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Updated: June 11, 2025
There was an old mill-house near Vlamertinghe, beyond Goldfish Chateau, which was made into a casualty clearing station, and scores of times when I passed it I saw it crowded with the "walking wounded," who had trudged down from the fighting-line, taking eleven hours, fourteen hours sometimes, to get so far.
"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.
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.
On Sunday, the 20th June, the Battalion marched off from Vlamertinghe at 8.30 a.m. through Ouderdom and Locre to Dranoutre, where it went into bivouacs at Corunna Farm, being now in the II Corps commanded by Sir Charles Ferguson, who inspected and addressed the men the following day.
And thus we straggled on past the French outposts and over the Yser again, and on, on past the field we had lain in all day, on through Brielen to Vlamertinghe, back to billets. But the draft was broken in. It was only the prospect of several days of comparative rest that held us together at all as we floundered over the slippery cobble stones into Vlamertinghe.
A portion of the 45th French Division was still hanging on to the extreme left of the French line. They had fallen back to try and conform with the general retirement on their right, but they pluckily determined to try and extend their ground by a counter charge near Pilken and regained some ground. West of the Yperlee Canal at Vlamertinghe the 1st Canadian Brigade was in billets.
The remains of the great Cloth Hall, cathedral, and other buildings revealed that what had once been, supposedly, of stone was in reality white brick. On August 18, starting at 4 a.m., the Battalion marched to Goldfish Château, close to Ypres, and the Transport to a disused brickfield west of Vlamertinghe.
The air moved with the rushing waves which tracked the carry of each shell from our batteries, and over Ypres came the high singsong of the enemies' answering voice. As the dusk fell there was a movement out from Vlamertinghe, a movement of transport wagons and marching men. They were going up in the darkness through Ypres rations and reliefs. They were the New Army men of the West Riding.
Having had tea, I returned to Query Camp by lorry most of the way where I arrived at 6.30 p.m." "Up 9 a.m. At 10 it poured with rain and prevented Church parade. At 10.30 Allen and I set off with Sergeant Baldwin, Sergeant Donovan, Sergeant Brogden, and a few other N.C.O.'s and runners, to reconnoitre a track. We went on a miniature train as far as Vlamertinghe. Then we walked across the fields.
Then the guns ceased for a while, and there was quietude in the trenches, and out of Ypres, sneaking by side ways, went two tired figures, padding the hoof with a slouching swiftness to escape the early morning "hate" which was sure to come as soon as a clock in Vlamertinghe still working in a ruined tower chimed the hour of six.
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