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Updated: June 17, 2025
He was new to his work and liked the adventure of it that was before his men were blown to bits around him and he was sent down as a tragic case of shell-shock and as we walked through the village of Kemmel he chatted cheerfully about his work and life and found it topping. His bright, luminous eyes were undimmed by the scene around him. He walked in a jaunty, boyish way through that ruined place.
That moment came at Hill 60 and sixteen other places below the Wytschaete and Messines Ridge at three-thirty on the morning of June 7th, after a quiet night of war, when a few of our batteries had fired in a desultory way and the enemy had sent over some flocks of gas-shells, and before the dawn I heard the cocks crow on Kemmel Hill.
To the right of Kemmel was the ruined tower of Messines in the German lines; to the left of that the smoking chimneys of Armentieres now also somewhat battle scarred, and away beyond it and a little to the left the City of Lille.
About 1.30 A.M. on Sunday, April 30, the bombers' sentry came and woke me up, and I went downstairs to find a messenger had arrived with the code warning 'Kemmel Defences. So I quickly roused the men and warned them to be ready to start in half an hour. We hurried into our war kit and formed up in the dark outside, and soon marched off to join the rest of the battalion outside Meteren.
They looked straight into Kemmel village and turned their guns on to it when our men crouched among its ruins and opened the graves in the cemetery and lay old bones bare. Clear and vivid to them were the red roofs of Dickebusch village and the gaunt ribs of its broken houses. Southward they saw Neuve Eglise, with its rag of a tower, and Plug Street wood.
Well, after a few days in the trenches we went back to a place called L for a rest, or rather we were in reserve. We were now in what was known as the Kemmel Shelters; here we turned night into day we slept or did nothing in the daytime, but at night we worked like bees we were busy on fatigue parties carrying up ammunition and provisions to the front lines.
It was a beautiful clear day with a tang in the air like late September. From our little observation point on the top of Mt. Rouge we could see for miles on all sides. Over in front lay Mt. Kemmel, bristling with guns but not one visible with the field glasses.
Unfortunately, they still retained the Doctor's House in Kemmel as their Headquarters, and, as Lindenhoek Châlet was now too far South, Colonel Jones had to find a new home in the village, and chose a small shop in one of the lesser streets.
Said he didn't mind rifle-fire, but couldn't stand shells. Admitted he left his post. He doesn't mind rifle-fire!... Well, tomorrow morning." The officer laughed grimly, and then listened for a second. There were some heavy crumps falling over Kemmel Hill, rather close, it seemed, to our wooden hut. "Damn those German gunners" said the officer. "Why can't they give us a little peace?"
Beneath us and between us and Kemmel, on the road that runs from Bailleul to Ypres, nestled the little village of Locre, with its white walled cottages and red tiled roofs. To the left of Kemmel the sun made prominent the ruins of Wytschaete a village in the German lines.
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