The great empty Cross; the woman and the dead Christ
at the foot of it; the quiet, kneeling people before it; over all, as
the services began, the silvery bell of the Mass; the bending backs of
the priests before the altar; the sound of fresh, boyish voices
singing in the choir--that is early morning service in the great
Gothic church at Dunkirk.
Onto this drab and grey and grieving picture came the morning
sunlight, through roof-high windows of red and yellow and of that warm
violet that glows like a jewel. The candles paled in the growing
light. A sailor near me gathered up his cap, which had fallen unheeded
to the floor, and went softly out. The private service was over; the
market women picked up their baskets and, bowing to the altar,
followed the sailor. The great organ pleaded and cried out. I stole
out. I was an intruder, gazing at the grief of a nation.
It was a transformed square that I walked through on my way back to
the hotel. It was a market morning. All week long it had been crowded
with motor ambulances, lorries, passing guns. Orderlies had held
cavalry horses under the shadow of the statue in the centre. The
fried-potato-seller's van had exuded an appetising odour of cooking,
and had gathered round it crowds of marines in tam-o'-shanters with
red woollen balls in the centre, Turcos in great bloomers, and the
always-hungry French and Belgian troopers.
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