it hasn't been fought over like our back
areas. Why; here are trees scarcely knocked about at all. A recognizable
field there. How real that stream looks! And, oh Jemima! a blue tit.

A little distance farther. Over that gentle rise, and there behold ----.
Surely one of the loveliest towns in France, on its low hill surrounded
by the quiet waters of the Somme. From a distance it looks all right;
though somehow, the smoke still ascending from it doesn't look natural.

As you approach you realize that what looks so charming is just
empty, shelled, charred, and broken. The Huns have destroyed every
single house, all the bridges, and the cathedral, too. The cathedral
that once crowned the town now stands a pale crushed ghost in the
deserted market-place.

[Sidenote: PERONNE]

Some of the streets are almost amusing. Imagine Rye with the pretty
alleys so encumbered and piled up with roofs, sofas, the contents of
wardrobes, dormer-windows, smashed mirrors, rubble, and dust, that it's
quite impossible to proceed. Very well, that's ----.

Go into the houses, and there it's just as it is in the streets.
Everything crushed to atoms. Images of saints have been hurled out on to
garbage-heaps, and in the cathedral huge pillars are lying about in
clumsy confusion amongst chairs, organ pipes, and gilded flowers.

On a huge notice board in the Grande Place the Hun has written:

NICHT ARGERN: NUR WUNDERN!

(Don't argue: only wonder! We the Huns did this. Why discuss what we
have done? We have destroyed your city. Gape and stare, stupid fools!
What does it matter to us? We took your precious town from you, because
we wanted it. Now we don't want it any more. Here it is back again.
With our love.) Some merry soldier wrote that up, I suppose. It was a
pity.

There were French officers in ---- to-day. I spoke to one. He answered
with a quiet, simple bitterness and determination that would have turned
even a Hohenzollern pale, I think. Unhappy Emperor! he must be feeling
decidedly uneasy nowadays.

Another odd sight was a tub full of water, with a little dog trying to
get out. But the little dog was dead. A crump evidently landed somewhere
near, and just petrified him, as it were. You often see men like that,
struck dead in the middle of some act. Men are usually turned a dull
purplish or greenish black. So was this little dog. We ate a delicious
lunch on the battlements, our legs dangling 50 feet above the reedy
water. Lots