206
THE YPRES TIMES
is flaunted outside her booth, offers her charms for inspection at the rate of one
franc (or i|d.) per head. A miniature railway running through a circular tunnel,
motor-cars on tracks, and weird animals curvetting round on revolving platforms
cater for the little ones, while the grandmothers, their daughters and grand
daughters, scramble into the swing-boats and aeroplanes, to the huge delight of
the perambulating crowds. Various gambling games attract the more sophisti
cated, and in the shooting gallery is a gaily painted figure of a lady surprised
in an advanced state of négligé, and who, on being potted in a well marked
spot, hastily adjusts her disarray. Here and there among the crowds one meets
groups of pilgrims who have come from all over the world to visit the battlefields
and cemeteries of the Salient, and who join wholeheartedly in the merriment,
forgetting for the moment their travel-weariness. All this and much more under
the shadow of the scaffolded walls of the old Cloth Hall. Each day's programme
varies.
Religious ceremonies are followed by distributions of prizes to school-children,
and gymnastic displays. Guild meetings succeed to classical concerts given in
one of the many public squares. Band promenades by the local garrison or by
some of the many clubbands from the provinces, have their crowds of
devotees who sit comfortably on the café terraces and imbibe their bocks while
listening with the air of connoisseurs who are not to be too easily pleased. The
Cercle William Tell local champions of the bow and arrow, Flanders' favourite
sporthold competitions and reunions for visiting members and teams. And in
the rendezvous of the different political organizations there is much talk and
disputation, accompanied by the inevitable bock and cigars. Flanders, too, has her
Sinn FeinAnd all over the city are notices calling on the citizens to re-affirm
their loyalty to King and Country, and so signalize their disapproval of those who
agitate, and, at times, with force! for complete independence for West Flanders
and for complete severance of their ties with Belgium and her King. Flanders,
the cock-pit of Europe, spoil of any and every adventurer, claims to stand alone.
So much for the vaunted lessons of history. In the evening a famous trick-cyclist
pays a flying visit to give a short display in the crowded Grande Place and then
the crowds begin to thin out. Some drift to the cafés to smoke and gossip till
midnight, others to their homes or hotels, and by far the greater number set off
on 'buses or bicycles for the neighbouring towns and villages. But, at 9 o'clock,
when the festivities are showing signs of quietening down, a crowd of some 200
gathers in and around the immense pile of the Menin Gate. A white-helmeted
policemen, at either approach, holds up the road traffic, while four buglers in the
red, blue, and gold of the Municipality blow the Last Post on silver bugles
presented to the city in memory of those who died in her defence. Tired-eyed
women stand silent and motionlesstears very near the surface. A crippled
ex-officer, stiff as a ramrod on his crutches, chokes convulsively. Black-clad
Belgians, who have listened to the Call night after night for years, stare unseeingly
as at some figment of the past recalled by the plaintive notes. A figment of the
Past°r, mayhap, a haunting fear for the future? A sudden shower of rain fills
the cafés to overflowing, and is gone as quickly as it came. A few of the more
sturdy,, or less tired, of the Pilgrims stroll out past the Gate towards the Menin
Road, there to stand and stare across the distances of the night. Tiny lights,
almost too distant to be seen, outline roughly the run of the old Salient. St. Jean,
Hooge, Zillebeke, and, down south, Wytschaete, with all their wealth of associa
tions, and over all a brooding sense of waitingfor what? A last look round,
perhaps a whispered prayerthen back, and so to bed. Tuindag has begun.
John A. Sheahan.