Friends of France

by Various

After making my way up on the old fortifications in the northeastern quarter, I had an excellent view of the whole city—a typical garrison town of northern France spreading over its canals and river up to the Citadel and Cathedral on the heights. Five and six shells were shrieking overhead at the same time, and a corresponding number of houses in the centre of the town going up in dust and débris, one after another, almost as fast as I could count.

During this bedlam a military gendarme strolled up as unconcerned as if he had been looking out for a stranger in the Champs Elysées. He told me about a dug-out that was somewhere "around the corner," But we both got so interested watching the shells and their effect that we stayed where we were. The gendarme had been in the town long enough to become an authority on bombardments, and he could tell me the different shells and what they were hitting, from the colored smoke which rose after each explosion and hung like a pall over the town in the windless spring air. When the shells fell on the Cathedral—often there were three breaking on and around it at the same time—there sprang up a white cloud, while on the red tiles and zinc roofs they exploded in brilliant pink-and-yellow puffs. The air was filled with the smell of the burning celluloid and coal-tar products used in the manufacture of the high explosive and incendiary shells. It was very impressive, and even my friend the gendarme said, "C'est chic, n'est-ce pas? It is the heaviest rain we have had for several days." Then he pointed to the left where a column of flame and smoke, heavier than that from the shells, was rising, and said, "Watch them now, and you'll understand their system, the cochons. That's a house set afire with their incendiary shells, and now they will throw shrapnel around it to keep our firemen from putting it out." And so they did, for I could see the white puffs of the six-inch shrapnel shells breaking in and around the column of black smoke, which grew denser all the time. Then two German Taubes, taking advantage of the smoke, came over and dropped bombs, for no other reason than to add terror to the confusion. But the eighty firemen, a brave little band brought up from Paris with their hose-carts and engine, refused to be confused or terrified. Under the shells and smoke we could see the streams of water playing on the burning house. "They are working from the cellars," said the gendarme. It was fortunate there was no wind, for that house was doomed, and but for the fact that all the buildings were stone, the fire would have spread over all that quarter of the town despite the gallantry of the firemen.

The bombardment continued steadily for about two hours and a half, until several houses were well alight and many others completely destroyed. Then about noon it stopped as suddenly as it had started. I wanted to go down and watch the firemen work, but the gendarme, who had produced an excellent bottle of no ordinary pinard, said, "Wait a while, mon vieux, that is part of the system. They have only stopped to let the people come out. In a few minutes it will start again, when they will have more chance of killing somebody."

AT A "POSTE" AT THE VERY FRONT

But for once he was wrong, and after waiting with him for half an hour, I went down to the first house I had seen catch fire. The firemen were still there, working with hose and axe to prevent the fire from spreading. The four walls of the house were still standing, but inside there was nothing but a furnace which glowed and leaped into flame with every draught of air, so that the sparks flew over the neighboring houses, and started other fires which the firemen were busy controlling. These pompiers are no longer civilians. The black uniform and gay brass and leather helmet of Paris fashion have been replaced with the blue-gray of the poilu, with the regulation steel shrapnel casque or bourguignotte. The French press has had many accounts of their heroism since the beginning of the attack. Certainly if any of the town is left, it will be due to their efforts among the ruins. There are only eighty of them in the town. Half of them are men too old for "active service," yet they have stayed there for two months working night and day under the shells, with the strain of the bombardment added to the usual dangers from falling walls and fire. They are still as gay and eager as ever. Their spirit and motto is the same as that of every soldier and civilian who is doing hard work in these hard times. They all say, "It is war," or more often, "It is for France."

I left them saving what they could of the house, and walked on over the river through the town. It is truly the Abomination of Desolation. The air was heavy and hot with the smell of explosives and the smoke from the smouldering ruins. Not a sound broke the absolute quiet and not a soul was in sight. I saw two dogs and a cat all slinking about on the search for food, and evidently so crazed with terror that they could not leave their old homes. Finally, crossing over the canal, where the theatre, now a heap of broken beams and stones, used to stand, I met an old bearded Territorial leaning over the bridge with a net in his hand to dip out fish killed by the explosion of the shells in the water. He did not worry about the danger of his position on the bridge, and, like all true fishermen, when they have had good luck, he was happy and philosophical. "One must live," said he, "and it's very amiable of the Boches to keep us in fish with their marmites, n'est-ce pas, mon vieux?" We chatted for a while of bombardments, falling walls, and whether the Germans would reach Verdun. He, of course, like every soldier in that region, was volubly sure they would not. Then I went up on the hill towards the Cathedral, by the old library, which was standing with doors and windows wide open, and with the well-ordered books still on the tables and in the shelves. As yet it is untouched by fire or shell, but too near the bridge to escape for long.

I continued my way through streets filled with fallen wires, broken glass, and bits of shell. Here and there were dead horses and broken wagons caught in passing to or from the lines. There is nothing but ruins left of the lovely residential quarter below the Cathedral. The remaining walls of the houses, gutted by flame and shell, stand in a wavering line along a street, blocked with débris, and with furniture and household articles that the firemen have saved. The furniture is as safe in the middle of the street as anywhere else in the town. As I passed along I could hear from time to time the crash and roar of falling walls, and see the rising clouds of white stone dust that has settled thickly everywhere.

The Cathedral, with its Bishop's Palace and cloisters,—all fine old structures of which the foundations were laid in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,—must, from its commanding position overlooking the town, be singled out for destruction. I watched ten shells strike the Cathedral that one morning, and some of them were the terrible 380's, the shells of the sixteen-inch mortars, which make no noise as they approach and tear through to the ground before their explosion.