34
THE YPRES TIMES
prisoners nearly two days. The three of us joined forces with a dozen or so other
men captured the same day, and our first task was to carry the wounded on
stretchers a distance of about six miles to a dressing-station near Fins. We were
then idle for a day, but the following night we joined hundreds of other prisoners
and took part in a twenty-mile march back through the old German lines, with
mounted Uhlans as guards and escort.
The German system of camouflage was interestinghuge banners of multi
coloured canvas were hung at frequent intervals across all roads that led over
ridges, to prevent observation of these roads from the English lines. We passed
through, during the night, a village in the old German support line that presented
Photo] [Imperial War Museum, Crown Copyright.
THE DESTROYED BRIDGE ON THE OLD RAMPARTS.
On the right is the end of the Rue St. Fursy. Peronne.
the most weird sight I have ever seen; the houses were blown to bits, and there
was no remnant of a house more than eight feet high, and the road the'whole way
through the village was strewn right and left with dead horses lying close together
in twos, fours and sixes, giving me the impression that a column of transport had
been annihilated by our shell fire or bombs. Our bivouac at the end of that march
was an open field, where we were given our first meal of bread and coffee. There
we spent two days and nights in mud and rain which greatly discomforted those
who, like myself, had no greatcoat. We were glad to leave the field behind, and
after various other long marches and indifferent billets arrived at Peronne, where
we worked at the rail-head unloading lorries, dragging the canal, etc.
Plans for escape now began to form in my mind, as, at this town, we were
