"I hear you've had some excitement? It put my wind up a bit when I heard about it. Still, I'm glad in a way—the monotony of our lives was becoming unbearable. I'd rather have shell-bursts than blasts of the S.M.'s whistle. Have many been dropping in the town recently?"
"A good few—I daresay you'll have some to-night if you're lucky. Yes, the S.M.'s whistle got on my nerves too. I was longing for a change and frightfully keen on seeing a bit of the war. I confess I wasn't particularly scared by the shells we had—of course, none of them came very near. But I don't want to have any more, not after seeing those wounded carried along on stretchers to-day. You're right in the town here and it's quite likely that you'll make a closer acquaintance with high-explosive shells than I've been able to make...."
I had hardly spoken when there was a faint muffled boom in the distance and a long, deepening howl, and then a loud explosion that shook the building.
A few minutes after a second shell passed overhead and exploded somewhere in the town.
Then, without the usual warning, there was a roar that seemed to split our heads and an impact that sent us reeling backwards against the wall. The room was filled with dense, pungent smoke and dust that choked and blinded us. Above the violent droning in our ears we could hear the clatter of falling bits of plaster and masonry. A whistle blew and there was a shout of "Clear Billet." We thronged the doorway and poured down the stairs, panic stricken, but before we had left the building there was another reverberating crash and once again we were enveloped by smoke and dust while the bits of plaster showered down upon us from the ceiling. I bowed my head and held my arm up to protect my face. Something whizzed closely by, and a man dropped heavily with a groan in front of me. He lay on his face with one arm doubled up underneath, quite motionless. Two men went up to him and crossed their hands under his chest to raise him. His blood was gushing out and forming a pool on the floor. As we dashed out into the road I saw an artilleryman standing alone on the cobbles and looking around in a scared fashion. There was another deafening explosion and dense clouds of smoke issued from a building forty or fifty yards away. Suddenly the artilleryman clutched his face with his hand. The blood began to stream through his fingers and down his wrist into his sleeve. He hurried away with staggering steps.
We left the town behind us and waited near a barn in the open fields. We were joined by the two men who had remained behind to help our wounded fellow soldier.
"Is it serious?" we asked.
"Serious?—He's done for, poor chap! A big bit of shell caught him right in the chest—it didn't half make a hole. We carried him away from the billet and sat him up against a wall. We couldn't stop the blood from flowing. He came to for a few seconds though, and moaned, 'O my poor mother! O my poor mother!' enough to break your heart. And then he seemed to lose consciousness again. The ambulance arrived and we laid him on a stretcher. I expect he died before he got to the hospital."
"Anybody else hit?"
"Two of our fellows—one of them pretty seriously. They could both walk though. A lot of men from other units have been killed. The last shell dropped into a mess-room and laid out a dozen or more, and just as we were coming along we saw an artilleryman lying in the road with a big hole right in the middle of his face. He was still warm but his heart had stopped beating. It's a bloody awful feeling to lose one of your mates, though."