In the ocean of
gray the little patch of khaki looked pitifully lonely, but they regarded
the men who had outnumbered but not defeated them with calm,
uncurious eyes. In one way I was glad to see them there. Later they
will bear witness. They will tell how the enemy makes a wilderness
and calls it war. It was a most weird picture. On the high ground rose
the broken spires of the Church of St. Pierre and the Hotel de Ville,
and descending like steps were row beneath row of houses, roofless,
with windows like blind eyes. The fire had reached the last row of
houses, those on the Boulevard de Jodigne. Some of these were
already cold, but others sent up steady, straight columns of flame. In
others at the third and fourth stories the window curtains still hung,
flowers still filled the window-boxes, while on the first floor the torch
had just passed and the flames were leaping. Fire had destroyed the
electric plant, but at times the flames made the station so light that
you could see the second-hand of your watch, and again all was
darkness, lit only by candles.
You could tell when an officer passed by the electric torch he carried
strapped to his chest.
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