A cluster of houses belonging to shrimp fishermen was right under these batteries, where they were sure to get some of the return fire. But we noticed there were lights in every one of the cottages. Inside were the same fishermen who were so apathetic about the fight off-shore.
Battle of the sand dunes.
Red flashing of the contact shells.
The view from the sand dunes was what the war artists on English illustrated weeklies try so hard to show. The French batteries were using shrapnel on the German trenches, the shrapnel leaving puffs of white smoke in long, uneven lines; and the Germans were keeping up their steady pounding of contact shells, with a short red flash after each explosion. The firing of the guns on both sides gave the effect of continuous summer lightning.
Into the panorama the fleet off-shore kept up a new attack on the German batteries in the sand dunes just beyond Nieuport-les-Bains. As it was dark now we could see where they were only by the streaks of fire from their guns. These flashes came and went like the strokes of a dagger, as if they were stabbing the dark.
French soldiers.
We went back along the beach to avoid being questioned, turning around constantly to watch the fleet. At Coxyde a whole company of French soldiers was standing along the edge of the water, jumping back in surprise when the little waves advanced on them. They told us they were from the centre of France and had never seen salt water before.
The shore there is lined with new villas made of light colored bricks. One of these had been dynamited, because it belonged to a German and was suspected of having a concrete floor for siege guns. I had heard of cases of this kind before, but I had never had an opportunity to examine one.
Concrete foundations.
My private thought was that the villa had probably been built by a German with a passion for solidity, but, examining it under a half-full moon, I could see the foundations were brick walls two feet thick covered with mosaic backed by reinforced concrete about a foot thick. It seemed like something more than Teutonic thoroughness.