I
We arrived in Dunkirk the evening of the twentieth of June, after a long ten-hour trip from Paris,—a journey which in normal times can be accomplished in three.1 Dunkirk is in the “war zone” and ranks as a fortified town of the first class, and no one is permitted to enter it without a special military permit, an autorisation spéciale issued by the commander of that sector. However, as we were to join a field hospital “somewhere in Belgium,” and our permits had been forwarded to us in Paris, we had no difficulty in getting there. On alighting from the train, we were not permitted to pass through the station till all our papers had been carefully examined,—our passports and our safe-conducts from the Paris police, as well as our military passes; but all were in order, and after a careful scrutiny we were allowed to go through the gates. The first sensation on entering the war zone is that of being locked in. Only through the most rigid formalities had we been able to enter; only through the same formalities would we be permitted to leave. Individual liberty was gone; we were not free to come and go how and where we liked, but, under observation in the zone of the armies, we must share with the armies whatever fate had in store. It was a curious feeling, this sense of restriction, and one not altogether pleasant. The longer one stays in the military areas, the more this sense of being a prisoner at large weighs upon one.
B. met us at the station with a motor, and drove us rapidly through the town to Malo, a small suburb lying just outside the fortifications. Here, at a clean little hotel, we found comfortable rooms overlooking the town, and were told that we should have to wait here several days till the hospital in Belgium was ready for us.
The next day we explored Dunkirk, anxious to see this seaport which during the winter had several times been bombarded by long-range German guns,—siege guns fired from beyond Dixmude, twenty-two miles away. These, the most formidable and powerful cannon that the enemy possesses, fire projectiles which rise seven miles in the air before they fall to earth, each shell a ton of devastating steel.2 Off somewhere in the German lines, these Dunkirk guns are buried in the ground, roofed over by concrete twelve feet thick, surmounted by armor plate; not yet have they been found and silenced. Yet, under the shadow of this constant menace, life in the little town seemed to go on unchanged. The streets were filled with soldiers, and in the roadways gray high-powered military motors and great rumbling transports were coming and going in incessant streams. Here and there were shattered houses, razed to their foundations, but only here and there.
Shops were open and business thriving; the streets were full of civilians going about their daily tasks, unheeding, apparently, the threatening danger. Confidence was restored; there had been no bombardment for six weeks—had not the great guns been found and silenced by the Allies? Yet apart from the few ruined houses—and not many at that—there were constant evidences of precaution. Across the panes of nearly every window strips of paper had been pasted, strips four inches wide, running diagonally from corner to corner across the glass, to reduce the shock of concussion. In the centre of the town stood the Hôtel de Ville,3 the windows on two floors completely blocked by sandbags; and sandbags, or bags full of ashes, lay before many a cellar window. Here and there on the fronts of certain houses great notices were posted, printed in glaring letters of red upon white backgrounds, “Refuge en cas d’alerte,”4 showing where cellars were available to which refugees might fly. Yet it was all over, the danger. Over long ago. The affiches5 were torn, flapping from the walls; many of the sandbags had holes in them, letting out streams of scattering sand or grimy ashes, which heedless pedestrians kicked along the footway. People strolled about unconcernedly, and normal life and normal interests were reasserting themselves, just as normal life in the individual reasserts itself after intense suffering and pain. Whatever the horror of six weeks ago, it was all over now. The Allies had found and silenced the great guns.
In the harbor, ships were coming and going; along the piers, dozens of fishermen had cast their nets, bringing in good catches of sardines, sole, and plaice, while knots of idle, amused soldiers loitered about each net, winding in the reels, and commenting volubly upon each haul. It was a day of glorious sunshine, of busy, homely occupation. As the afternoon advanced, we could hear guns rolling in the distance; the clear air, the absolute stillness, brought the thunder down from Nieuport, from that “Front” off beyond on the vague horizon.6 Somewhere over there was “war,” but here was harmony, tranquility, and peace. Later, we became aware that certain guns seemed to punctuate themselves upon our consciousness, certain deeper, more sinister br-r-r-o-o-o-ms, which, by the watch, came rolling to us at three-minute intervals,—but all so remote, so far away! We were conscious only of the golden, fading sunlight, the sweet sea wind, the glittering, sparkling water. We tried to imagine submarines in this North Sea, but failed. After the fever, the rush, the gossip and intrigue of Paris, this war zone seemed restfulness and peace. So we went to bed that night, windburned and sleepy, wishing that the hospital might be ready for us soon. This comfort and idleness might soon become a bore.
