eration in the sub-cellar,
and mess headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the ground.
Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed that one door had suffered
some damage which had caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster
ceiling of the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen places.
At every shock to the earth, a little stream of oats would come through
the holes from the attic above. These falling down on the officer's neck
in the midst of a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to
call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain.

We learned more about the sinister meaning of that broken door and the
ceiling holes when it became necessary later in the evening to move mess
to a safer location. The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of
the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of German shells that
missed the intersection caused too much interruption in our cook's work.

We found that the mess room was vacant by reason of the fact that it had
become too unpleasant for French officers, who had relinquished it the
day before. We followed their suite and were not surprised when an
infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and just one day
later, to the hour, followed us out of it.

Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and listening to the
pound of arriving shells on nearby cross roads and battery positions, we
estimated how long it would be before this little village would be
completely levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappearing from
houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and stone walls were showing
jagged gaps. One whole wall of the village school had crumbled before
one blast, so that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and
their books and papers were exposed to view from the street. On the
blackboard was a penmanship model which read:

"Let no day pass without having saved something."

An officer came down the dark stone steps into the cellar, kicked off
his boots and lay down on some blankets in one corner.

"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode," I remarked. "Do
you know whether they were gas or duds?"

"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said, "but I do know
that that horse out in the yard is certainly getting ripe."

The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered grave adjoining our
ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask was not the most unpleasant form of
slumber.