THE YPRES TIMES
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dull times, I sometimes wonder what particular call that time spent in a desert waste
should have that its memory stands out so clear-cut. Was it the magnificent sunrises
and equally glorious sunsets, the illimitable space with those snow-capped mountains
merging into the horizon
Was it our true spirit of comradeship Or was it a subconscious knowledge that
we were back in the cradle of civilizationfollowing the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian,
Alexandrian, Roman, Arab, Mongol and Turk in their conquests of Mesopotamia
The majority of us would have flatly denied thatyet the country held an interest, a
hold over one which was indefinable.
W. J. Parry.
o
MARCH, which is the anniversary month of the culmination of my Army "career,"
sets me reflecting yet again on certain impressions recollected at random, of
my three and a quarter years in the Army, the years when I was 18, 19, 21.
I am inclined to smile at the photo of my callow self of that time. I reflect, though,
that it might have been the photo of one "killed in France." Of course, if it were, I
should not know anything about it but even so, I don't like to think of this youth
having ended out there. I am glad he came back, even though it was to take part
in the universal scramble for hogwash. (I think that is how Shaw describes it.)
I am amazed when I reflect that this gap of three and a quarter years should have
occurred in my humdrum lifeyawning, as it were, between two long periods of un-
eventfulness. And although I resent that those precious years should have been wasted
in that they were culturally fallow, retrospect, blurring the edges of ugly and unhappy
realities, as it always does, has softened the memory of them and (I must admit it) has
tinged them lambently with a melancholy romance.
I remember Catterick Camp.It is a summer evening. In this vast camp of con
crete huts are men from every county in the British Isles. Bugles are variously sound
ing the Last Post." The first bugle's long sad lingering notes distantly float through
the quietness. Before they have expired, the bugle of my own regiment sounds with
startling blaringness solemnly. The evening seems to be listening to the last
loud note reverentially. All is still. A minute later, from the next camp, sound
the same notes less loudly. Before they have all left the bugle the familiar and solemn
beginning sounds distantly in three other directions.
The tuneful jangle ceases dancing and wailing discordantly. All is stillthe still
ness of summer evening peace.
Almost inaudible, ringing out from afar, sound the familiar long solemn tones as
from a deserted distant land. The world seems to be listening.
The final inquiring plaintive note wings weakly away as though uncertain of its
course in the extensive evening quietlost.
I remember when drafts left the camp for France in dark nights, very late.We
leave our beds or our seats at the stove and rush out. On the pack of each marching
man is a little white linen bag containing special rations. These little white bags remain
in my mind now as they did thenthe sinister brandings of men doomed to take great
