of
the window looking down at the colour and movement of the life
below, and thinking at odd moments--the thought always thrust
beneath the surface of one's musings--of the unceasing slaughter of
the war not very far away across the Belgian frontier. All these people
here in the square were in some way busy with the business of death.
They were crossing these flagged stones on the way to the
shambles, or coming back from the shell-stricken towns, la bas, as
the place of blood is called, or taking out new loads of food for guns
and men, or bringing in reports to admirals and the staff, or going to
churches to pray for men who have done these jobs before, and now,
perhaps, lie still, out of it.

This square in Dunkirk contained many of the elements which go to
make up the actions and reactions of this war. It seemed to me that a
clever stage manager desiring to present to his audience the typical
characters of this military drama--leaving out the beastliness, of
course--would probably select the very people and groups upon
whom I was now looking down from the window. Motor-cars came
whirling up with French staff officers in dandy uniforms (the stains of
blood and mud would only be omitted by Mr. Willie Clarkson). In the
centre, just below the statue of Jean-Bart, was an armoured-car
which a Belgian soldier, with a white rag round his head, was
explaining to a French cuirassier whose long horse-hair queue fell
almost to his waist from his linen-covered helm. Small boys mounted
the step and peered into the wonder-box, into the mysteries of this
neat death-machine, and poked grubby fingers into bullet-holes which
had scored the armour-plates. Other soldiers--Chasseurs Alpins in
sky-blue coats, French artillery men in their dark-blue jackets, Belgian
soldiers wearing shiny top-hats with eye-shades, or dinky caps with
gold or scarlet tassels, and English Tommies in mud-coloured khaki--
strolled about the car, and nodded their heads towards it as though to
say, "That has killed off a few Germans, by the look of it. Better sport
than trench digging."

The noise of men's voices and laughter--they laugh a good deal in
war time, outside the range of shells--came up to the open window;
overpowered now and then by the gurgles and squawks of motor-
horns, like beasts giving their death-cries. With a long disintegrating
screech there came up a slate-grey box on wheels. It made a
semicircular sweep, scattering a group of people, and