midday
yes , yes , I saw them . '' Sinking wearily upon a chair she told how , when the 7th corps came into Raucourt , she had fled for shelter to the house of her godfather , Doctor Dalichamp , hoping that Father Fouchard would think to come and take her up before he left the town . The main street was filled with a surging throng , so dense that not even a dog could have squeezed his way through it , and up to four o'clock she had felt no particular alarm , tranquilly employed in scraping lint in company with some of the ladies of the place ; for the doctor , with the thought that they might be called on to care for some of the wounded , should there be a battle over in the direction of Metz and Verdun , had been busying himself for the last two weeks with improvising a hospital in the great hall of the _ mairie _ . Some people who dropped in remarked that they might find use for their hospital sooner than they expected , and sure enough , a little after midday , the roar of artillery had reached their ears from over Beaumont way . But that was not near enough to cause anxiety and no one was alarmed , when , all at once , just as the last of the French troops were filing out of Raucourt , a shell , with a frightful crash , came tearing through the roof of a neighboring house . Two others followed in quick succession ; it was a German battery shelling the rear-guard of the 7th corps . Some of the wounded from Beaumont had already been brought in to the _ mairie _ , where it was feared that the enemy 's projectiles would finish them as they lay on their mattresses waiting for the doctor to come and operate on them .