World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
But the climax of the entertainment, the bonne bouche of the
afternoon, was reserved for the end of our drive, when we reached
the wharf by the Arsenal, where the British stores and transport were
collected. Here was a long row of motor-buses, about sixty of them,
all drawn up in line along the river. Beside them was a long row of
heavily loaded ammunition lorries, and on the other side of the road
was the Arsenal, on our left, blazing away, with a vast column of
smoke towering up to the sky. "It may blow up any minute," said
Colonel Farquharson cheerily, "I had better move that ammunition." I
have never seen an arsenal blow up, and I imagine it is a
phenomenon requiring distance to get it into proper perspective; but I
have some recollection of an arsenal blowing up in Antwerp a few
years ago and taking a considerable part of the town with it. However,
it was not our arsenal, so we waited and enjoyed the view till the
ammunition had been moved, and the Colonel had done his best to
get us the motor-buses. He could only get us four, so we had to make
the best of a bad job. But. meanwhile the Germans had evidently
determined to give us a really good show while they were about it, for
while we waited a Taube came overhead and hovered for a moment,
apparently uncertain as to whether a bomb or a shell would look
better just there. A flash of tinsel falling in the sunlight showed us that
she had made up her mind and was giving the range. But we could
not stay, and were a quarter of a mile away when we looked back and
saw the first shells falling close to where we had been two minutes
before. They had come six miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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