"Here we are—here we are—here we are again!
Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! HALLO!"
And the crowd had been quick to catch up the chorus, responding:
"Eeeweea—eeweea—eeweea—eggain!
Allo! Allo! Allo! ALLO!"
And the British Headquarters had established itself in its spider-web of Intelligence at the house of the Burgomaster, and the very next day a Boche aviator had tried to drop a bomb on it, and had been winged by a clever shot from an anti-aircraft gun, and brought crashing down on the Plaine d'Amour. And there had been rejoicings on the part of the young people who were thoughtless. But the wise old folks had known quite well that many more Taubes would come.
What an autumn it had been, dear Lord! thought the trembling old people. The first Sunday in August, with its decorations, processions, hymns, and litanies, all in honour of Our Lady of Thuyn, had been turned into a demonstration of penitents. The Kermesse had been prohibited with the other festivities. No use baking honey-cakes and marzipan. Nobody would have bought them. The Yprais were too busy listening to the distant firing of terribly great guns. All the window-panes rattled and shivered, and the earth vibrated without ceasing. Each morning brought dreadful news, contradicted every afternoon, and confirmed at night. Towns bombarded, townsmen shot, hung, or burned, children and women—even nuns—violated and murdered. Villages wiped out—these were the stories that found their way into the deafest ears. Crowds of refugees evacuated from these towns and villages presently began to throng in. Soon the streets were full from wall to wall. Spies moved everywhere, and no lights dared be shown at night-time. Bread grew scarce, the dreadful sound of the guns drew nearer. Wounded, Allies and Germans also, were brought in, in thousands, by the ambulance-cars. The hospitals and hotels and convents were full—all the schools—and many of the private houses. Terrible rumours gained ground of a great battle about to be fought in the neighbourhood of the town.
Peering from garret-windows by day or night, one could see great banks of black smoke towering on the north, east, and west horizons, pierced by broad licking tongues of cherry-coloured flame. Taubes and Allied aircraft fought battles in the heavens. Bombs were dropped upon public buildings. Death had begun to be common in the streets when the first Krupp shells fell and exploded in the moat behind the Abbey Church of St. Jacques. Ten minutes later—upon the doomed city fell the direst fury of the German hate.
It had been as though hell had opened, as under that hail of iron and fire the troops and transports of the Allies, and the long processions of townspeople afoot and in carts and carriages had rolled out of the town. Even the dogs had left, following their owners. Like the cats—who clung to their familiar surroundings, and had to be removed by force, if they were to be taken—the old folks resisted the sturdy hands that tugged at them. "Leave us! ..." they quavered. "We are so old! ... We can never bear the journey! ... We should only die upon the roads if we were to go!"
Many did go, and many died, and of those who stayed behind them, Steel, Iron, and Fire claimed a heavy toll. But in the Northern quarter, some yet dwelt in cellar-basements, feeding on mouldy flour, and frozen potatoes. Sleeping on sacks of straw, covered with rugs or blankets, warming their lean, shivery bodies at braziers, choking behind masks taken from slain men through deadly gas-attacks,—creeping up between bombardments for a breath of purer air. Venturing forth to kneel upon the littered pavements of roofless churches, and pray to Our Lord before His vacant tabernacles and shattered Crucifixes—for an end to the dreadful War.
And no answer came, it seemed, for all their praying. They had grown used to the dampness underground. Their eyes were now accustomed to the gloom, as their ears to the stunning crashes of the bombardments—and the perpetual whirr and buzz and whine of the aircraft in the sky. So natural had become to them the abomination of desolation that they actually resented the occasional visits of the Red Cross car from Pophereele.
"Behold him again," they grumbled, "the tall, blind Englishman. What does he seek here? Hardly to view our ruins that he has no eyes to see! And now in another big grey car arrive a French priest and a woman, asking, wherever they meet a soul to ask, if the blind Englishman is here? The priest is a Monseigneur—Old Ottilie swears to the ring and the purple collar. The woman is English, it appears. Perhaps she is the blind man's wife?"