The Washington times., 1917-03-24

was travelling at a hundred miles an
| hour. AS a person of my intelligence
ought to have known this without
having to be told, l was somewhat
abashed, and also a little horrihed on
reflection by the discovery of myself
in the character / have so often repro
bated, that Of sportsman.
Just an Additional Chapter.
My guide took no interest in the
artillery beyond enabling me to cir
cumvent certain persons whose duty
it was to keep people out of the more
dangerous parts OF the town, and in
sisting on full speed across the square
and past the shattered tower and
twenty or thirty yards sample of IA
| cade that was once the Cloth Hall.
He was a gigantic officer, an Irish
man of the south, fascinated by the
| historic interest of Ypres, apparently
knowing every stone of it, and not
giving a dump for the bombardment
] except as an additional chapter in
that history.
He took me up to a pinnacle and
showed me Ypres beneath me as IL 1t
were all the kingdoms of the earth.
go fiat on your face If anything
comes over" he remarked.
In my youth 1 had learned by sedul-
ously initiating the pantaloons in the
harlequinades, to drop fiat on my face
instinctively, and to produce the illu-
sion of being picked up neatly by the
slack of my trousers and set on my
feet again. 1 had a wild hope that
Brer Boche would send over some
thing and give me an EXCUSE for eX-
hibiting this accomplishment to my
new friend. But nothing came over
just then, and 1 left Ypres with my
dignity unimpaired.
The world Grows DuIer.
When the car had left the town far
behind, and 1 took the collar studs
out of my ears and exchanged the
helmet of Mambrino for golfing cap,
I found the world suddenly duller.
From this I infer that Ypres and its
orchestra had been rather exciting,
though 1 had not noticed 1t at the
time.
or Arras will say little, except
that, in my opinion, 1t has not been
bombarded worth a cent; should
have done it better myself.
The cathedral, a copy of a copy, has
been treated precisely as / should
have treated it; like 1t better as a
ruin than did when it was intact.
The Town Hall, like the Cloth Hall
OF Ypres, is now only a subject of
gentle regret: and the houses round
it are sample Of what might have
happened to the whole town IL the
Boches had thought It worth some
more ammunition. The Little Square
is very handsomely knocked about;
much more so than the Great Square:
but their design is still clear. and
most of their gable-ends are intact |
They can be restored without diff |
Guilty. Those who have seen the |
Somme front hardly notice the Cams
age. A Gas Alert was conspicuolsly |
announced; but nothing in that line
happened, except that 1 talked a |
great deal to Mr.. Special Correspond
ent Tomlinson, who came round with
me.
Like Any Other Landscape.
From ST. EIoi, Philip Gibbs and I
surveyed the battlefields of the Why
ridge. 1t was a landscape like any
other landscape. The silence of the
cold winter evening after sunset was
threatened rather than broken by
the booming OF the guns that never
cease now in this devoted country
side.
A solitary shell burst in Neuvine
st. Vast. Gibbs, a man of a fine
Irvingesque melancholy, seemed to
mediate on the Ruins OF Empires,
but was probably reflecting on the
chances of our being frozen during
the journey back to our quarters. We
ha 60
me now. But my spirits always rise
as the thermometer falls below freez-
ing. Snow is beautiful to me: hate
mud, of which 1 did not encounter
a single COB, and am none the worse
for my freezings.
The Somme front in the snow and
brilliant sunshine was magnificent.
The irony of the signposts was i'm
mense. ITO Maurepas:" and there
was no Maurepas. ITO Contalmaison:"
and there was no Contamination. ITO
Pozieres:" and there was no Pozieres
went to the windmill of Pozieres
and saw a little mound on which the
windmill must have stood. Trones
Wood was a cocoanut shy with no
cocoanuts on the sticks; our guns
had scooped all that the other fellows
guns had left.
Unbroken Old Guard.
On the road to Ypres the trees had
stood. an unbroken Old Guard lining
the road, with hardly a gap in their
ranks. But here! With every limb
shot to bits, beheaded, halved, cut of
at the shins, torn out of the earth
and flung PROSTATE, these woods
seemed to scud with bare poles or
broken jury-masts before the wind as
'ur car passed, all their rigging blown
and shot away.
OF houses, except in one strangely
spared place, not a trace. And knew
from what I had seen in Ypres that
this meant that almost every square
yard Of brick had received a separate |,
smashing hit. AS to the ground, you
cannot find enough fiat earth in a
square mile to play marbles on. The {
moon seen through a telescope, or a ]
slice of Gruyere cheese, is as 1t were
A tennis lawn by comparison. From
he small pit made by the funny little
Stokes gun that spits out shells as
last as you drop them, to the dew :
pond made by the medium trench
mortar, eliminating in the incredible
;rater made BY the subterranean