II
Next morning, the twenty-second of June, we were awakened by a terrific explosion. An avion Boche7 had dropped a bomb just outside our windows! Instantly anti-aircraft guns began firing, and I sprang from my bed to see French and English aeroplanes rising, one by one, from the aerodrome in Dunkirk, and flying straight and menacing in pursuit. It was very light, although the sun had not yet risen; quarter to three by my watch. At the window next mine I saw a disheveled head where the English nurse, W., was peering out, her round blue eyes agog with interest and excitement. I shouted to her, “Let’s go out on the beach,” and in return came a cheery “Right-O! Just as soon as I slip on my mac.”
A moment later we met in the corridor. She was clad in a yellow raincoat, beneath which appeared a copious expanse of blue pajamas, and bare feet shod in green slippers. Her curly hair hung in disordered braids down her back. I checked an instinctive remark about her looking the figure of fun, for I suddenly recollected my own costume—purple pajamas under a brown dressing-gown. Doors were opening all along the halls, and curious, half-dressed figures were emerging—after all, W. and I looked no different from the rest; it was merely a case of different arrangements of color schemes, that was all. On the floor below we met Mrs. A., one of our unit. She called to us as we sped past, “It’s the beginning of a bombardment, isn’t it?” but we flew on. It seems a bombardment is always preceded by the visit of a scouting Taube,8 which either by smoke-bomb or by wireless gives the range to these distant guns.
There were hundreds of people on the beach: French soldiers, who apparently slept in their clothes, for they were fully dressed and looked as crumpled as in the day time; English Tommies,9 who, like ourselves, wore bath-gowns over pajamas and showed other signs of a hasty toilet.10 Bare feet and slippered feet were everywhere. Every moment the crowd increased, yet we excited no more attention in our scanty garments than we should have, fully dressed, in the Rue de la Paix!11 Mingling with these thousands upon the sands, we evoked neither surprise nor comment; all attention was centred upon the direction in which the Taube had disappeared, or upon the Allies’ aeroplanes which sped low overhead in pursuit. Quite black the machines looked in that early light, for the sun had not yet risen to reflect itself upon the luminous wings.
Men, women, and children now began to flock out from the town, an ever-increasing stream, carrying bundles, leading mongrel dogs, pushing perambulators12 laden with household possessions: a silent, anxious, restless crowd, seeking safety on the wide sands. Our gowns flapped in the fresh dawn breeze, and we became suddenly conscious of the cold sand which trickled in over the tops of our slippers. There was nothing more to be seen, so we returned to the hotel.
At the head of the stairs Mrs. A. met us and asked us in for tea, strong tea, without milk or sugar, which she had prepared during our absence. She dispensed it in great breakfast coffee bowls, an after-dinner coffee cup, and the sugar basin. A doctor from a neighboring hospital was also there, clad in informal garments like our own. We noticed that between gulps of tea he kept looking at his wrist-watch; he was an old campaigner and had seen bombardments before. Suddenly we were startled by a deafening explosion, an appalling, rending crash—the earth shook, the hotel rocked! We sprang to the balcony, and saw a dense column of smoke rising from the town, rising somewhere from the midst of those peaceful, red-tiled roofs that were just catching the first rays of the rising sun. A great seventeen-inch shell, fired by a gun twenty-two miles away, had burst somewhere among those homes. Slowly the smoke rose and spread into the sky, the glorious sky of a June dawn. Not a word was spoken. The doctor glanced at his watch—3.15 a.m. We waited silently on the balcony. Five minutes later another shell plunged downwards with a roar. Another cloud of smoke marked its bursting. Then two ambulances, from the garage back of the hotel, dashed along the highroad into the town. Two more shells, and then a pause. In all, four shells at five-minute intervals, then a rest of forty minutes for the guns to cool.
Mrs. A. gave the orders. “Go to bed,” she commanded. “Get what sleep you can, till they begin again. After all, it’s practically three o’clock in the morning and we shall have a whole day of this.” She, too, was an old campaigner, having been through a week’s bombardment of Poperingue.13 So we went upstairs and back to bed.
