“It’s over. We can go.”
“When you wish, old fellow. They’ve stopped for breath.”
“You’ll find out in five minutes.”
“Bah! I’ve more time to go than I need.”
“Good luck, and if you find any Easter eggs on the way bring them back for dinner.”
The adjutant’s reiterated joke no longer had the same zest for me and it hardly made me smile.
Outside, the streets were empty, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.
The bombardment had stopped, but no one was taken in by this deceptive calm. From one moment to another we waited for a new bombardment even more violent than the first. The Boches are creatures of habit and this is not the first time they’ve played this trick. When they bombard a cantonment, they very often interrupt their bombardment some minutes so as to make us think it is over; then, when the men have ventured into the streets, they suddenly begin again and make fresh victims.
A house has fallen in the middle of the road some steps from our cantonment. Débris block the way, and we have to climb over them. Farther along, at the other end of the street, a house which was still intact this morning is now in flames.