t when shell-fire was not bursting in that square about us. The
shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The enemy was making a target
of the Hotel de Ville, and dropping their shells with dreadful exactitude
on either side of it. I glanced towards a flaring furnace to the right of
the building. There was a wonderful glow at the heart of it. Yet it did
not give me any warmth at that moment.

Dr. Munro and Lieutenant de Broqueville mounted the steps of the
Town Hall, followed by another brancardier and myself. Gleeson was
already taking down a stretcher. He had a little smile about his lips.

A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the
entrance between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from
them lay a dead soldier--a handsome young man with clear-cut
features turned upwards to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was
coagulating round his head, but did not touch the beauty of his face.
Another dead man lay huddled up quite close, and his face was
hidden.

"Are there any wounded here, sir?" asked our young lieutenant.

The other officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but could not
hide the terror of his soul because he had been standing so long
waiting for death which stood beside him but did not touch him. It
appeared from his words that there were several wounded men
among the dead, down in the cellar. He would be obliged to us if we
could rescue them. We stood on some steps looking down into that
cellar. It was a dark hole--illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught
sight of a little heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers still unwounded,
dragged three of them out, handed them up, delivered them to us.
The work of getting those three men into the first ambulance seemed
to us interminable. It was really no more than fifteen to twenty
minutes, while they were being arranged.

During that time Dr. Munro was moving about the square in a dreamy
sort of way, like a poet meditating on love or flowers in May.
Lieutenant de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded
in other houses. I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What
others were doing I don't know, except that Gleeson's calm face
made a clear-cut image on my brain. I had lost consciousness of
myself. Something outside myself, as it seemed, was talking now that
there was no way of escape, that it was monstrous to suppose that all
these bursting shells would not smash the ambulances to bits and
finish the agony