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I shall never forget my feelings when one morning in a certain wine-merchant's cellar I saw several eighteen-gallon casks of Bass's Pale Ale. I left Poperinghe in a motor-ambulance, and the Germans shelled it next day, but my latest advices state that the ale is still intact. Across the road from the wine-merchant's is a delectable tea-shop. There is a tea-shop at Bailleul, the "Allies Tea-Rooms."
The route was by way of Poperinghe, with its narrow, crowded streets, its fresh troops just arrived and waiting patiently, heavy packs beside them, for orders. In Poperinghe are found all the troops of the Allies: British, Belgian, French, Hindus, Cingalese, Algerians, Moroccans.
In the casualty clearing station by Poperinghe more mangled men lay on their stretchers, hobbled to the ambulance-trains, groped blindly with one hand clutching at a comrade's arm. More, and more, and more, with head wounds, and body wounds, with trench-feet, and gas. "O Christ!" said one of them whom I knew. He had been laid on a swing-bed in the ambulance-train.
Warning of our arrival in Poperinghe should have been notified to the municipal authorities, so that they might find lodgings for us; and the Queen of the Belgians had indeed sent through a message to that effect, But there seemed to be some trouble about finding a roof under which to lay our heads, and an hour went by in the square while the lady in charge of the domesticity department interviewed the mayor, cajoled the corporation, and inspected convents down side streets.
I went out, and knocked at her door. "So you have come back," I said. "And where have you left the little one?" She gazed at me dully for a minute, and a great fear gripped me, for I saw that her best clothes were torn and dust stained. "It was near the big hospital on the Poperinghe road," she said in a horribly even voice.
I had intended to write down a full description of the country immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little expeditions to Béthune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round Armentières, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop.
Below us, the roofs of Cassel slept their provincial sleep, the moonlight picking out every leaf in the gardens; while beyond, those infernal flowers continued to open and shut along the curve of death. June 21st. On the road from Cassel to Poperinghe. Heat, dust, crowds, confusion, all the sordid shabby rear-view of war.
It dropped on the other side of the street; doing our despatch rider no damage, it slightly wounded Sergeant Croucher of the Cyclists in a portion of his body that made him swear when he was classed as a "sitting-up case." Of all the towns behind the lines Béthune, Estaires, Armentières, Bailleul, Poperinghe Béthune is the pleasantest. The people are charming.
On the way we stop at an air-station, to watch the aeroplanes rising and coming down, and at a point near Poperinghe we go over a casualty-clearing station a collection of hospital huts, with storehouses and staff quarters with the medical officer in charge. Here were women nurses who are not allowed in the field dressing-stations nearer the line.
They thought with a pang of those who slept the long last sleep in the clinging wet soil, whose footsteps would no longer ring on the hard road in rythmic chorus with the old Ten Hundred, whose voices would ne'er again swell the Battalion's marching rallies.... Following a brief rest the 29th Division trained, from Poperinghe southwards.
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