the wire and the shell craters, and coming into
the road, broke into a canter and vanished in the direction of the
smashed-up refinery.

2

About such towns as Rheims or Arras or Soissons there is an effect of
waiting stillness like nothing else I have ever experienced. At Arras
the situation is almost incredible to the civilian mind. The British
hold the town, the Germans hold a northern suburb; at one point near the
river the trenches are just four metres apart. This state of tension has
lasted for long months.

Unless a very big attack is contemplated, I suppose there is no
advantage in an assault; across that narrow interval we should only
get into trenches that might be costly or impossible to hold, and so it
would be for the Germans on our side. But there is a kind of etiquette
observed; loud vulgar talking on either side of the four-metre gap leads
at once to bomb throwing. And meanwhile on both sides guns of various
calibre keep up an intermittent fire, the German guns register--I think
that is the right term--on the cross of Arras cathedral, the British
guns search lovingly for the German batteries. As one walks about the
silent streets one hears, "_Bang_---Pheeee---woooo" and then
far away "_dump._" One of ours. Then presently back comes
"Pheeee---woooo---_Bang!_" One of theirs.

Amidst these pleasantries, the life of the town goes on. _Le Lion
d'Arras_, an excellent illustrated paper, produces its valiant sheets,
and has done so since the siege began.

The current number of _Le Lion d'Arras_ had to report a local German
success. Overnight they had killed a gendarme. There is to be a public
funeral and much ceremony. It is rare for anyone now to get killed;
everything is so systematised.

You may buy postcards with views of the destruction at various angles,
and send them off with the Arras postmark. The town is not without a
certain business activity. There is, I am told, a considerable influx
of visitors of a special sort; they wear khaki and lead the troglodytic
life. They play cards and gossip and sleep in the shadows, and may not
walk the streets. I had one glimpse of a dark crowded cellar. Now and
then one sees a British soldier on some special errand; he keeps to the
pavement, mindful of the spying German sausage balloon in the air. The
streets are strangely quite and grass grows between the stones.

The Hotel de Ville and the cathedral are now mostly heaps of litter,
but many streets of the