I was overjoyed when she
came trotting home, quite unafraid, although by this time the shells
were falling in various parts of the town."
On the previous night Mme. Duterque had already made preparations
in case the town should be bombarded. Her house, like most of the
old houses in Arras, had a great cellar, with a vaulted roof, almost as
strong as a castle dungeon. She had stocked it with a supply of
sardines and bread and other provisions, and as soon as she had
her little daughter safe indoors again she took her children and the
nurse down to this subterranean hiding-place, where there was
greater safety. The cave, as she called it, was dimly lighted with a
paraffin lamp, and was very damp and chilly, but it was good to be
there in this hiding-place, for at regular intervals she could hear the
terrible buzzing noises of a shell, like some gigantic hornet, followed
by its exploding boom; and then, more awful still, the crash of a
neighbouring house falling into ruins.
"Strange to say," said Mme. Duterque, "after my first shock I had no
sense of fear, and listened only with an intense interest to the noise of
these shells, estimating their distance by their sound. I could tell quite
easily when they were close overhead, and when they fell in another
part of the town, and it seemed to me that I could almost tell which of
my friends' houses had been hit.
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