Bombshell

“ On our return, the eye, having had time to accommodate itself to the darkness around, embraced several objects; the roof, sides, and crags in many places, which had before escaped it. Our entertainment also was varied by a blast, as it is termed—the discharge of a small quantity of gunpowder thrust into the rock, occasioning an explosion only to be compared to that sound which the imagination would conceive might be produced, if universal nature were at once to tumble into ruins. ”

“ There, Gracious Lord, is the genuine day of judgment! Bomb is falling after bomb; pieces of shells are whistling, like devils, around the ear; the earth is dug out into ditches; it is impossible to speak from smoke. ”

“ I heard the descent of a bomb. I trembled and tried to shrink to nothing. There was a deafening thunder-clap and the ground shook. A quantity of loose earth came down upon us. Another bomb descended—every muscle in my body tightened and I stopped breathing altogether. But the explosion that followed was fainter than the last. Then there was another, still further off. All my muscles gradually relaxed and a delicious feeling of relief pervaded my whole being. The buzzing noise became more and more feeble. I got up and walked back to the marquee, trembling and weak at the knees. ”

“ Poets, who imagined that a bomb could accomplish anything in that Babylon of the North more important than the noise of its explosion! Look at these people who pass. They have no more thought for the old attack than for those now preparing in the shadow of the “tracktirs.” Happy men, full of serenity in this bright quarter, who move about their affairs and their pleasures in the purest air, the lightest, the most transparent on earth. ”

“ From far and near out of the swamp of darkness rose a medley of panic and sound. Prodding the sky, like detectives with lanterns, searchlights hunted and turned back the edges of the clouds. Then ominously, with solemn anger, the guns opened up and in fierce defiance the first bomb fell. The pattering of feet ceased suddenly. Streets grew forlorn and empty. The commotion of living and the terror of dying were transferred from the earth to the air. ”

“ You cannot conceive the horror of these things till you have seen one burst close to you in darkness; in the daytime there is only the crash of the explosion, in the darkness there is the blinding red glare as well. I had flung myself down at the first volley. All this while I was lying on my side in the greasy mud, wrestling savagely with the pin of a bomb. The damned thing would not come out. Finally I realized that I was twisting it in the wrong direction. I got the pin out, rose to my knees, hurled the bomb, and threw myself down again. The bomb burst over to the right, outside the parapet ”

“ Sometimes a shell would not explode until it had made its full journey and landed among the buildings or in the streets and then havoc and destruction ensued. The most of the people lived in bomb proofs, which protected them from the fragments of the shells which exploded in the air, but were not proof against those which exploded after striking. ”

“ At one of the sides of the stage, out of sight of the spectator, there is a charge which is also ignited by electricity at the same time that the bomb is exploded. At the proper moment a man throws the shell and touches the button, the bomb bursts, and the spectators, hearing the loud report of the cannon at the same instant, imagine that the harmless paper bomb is the cause of the formidable explosion. ”

“ So we would sit cowering between the gabions, while ever and anon the fiery bombs, often shot at random, came in quick succession through the dark sky of night, making bright and glittering arcs as they sped on their message of destruction, sometimes falling short and bursting in mid-air, or on the earth and throwing up a column of dust and stones, and sometimes fairly into the trenches, scattering death and mutilation among us. ”

“ In an instant a slight explosion took place, and we could hear, notwithstanding the uproar of the guns, a whizzing sound running aft on board the enemy—while almost simultaneously, the most thrilling shrieks of anguish rose up on the air, succeeded by a stunning explosion, which drowned every other sound in its fierce uproar. ”

“ You may not know it, but if you have been in one raid, or one bombardment, where you hear the explosions coming closer and closer, and you shake and shake and tremble and get sick at your stomach, and dizzy, and lose your mind with fear, every moment, you can imagine what it was to these people who had to endure it for hours and days, and finally had their whole places blown away. ”

“ Do not, dear reader, call the Boche coward because he surrenders. For you, it is easy to say you would fight to the death rather than be taken prisoner, but consider a man who has endured a week's bombardment—crash! crash! crr-r-r-r-mp! Roaring, blasting, one hideous din, for days; everything being smashed to smithereens; the smoke, the fumes, the stench, and last, but not least, dead and mangled comrades lying around. ”

“ The chorus of the bursting explosive clamours around us, and above its sound we hear the splendid noise of the fourteen bombs, the sound of whose detonation has at length risen to us from the earth far below. When we hear that welcome sound we realise that our duty has been done, and we have driven the blow home. We are exhilarated by the thought, exhilarated by this ferment of opposition. Its very power only seems to show us that the enemy must value what he is defending so fiercely. ”

“ Truly the exponents of Frightfulness have felt the recoil of their own vile methods.
“This is a lachrymatory!” said the sub., whisking another bomb from his [Pg 101] pocket. “When it pops, run forward and get in the smoke. It’ll sting a bit, but don’t rub the tears away—let ’em flow. Don’t touch your eyes, it’ll only inflame ’em—just weep! Ready? One, two, three!” A second explosion louder than the first, a puff of blue smoke into which I presently ran and then uttered a cry. ”

“ The X Bomb—the incomprehensible unit of power and destruction which dwarfs the human soul and reduces it to a negligible fraction of quivering fright—just one small fraction contributing to the monstrous organism of terror which has lately become our modern civilization. ”

“ Everything would be blackest darkness and they would think they were stealing along finely, when all of a sudden an incendiary bomb would burst and flare up like a house-on-fire lighting up the whole country for miles about, and there you were in plain sight of the enemy! ”

