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OSTEND BOMBARDED 279
At the former little tables stood laid, and on the east side of
the room stood the large table where we used to take our meals.
Along the centre line the restaurant was supported by four
solid pillars. Algermissen and I were standing at the second
window from the west.
Directly the German shots had been fired, the two destroyers
swung round to port and at the same moment opened lire.
Their guns seemed to flash out straight at us. Deckung
!
shouted Algermissen, and we retired immediately behind our
pillar, forgetting that it would have been blown away like
paper if a shell had struck it. Some of those in the room followed
our example, but others contemptuously disdained even this
measure of precaution, which perhaps they considered insuffi-
cient. The leading destroyer was now about 1400 metres
away. Its first shell fell short and dropped into the sea just
in front of the Littoral. Tall columns of white spray showed
where it had struck. Immediately we turned our glasses
on to the enemy vessel. There is another flash. Once more
we take cover, but only for the body, not for the head, for one
simply cannot take one’s eyes off such a spectacle, whatever
the cost ! But it would be vain to attempt to describe the
excitement which we felt between the spurt of flame from
the gun and the impact of the shell. We felt, indeed we were
conscious that we were the target of the sinister monster
speeding towards us through the air. It was not fear, for if
anyone had offered to take me to a perfectly safe spot in the
centre of the town, I should not have stirred. It was a mix-
ture of breathless excitement, intense interest and a fixed
determination not to miss the smallest detail of what was
passing. That was why we kept our glasses fixed, now on the
boat, now on the point of impact. One projectile ricochetted
from the surface of the water, sprang aloft and struck the
roof coping, fifty-eight paces away from us, as I subsequently
measured. Another described a most peculiar path—how it did
it I cannot imagine—but in the end it landed on the stone
promenade nearest the sea and buried itself beside the iron
railing without bursting. There it lay for a couple of days,
and the guard saw to it that nobody went up to interfere with
the fearsome object. Twice we saw and heard the shells
strike the water, dancing like flat stones over the surface,
and finally crashing into the quay wall. First we saw the flash
from the British gun, then the impact on striking the water
—
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