Officers under the stone lion on the Menin Bridge at Ypres
face p. 55
In the western edge of Ypres, in front of the first cluster of houses—buildings shell-marked and war-scarred from long bombardment—three grimy mites were playing in the dirt at the street-side. Further on, a trio of little girls in soiled black frocklets were enjoying a game of tag. Across the street they darted, under the wheels of cars and lorries, missing the hoofs of the passing horses by inches. One bright-eyed little girl, out of breath from dodging a fast-drawn artillery limber, took momentary refuge in a ragged gap in a shell-shattered dwelling. As we approached the Grand Place more children were to be seen, then a number of adult townsfolk. Round the gaping ruins of the once beautiful Cloth Hall, in the main square, the number of people in evidence might well have led one to believe that the bombardment of Ypres was past and done with. Ruins, the work of shells and conflagrations, were on all sides, but no one noticed them. French and English soldiers and their officers, with a liberal smattering of civilian Belgians, filled the pavements. Down the Rue de Menin, at the approach of the Menin Bridge, we found the headquarters of General Hubert Gough, of the 2nd Cavalry Division, located in a brewery standing in the shadow of the high moat wall. The trenches lay, roughly, three miles beyond the city walls to the eastward. The junction of the British left with the French right was south of the Menin Road, in front of Zillebeke. The trenches we were to occupy ran east and west and faced south.
Detachments of sturdy French infantry marched past, their uniforms faded to a pale blue. With swinging step, each individual marched to his own time. I admired their fit and willing appearance. They were campaign-worn as to kit and clothing, but campaign-hardened, rather than worn, as to themselves.
A constant stream of people came and went. How long would the civilian population of Ypres remain to pay its toll of dead whenever the Germans decided further to shell the town?
Three women passed, two of them bearing month-old babies in their arms. Noting my interested glance they smiled and waved as they trudged on. What a place for a baby!
An old bent crone, crowned with a richly beaded bonnet of ancient type, in odd incongruity to the ragged condition and mean original state of the remainder of her apparel, hobbled along, pausing now and again to pick up and store safely in her apron small pieces of coal that had been dropped from a passing wagon.
More French soldiers passed. Then a couple of British officers rode by in the picturesque uniform of some Scotch regiment of the line. A transport wagon rumbled by, and behind it came a young girl, with a bucket of water on her head, smilingly exchanging banter with a soldier of the British military police, at the corner of the street.
It was a quiet Spring afternoon, a bit overcast. Hardly to be called lowering, and yet of a stillness that seemed ominous. A day to fit all the mixture of folk going stolidly, carelessly, gaily, or how they would, about their daily tasks.