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52 The Ypres Times.
chaos of shattered trees and piles of debris, I behold a wraith-like form. It is the spirit
of one who fell keeping the Gateone of that immortal band of brothers who died that
their faith and their friends might live. To the accompaniment of the wind sadly soughing
through the dripping boughs, and to the distant rumble of the guns, I hear his reverie,
as the tide of battle flows eastward from his eternal resting-place.
Gaunt, and grey and menacing, the hills sweep out from before my feet. The white
scarred headless trees, the upcast earth, the battered stumps of Sanctuary Wood, point
mutely upwards. Behind, in striking contrast, the verdure of waving grasses stretches
out towards Ypres, the City of Fear, that heap of stone and rubble with its one projecting
pinnacle remaining inviolate.
I see the scarlet poppies which may well have gotten their glowing colours from the
gallant blood poured out so unstintingly and with which the earth beneath is drenched.
Through it all, Nature is steadily asserting herself, and covering the desolation
wrought by man with a riotous growth of summer verdure. Half hidden beneath this riot
of colour are the disused trenches, and decaying shell-holes in whose depths lurk the
memories and odours of death. The significant shreds of torn khaki, the wooden crosses,
eloquent in their simplicity, the broken rifles and here and there are the remains of
shattered bodies which the healing and kindly hand of Nature will tenderly cover in the
fullness of time. Behind me, strewn along the pavé roads, I see the bodies of dead horses,
killed in their efforts to bring up the grim necessities of war and of them, I like to think,
as the poet has written, that Their cups are the calm pools and winding rivers, and that
care never breaks their healthy slumbers."
I see every shell-torn field, each battered tree, each desolated home, every yard of
earth bearing its wounds and I look down the long, long years to come, seeing a brave
and patient people, by their unsparing toil restoring this shambles, now hideous to look
upon, back to its former pastoral beauty, and, by their diligent effort, the Mark of the
Beast eradicated and done away with.
My trust is, that when the Princes of Darkness shall be overthrown and the power of
a ruthless people is broken, those who are quick and vigorous will remember when the
Time of Reckoning comes
And then, in the roll of honour,
Just one feeble flicker of flame
'Ere I sink in the great oblivion,
Will be written my humble name.
And the fighting will still press eastward,
To the victory close at hand
But I shall be dreamlessly sleeping
In the quiet of No Man's Land."
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, tho' poppies blow
In Flanders Fields."
