With Those Who Wait (WWI Centenary Series) by Frances Wilson Huard

Author:Frances Wilson Huard [Huard, Frances Wilson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Europe, France, Modern, 20th Century, General
ISBN: 9781473367517
Google: xymRDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Published: 2016-03-10T03:00:35+00:00

VI

The Boche aeroplane was by no means a novelty to the Parisian. Its first apparitions over the capital (1914) were greeted with curious enthusiasm, and those who did not have a field glass handy at the time, later on satisfied their curiosity by a visit to the Invalides, where every known type of enemy machine was displayed in the broad court-yard.

The first Zeppelin raid (April 15th, 1915) happened toward midnight, and resulted in a good many casualties, due not to the bombs dropped by the enemy, but to the number of colds and cases of pneumonia and bronchitis caught by the pajama-clad Parisian, who rushed out half covered, to see the sight, thoughtlessly banging his front door behind him.

But the first time that we were really driven to take shelter in the cellar was after dinner at the home of a friend who lives in an apartment house near the Avenue du Bois. We were enjoying an impromptu concert of chamber music, when the alarm was given, swiftly followed by distant but very distinct detonations, which made hesitation become imprudence.

The descent to the basement was accomplished without undue haste, or extraordinary commotion, save for an old Portuguese lady and her daughter who lost their heads and unconsciously gave us a comic interlude, worthy of any first-class movie.

Roused from her sleep, the younger woman with self preservation uppermost in her mind, had slipped on an outer garment, grabbed the first thing she laid her hands on, and with hair streaming over her back, dashed down five long flights of stairs.

At the bottom she remembered her mother, let forth an awful shriek, and still holding her bottle of tooth wash in her hands, jumped into the lift and started in search of her parent.

In the meantime, the latter on finding her daughter’s bed empty, had started towards the lower floors, crossing the upward bound lift, which Mademoiselle was unable to stop.

Screams of terror, excited sentences in Portuguese—in which both gave directions that neither followed, and for a full ten minutes mother and daughter raced up and down in the lift and on the stairway, trying vainly to join one another.

A young lieutenant home on leave, at length took pity on them and finally united the two exhausted creatures who fell into each other’s arms shrieking hysterically:

“If we must die—let us die together!”

The concierges and the servants began arranging chairs and camp stools around the furnace; the different tenants introduced themselves and their guests. Almost every one was still about when the signal was given, and this cellar where the electric lamps burned brightly soon took on the aspect of a drawing-room, in spite of all. One lone man, however, stood disconsolate, literally suffocating beneath a huge cavalry cape, hooked tight up to his throat. As the perspiration soon began rolling from his forehead, a friend seeking to put him at his ease, suggested he open up his cloak.

The gentleman addressed cast a glance over the assembled group, broadened out into a smile, and exclaimed—

“I can’t.

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