We got there at last, two of us, but the owner took a long time opening. Meanwhile scraps of roofs and walls were raining on us, but with our knapsacks on our heads we were a bit protected. At last our knocks were answered, and we learned that there was room for four officers, but not for thirty men! The Colonel and the men had to be warned, so my comrade started running back and I followed about fifteen yards behind.
We passed a gap in the houses, with no cover, nothing but gardens. A shell came along. I dropped, while the other man hid in a doorway. The bits of it sang about our ears. I then sang out: "As you are nearly there, go on, and I'll see if there is room in the farm near by." I reached the houses and waited to see that he got through, because if he'd fallen I should have had to go back to warn the rest. As he was going two shells burst in the courtyard of the mairie, and I thought of the Colonel and the rest, but at last my comrade; reached the place and went in, and I was free to try for the farm.
VICE ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY—Youngest of British Admirals,
Whose Fleet Sank the Bluecher, and Won the Battle of the Bight of Heligoland—
(From the painting by Philip Alexius Laszlo de Lombos)
COUNT VON REVENTLOW—The German Naval Critic
Who Has Intimated That the United States
Might Be a Divided Nation in Case of War
On my way I met a friend and asked him to join me. At the time I was thinking of you all, and it was not till later that I got frightened. There were five horses at the gate of the farm. I shifted them and showed my friend the entrance to the cellar. It was narrow, and he lost time through his knapsack, and these are the occasions when your life depends on seconds. I heard the scream that I know only too well, and guessed where the beast would lodge, and called out to him "That's for us." I shrank back with my knapsack over my head and tried to bury myself in the corner among the coal.
I had no time, though. The shell reached, smashed down part of the house, and burst in the basement a couple of yards from me. I heard no more, but stone, plaster, and bricks fell all around me on the coal heap. I was gasping, but found myself untouched. I got up and saw the poultry struggling and the horses struck down. I ran to the cellar, with the same luck as my friend.
My knapsack caught me. A shell screamed a second time again for us, and it struck, wallop, on the gable, while the ruins fell around my head. I pulled at my knapsack so vigorously that I fell into the cellar, and some of our men who were there called "Here's a poor brute done in." Not a bit of it. I was not touched then either.... At last the bombardment stopped, and we all got out. I noticed about forty hens. Some were pulped. Others had had their heads and legs cut off. In the muddle three horses lay dead. Their saddles were in ribbons. Equipment, revolvers, swords, all that had been left above the cellar had vanished, but there were bits of them to be seen on the roof. My rifle, which had been torn from my hands, was in fragments, and I was stupefied at not having been hit. I noticed, however, that my wrappings that were rolled around my knapsack had been pierced by a splinter of shell that had stuck an it. Later in the evening when I started cutting at my bread the knife stuck. I broke the bread open and found another bit of shell in it. I don't yet know why I was not made mincemeat of that day. There were fifty chances to one against me.
The two following days I stopped in the cellar, hearing nothing but their big shells, while the farm and the buildings near it were smashed in. Now it is all over. I am all right and bored to death mounting guard over wagons ten miles from the firing line, with a crowd of countrymen who have been commandeered with their wagons.