Stopping on the road, I asked if the Germans were "strafing" to-day.
"Yes," said one of our military police, "they were shelling us pretty heavily this morning: you will have to be very careful moving about inside. Bosche machines are always up in the air, taking bearings for the guns."
Arriving at the outskirts of the ruined town, we were pulled up by a sentry, who, finding our papers in order, allowed us to proceed. At that moment a furious fusillade of gun-fire attracted our attention, and three shrill blasts of a whistle rang out; then we heard a cry, "Everyone under cover!" Stopping the car, I immediately jumped out, and stood under cover of a broken-down wall, and looking up, could see the cause of this activity.
High in the air, about eight to ten thousand feet, was a Bosche aeroplane, and while I was watching it shrapnel shells from our anti-aircraft guns were exploding round it like rain. A great number were fired at it. The whole sky was flecked with white and black patches of smoke, but not one hit was recorded. The machine seemed to sail through that inferno as if nothing were happening, and at last it disappeared in the haze over its own lines. Only then were we allowed to proceed.
I had made a rough programme of what to film, and decided to start from the Grand Place. In a few words, I may say that I filmed the Place from the remains of the Cloth Hall, the Cathedral, and various districts of the town, but to try and describe the awful condition of what was once the most beautiful town in Belgium would be to attempt the impossible. No pen, and no imagination, could do justice to it. The wildest dreams of Dante could not conjure up such terrible, such awful scenes.
The immensity of the outrage gripped me perhaps more completely when I stood upon the heap of rubble that was once the most beautiful piece of architecture of its kind in all the world. The Cloth Hall, and the Cathedral, looked exactly as if some mighty scythe had swept across the ground, levelling everything in its path. The monster 15-inch German shells had dismembered and torn open the buildings brick by brick. Confusion and devastation reigned everywhere, no matter in what direction you looked. It was as if the very heavens and the earth had crashed together, crushing everything between them out of all semblance to what it had been.
The ground was literally pock-marked with enemy shell-holes. The stench of decaying bodies followed me everywhere. At times the horror of it all seemed to freeze the understanding, and it was difficult to realise that one was part and parcel of this world of ours. Literally, horror was piled upon horror. And this was the twentieth century of which men boasted; this was civilisation! Built by men's hands, the result of centuries of work. Now look at them; those beautiful architectural monuments, destroyed, in a few months, by the vilest spawn that ever contaminated the earth. A breed that should and would be blotted out of existence as effectively as they had blotted out the town of Ypres.
Beneath one large building lay buried a number of our gallant soldiers, who were sheltering there, wounded. The position was given away by spies, with the result that the Germans poured a concentrated fire of shells upon the helpless fellows, and the shelling was so terrific that the whole building collapsed and buried every living soul beneath the débris.
As I stood upon the heap tears came into my eyes, and the spirits of the brave lads seemed to call out for vengeance. And even as I stood and pondered, the big guns rang out, the very concussion shaking bricks and dust upon me as I stood there. While filming the scene, German shells came hurtling and shrieking overhead, exploding just behind me and scattering the débris of the ruins high above and whizzing in my direction.