We passed, too, long lines of trolley-cars packed with cheerful soldiers being brought back from the front for their period of rest, and with others going out to take their places. Thus the humble street-car has taken its place in the machinery of war.
Soon we turned into another road which led us to the village of Lampernisse. Here we visited and photographed the ruins of the church. Not very long ago the Germans dropped a big shell into this church and killed forty-two chasseurs who were sleeping in it. They are buried in the graveyard in one big grave. Subsequently the Germans, believing that the steeple of the church was being used for observation purposes, kept on shelling it till they brought it all down, and incidentally wrecked what remained of the village.
From here on our movements must be shrouded in mystery, but ultimately at about 11.45 we reached a humble group of farm buildings, the headquarters of Colonel D——, commanding the artillery of the sector. We found him in a little bomb-proof telephone central built onto one of the farm buildings. With a Major and a Captain he was poring over very large scale maps spread on a table. Behind him a soldier sat at a telephone switchboard. From the outside a whole sheaf of telephone wires ran away, in various directions.
My Commandant presented me to the Colonel and explained my desire to see some howitzers in action.
"Perfect!" exclaimed the Colonel genially. "We have just definitely located a German blockhouse in their defense system and at two o'clock this afternoon we are going to destroy it with one of our 150-millimetre howitzers. So if you will honor the Villa Beausejour with your company at lunch you can afterward watch the howitzer work."
The old farm-house had been euphemistically christened the Villa Beausejour by the Colonel's staff.
Inviting me into the bomb-proof, the Colonel then showed me on one of the large scale maps the whole lay of the land. Red lines indicated the Belgian intrenchments, blue lines the German. In the same way all over the map behind the red line the Belgian batteries were indicated in red, while the same held good in blue of those German batteries which the Belgians had managed to locate. Some of these latter were false emplacements. It was only when a little blue cannon was drawn behind the emplacement that an actual gun was indicated.
The Colonel pointed out to me on this map the exact location of the Villa Beausejour, of the blockhouse which was to be destroyed, and of the gun which was to destroy it. He also showed me photographs of the German positions taken from Belgian aeroplanes. Taking one of these photographs and comparing it with a map, he explained to me how the map showed only one road leading to a certain spot, while the photograph showed a new second road leading to the same spot. This indicated the existence of a concealed battery at that place.
The telephone bell rang. "This is Number 12," answered the soldier-operator. He listened for a few moments and then told the Colonel that Headquarters wished him to send over an officer after lunch to cross-question the two German prisoners just captured for information which might be of use to his artillery.