h town was alive with market carts, which
lumbered noisily over the cobble stones, while around the pavements,
stalls and barrows did a roaring trade. It was market-day, and the hot
summer sun shone down on the busy crowds. Soldiers and civilians,
women and small children bargained and laughed and squabbled over the
prices of "oofs" and other delicacies for the inner man. Except for
the khaki and the ever present ambulance which threaded its way through
the creaking country carts, it might have been peace time again in
Northern France. Yet eight or nine miles away were the trenches.

Facing the square was an open-air cafe, where a procession of large
light beers was pursuing its way down various dry throats, belonging to
officers both French and British: beer that was iced, and beautiful to
behold. Away down a little farther on sat Jimmy O'Shea; not admitted
into the sacred portals marked "Officers only," but none the less happy
for that. In front of him was a small glass of cognac. . . .

It was just as a stout and somewhat heated Frenchman in civilian
clothes got up from the little table next to mine that it happened.
There was no sound of warning--it just occurred. The house by the
clock was there one moment; the next moment it was not. A roar filled
the air, drowning the clattering carts; bricks, tables, beds went
hurtling up into space; walls collapsed and crashed on to the cobbles.
A great cloud of stifling dust rose swiftly and blotted out the scene.
Then silence--the silence of stupefaction settled for a while on the
watching hundreds, while bricks and stones rained down on them from the
sky.

It was the little Frenchman who spoke first. "Mon Dieu! une bombe. Et
moi je suis le Maire." He walked unsteadily towards the cloud of dust,
and with his going pandemonium broke loose. Mechanically the beer went
down our throats, while in all directions carts bumped and jolted,
wheels got locked, barrows overturned. Still the same blue sky; still
the same serene sun; but in the place of a quiet grey house--wreckage,
dust, death. And around us the first frenzy of panic.

"Do you put that down to an aeroplane?" I looked up to see Jimmy
O'Shea beside me. "All right, mother." He was patting an excited
woman on her back. "I'll help you." He started to pick up the
contents of her barrow, which reposed principally in the gutter, having
been knocked off by a bolting horse. "No need to get your wind up.
You'