Our aeroplanes are always watching for these assemblies. To take only one case out of many, they reported a mass of men in a certain square of Lens the day before yesterday. Our guns turned on to them, not only our field-guns but our heavies, up to those howitzers which could batter down a massive fortress after a few rounds. Men under the fire of such shells as those things send do not escape in great numbers. Most of them die. The Prussians in the square of Lens were caught by this hurricane fire, and before they could get into the tunnels many were blown to bits.
Yesterday as I looked down on Lens the fire had quietened on both sides, as though the guns were tired. For several minutes at a time there was a great quietude over the city of doom, and as the afternoon sun lay warm upon its red walls, and cast black shadows across its deserted streets, where no single figure walked, it was hard to believe that a few hours before swarms of men had been fighting on the edge of those houses, and that the place was full of new dead and old. The water of the Souchez river was as blue as the sky, which was deep bright blue above wispy clouds. A little light glinted from the white church tower which a shell has smashed off at the top. Perhaps some German officer was there staring through his glasses, or perhaps it was only a bit of metal caught by the sun. A smoke-barrage drifted densely across the northern side of the city, and every now and then there came a sharp vicious hammering of machine-guns to show that somewhere in those ruins men wore alive and watchful. Then the guns got busy again, but in a slow, unhurried way. The enemy had a hate against the outer edge of Liévin, and every two minutes smote it with a great shell, which burst with big billowing smoke-clouds, and a flash which was followed by a low, sullen roar. He flung shells as big as this into Angres and Avion, but seemed to rely on machine-gun fire to barrage our lines nearest to his own. Behind me to the right were some of our big howitzers, old friends of mine, whose voices I prefer at a mile or two's distance. They tuned up their bass viols and played their dead march. Perhaps it was their shells I saw smashing on to the German defences. Rosy clouds went up, and in those clouds the dust of red-brick houses went up, too, leaving gaps of nothingness where the buildings had once been. There was a kite-balloon in the sky behind me with the wispy clouds like white horse-tails all curled about it, and presently there came riding above it several coveys of aeroplanes, so that the sky was filled with their loud drone-song. They flew round about Lens, and only a few German "Archies" tried to strafe them with bursts of shrapnel. They flew not very high above the mining city, circling round and round like hawks before swooping to their prey. The guns were loud but shrill; and sweet and clear above them a bugle sounded from some camp of ours behind the lines among the cornfields all gold and glowing in the evening light, with a little shadow sleeping beside each stook; and it blew the evening retreat. It is the first time I have heard a bugle play that call so near to the guns, and it stirred one's heart with a queer sense of emotion, as though its music belonged to the spirit world. The night closed down on the battlefields but did not bring peace. Below the stars there were many strange lights and fires and sounds. A tall bank of clouds was pierced with lightning so like shell-fire, except for a longer tremor of light, that men looked and wondered what devilry was on over there in the back areas. The devilry was round about. It was time for the German raiders to come out under the cover of darkness, and they came and dropped their bombs over quiet villages and among the cornfields and the hop-gardens. The explosions came up with sharp flashes and gruff roars from dark fields between black belts of trees. From the earth hands of light stretched up, reaching up to the clouds and touching them with their finger-tips. They felt their way for those flying raiders, groped about like hands searching in a dark room, and then clasped each other. In the archway below their long straight arms shrapnel glinted like confetti. Our anti-aircraft guns had got their target. Along the lines rockets were rising, giving a second or two of white steady light to No Man's Land, with fringes of trees etched blackly against it. Somewhere a dump--ours or the enemy's--had been hit, and the clouds above it were tipped with scarlet flame. So then the night scene began as usual, and as it is played out below the stars every night.