On the morning of the third day of our visit here we were treated to another superb example of kultur.  The school children were playing in the school yard and Fritz dropped a shell in their midst, killing and wounding several, following it up by two others that smashed the schoolhouse.  A panic followed among the teachers and children, and the only thing we could do at the time was to stand there and watch the devilishness.  Some of the men of an infantry battalion who were billeted on the outskirts of the town, rushed to the school and carried out the wounded and dead.  If Fritz could have seen and heard the maddened fury of those rescuers as they carried out the maimed and bleeding little ones, his first thought would have been to have given them as wide a berth as possible; but when they did meet,—­God help them!

At 1:00 o’clock in the morning Fritz opened up with gas shells, smothering the civilian population, and the people who were running out of the town, choking and suffocating, brought to my mind a most vivid recollection of the city of Ypres.  How can I describe the agony, the despair on the faces of the inoffending citizens who were having their homes blasted to bits, their lungs choked with suffocation, separated from their loved ones in the wild scramble of the night for shelter and safety!  Any place, anywhere but there!

Donning our helmets we got to our guns and waited for orders, which we presently received.  I never worked with more love and energy than I did that night, and never did I spit more liberally on each individual shell as it was shoved into place for departure.  Inside of twenty minutes Fritzie decided that the pastime of shelling Bully-Grenay with gas shells was not as funny as it was cracked up to be; he broke off short and quick.

In the two weeks following we were at Estari Chic, another Vimy Ridge position.  Here we were stationed at the horse lines.  While there, an order was issued that we could not buy bread from the civilian population for the reason that our military authorities considered the rations we were getting were sufficient for all our needs.  The shop-keepers were quite willing to sell any soldier, however, and we were more than anxious to get his bread if we could safely do so.  The manner in which we disobeyed orders was as follows:  The bake-shop was about half-a-mile from our billet and we had to pass several policemen on the way down; two fellows would stand outside the building while I went inside and purchased the bread, and if policemen were seen coming, the man nearest to the officer would give the signal and I would duck off into an alley-way and up the back streets into the billet, and it would not be long before my outpost would join me; then the jam would be produced and in short order the delicious French bread and jam would be winding its way down into our voracious stomachs.