erable empty cases of maggot chrysalids.

We struck a main road. It was dotted with shell-holes that had recently
been filled in with bricks and pieces of stone. To the left of the road
were many scarred tree-trunks. Some were still erect, others were
aslant, while others lay prone, having been broken off short or torn up
by the roots. They were all dead and ashen grey. Behind them was a broad
ring of stagnant water covered with duckweed. On the island within the
ring was a huge heap of loose bricks--a few months ago this had been a
picturesque chateau with gabled roofs, surrounded by gardens and a
wooded park. Amongst the shell-holes and scattered branches and twisted
lengths of white railing, a few michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums,
dahlias, and other garden flowers were in bloom.

Further on, to the right of the road, stood the ruins of the church. A
few thick pieces of wall were still standing and a part of the steeple
pointed upwards like a jagged finger. Heaped up inside were
brick-fragments and tiles, together with splintered beams and rafters,
riddled sheets of lead and zinc, broken chairs, twisted brass
candlesticks, bits of stained glass, and here and there chunks of
coloured plaster, the remains of apostolic or saintly images. One of
the confessionals was still visible, although all the woodwork was
shattered. Of the altar nothing could be seen. Behind a crumbling
fragment of brick wall was a band of machine-gun ammunition and a heap
of empty cartridge cases.

The big bronze bell lay outside the church in two pieces. The cemetery
had been churned by shell-fire. The tombstones were chipped and broken.
One big block of granite had been overturned by a bursting shell and the
inscription was so scarred as to be illegible. The stone Christ had been
hit in many places. His left hand was gone, so that He hung aslant by
the other. Both His legs had been blown off at the knees and His nose
and mouth had been carried away by some flying shell-fragment or
shrapnel-ball. All the graves had been thrown into confusion by the
violence of innumerable explosions. Bits of bone--femurs, ribs, lower
jaws--lay scattered about. The hip of a soldier who had been buried in
his clothes projected from the soil with the brown mass of maggot
chrysalids still clinging to it. Two bent knees of a greenish-grey
colour, that had only begun to decay, emerged from a patch of trodden
mud.

Beyond the church, by the roadside, were the dwell