Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first
bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house,
anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns,
without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat facades of the closed
and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The second bomb killed
them both.
Through all that night after the bombardment I could hear each hour
the call of the trumpet from the great overhanging tower, a double
note at once thin and musical, that reported no enemy in sight in the
sky and all well. From far away, at the gate in the wall, came the
reply of the distant watchman's horn softened by distance.
"All well here also," it said.
Following the trumpets the soft-toned chimes of the church rang out a
hymn that has chimed from the old tower every hour for generations,
extolling and praising the Man of Peace.
The ambulances had finished their work. The dead lay with folded
hands, surrounded by candles, the lights of faith. And under the
fading moon the old city rested and watched.
CHAPTER IX
NO MAN'S LAND
FROM MY JOURNAL:
I have just had this conversation with the little French chambermaid
at my hotel. "You have not gone to mass, Mademoiselle?"
"I? No."
"But here, so near the lines, I should think--"
"I do not go to church.
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