The Ypres Times.
121
of the tall grey poplars appearing through the haze and mist. The dew was dropping
silently from the straggling hedges by the roadside as we received the order to put on
our irksome steel helmets, for we were now entering irrto the zone of fire. And there
was that same great red sun rising over Ypres which revealed such scenes of human crime
and cruelty. Who could ever have believed that so much pathos and sorrow lay between
it and us There was the smell of destruction in the air, for every now and then the sky
was lit up by the flashes of shells which were wildly bursting afar off and one could
hear the rumble of the sullen guns at stand to." Even the pretty Mont des Cats,
which looked so painfully peaceful against the dull sky-line, seemed to feel the sadness
of the dawn. In the lull, you could faintly hear the buzz of busy windmills which were
toiling away in the distance, over in the direction of Cassel.
St. Martin's Cathedral Church and its Cloister.
Both sides of the road were lined with the quaint dwellings of refugees. Their
tiny huts were built out of the sides of boxes or of petrol tins, some shaped like huge
bee-skeps, others with absolutely no form at all. It was pretty to watch the smoke
curl up into the air from the newly lit fires. Everything looked so solemnly new. Even
the wee windows were decorated with some kind of tapestry, and the doors, which con
sisted of pieces of wood, were neatly hammered together. Some of them were even
painted. Every hut had its adjoining cabbage patch which was cultivated to the last
square inch, while vines and rambler roses scrambled over each door and window. It
