64
The Ypres -Times.
peculiar walk, and its way of unconcern was truly
uncanny in this sepulchre of wooden crosses and
broken buildings. The light was waning fast, and
as the white mass got nearer, I perceived that it
had a peculiar silver sheen. Surely it was a cat,
I thought, but surely a cat of some devil's own
devising. I stood petrified by the thing, and my
heart almost stopped as I saw it suddenly dis
appear off the face of the earth before my very
eyes. Answering a common human instinct, I
looked hurriedly about me, as if to ask, Did you
see it But I was alone. Then the unhappy
days of my youth passed through my mind in
rapid review.
Wiping my moist brow, I asked myself in a sigh
of despair, Was my old malady returning to me,
and at such a critical time, too X waited long
and patiently, till I began to shiver with the cold,
closely watching the spot where the white mystery
had disappeared.
I was fascinated, and this fascination overcame
my fear. Eventually I betook myself to my dug
out, where, before a log fire, I endeavoured to
drive all thought of the supernatural out of my
head by a little hard reading of my Bacon. Soon
tired by a conscious endeavour, I got to my bed,
such as it was. My henchman slept near me by the
fire, for such was my wont, irrespective of prece
dent. I fell into a sort of comatose doze, yet I
distinctly heard my servant mutter something as
if in shrill alarm. Quiet, fool," I demanded from
my bed. He paid no heed, but went on muttering.
Then suddenly I heard him distinctly say,
White Cat White Cat The emphasis was
unmistakable, and I sat bolt upright. How rapidly
one's thoughts travel at certain times A flash
came across my mind. This man was a born
agricola, and he would have no thoughts about a
cat unlessunlessAnd then I passed into
a land of unconsciousness. There appeared to be
a gulf of eternity over which 1 had passed until
I found myself in a Brasserie (I had seen it before,
but I knew not where). I was drawing myself up
into a corner, and trying to bury myself with loose
bricks. I remember it well, as there was a peculiar
red patch on a casement. Suddenly through a
broken porchway I saw something enter. I
recognised its walk, its uncanny unconcern, and
then I gave an awful shriekit was a white cat
It's all right, sirit's all right, sir I heard
a voice saying from a long way off. I was rudely
shaken. I awoke, and saw my worthy henchman
beside me. A dreamonly a dream," I said, and
turned from my back to my side, sleeping soundly
until a very late dawn.
With the bright sunlight playing through my
dug-out door, happily situated for the morning
sun, I sat up puffing my cigarette and sipping my
morning tea. I smiled at the thought of my night's
experiences. Amid the sounds of crackling wood
and fizzling bacon, I queried my worthy henchman.
A bit of a nightmare Yes, sir steak is a
little heavy eating over night to some folk." A
pause. I had a dream myself, too," added the
batman. I then recalled his ejaculation in his
sleep. Of what did you dream I asked,
anxiously. I can't remember now, sir, but I
shall probably remember before twelve. In our
village they say you don't know your dreams till
twelve has struck." How true, I thought for,
now I came to recall it, none of my dreams ever
came back to me in wakened hours before this
time. Incidentally, I had a looking backward, and
saw how this particular hour had played a pro
minent part in history, legend, and story. Twelve
o'clock Tradition, with her clumsy, heavy feet,
had marched through centuries, making this
o'clock a world of wonderment, peopled by ghosts
of another planet. Yes, an hour even to be mar
velled at now.
There was no time for idle dreaming. I must
be up and doing. After all, I was in a crude,
practical world, and even an imaginative schoolboy
might be the undoing of a genius. So out into this
world, and the inspection of brass buttons and
the mechanisms of war, arts of inspection quite
elementary in their ethics.
The day being bright, the torn fields being kissed
by the rays from heaven, vigour and curiosity
urged me to search out this white creature which
had troubled my imagination. I will sleep no
more until I have solved this mystery of the broken
village of Moulenstraat," I muttered to myself, as
I clambered over the parapet of my sandbagged
dwelling. Within ten yards of my dug-out I came
to the spot near a small bush where I had seen the
white cat disappear. I discovered it to be a shell-
hole, and by the newness of the upturned soil, I
could tell that it was one of recent origin. I called
my sergeant. His head appeared over the parapet.
Oh, that's the spot, is it, sir I thought it would
be about there." Was this man too under the
spell of this white devil was the question which
passed rapidly across my mind. Did you see it,
sergeant I asked eagerly. No, but I heard
it, sir," was his reply. Heard what I con
tinued. The shell explode, sir it was between
six and seven last night, sir." Heavens," I
whispered to myself, that must have heen
shortly after I saw the white thing disappear at
this very spot."
I came away comforted in my soul, feeling that
the enemy had done me no little service in that he
had obliterated that unearthly thing of a fiend's
construction.
Later in the day, whistling happily, with my ash
staff prodding the duckboards, I went about my
labours. Was not the White Cat of Moulenstraat no
more Turning round a traverse to pass under
a road, my eyes fell upon a building. Good
heavens I stood fixed to the ground. There was
the Brasserie of my dream. On second thoughts, of
course, I had seen it many times before. It was
only natural after all that it should figure in a
dreamobjects of the day often do. But in my
dream the scene was pitched inside the Brasserie,
and I had never been inside it. Perhaps," I
thought, my frequent exterior view of it had
enabled me to conjure up what it would be like
inside. I recalled now the scene of its interior in
my dream. I got out of the trench on to the road,
and in a few strides I was inside the Brasserie. Its