“ Great chasms showed where the bombs had struck; little hillocks of thrown-up earth; great iron pillars broken in two like match-wood; huddled figures that had been soldiers on the platform; while from the massed cars and the long sheds great waves of red and blackish flame showed with foam tops of rolling brown smoke, rolling, licking, crackling, roaring, like a mediæval dream of hell. ”

“ Here I am alone and almost helpless in the dark—perhaps two other eyes have been watching me for a long while from another shell-hole in front of me, and a bomb lies ready to blow me to pieces. I try to pull myself together. ”

“ A Zeppelin bomb explodes on contact, so you seek safety in the cellar, which it may not reach. But a taube bomb, small and pointed, pierces a floor and explodes at the lowest level reached. So you may not flee from a taube bomb to anywhere. You just stay with your wounded and wait. Ah, there is the explosion which makes the cots here in the ward rock and the men shake as with palsy and turn pale. ”

“ Up into the sky they are all firing, up into the brilliant golden sunlight at that little black, swiftly-moving creature, that spits out venomously every two or three minutes black bombs that go slitting through the air with a faint screech till they touch the earth and shed death and destruction all around. ”

“ For nine long months, through snow and rain and sunshine, from the long nights to the long pitiless days, these two walls had remained the same, sheltering the same lurking enmities though the individuals who temporarily incarnated them came and went. Sometimes ablaze with stabs of darting flame, erupting bombs lobbed with a deceptive innocent slowness through the air, belching a mass of men who ran and stumbled and fell in an infinite variety of ways—men who shouted and who screamed so that their voices pierced the appalling uproar ”

“ But no rhyme in any language ever expressed that lurid splash on the night-sky when a bomber was destroyed, that effusion of crimson which caused men's eyes to dilate looking up at it, that sense of dreadfulness and awe and satisfaction, that banishment of pity through fear's reaction which steeped men's minds, as if on the floor of their souls an answering red glow appeared. ”

“ I shouted. "The instant I fling the bombs, drop! The fragments will be stopped by the enemy crowding around us. One ... two ... three ... drop!"
The two bombs exploded almost simultaneously. The ground shook, and all over the cavern masses of stone came crashing to the floor. Bits of rock hummed and shrieked over our heads. And—yes! There was a draft of cooler, purer air on our faces. The bombs had done their work. ”

“ Albert told us—this explosion must be greater even than the Black Tom. We must see that each bomb accomplishes more than its object—it must be placed in such a way that it will either start fires following the explosion or cause other detonations as a result of its own. ”

“ In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck. ”

“ The scintillating face of the earth increased to a constant glow as the ferocity of the attack increased. Moving clouds of gray and white obscured the surface, through which came the angry, flaming glow of surface bombing by high, sheer energy. ”

“ We were in one of the finest bomb-proofs in that entire sector. After more than three years the direct hits of high explosives had not penetrated it. To its original thickness and strength had been added [92] the tumbled-in walls of the glorious old building which once stood above it. Now and then shells bursting near the entrance to our shelter forced in the heavy curtains with the rush of air following the explosion.
The firing from our own guns became more intense and rapid. What did it mean? Were we under general attack? Was a raid to be received, or were our lads to deliver one? ”

“ I take my stand on top of the magazine mound to watch the enemy’s fire and direct our own. If I see that a mortar shell is about to fall into one of the gun pits, I call out the pit number, and the men run into the bomb-proof until the explosion is over. No man ever goes into a bomb-proof till this order is given. ”

“ He lifts the white flag, waving it on high to alert the ragno. Bang! The air quivers as the bomb bursts in a deafening percussion. It is the signal for the fantinos to ride out. The roaring in the amphitheater stops as if cut off by a sharp knife. The silence is full of mystery, almost of pain. ”

“ For a while one could not realize that so lately war had been so close at hand, that shrieking bombs had flown overhead, that screaming of shells, booming of guns, whir of airplanes had disturbed this peace, and had wrought destruction in passing this little corner of the world. ”

“ One spark, lighting on a grain of gunpowder, scattered on the floor, might communicate with the rest, make it all explode, and spread destruction everywhere. Think in what fearful peril these reckless men had placed, not only themselves, but the whole town, and the army. ”

“ But now, temporarily blinded by that vicious bright blade of flame stabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by the crash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickened to the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by a thunder-clap from evil dreams to realities yet more grim. ”

“ It is an odd coincidence that the last words of this War Diary should be penned by candlelight in a darkened northern town, to the sound of bombs falling on an entirely defenceless city. With the truly sporting instinct of Britons, everyone has turned out to see what they may of the "fuss" by which our humane foe hopes to terrorise us. By the light of flares the great marauding machines of destruction are seen to hover apparently stationary. ”

“ All the German contingent will be at the ball tonight to divert suspicion. When things are moving their best, we will slip in and plant the bomb under the main stairway. That will give it more breadth for destruction when the explosion comes. ”

“ The shell explosion or other catastrophe of war, which forms in so many cases the immediate antecedent of the illness, is only the spark which releases deep seated psychical forces due to the strains of warfare. ”

“ And the havoc among human bodies confined within a small area that this small shell creates is conceivable only by those who have been of a party devastated by such a visitation. It must be borne in mind that three men can be almost obliterated by an explosion while the fourth may pick himself up dazedly, white and shaken, but unscathed. ”

“ Single men held on, throwing and throwing, until there was no strength in their arms to hurl another bomb, or until death came to them. Yet the business went on through the darkness of the afternoon, and into the deeper darkness of the night, lit luridly at moments by the white illumination of German flares and by the flash of bursting shells. ”