d them to the officer.
When the two emerged from the bank they found the street a good deal
quieter than when they had entered it. They walked along towards the
main square, noticing that some of the shopkeepers were calmly putting
up their shutters, while others quietly continued serving the few
customers who were hurriedly completing their purchases. As the two
walked along the narrow street they heard the thin savage whistle of an
approaching shell and a moment later a tremendous _bang_! They and
everybody else near them stopped and looked round, up and down the
street, and up over the roofs of the houses. They could see nothing,
and had turned to walk on when something crashed sharply on a roof
above them, bounced off, and fell with a rap on the cobble-stones in
the street. A child, an eager-faced youngster, ran from an arched
gateway and pounced on the little object, rose, and held up a piece of
stone, with intense annoyance and disgust plainly written on his face,
threw it from him with an exclamation of disappointment.
The two walked on chuckling. "Little bounder!" said one. "Thought he'd
got a souvenir; rather a sell for him--what?"
In the main square, they found a number of market women packing up
their little stalls and moving off, others debating volubly and looking
up at the sky, pointing in the direction of the last sound, and clearly
arguing with each other as to whether they should stay or move. A
couple of Army Transport wagons clattered across the square. One
driver, with the reins bunched up in his hand and the whip under his
arm, was busily engaged striking matches and trying to light a
cigarette; the other, allowing his horses to follow the first wagon,
and with his mouth open, gazed up into the sky as if he expected to see
the next shell coming. A few civilians scattered about the square were
walking briskly; a woman, clutching the arm of a little boy, ran,
dragging him, with his little legs going at a rapid trot. More
civilians, a few men in khaki, and some in French uniform, were
standing in archways or in shop-doors.
There was another long whistle, louder and harsher this time, and
followed by a splintering crash and rattle. The groups in the doorways
flicked out of sight; the people in the open half halted and turned to
hurry on, or in some cases, without looking round, ran hurriedly to
cover. Stones and little fragments of debris clacked down one by one,
and then in a little pattering s
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