[CHAPTER XIV]
AIR RAIDS
I
Where the grey gas-bags failed, Taubes often succeeded. At first they came "in single spies," but later "in battalions." And after one of the early and abortive raids which did no damage—a mere bagatelle of three bombs and one soldier with a cut over his eye—posters of such exquisite import were plastered over the walls that I must tell you about them.
They emanated from the Mayor, kind father to his people, who told us—we thrilled to hear it—"that in these tragic hours—of war—we had known how to meet the dangers that menaced us with unfailing calmness and courage" (I translate literally), and that "our presence of mind in the face of such sterile manifestations would always direct our moral force." Very flattering. We preened feathers quite unjustifiably, since admittedly the occasion had called for no emotion save that of a limited, feminine, and quite reasonable curiosity.
Then, still glowing, we read on. Mayoral praise is sweet, but mayoral instructions hard to follow. The wisest course to pursue when hostile aviators aviate is, it seems, to take refuge in the nearest house and not to gaze at the sky—surely that Mayor had never been born of woman!—or, should there be no house, "to distance oneself rapidly and laterally."
We ceased to glow. We remembered we were but dust. Distance oneself laterally? Good, but suppose one was walking by the Canal? With an impenetrable hedge on one side, were we to spring to the other? I have seen the Canal in all its moods. I have never felt the smallest desire to bathe in it. I have still less desire to drown—suffocate!—in it. And if one doesn't know in which direction the bomb is going to fall?... How be lateral and rapid before it arrives? Suppose one jumped right under it? Suppose one waits till it comes? "Too late. Too late; ye cannot distance now."
Some one suggests that we ought to practise being rapid and lateral. "My dear woman, I don't know what being lateral means." Thus the unenlightened of the party.