Then, too, there was a
certain regularity in the German gun-fire. If they started shelling from
the Chateau de Vicoigne, they were likely to continue shelling from that
point. So we lived that day in the front bedroom. If they shelled from
Ramscappelle, the back kitchen became the better room, for we had a
house in between. We were so near their guns, that we could plot the arc
of flight. Pervyse seemed to visitors full of death, simply because it
received a daily dose of shell-fire, like a little child sitting up and
gulping its medicine. With what unconcern in those days we went out by
ambulance to some tight angle, and waited for something to happen.
"We're right by a battery." But the battery was interesting.
"If this is danger, all right. It's great to be in danger." I have sat
all day writing letters by our artillery. Every time a gun went off my
pencil slid. The shock was so sudden, my nerves never took it on. Yet I
was able to sleep a few yards in front of a battery. It would pound
through the night, and I never heard it. The nervous equipment of an
American would ravel out, if it were not for sound sleep. If shells came
no nearer than four hundred yards, we considered it a quiet day.
One day I learned the full meaning of fear. We had had several quiet
safe hours. Night was coming on, and we were putting up the shutters,
when a shell fell close by in the trench.
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