This was my first experience of shellfire, and as yet I did not know enough to be afraid. So far, it was only overwhelmingly interesting and exciting, and I was conscious of extreme regret that the light was not yet strong enough for photographs. The shells were passing completely over us, and falling a mile away. There was nothing to fear.
I was just falling asleep in obedience to instructions, when at five o’clock there came another tremendous crash. I dashed to the window to see the dense smoke rising in the air, rolling upward in great black billows, which a moment later were succeeded by tongues of fire. The flames mounted higher and higher, sinking for a moment only to leap upwards again in fierce, increasing waves. We shouted to some Tommies passing below, to know what had been struck. Some said an oil-tank, others a tobacco factory, still others a jute works.14 One of them called up gayly, “I say! This is part of their atrocities—waking us up so early in the morning!” As each shell struck, another ambulance dashed along the highroad in a cloud of dust. Never an instant’s hesitation on the part of these young fellows, English and American. They drove at top speed into the heart of the stricken town, into the midst of falling walls and splintering steel. It was superb courage.
I dressed between shells: washing, somewhat superficially, between explosions, trying to arrange my hair and look out of the window at the same time. Then we all hurried down to the little open square in front of the hotel, and hailed the ambulance men as they returned, asking for news. Such a spirit of camaraderie as there was among us all, French and English soldiers, the ambulance men, townspeople, and ourselves! We leaned in at the window of a little café where a lot of the men were breakfasting, and they answered our questions willingly and readily, laying down their big bowls of coffee to give us details of the havoc. The first shell had pitched upon the Place Jean Bart, killing five people outright. It tore a great hole eight feet deep at the base of the statue of the famous admiral, but Jean Bart himself is standing unscathed, still waving his sword aloft. The wounded were all taken to a hospital in Malo.
While we were talking, two boys approached, each carrying a large canvas sack, filled with the fragments of a shell that had pitched down on the sand dunes, a few hundred yards from the hotel. Some one shouted, “Souvenirs! Souvenirs!” and in a moment the two youths were surrounded by a curious, lively group, intent on bartering cigarettes and sous15 for these pieces of jagged steel, with fierce cutting edges. They were still warm, these terrible trophies, and had been red hot when the thrifty lads had first gathered them in.
At eight o’clock, Mrs. A. called us in to breakfast, which she gave us in a little room adjoining the kitchen. She had closed the heavy outside wooden shutters, by way of precaution, and as she poured out the steaming coffee, she regaled us with the news. The second shell had burst five hundred yards to the rear of the hotel, injuring four men and a woman. It was triste,16 that, very triste, she remarked conversationally. Then for the first time we suddenly realized our position. Shells were pitching over and behind us; we were in the direct line of fire, although not the object of attack. The sales Boches,17 continued Mrs. A., had got the range exactly. Even yet, as we continued to drink our coffee in the semi-darkness of the little dining-room, we had no sense of fear. It was all merely an intensely interesting, an intensely exciting experience, but still, for all that, something quite apart from, something totally beyond, our hitherto sheltered lives.
III
The guns had been silent for an hour, and we were making plans for the day. Y. had business in Calais, and had obtained her military permit to go there the evening before. I offered to accompany her to the station. Then Mrs. A. announced that she was going to the docks to bring some hospital supplies, just arrived from England, to a place of safety. She wished to remove them from the docks to a little village outside the danger zone, and offered to give Y. and me a lift into town. I was filled with an overwhelming curiosity to see the town, to know what damage had been caused by these tremendous shells. A huge camion or motor-truck drove up to the door; we climbed aboard, and then started at breakneck speed for the town. Mrs. A. and Y. were comfortably installed on the driver’s seat, but I, bouncing about on the floor behind, saw no object in this frantic pace. At the gates a sentry stopped us and examined our papers, and we flew on again. Suddenly I realized, in a flash, that we were entering the town, not because the bombardment was over, but between intervals of bombardment! A sickening sense of fear, of nervous dread, passed over me.
