Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/108

84 I asked him what his sensations had been on first hearing the shells. He laughed.

"When the first shell whistled—whoo-ee-ee—I commanded my men to present arms.

That amused them, and was good. Then I told them to lie down."

This officer met a party of us in Epernay and drove us first of all to Rheims. The desecration of the cathedral is by no means a thing of the past. The bombardment continues according to the fancy of the German gunners.

We drove in past miles of shell screens, constructed between the road and the enemy of sheets of cheese cloth or masses of dead foliage. A soldier was our chauffeur. An orderly sat at his side. Above their heads were suspended helmets and a rifle. Out of the grey and rainy morning came the rumbling of guns.

The houses of the suburbs were marked with shell fragments. One or two men and women glided silently past us, clinging to the shelter of walls.

We swerved into a vast open space. At first I didn't realise. Then I left the car and, holding my breath, unconscious of the rain, stood gazing upward.

The cathedral of Rheims proves how absurdly conservative photography is. A picture of the