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Updated: May 9, 2025
The most eloquent compliment to its perfection was the dreamy reminiscence of a soldier I met at the base: "I got hit up at Wipers, sir; something hit me in the head, and the next thing I knew was I heard somebody saying 'Drink this, and I found myself in bed at Boulogne." Every field ambulance has an attendant chaplain, and a very good sort he usually is.
My feelings on leaving "Wipers" behind me can best be expressed in the words which a poet of the 55th Division dedicated to the British Soldier in the second number of Sub Rosa: "Good-bye, Wipers! though I 'opes it is for good, It 'urts me for to leave yer I little thought it would. When I gets back to Blighty, and all the fightin's done, Mebbe the picters of the past will rise up, one by one.
When this process is finished, the dishes arrive at the drying boards, so hot that by the time the wipers with their thick towels have placed them in the racks where they belong, all are perfectly clean and dry. "Our pots, sauce pans, stew pans and kettles, are all designed for electric cooking, and are made in shapes best adapted for easy cleaning.
Braintop stood bowing like the most faithful confirmation of an opinion ever seen. He looked the victim of fatigue, in the bargain. A light broke on Mrs. Chump. "I'll never forgive myself, ye poor gentle heart, to throw pens and pen- wipers at ye, that did your best, poor boy!
We learned that the trench by which we were going in was named Surrey Lane, in honor of the West Surreys who constructed it. At various points we came upon intersecting trenches, most of which were marked with the name of the point to which they led. One, I remember, was "Wipers Road"; not that it ran all the way to Ypres but led in the direction of that place.
Like mutilated fingers they points up through the night. The blighters what relieves us we'll treat 'em fair an' kind, They're welcome to the soveneers what we 'ave left be'ind. Good-bye, Wipers! though I 'opes it is for good, It 'urts me for to leave yer I little thought it would."
The line is pierced at intervals by railway-cuttings, which have to be barricaded, and canals, which require special defences. Almost every spot in either line is overlooked by some adjacent ridge, or enfiladed from some adjacent trench. And our trench-line, with its infinity of salients and re-entrants, is itself only part of the great salient of "Wipers."
While I waited I talked to the men. They were on their way to Ypres. Tommy can't get the name right, and long ago ceased trying to do so. The French and Belgians call it "Eepre" that's as near as I can give it to you in print, at least. But Tommy, as all the world must know by now, calls it Wipers, and that is another name that will live as long as British history is told.
You remember how the two ridges used to look down into our lines at Wipers and Plugstreet? And now we're on top of both of them! Some of our friends out there the friends who are not coming back would have liked to know about that, Bobby. I wish they could, somehow." "Perhaps they do," said Bobby simply. It was close on midnight.
A TV forecaster in a truck stop spoke of the first winter storm. Lucky Oliver. The windshield wipers worked well, though, and the rain let up as he eased into a parking area on a rocky headland. The Devil's Churn. No one else was there. It was 10:05. He put his head back and closed his eyes.
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