We sped through the Place Jean Bart, so prosperous and busy the day before, now a scene of desolation and ruin. Not a whole pane of glass in any window of the square; there were jagged holes in many roofs, and the façades of many houses presented huge, jagged gashes in the masonry, where a cobblestone or piece of steel had torn a giant rent. The motor swerved down a side street, to avoid a street rendered impassable by a collapsed house that blocked the roadway. A few venturesome townsfolk gingerly picked their way through the litter of glass and débris, but, for the most part, the town seemed deserted. For the first time I saw war in the concrete, saw the havoc wrought by those awful guns, contrasted the peaceful workaday life of yesterday with this sunlit, silent, stricken scene of to-day. A feeling of cold terror passed over me. We were in Dunkirk, not after a bombardment, but between intervals of a bombardment! We were in Dunkirk while the great guns were cooling! This long pause between periods of shelling did not indicate that they had been found and silenced—our nerves were merely being racked by this long pause, this long and irregular interval between shells!
Finally we arrived at the docks, after passing ruined houses that had been destroyed to their foundations, not one brick standing upon another. Where each shell had pitched, destruction utterly. Shells of smaller calibre tear holes in buildings. These monster obus, dropping from the sky, crush buildings to the earth. Mrs. A. left us at the docks, for we could not enter with her, having no military permits. She directed us to the station, and Y. and I made our way together along the rough, cobbled, sunny streets. Y. talked of what she would do in Calais, the train by which she would return. I tried to listen, but that horrible fear gripped my heart. They would begin again, those awful guns! They would begin again before I could make my way back to Malo! I should be alone in the midst of it. Alone, in the midst of a town under fire by the most fearful guns the Germans possessed! Y., ever cheerful, spoke as if it were all over, of the people in Calais she intended to see. So we walked along to the station under a sweltering June sun.
We were approaching the station, a bare, meagre little brick building, with a hot open square in front of it, and were making our way across this sunny place,18 when suddenly a terrible roar burst upon us. Just behind the station, three hundred yards away, a shell fell with [an] appalling, rending crash! The bombardment had begun.
We stood still, looking in all directions for a place of safety, for one of those flapping signs, “Refuge en cas d’alerte,” that we had passed in other parts of the town. None were to be seen. We had lost our bearings, and knew not where to turn. Y. indicated the station with a nod. “Well, not there, at all events,” she remarked significantly. “Railways are always a target.” As we paused, high-powered military motors shot past us, the occupants waving to us to fly. In the distance, men dashed along the streets at full speed, running for their lives. They had an objective: they knew where they were going, what shelter they were seeking, where to run. But we were helpless. The surrounding houses were shattered and blank, giving no signs of life, of aid, of assistance. We dared not run, we did not know where to run. Obviously not toward the little station, but where? Danger was everywhere, in the open spaces, under the walls of houses. There was no one to direct us. A donkey-cart trotted by in the distance, the owner frantically beating the little animal with a whip. Its tiny feet fairly twinkled over the cobblestones, yet for all that its progress seemed slow. Still, it was being lashed onward to some place of refuge, of security—driven in some definite direction.
Again a military motor flew by, and again the occupants waved to us to run. Yes, that was it, run—but where? The waving arms indicated the wide horizon—we saw before us only blank, deserted streets. We made our way down a narrow alley between shuttered houses, and presently found ourselves by the bank of a canal. There was a curious sense of safety in the proximity of water, yet a motor-boat sped along the canal, the men on it shouting to us to fly. To fly—where? And after all, where could our short flight carry us? Out of range of those awful shells, that traveled twenty-two miles in a few seconds? As well wait here as a few hundred feet away. Why run?
And all the while the siren whistled—a long, wailing, melancholy moan, rising and falling in the summer air. It was the police warning of danger, the signal to the townspeople to hide. So we stood irresolute on the canal bank, waiting. I faced toward the guns. The horrible thing would pitch in front of me. I turned about, in the opposite direction—it would fall there. Never for a second was there any fear of death, but an agonizing fear of the concussion, of a jaw torn off, of a nose smashed in. A pile of new red tiles lay on the canal bank, and I heard Y. remark slowly, drawlingly, “These will fly in every direction, fly in a thousand pieces; they are awful!” A million cutting fragments! I moved away from them toward a patch of glowing yellow weeds,—yellow flowers, golden, triumphant, unterrified. I wanted to sit down among them. It seemed a calm, sensible thing to do. One move was as good as another.
