Dined with Henry Clews to-night.
September 29th. Reported at nine a. m. at Medical Headquarters, 10 Rue Ste. Anne, and there got our orders. We leave at one fifteen for Amiens. Spend the night there. The following morning proceed to Albert, arriving at six fifty-five a. m. There report to the Liaison Officer at Headquarters, 2nd British Army, and then to Director of Medical Service at the same place. A pass has been issued to us and so we are all ready for whatever comes.
Saw Pool and Colonel Winter, who was very cordial. Now to pack and lunch.
We packed up, caught one fifteen train, and a few minutes before six p. m. pulled into Amiens.—On July 30th, 1914, Helen and I spent the night here and met Sir Seymour King in the Hotel Rhin. How well he conceived the magnitude of the whole thing. That evening after dinner he said, "This will be a veritable Armageddon, in which you will be eventually involved." And here we are now after three years and two months.
McWilliams and I dined at the Hotel Rhin and sat in the garden. How memories come back. The dinner was poor and the price high.
Just before dinner we visited the Cathedral. The carving on the outside and inside is piled high with sandbags and was invisible. There were absolutely no lights in Amiens and the streets were simply crowded with Tommies. We managed to get a nasty room in the Belford near the station.
September 30th. We were called at four forty-five a. m. after a horrible night of little sleep from screeching railroad whistles, and in the dark hurriedly shaved and dressed. The porter brought a cup of coffee and slice of bread, for which they had the nerve to charge two francs. Then carrying our own bags we started for the station. In spite of the early hour the place was crowded, both with military and civilians. It was pitch black, but the train was found and we all piled in and started for Albert. As day dawned a thick mist prevented any range of vision, but just before reaching Albert it began to lift and ruins of villages, or villages partly in ruins, could be seen. Then the train pulled in.
The station was full of shell-holes, in fact, half demolished—but we stored our baggage in a shed and started down the street to find the Liaison Officer. But the city was in ruins. The walls were pockmarked by machine-gun fire and only about one in ten habitable. And then as we turned a street corner we saw the Cathedral, or rather the shell of what it once was. From the top of the shell-shattered tower the Virgin and Child were suspended at right angles, the Child extending far out. As the mist lifted the sun struck the gilding. It was like a miracle and one fairly gasped. We were all much impressed and somewhat awed, for there was silence for some minutes afterward.
The Cathedral was totally destroyed, only the four walls and tower standing, and large holes through all the walls. For blocks around there, no houses were left standing and only a block of stone and a few piles which marked doorstep and entrance hall. Some houses had no roofs and some roofs had no house, but remained suspended when all the remaining structure had gone. It was like wandering through some recently excavated city.