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330 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
what he had to report may be left to the imagination. In any
case there were no more direct hits after that night.
When a vUlage within the German sphere of operations
continues to be inhabited by the French civil population it is
not bombarded by the French, but if the population for any
reason leaves the village, the fire is immediately directed against
its farms and houses. Information in these respects can only
be given through the underground telephone lines or through
light signals at night. The latter method is, however, extremely
dangerous, for when the Germans notice any suspicious lights
their patrols bear down like hawks upon the point from which
the light was seen.
The village of Boiry where we now were has in peace time
a population of nine hundred, but at present there are only
a hundred and fifty left. After a while the population seemed
to grow without any migration into the village being noticed.
It was then found that the apparent new-comers had simply
been hidden in the cellars, where they had tables, chairs, beds
and all sorts of supplies. Thus they had lived for weeks, until
they realised that the Germans were not such "barbarians"
as they had been made out to be. But, nevertheless, the fact
that Boiry was inhabited by French people made the German
troops quartered there fairly safe from aviators’ bombs, whilst
they were out of range of the artillery.
On the other hand the French airmen evidently had their
eye on a German flying station in the neighbourhood. That
very day a Taube had been damaged by a bomb, which had,
moreover, wounded three men and killed twenty horses belong-
ing to the flying section. But the Germans had revenged
themselves amply, for the following day 155 Frenchmen had
been captured in the same neighbourhood.
I was told that it costs France tens of thousands of millions
of francs to have the German armies in occupation of a part
of their country, and this disadvantage is but slightly com-
pensated for by certain benefits which I have briefly touched
upon above and which include the greater facility of organising
the intelligence service. But it must not be thought that the
Germans are entirely deprived of the information they need.
They have inexhaustible supplies of ordnance maps of the
entire country, together with appertaining military and
topographical data ; they have, moreover, their incredibly
skilful and bold flying corps and other scouts and, besides, the
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