The Germans had searched for it repeatedly with
lavish expenditure of ammunition, and that afternoon they got it
repeatedly, with very unpleasant results. But of course there were many
misses. Whenever the German shells fell short they burst in the field,
in front of the battery, which was bounded on two sides by a road. In
the midst of the bombardment a soldier came down the road facing us and,
instead of walking round by the cross-roads, cut across the field in
which shells were bursting. He deliberately left comparative safety for
real danger simply in order to save himself five minutes' walk. On
another occasion, when I was at dusk one evening in Vierstraat, a Tommy
came along carrying some burden. At this point he got tired and planted
it down right in the middle of the cross-roads. Another man told him he
could not have chosen a worse place for a rest, that the Boche was
always firing rifles and machine-guns up the road, but he was prevailed
upon to move only with the greatest difficulty. Perhaps in another class
was the soldier the doctor and I came upon suddenly in a ruined house in
Ypres kicking with all the strength of an iron-shod boot at the fuse of
an unexploded German shell.
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