The interior of the Cathedral, blurred with a half-inch layer of stone dust, is in most "unchurchly" disorder. Four or five shells have torn large holes through the roof of the nave, and twice as many more have played havoc with the chapels and aisles at the side. One has fallen through the gilded canopy over the high altar and broken one of the four supporting columns, which before were monoliths like those of St. Peter's at Rome. Of course, most of the stained-glass windows are scattered in fragments over the floor, and through the openings on the southern side I could see the ruins of the cloisters, with some chairs and a bed literally falling into them from a room of the Bishop's Palace above. This destruction of the Cathedral is typical of the purposeless barbarity of the whole proceeding. The wiping out of the town can serve no military purpose. There are no stores of munitions or railway communications to be demolished. Naturally there are no troops quartered in the town, and now all extensive movements of convoys are conducted by other roads than those leading through the town. Yet the bombardment continues day after day, and week after week. The Germans are sending in about £5,000,000 worth of shells a month. "It's spite," a _poilu_ said to me; "they have made up their minds to destroy the town since they can't capture it; but it will be very valuable as an iron mine after the war."[7] FRANK HOYT GAILOR [7] Since the writing of this chapter, five Sections of the Ambulance have been sent to the vicinity of Verdun: Section 3 to the region about Douaumont; Section 4 to Mort Homme; Section 8 to the neighborhood of the fortress of Vaux; Section 2 to the immediate neighborhood of Verdun; and Section 1 to the region of Fort Souville and Fort St. Michel. [Illustration] VII ONE OF THE SECTIONS AT VERDUN I