l from a field-gun, but the three
upper stories simply crumbled, disintegrated, came crashing down
in an avalanche of brick and stone and plaster, as though a Titan
had hit it with a sledge-hammer. Another shell struck in the middle of
the Poids Public, or public weighing-place, which is about the size of
Russell Square in London. It blew a hole in the cobblestone-
pavement large enough to bury a horse in; one policeman on duty
at the far end of the square was instantly killed and another had
both legs blown off. But this was not all nor nearly all. Six people
sleeping in houses fronting on the square were killed in their beds
and a dozen others were more or less seriously wounded. Every
building facing on the square was either wholly or partially
demolished, the steel splinters of the projectile tearing their way
through the thick brick-walls as easily as a lead-pencil is jabbed
through a sheet of paper. And, as a result of the terrific concussion,
every house within a hundred yards of the square in every direction
had its windows broken. On no battlefield have I ever seen so
horrible a sight as that which turned me weak and nauseated when I
entered one of the shattered houses and made my way, over heaps
of fallen debris, to a room where a young woman had been
sleeping. She had literally been blown to fragments. The floor, the
walls, the ceiling, were splotched with--well, it's enough to say that
that woman's remains could only have been collected with a shovel.
In saying this, I am not speaking flippantly either. I have dwelt upon
these details, revolting as they are, because I wish to drive home
the fact that the only victims of this air-raid on Antwerp were
innocent non-combatants.

Another shell struck the roof of a physician's house in the
fashionable Rue des Escrimeurs, killing two maids who were
sleeping in a room on the upper floor. A shell fell in a garden in the
Rue von Bary, terribly wounding a man and his wife. A little child
was mangled by a shell which struck a house in the Rue de la
Justice. Another shell fell in the barracks in the Rue Falcon, killing
one inmate and wounding two others. By a fortunate coincidence
the regiment which had been quartered in the barracks had left for
the front on the previous day. A woman who was awakened by the
first explosion and leaned from her window to see what was
happening had her head blown off. In all ten people were killed, six
of whom were women, and upwards of