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The Meurthe-et-Moselle, with Nancy as its centre and capital, was a terrible danger zone, with the sword of the enemy pointed at its heart, but the lover of Lorraine asked to become préfet in place of a man about to leave, and his family rallied round him. There at Nancy, they have been ever since those days, through all the bombardments by Big Berthas and Taubes.
Now I have no desire to come between two such turtle-doves, especially when one of them is one of those German flying-machine Taubes and goes around dropping dynamite-bombs on me through club roofs. "I'm not afraid of your little friend, and as soon as I get well I'll get him; but I want it to be purely an exercise in the fistic art, and not a public fluttering of family linen.
Only a few soldiers stood in the square, looking up at a drift of white cloud behind which they averred a Taube had just slipped out of sight. Cassel was evidently used to Taubes, and I had the sense of having overdone my excitement and not being exactly in tune; so after gazing a moment at the white cloud I slunk back into the hotel, barred the door and mounted to my room.
One of the French biplanes that scour the sky daily in search of German taubes met with sad disaster yesterday while flying over the Bois de Vincennes. The aeroplane contained a lieutenant and a corporal of the aviation corps. A violent gust of wind capsized it, and it fell to the ground, burying the occupants in a heap of debris. When extricated, both were dead.
This shattered bridge brought it home to me how very near to Paris the Boche had been. As I stepped out of the Gare du Nord all the people were looking skywards at two Taubes which had just dropped several bombs. Some welcome, I thought to myself! Every third shop had notices on the doors to the effect that the owners were absent at the war.
"It was not without regret that I turned my back on this region whose close proximity to the Front makes one thrill with emotion; I went to calmer places, I saw less thrilling things, but nevertheless, interesting: the charming layout at Void, that at Sorcy, in process of organizing, the grand hospital of Toul which was shelled by taubes.
Just after I left 74 Rue de Peage, a 32 cm. shell burst on the roof, tearing off the two top floors of the house, throwing Thompson's bed into the street, and setting the place on fire. At sundown the house was in ashes. Somehow or other the men all got out, rescuing a portion of their paraphernalia. All Thursday afternoon the German Taubes circled above the city mostly along the waterfront.
If there were ten thousand anti-aircraft guns in the British army, every one would be known as Archibald. When the British Expeditionary Force went to France it had none. All the British could do was to bang away at Taubes with thousands of rounds of rifle-bullets, which might fall in their own lines, and with the field guns. It was pie in those days for the Taubes!
Three of the French aeroplanes at once began their circling flight, mounting higher and higher, but without attempting to go near the Taubes. When the French ships had gained the proper altitude, they closed in toward the German ships, before the latter could reach their own lines in their volplaning act.
As a matter of fact the modifications were of so slight, though important, a character that many machines generically described as Taubes are in reality Rumplers, but the difference is beyond detection by the ordinary and unpractised observer. In the Rumpler machine the wings, like those of the Taube, assume broadly the form and shape of those of the pigeon or dove in flight.
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