The Ypres Times.
95
It seemed superfluous to go on to Merville after that. Ruined towns have only one
character—ruination. Their individual character, once strong, is buried under masses
of masonry, wooden beams, piles of bricks, dust, rubbish. The streets are mere tracks
cleared between a debris of similar appearance and kind and the only thing which
distinguishes this town from that is the nameboardvery necessary-at the entrance
and exit.
So I did not go to Merville, though as the detraining-point for many months of the
4th Corps and later of the 1st Army, it is a name and a place familiar to most of those who
fought with the British Army. I spent a cheap nightand no night in a comfortable
French inn cost more than thirty francs except at the best hotel in Lille which demanded
fifty-twobut here English stayedand when morning came, travelled South-east,
crossing the old lines south of Armentières and approaching Aubers from the German side.
The country hereabouts is full of recollections for the Army. Unexpectedly one came
upon this landmark and thathere a farmhouse by a cross-road near Fleurbaix where
on a still and misty February morning (of 1915) a raw draft arrived from England and
where, for those concerned, the curtain rang up on a drama that might prove brief or
long-drawn out. From yonder hedgerow the first gun had fired (for our benefit) at the
Germans and near to the farm opposite the first shell exploded. Time, however, and
circumstance alter much the aspect of Artois and it was difficult to believe that war had
ravaged this country through four years or that Man's activity could so readily efface
War's desolation.
The purpose was, however, to accompany the German reserves streaming to the
rescue at Festubert and Neuve C.hapelle, the reliefs, ration-parties and working-parties
which night after night crept up these roads in fear of English shells. Of these the first
signs came at Fromelles which is more battered than Laventie or Fleurbaix. There are
at the present day, however, singularly few signs of shell-holes either in the roadway or
in the fields. Looking up at the Aubers Ridge through many months, an irresistible,
perhaps senseless curiosity had possessed one to see the country beyond it, as though that
way the Garden of Eden layinstead of Elysian Fields One perceived, therefore, with
a gratification long-deferred that the reverse side of this ridge slopes gradually to the
Lille-Bethune highway and beyond resumes its monotonous Flanders flatness. The
road between Fromelles and Aubers follows the very summit of the ridge, which proves
to be more pronounced than one might have expected. It had been a similar experi
ence in those trenches a mile away to wonder whether it would ever fall to oneself to stand
beside the red church-tower of that Aubers which peeped evasively above trees. The
evasive day had come, but no church-tower stoodonly the stump of one. There had
taken its place as a universal landmark a huge and high tile-factory, fight brick in tone
and with a brilliant scarlet roof. This can be seen for miles and greatly alters the appear
ance of the ridge from the English side. Numbers of men were working at the completion
of the factory, and instead of the silent ruined village overgrown with greenery one expected
to find, here was a place, ruined indeed, but a-hum with constructive activity. And
when, mounting a heap of bricks about the centre of the village, the better to obtain a
view, you saw a landscape plotted out in fields and alive with harvesters, men working on
roads, builders and in the foreground at Fauquissart, clusters of new prosperous-looking
scarlet-roofed buildingsand others beyond thesewelcome though the unexpected
vision was, you realised that here at any rate the mission was to fail. Not so had the
Germans ever looked down upon the British finesand there was no sign of trenches.
Smiling sunshine fit up fields of corn and roots among which the only note suggestive of
war was here and there a row of withered willows or poplars. In the distance hazily-
hidden a dozen or so miles away, loomed the Mont des Cats. Here then was a cheerful
pleasant scene which could not have been recognised by anybody who had known the
place four or five years before.
(To be concluded.)
