A British Scout Troop's Day in Ypres
THE YPRES TIMES
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the flames spreading to the thatched roof of the barn. Above all things the guns
had to be kept unscathed. It was hard work and not very healthy for the
bombardment still continued in irregular burstsand with uncomfortable
accuracy. A chain of men was formed, and buckets of water passed up from
the dirty pond in our farm-yard to the roof of a small building between the farm
house and the barn, where stout-hearted souls poured water on the thatched roof
near them and turned back any flames which advanced towards the barn. Our
efforts succeeded. The bombardment stopped. The barn was saved.
It was now quite dark. The enemy would not know the extent of the damage
he had caused, and our battery commander decided that it would be best to try to
make him think that he had burnt us out and caused us to move our position. So
we spent the rest of the night removing the thatch from the barn roof and piling
it up on a heap near the end of the barn. We finished shortly before dawn, and
lit the pile, which flared up into the sky. We hoped that the enemy would think
that the barn had been set on fire by an incendiary shell earlier in the night, and
that finally the whole building had blazed up when the thatched roof caught fire.
Certainly when morning broke the rafters showed bare against the sky. The barn
looked a burnt-out ruin, but under the rubbish within we were still snug in our
concrete gun pits, and the guns were in action and ready to do their bit to
help the infantry in front, if called upon.
Whether the enemy did think what we hoped he would, or not, we carried on
after that without too much attention from our opposite numbers over the way.
Dawson's Corner was not, however, an ideal spot for a too protracted stay, and
we were not sorry when our turn came to be relieved, section by section, on
successive nights. It was good to pull out to have a wash and brush up in
the back blocks. We had had our uncomfortable times at Dawson's Corner, and
added our quota to the little cemetery near by under the trees. But the spirit
of the battery had been forged stronger by our experiences there. We knew each
other and ourselves better, and felt that we were ready for other tests, when
called upon.
As the war recedes, so, too, the memories of bad times recede. We tend to
remember the humour, which was often to be found for the looking, and some of
us can look back with a smile on many of our experiences during our tenancy of
Dawson's Corner.
I WANT you to imagine a small group of happy, expectant Boy Scouts just about
to visit that most sacred of all foreign! places to the British TommyYpres
and the Menin Gate. None of them old enough to have but a dim recollection
of the horrors of the War, fori they all hailed from a small, village some thirty odd
miles west of London, where no air raids were experienced. But they had read
and been told about the glorious deeds achieved by their kinsmen: how they had
braved hell for four long, weary years in order that our women-folk, our aged and
infants might dwell in peace and security at home. Yet they had nothing tangible
