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As the evening of the 10th came on, the men began to make their coffee in sheltered places. By this time they knew how to take care of themselves so well that not a man was touched by the Spaniards during the second bombardment.
The latter defence is renowned for its gallant resistance to a British fleet in 1813, and the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was written to commemorate that bombardment.
The British reported that they had bombed and destroyed dugouts full of Germans, while their own losses were slight. A number of Germans were made prisoner in this raid, but the majority preferred to fight rather than yield, and fighting fell. They made the advance after an intense preliminary bombardment, but were unable to reach the French position.
Passing from this simple case to the most elaborate in our annals, we find Saunders doing the same thing at Quebec. In preparation for Wolfe's night landing he made a show of arrangements for a bombardment of Montcalm's lines below the city, and in the morning with the boats of the fleet began a demonstration of landing his marines.
Such is one of the most redoubtable fighters of France, this General of Division D. His former staff officers told me something of the man. He is a philosopher, a fatalist, impervious to fear, a dreamer of distant dreams amid the most furious bombardment. The weight of the French assault upon the terrible labyrinth fell at one time upon the brigade which he then commanded.
The whole cycle of operations outlined by the G.H.Q. can be briefly summarised as follows: The entire movement of troops, guns, and tanks by NIGHT and to remain under cover from enemy 'planes during daylight. An abrupt massing on a nine-mile front of the engaging force during the night prior to launching of tanks and infantry. A furious bombardment would be opened by artillery at daybreak.
Bulwarks and ramparts of earth were thrown up on the side next the town, and were mounted with cannon, with which he soon opened a bombardment.
When they exploded in the open street they not only tore a hole in the pavement the size of a cottage cellar, but they sliced away the facades of all the houses in the immediate vicinity, leaving their interiors exposed, like the interiors upon a stage. Compared with the "forty-twos" the shell and shrapnel fire of the first night's bombardment was insignificant and harmless.
You can find a certain humour in war if you look for it, though war is not amusing, and life at home has many more entertaining incidents in it than life at the front. One officer of The Royals fell sound asleep in a trench during the climax of a terrific bombardment, and awoke to find himself alone among the dead.
The Hun what was left of him after an intensive bombardment of twenty-four hours had betaken himself back over the ridge, via the remnants of his two new communication trenches, to his original front line. The two communication trenches themselves were blocked and sandbagged, and were being heavily supervised by a pair of British machine-guns.
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