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Updated: May 14, 2025
Meanwhile the flight of shells continued, a dozen or more fires could be seen from the upper windows of the hotel, and billows of red flame from the burning petrol-tanks rolled up the southern sky. It had been what might be called a rather full day, and the wail of approaching projectiles began to get on one's nerves.
"If the fire spreads to the forward petrol-tanks, none!" gasped the chief engineer. "Aft pit's flooded with blazing oil. Gorlitz my God!" "What about Gorlitz?" "Burned alive to a crisp! I've got four extinguishers at work. Two engines out of commission. Another only limping! And " He crumpled, suddenly, dropping to the metals.
Argentine beef boats we sighted too, of enormous capacity and unlovely outline. They, too, feed the northern health stations in icebound ports where submersibles dare not rise. Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild duck.
In any case it seemed useless to stay longer, and within an hour, on a tug jammed with the last refugees, we were starting down-stream. Behind us, up the river, a vast curtain of lead-colored smoke from the petrol-tanks had climbed up the sky and spread out mushroomwise, as smoke and ashes sometimes spread out from a volcano.
Though the gas and electric lights were out, the sky was rosy from the reflection of the petrol-tanks which the Belgians had set on fire; now and then a shell would burst with the intensity of magnesium, and the quivering beams of two searchlights on the forts across the river still further lit up the ghastly scene. The noise was deafening. The buildings seemed to rock and sway.
The bright October morning had changed to a chill and dismal afternoon, and up the western sky in the direction of the river a vast curtain of greasy, black smoke was rolling. The petrol-tanks along the Scheldt had been set afire.
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