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226 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
the houses, the commune which owned the pavement and the
city which owned the street, and the fight had been about
the widening of the latter, for it was too narrow for this busy
neighbourhood. But nobody would give way. In the end no
doubt the house-owners would have lost the fight. But then
came the German heavy artillery and solved the difficulty,
as King Solomon might have done, at one mighty stroke.
Now the street is broad enough for anybody.
We fly through the Avenue du Sud, yellowed by the falling
leaves, but here we hardly see any trace of the bombardment,
barring possibly a very occasional shell hole. At the south
harbour we pass the interminable rows of sheds, warehouses
and offices, whose brass plates bear the familiar inscriptions :
Hamburg-Amerika-Linie, Norddeutscher Lloyd, Compagnie
Maritime Beige du Congo, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, Red Star
Line, Peninsular and Oriental and others. But now the
harbour, usually so teeming with life and filled with a roar
and bustle unequalled by almost any other seaport town, lies
still and silent. Huge sheds were filled with railway wagons,
with or without valuable loads. A whole trainful of petrol
in tanks was a find which particularly gratified the German
officers. Another train had brought in colossal piles of com-
pressed hay, covered over with tarpaulins. A warehouse
had been found to contain considerable stocks of colonial
produce, oats, flour, coffee and other supplies, which in due
course would be examined and made use of. Some sheds were
filled with about a thousand motor vehicles of all kinds,
mostly lorries and taxicabs. We made a tour of inspection
and soon found that they had all without exception been
destroyed with axes, hammers and other implements, and
were now perfectly useless. They must have represented a
value of about ;£450,ooo.
As yet there had been no time to post sentries. The entire
harbour lay absolutely at the mercy of robbers, yet there
were none to be seen. The silence among the deserted ware-
houses was almost uncanny. A couple of steamship offices
and the offices at the South Railway Station had been left in
excellent condition. Everything of value had been removed,
nothing but receipts and accounts were left. The coats of
clerks and officials were still hanging on their hooks as if the
owners had just gone out to lunch.
What attracted more than anything the attention of the
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