As we walked about we saw that every other ward was in a similar condition. We went out into the schoolyard. There were five or six tremendous excavations in the ground, perfectly round and capable of holding a baby whale. There was no earth heaped up, for the big shells which made these hollows left nothing behind. We were still standing there when suddenly there arose a noise like the muffled scream of a distant multitude. We stood rooted to the spot, wondering what grim horror this might be. It grew louder and louder, coming towards us at terrific speed. "For God’s sake," I cried to Jack, "what is that awful sound?" "Look into the field—quick—you will see!" We all looked. The sound became a roar—a crash, and then about a hundred yards away the earth sprang high into the air in a great black mass intermingled with clouds of smoke and stones. "Permit me," Jack remarked coolly, "to introduce you to ’Jack Johnson.’ Now you can understand a little how those poor boys in the hospital felt when he came crashing through the roof." "If we stay here a few minutes longer," the colonel remarked, "we may have it brought even more dramatically to our attention." Jack laughed. "Oh," he cried, "we’re as safe here as anywhere—you never can tell where the next will drop." We were soon to verify the truth of this remark. *CHAPTER XV* We had turned the corner of the road on which we had just witnessed the effect of the big shell—the hole was still smoking—when once again we heard the distant whine. This time there was no need to ask what it meant; we knew all too well, and for an anxious moment or two we wondered whether after its arrival the newspapers would speak well of us, or whether we should be blown into such small pieces that we should only be reported "missing." It is recorded that sometimes those who are drowning are able, in a few brief moments, to rehearse the drama of their lives. Our lives must have been too complicated for such hasty revision, but as the sound changed from a whine to a shriek, an unearthly roar, and with a crash like the crack of doom the ground opened before us and shot a blinding storm of rocks and mud sky high—when all this occurred far, far faster than I can pen the lines, we had plenty of time to develop a nasty pain in the pit of the stomach, to which the mystic torment of an unripe cucumber is a joy. A great cavity yawned before us where once the road had been, and belched forth clouds of smoke as if the crust of hell were riven in twain. At the same moment, lest our tranquillity should be restored too soon, our own guns opened up with a vicious roar and hurled their screeching shells over our heads like myriads of fiends possessed. Reggy’s face was a study in black and white—I couldn’t see my own. "Do you think the Germans see us?" he enquired anxiously of Jack.