It is repugnant to the very soul of a
British soldier to level his gun at a church, so Fritz was able to get
away with his camouflage.
On the morning of the third day of our visit here we were treated to
another superb example of _kultur_. The school children were playing in
the school yard and Fritz dropped a shell in their midst, killing and
wounding several, following it up by two others that smashed the
schoolhouse. A panic followed among the teachers and children, and the
only thing we could do at the time was to stand there and watch the
devilishness. Some of the men of an infantry battalion who were billeted
on the outskirts of the town, rushed to the school and carried out the
wounded and dead. If Fritz could have seen and heard the maddened fury
of those rescuers as they carried out the maimed and bleeding little
ones, his first thought would have been to have given them as wide a
berth as possible; but when they did meet,--God help them!
At 1:00 o'clock in the morning Fritz opened up with gas shells,
smothering the civilian population, and the people who were running out
of the town, choking and suffocating, brought to my mind a most vivid
recollection of the city of Ypres.
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