In that fearful moment, there was not one intellectual faculty I could call upon. There was nothing in past experience, nothing of will-power, of judgment, of intuition, that could serve me. I was beyond and outside and apart from the accumulated experience of a lifetime. My intelligence was worthless in this moment of supreme need. Every decision would be wrong, every movement would be in the wrong direction, and it was also wrong to stand still. Right, left, forward, backward, there was no intellectual power to direct my steps.
IV
We stood in a little open triangle—on one side the water, on the other two sides rows of closed, empty houses. One of these houses had been destroyed during some previous bombardment; the upper part was blown away, and green canvas was stretched over the gaping, demolished roof. But as I looked at it, a woman suddenly ran into the square, rushed up to the door of this ruined house, beat upon it and was admitted. Sanctuary!
I shouted to Y. “Quick! quick! That house! They’ve got a cellar!” We flew across to the door—all that was left standing of that crumpled building—and beat upon it, over and over again. Would they never answer, would they never let us in? The next shell must come any second now, any second now. We pounded frantically on the door. It opened suddenly and a man stood there.
“Let us in,” we cried. “Let us in! Have you a cellar?”
“But yes,” he answered courteously. “Enter quickly—there is not much time.”
He led the way down a narrow passage, across a shallow court, and raising a heavy door in the ground, preceded us down a flight of steep stone steps into the cool, sheltering darkness of a vaulted cellar. And as we descended, came the exploding roar of a rending shell.
The wonderful relief of that cellar! The feeling of security in the blessed darkness, the comfort of companionship—for as our eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, we discovered a score of people, refugees like ourselves, who like ourselves had fled from the terror without. A dim oil-lamp made a faint illumination, and an upward glance showed stout brick arches, supported by iron girders. Moreover, they say a shell never falls twice on exactly the same spot, and this strong vaulted ceiling had resisted a ton of steel two months ago. The man’s wife welcomed us, and pushed forward a broken chair, which Y. and I shared. Then we all waited in silence, broken by an occasional whisper. In the gloom, we gradually discerned beds in corners, a cookstove, cupboards. This cellar was all the home these people knew, and here they had been living for the past two months. Two ragged children rolled hoops, and a floppy puppy tumbled here and there. A ray of sunlight filtered in from a barred window giving on the street. So we whispered and waited—waited.
Presently another knock sounded on the street door above, and after an interval our host led down another woman, a refugee like ourselves. Intense calm prevailed; not a sound, not a sob or outcry of any sort, nothing but acceptance and resignation, stoical and fatalistic. I murmured, “But this is terrible, is it not?” and a woman replied with a shrug, “What would you? This is a fortified town.” That summed it up. This is war and Dunkirk is a fortified town. I recalled the hysterical sobbing of the London press, raving over “baby-killers” and “slayers of women,”19 and contrasted it with the attitude of these people under fire, their dignified acceptance of war.
Another rapping on the street door, and another refugee appeared, this time a man. He told us that a second shell had struck the Place Jean Bart, and that another had killed eight people just outside the walls. We drew near to hear the whispered news. The puppy flopped about, and some of us leaned over to pat it. No one cared for the puppy, but it was a distraction, a human recognition of the normal, our touch with homely ways of life. Once again the earth rocked with concussion, and the little beast sprawled on its fat feet.
We counted them as they struck—four. Now it was time for the guns to cool. A woman rose to her feet and thanked our hosts for their hospitality, and we rose too, thanked them, and followed the woman into the street. Outside the sunlight was dazzling, but for the moment the danger was over, and we must make our way back to Malo as rapidly as possible. The little woman directed us on our way, and then left us, wishing us good luck.
Following her directions, we hastened along the deserted, sunbaked streets. Even in this brief respite, life was beginning again, reasserting itself. Soldiers hung about doorways; men walked in the middle of the roads. Through opening cellar doors and windows we had glimpses of living-rooms prepared for use during bombardment. People were raising their iron shutters, and protruding heads were stealing furtive glances into the sunlit, summer air.
