[36] Cf. Dr. Caradec, op. cit., also the note-book and letters of Second-Lieutenant Gautier: "11 o'clock, the church on fire.... Sailors are queer creatures. Yesterday, while the church was being bombarded they exclaimed: 'Oh, the brutes! I wish I could get hold of one of them and break his jaw!' This morning we took a wounded prisoner. There was not a word of hatred, not an insult, as he passed. Two sailors were helping him along. He said: 'Good-day. War is a terrible thing.' And our men answered. They are more French than they think."
[37] "At first the big shells give one a very unpleasant sensation, but one gets used to them, and learns to guess from the whistling noise they make where they are likely to fall." (Second-Lieutenant Gautier's note-book.)
[38] "The cattle are running about on all the roads and in all the fields. No one attends to them." (Letter of the Marine E. T.) See also below, De Nanteuil.
[39] Cf. Dr. Caradec, op. cit.
[40] The note which furnishes this information as to the heroic conduct of Lieutenant Cayrol adds: "Received a bullet in the middle of his forehead. Brought into the dressing-station by his men, where he gave an account of the incident and of the bravery of his men. He would not consent to be removed until he had been assured that his machine-guns were saved. Has come back to the front."
[41] Second-Lieutenant Gautier's note-book has the following under date of October 22: "Cannonade still lively. One of our convoys blown to pieces." The incident took place the day before, and is evidently identical with that mentioned by Second-Lieutenant X. under date of October 21: "Intensive shelling, a good deal of damage. De Mons and Demarquay, naval lieutenants, wounded. The church on fire. In the afternoon a German airship spotted an important convoy (provisions, ambulances, munitions, etc.) on the road from Caeskerke to Oudecappelle. The convoy was shelled."
[42] Courrier de l'Armée Belge. The pressure, says this official communiqué, was very strong, had been very strong ever since the 20th. On that day "a furious bombardment by guns of every calibre had been kept up upon the Belgian lines. A farm situated in the front of the 2nd Division was taken by the Germans, retaken by the Belgians, and again lost." On the 21st a German attack upon Schoorbakke, combined with an attack upon Dixmude, failed signally. But the Belgians were becoming worn out.
[43] R. Kimley (op. cit.), quoting Lieutenant Hébert, offers another and perhaps a more acceptable explanation. In their dark blue overcoats and their caps with red pompons, the sailors looked strange to the Germans, who took them for francs-tireurs. The terror they inspired was aggravated by this idea.
[44] The Abbés Le Helloco and Pouchard. We have spoken more than once of the former, a man of great intelligence and of a self-abnegation carried, in the words of Saint Augustine, usque ad contemptum sui. His confrère was equally devoted.
[45] "There is not a single uninjured church in the deanery," declared the Abbé Vanryckeghem, Vicaire of Dixmude. "Nearly forty churches between Nieuport and Ypres have been destroyed."