n we visited
Arras, and this morning they will be hammering her again.

Seven centuries before this war Arras was famous for her tapestries, so
famous that in England a piece of tapestry was called an arras. Now she
has given her name to a battle--to different battles--that began with
the great bombardment of October a year ago, and each day since then
have continued. On one single day, June 26, the Germans threw into the
city shells in all sizes, from three to sixteen inches, and to the
number of ten thousand. That was about one for each house.

This bombardment drove 2,700 inhabitants into exile, of whom 1,200 have
now returned. The army feeds them, and in response they have opened
shops that the shells have not already opened, and supply the soldiers
with tobacco, post-cards, and from those gardens not hidden under bricks
and cement, fruit and vegetables. In the deserted city these civilians
form an inconspicuous element. You can walk for great distances and see
none of them. When they do appear in the empty streets they are like
ghosts. Every day the shells change one or two of them into real ghosts.
But the others still stay on. With the dogs nosing among the fallen
bricks, and the pigeons on the ruins of the cathedral, they know no
other home.

As we entered Arras the silence fell like a sudden change of
temperature. It was actual and menacing. Every corner seemed to threaten
an ambush. Our voices echoed so loudly that unconsciously we spoke in
lower tones. The tap of the captain's walking-stick resounded like the
blow of a hammer. The emptiness and stillness was like that of a vast
cemetery, and the grass that had grown through the paving-stones
deadened the sound of our steps. This silence was broken only by the
barking of the French seventy-fives, in parts of the city hidden to
us, the boom of the German guns in answer, and from overhead by the
aeroplanes. In the absolute stillness the whirl of their engines came
to us with the steady vibrations of a loom.

In the streets were shell holes that had been recently filled and
covered over with bricks and fresh earth. It was like walking upon newly
made graves. On either side of us were gaping cellars into which the
houses had dumped themselves or, still balancing above them, were walls
prettily papered, hung with engravings, paintings, mirrors, quite
intact. These walls were roofless and defenseless against the rain and
snow. Other houses were like those toy on