German soldier who had run riot and defied the orders of
the officers. Though we had certainly seen one or more cases that had
impressed us very deeply. The case I cited earlier in this book never left
my thoughts. But here on the king's highway, we saw German atrocities on
exhibition for the first time. I say exhibition, and public exhibition,
because it was the first time we had seen atrocities in bulk--in
numbers--in hundreds.

Ypres had been destroyed in seven hours, after a continuous bombardment
from one thousand German guns. It was a city of the dead. The military
authorities of the Allies told the civilians they must leave. They had to
go, there was no alternative. The liberation they had hoped for was in
sight, but their road to it was of a roughness unspeakable.

There was the grandfather in that procession, and the
grandmother,--sometimes she was a crippled old body who could not walk.
Sometimes she was wheeled in a barrow surrounded by a few bundles of
household treasure. Sometimes a British wagon would pass piled high with
old women and sick, to whom the soldiers were giving a lift on their way.

There was the mother in that procession. Sometimes she would have a bundle,
sometimes she would have a basket with a few broken pieces of food. There
was a young child, the baby hardly able to toddle and clinging to the
mother's skirts. There was the young brother, the little fellow, whimpering
a little perhaps at the noise and confusion and terror which his tiny
brain could not grasp. There was the baby, the baby which used to be plump
and smiling and round and pinky white, now held convulsively by the mother
to her breast, its little form thin and worn because of lack of
nourishment.

There was no means of feeding these thousands of helpless ones. Their only
means of sustenance was from the charity of the British and French
soldiers, who shared rations with them.

And there was sister, the daughter--sister--sister. At sight of these young
girls--from thirteen up to twenty and over--we learned, if we had not
learned before, that this is a war in which every decent man must fight.
Some Americans and Canadians may not want to go overseas; they may be
opposed to fighting; they may think they are not needed. Let them once see
what we saw that April morning and nothing in the world could keep them at
home.

They dragged along with heads low, and eyes seeking the ground in a shame
not of their own making. I am co