Their neighbors sat in their shops or stood
at the doors of their houses or paraded the streets. Past them their
friends were hastening, trembling with terror. Many women sat on the
front steps, knitting, and with interested eyes watched their
acquaintances fleeing toward the Paris gate. When overhead a shell
passed they would stroll, still knitting, out into the middle of the street
to see where the shell struck.
By the noise it was quite easy to follow the flight of the shells. You
were tricked by the sound into almost believing you could see them.
The six-inch shells passed with a whistling roar that was quite
terrifying. It was as though just above you invisible telegraph-wires
had jangled, and their rush through the air was like the roar that rises
to the car window when two express-trains going in opposite
directions pass at sixty miles an hour. When these sounds assailed
them the people flying from the city would scream. Some of them, as
though they had been hit, would fall on their knees. Others were
sobbing and praying aloud. The tears rolled down their cheeks. In
their terror there was nothing ludicrous; they were in as great physical
pain as were some of the hundreds in Rheims who had been hit.
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