The firing was steady, unemotional.
As the wind died down we ventured into the ruins of the Cloth Hall itself. The roof is gone, of course. The building took fire from the bombardment, and what the shells did not destroy the fire did. Melted lead from ancient gutters hung in stalactites. In one place a wall was still standing, with a bit of its mural decoration. I picked up a bit of fallen gargoyle from under the fallen tower and brought it away. It is before me now.
It is seven hundred and fifteen years since that gargoyle was lifted into its place. The Crusades were going on about that time; the robber barons were sallying out onto the plains on their raiding excursions. The Norman Conquest had taken place. From this very town of Ypres had gone across the Channel "workmen and artisans to build churches and feudal castles, weavers and workers of many crafts."
In those days the Yperlée, a small river, ran open through the town. But for many generations it has been roofed over and run under the public square.
It was curious to stand on the edge of a great shell hole and look down at the little river, now uncovered to the light of day for the first time in who knows how long.
In all that chaos, with hardly a wall intact, at the corner of what was once the cathedral, stood a heroic marble figure of Burgomaster Vandenpeereboom. It was quite untouched and as placid as the little river, a benevolent figure rising from the ruins of war.
"They have come like a pestilence," said the General. "When they go they will leave nothing. What they will do is written in what they have done."
Monsieur le Commandant had disappeared. Now he returned triumphant, carrying a great bundle in both arms.
"I have been to what was the house of a relative," he explained. "He has told me that in the cellar I would find these. They will interest you."
"These" proved to be five framed photographs of the great paintings that had decorated the walls of the great Cloth Hall. Although they had been hidden in a cellar, fragments of shell had broken and torn them. But it was still possible to gain from them a faint idea of the interior beauty of the old building before its destruction.