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Death and destruction, and horror and wonderful heroism, seem so near and so transcendent, and then, quite close at hand, one finds evil doings. 14 May. I heard two little stories to-day, one of a British soldier limping painfully through Poperinghe with a horrid wound in his arm and thigh. "You seem badly wounded," a friend of mine said to him.
To-morrow we may be killed, but to-day we will put on thick boots, and take the dogs for a run in the rain. Poperinghe was deserted, of course. Its busy cobbled streets were quite empty except for a few strolling soldiers in khaki, and just here and there the same toothless old woman who is always the last to leave a doomed city.
The small Flemish and French towns offer few amenities; in our mess we found our principal recreation in reunions with other fraternities at the pâtisserie or in an occasional mount. Of pâtisseries that at Bethune is the best; that at Poperinghe the worst. Besides, the former has a piano and a most pleasing Mademoiselle.
Under cover of the night, I returned to the wagon lines, and in much better time than coming down, for which I had to thank the feed of oats. The bath gave me a new hold on life; I felt ten years younger and several pounds lighter. I learned next day that the station master at Poperinghe had been arrested, tried as a spy and shot.
"I believe I'll wait." "Nonsense," said the major impatiently. "Take your leave when you get your chance, and have a good time. You have earned it." THE PASSING OF McCUAIG At Poperinghe the leave train was waiting in the station, and a little company of officers and men were having their papers examined preparatory to their securing transportation.
A camp with some of the Divisional details was struck some little way from us, and the same night D.H.Q. at Elverdinghe Château were bombed, several motor-lorries being set on fire. It was too far back for us to be troubled with much shelling, and the German long-range guns fired mostly over our heads at the more attractive targets of Poperinghe and Proven.
A few miles further on we detrained at Poperinghe and were soon marching along a beautiful avenue of poplars now perhaps the most famous highway in Flanders, the Vlamertinghe road. Refugees passed us with all their worldly effects piled on a waggon, the women and little children clattering along behind in their wooden sabots. It seemed so unnecessary.
On one day there were three hundred casualties in one battalion The German gun-fire lengthened, and men were killed on their way out to "rest" camps to the left of the road between Poperinghe and Vlamertinghe.
"For the last fortnight the artillery had been preparing the way for us, raids had been taking place, and conflicts in the air had been of frequent occurrence; the Royal Engineers had been constructing roads and other means of advance; miniature railways were running up to the front line; and the road from Watou, through Poperinghe and Vlamertinghe, to Ypres was simply thronged with transport.
Truly it is, in the words of the stout Puritan, a nation not slow and dull but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. The little towns of Flanders and Artois are Aire, Hazebrouck, Bethune, Armentières, Bailleul, Poperinghe, and Cassel. The fairest of these is Cassel.