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So, amidst this pandemonium our car lurched into shattered "Wipers", past the dismantled water-tower, uprooted from its foundations and leaning at a more acute angle than will ever the celebrated tower of Pisa, past ugly heaps of brick and rubble the ruins of once fair buildings, on and on until we pulled up suddenly before a huge something, shattered and formless, a long façade of broken arches and columns, great roof gone, mighty walls splintered, cracked and rent all that "Kultur" has left of the ancient and once beautiful Cloth Hall.
"Yes," said Barry, answering his inflection. "Why not?" "Well, sir, you know, it's rather a bad road. Warm bit of country up there, but " He shrugged his shoulders in quite a French manner as if to say it was no business of his. "If you are going to Menin, you keep this road straight through past Wipers past the Cloth Hall, out by the Menin Gate. A hot place, that, sir.
Then that blooming Kaiser made up his mind that he would break through our lines, and get to Calais. Yes, it was a touch and go with us. Fancy four to one, and they had all the advantage in big guns and ammunition. You think those big guns? Wait till you have heard Jack Johnson and Black Maria. Talk about hell! Hell was never as bad as the battle of Wipers. I thought we were licked once.
'Wipers' is a veteran by this time: 'Plugstreet, 'Booloo, and 'Armintears' are old friends. "What were your prisoners like?" "'Alf clemmed," said the man from Manchester. "No rations for three days," explained a Northumberland Fusilier close by. One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still clasped to his bosom a German helmet.
Good managers are made from messenger boys, brakemen, wipers and telegraphers; just as brave admirals are produced in due time by planting a cadet in a naval school. From two branches of the service come the best equipped men in the railroad world from the motive-power department and from the train service.
Our shell-supply is practically unlimited now; so when the next push comes, we foot-sloggers ought to have a more gentlemanly time of it than we had at Loos and Wipers. And I'll tell you another thing, Bobby. We shall have command of the air too." "That will be a pleasant change," remarked Bobby.
Surely, surely while English is spoken the story of "Wipers" will live on for ever and, through the coming years, will be an inspiration to those for whom these thousands went, cheering and undismayed, to meet and conquer Death.
Thought I was in old Wipers, I did, and see one of them blessed cru-crushifixes!" The other, rather less away, pulled at his arm. "So yer did, ole pal," he said. "It's there now. This 'ere's some Cartholic place or other. Come hon." "Strike me dead, so it is, Joe, large as life! Christ! oo'd 'ave thought it? A bloody cru-cru-chifix! Wat's old England comin' to, Joe?"
Owing to the amount of labor and the disproportion of female help, some of the young men under age oftentimes assisted after meals in wiping dishes and supplying hot and cold water. It was a matter of rivalry between parties to see which could beat in a match, the washer or wipers.
I made a serious blunder when I asked one of them a question about Ypres, for I pronounced the name French fashion, which put me under suspicion as a "swanker." "Don't try to come it, son," he said. "S'y 'Wipers. That's wot we calls it." Henceforth it was "Wipers" for me, although I learned that "Eeps" and "Yipps" are sanctioned by some trench authorities.
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