own Hall and dropping their shells with dreadful
exactitude on either side of it.

I glanced toward the flaming furnace to the right of the building. There
was a wonderful glow at the heart of it, yet it did not give me any
warmth. At that moment Dr. Munro and Lieut. de Broqueville mounted the
steps of the Town Hall, followed by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and myself. Mr.
Gleeson was already taking down a stretcher; he had a little smile
about his lips.

A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the
entrance, between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from them
lay a dead soldier, a handsome young man with clear-cut features turned
upward to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was coagulating around his
head, but did not touch the beauty of his face. Another dead man lay
huddled up quite close, and his face was hidden.

"Are there any wounded here, Sir?" asked our young Lieutenant. The other
officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but he could not hide the
terror in his soul, because he had been standing so long waiting for
death, which stood beside him, but did not touch him. It appeared from
his words that there were several wounded men among the dead down in the
cellar, and that he would be obliged to us if we could rescue them.

We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark
hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little
heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of
them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men
into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no
more than fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time Dr. Munro,
perfectly calm and quiet, was moving about the square, directing the
work. Lieut. de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded in
other houses. I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What the
others were doing I do not know, except that Mr. Gleeson's calm face
made a clear-cut image on my brain.

I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it
seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was
monstrous to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the
ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death
was very hideous. I remember thinking, also, how ridiculous it was for
men to kill one another like this and to make such hells on earth.

Then Lieut. de Broqueville sp