pebbles in their shells!"
We heard groans though from the barrack ruins, and we dragged out one wounded man and two who had been killed. They were civilian workmen who had come there to install loud-speaking telephones.
The wounded man told us that two or three men, one of whom was a soldier, were under the ruins of what had served as a mess-room for the troop. It was impossible to get them out from under the heaps of ruins.
The battery of the glacis was destroyed by two projectiles. We found neither dead nor living men there. What had become of the gunners? All was not lost, however, as, with the exception of the cupola of 5 cent. 7 of salient I. all our defence works are still in good condition and our men do not manifest any anxiety.
October 1st. In obedience to orders from our chief, and together with the neighbouring forts and the interval batteries, we opened a rapid fire of twenty minutes' duration, at 2 and at 4 o'clock, on the localities and the roads in front of our line of defence.
At 7 o'clock we buried our dead.
From 8 o'clock, the intervals, the Koningshoyckt Fort and the Tallaert redoubt were actively bombarded. Our turn did not come until 10.15. Only nine projectiles were sent to us.