That interminable walk through Dunkirk! In all directions we could see shattered houses; streets and sidewalks littered with broken glass, fallen bricks and rubbish; gaping walls open to the heavens. It was terrible to pass through those hot streets, wondering, as we walked, whether we should reach Malo before the guns began again. It was like walking in a nightmare, dragging leaden legs, with the terror that comes with dreams. A wrong turning, a false direction, and we should lose precious moments—those moments while the great guns cooled. And then, as turn after turn, street after street brought us nearer our destination, the awful tension relaxed. We were in action. Escaping, escaping! Approaching nearer and nearer, each moment, to a place of comparative safety. The battered houses, the desolation, the long length of the town under the glaring sun! Could we cross it in time?
A whirling motor sounded behind us—our truck returning from the docks! They took us aboard and dashed on. The tremendous relief of motion, the tremendous joy of clinging to the sides of a bounding motor, racing at top speed for the city gates! No matter what the outcome, here at last was decision and action, plan and will; not the hesitating, halting, baffling indecision of an hour before, when all our intellectual faculties and intuition were in abeyance before a force that we could neither divine nor calculate upon.
At lunch we were all full of our different experiences. Mrs. A. and B. were on the docks when the bombardment began, but they continued about their work and loaded the camion unhesitatingly and unflinchingly. For them, action was clearly defined.
Shells began falling again during lunch, and we finished our meal in the twilight of the shuttered room. One struck the ground about a hundred yards to the side of, another in a field half a kilometre in front of, the hotel. Every ten or fifteen minutes they fell, and then we went upstairs to the balcony to watch them. Some passed directly over us; a few fell short, on one side or the other.
As the afternoon wanes, a high sea wind has sprung up, which seems to deflect them, and they are falling nearer and nearer. We have nothing to do but sit and watch them. So here we are, six of us, calm, smiling, apparently indifferent. Underneath, however, is a terrible tension as each shell falls, and the tension in the intervals of waiting is still more awful. We are in the direct line of fire, with no hospital, no work, no occupation of any sort. If we had, it would be different. Should we desert now, take refuge in any of the ambulances that are below, that would so willingly carry us to a place of safety, the authorities would consider it an indication of how we would stand by our patients under fire. So here we all sit on the balcony of this flimsy little hotel, wondering where the next shot will fall. The hotel has no cellar; it is a cheap frame structure that would collapse like a house of cards. We smoke endless cigarettes, consume endless cups of tea and coffee, and eat the supply of chocolate that is to last a month. Never in my life have I drunk so much tea and coffee—we are at it incessantly, with never a pause! No human power can protect us or intervene. We are all quiet and motionless, and utterly calm. Yet we strain our ears for each shot—when we see the smoke we know where that has fallen, at least.
I am writing this to kill time; yet as each shell strikes I spring to the window, and my chair falls backwards, while the others laugh. I start at each explosion, strain my eyes for the cloud of smoke—who knows in what direction it will arrive,—before us, to right, to left? Are they carrying past our tinderbox of a hotel? Is the next one going to fall short and strike?
Beneath the balcony, restless townspeople wander up and down the beach, seeking shelter, and knowing that there is none. Old men, old women leading children, with dogs following,—up and down they wander, to and fro, backward and forward, in the open, back again to the streets, sometimes alone, sometimes seeking the companionship of others as helpless as themselves. Terror-stricken, wretched, restless, utterly calm.
And so we sit on the balcony and watch the bursting shells—and wait.
This essay appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in November 1915.
1. Dunkirk is located on the coast of northern France, near the Belgian border.
2. Dunkirk had been repeatedly shelled by German artillery guns located over twenty miles away, in an unprecedented use of long-range artillery,
3. City hall.
4. Emergency shelter.
5. Posters.
6. The coastal Belgian town of Nieuwpoort, roughly twenty miles northeast of Dunkirk, lay along the Western Front, the main theater of fighting during the war.
7. German airplane.
8. A type of German airplane.
9. Slang for British soldiers.
10. Dressing and grooming.
11. A fashionable shopping street in Paris.
12. Baby carriages.
13. The Belgian town of Poperinghe lay near the field hospital where La Motte was headed.
14. Factory for processing jute, used for making rope, burlap, and other products.
15. Cash.
16. Sad.
17. Dirty Germans.
18. Square.
19. Rumors of German atrocities abounded early in the war. The British government’s Bryce Report, published in May 1915, ostensibly verified many of these lurid tales.