Red Cross ambulances on the coast
First Cavalry Division Headquarters was moved from the kilometre stone to an estaminet near by, as the inhabitants had brought up two great wagons and decamped therein with bag and baggage.
Tales of Canadian prowess and fine work by the 13th Infantry Brigade, which was sent to their support, were mingled with conflicting reports of the number of guns captured by the Germans. First, the loss of a couple of dozen was admitted by the French. Before a week had passed we knew the number actually taken by the Germans was much greater.
Ypres, we heard, had been so heavily shelled the day before that the entire town had been evacuated.
All the morning I watched ambulances full of wounded French soldiers en route for Poperinghe, file past war-worn batteries of "75's," pushing toward the front. The begrimed French gunners, with their cheery faces, seemed to know the esteem in which we held them and their splendid guns, and to be keen to get into action and stem the advance of the Germans, which was slowly but steadily surging towards us though our men were fighting hard every inch of the way.
The Belgian refugees poured back, forced off the road by the lorries, ambulances and guns. Slight mothers with numerous progeny, one, or sometimes two, of the lesser units in arms, toiled by. Each person, young or old, capable of carrying a load, bore heavy burdens. Bicycles with huge bundles balanced on the saddle, were pushed westward haltingly, as road-space permitted. One lad passed on crutches, flanked by two grand-dames carrying blue buckets crammed tight with portions of the family wardrobe.
Most of the faces of the refugees bore a stolid, matter-of-fact expression. Some were quite cheerful. Many seemed stoically numbed to all feeling. The strong wind tossed their unwieldy bundles, and they stumbled awkwardly out of the path of hurrying traffic, their feet bruised against the loose stones that edged the pavé. Tired, dirty, buffeted by the gale, with strained and aching muscles and broken feet, fleeing from death or worse, and in their flight abandoning their worldly all, I wondered there were not more signs of heart-sickness and despair on their thin faces.
Shells screamed over us and ploughed great holes in the British aviation park east of Poperinghe. After the first half dozen of such visitors, the Flying Corps packed up and took its departure for safer quarters.
A wounded Canadian said the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Brigades in front of us were wiped out as a fighting force. Their trenches, he told us had been literally blown to bits. A counter-attack by the Canadians, the 13th Brigade and the French 45th Division on their left, had started well, but failed to achieve much. German batteries and machine guns greatly outnumbered ours and were taking heavy toll as the battle surged backwards and forwards.