This time there was no doubt we were in for a regular bombardment. So with one accord we all made for a low parapet skirting the river, which would afford some cover, and without stopping to look what was behind it, leaped over like two-year-olds just as another shell burst in the open close by. I don’t think I am ever likely to forget where we found ourselves: below the parapet was the village muck-heap, and we were in the very midst of it. Unsavoury though the recollection is, it makes me smile when I recall it and the look on the faces of everyone who had taken refuge there. If there was any luck as to position I perhaps, with two others, had the best of it, for we were only in manure and rotten straw, though we were in it up to our waists. So soon as the report of the guns reached us we all listened intently till we heard the approaching shell, then crouched down as low as possible in the filth, and waited till the explosion was over. I remember I found myself thinking at these moments that it could not have been worse out in the open. After some minutes in this unpleasant predicament there was a lull in the firing, so a dash was made for the village, and in company with a crowd of soldiers we took refuge behind a house. Whilst there we witnessed a fine example of coolness. A white-moustached old Colonel, a splendid looking fellow, kept pacing up and down out in the open regardless of the bursting shells, in order to make sure all his men were keeping under cover, and worked himself quite into a rage because some of them would persist in exposing themselves. The bombardment only lasted about an hour, and then gradually died out. As far as I could ascertain, no one was killed, and no great damage done, but several animals were wounded; one, a mule, was badly injured in the side, and the way the ambulance men gave it a sort of temporary dressing was quite curious, and showed much resource on their part. They fastened up the gaping wound with ordinary safety pins, using nearly a dozen for the purpose, whilst soldiers held on the animal’s tail and fore leg to prevent its taking objection to the treatment. [Illustration: A very useful-looking Nordenfeldt quick-firer mounted on the fore-deck (_see page 77_) _To face page 112_] CHAPTER X