But they say the most potent way "to summon up remembrance of things past" is the sense of smell. Burned toast means to me Big Bertha.
One Saturday morning I was reading the depressing news of the rout of the Fifth British army. After nearly four years of immobility in the trenches, the Germans had once more started the march on Paris. The two older children were out walking with Alice, their gouvernante. I was at home with the babies. It was a jewel of a day, picked from an October setting and smiling upon Paris in March. The feel of spring was in the air. For months we had welcomed bad weather as an antidote for Gothas. But I was glad the morning was so fine. At least there was nothing to fear until evening. At the end of winter it is a blessing to have the windows open once more. Suddenly the sirens started. We went out on the balcony. The streets were filling with people, crowding into the Vavin Métro station opposite and looking for the houses that were abris. Still the crowds in the Boulevard du Montparnasse got larger. I was sorry that Easter vacation was starting so early. Were the children in school, they would be in the cellar. At the Ecole Alsacienne the children were drilled for air raids as American school children are for fire. Would Alice take the children to her own home or come back here? If she went to her house, could she get there in time to telephone me before the communications were cut off? It was impossible to go out and look for Christine and Lloyd: for I must stay with the others. Often the best thing is to sit tight. The children came in.
"It isn't the Gothas—it's balloons. The Germans have sent a lot of them over us. Everybody says so."
In the unclouded sky there was no sign of aeroplanes. Could they be so high as to be out of sight? And yet there were explosions near us every few minutes. They lasted until late in the afternoon. The rumor of a big gun spread. The noon newspapers and the earlier afternoon ones spoke of a long distance bombardment to explain the explosions. Shells were certainly falling. Bits of them, different from bombs, had been picked up. But the opinion of interviewed experts scouted the theory of a gun that would carry over a hundred kilometers. Was a new German advance being hidden from us? Had they reached the gates of the city?
That night we had our air raid as usual. The next morning the newspapers told us that we could now expect to be shelled by day as well as bombed by night. It was established that the Germans had discovered a means of sending shells from their old lines all the way to Paris.
We were in the axis of Big Bertha, as the cannon was immediately dubbed. This was a new and more severe test for nerves. We got accustomed to it. For the trial, the strength. The kiddies had to have exercise and you yourself could not be home every minute of the time. But my feeling each time a shell exploded is the most horrible memory of the war. You never knew where it fell. On the third day when the children came home from the Luxembourg, they told me that a shell from Big Bertha had torn away a corner of the Grand Bassin. I tried to steel myself. One can become a fatalist for oneself. But it is not easy to be a fatalist for your children.
Then we had a lull. We were assured that there was only one Big Bertha or at the most two. The life of the cannon was a hundred shots. Counting those that fell in the suburbs, the attempt to intimidate Paris was over.
We were thankful now that we had only the air raids.