right-hand room first, and soon discovered by the books and pictures
that this had been the Cure's house. It was in a terrible state.
Religious books in French and Latin lay about the floor in a vast
disorder, some with the cover and half the book torn off by the effect
of an explosion. Pictures illustrating Bible scenes, images, and other
probably cherished objects, smashed and ruined, hung about the walls, or
fragmentary portions of them lay littered about on the floor.

A shell hole of large proportions had rent a gash in the outer front
wall, leaving the window woodwork, bricks and wall-paper piled up in a
heap on the floor, partially obliterating a large writing desk. Private
papers lay about in profusion, all dirty, damp and muddy. The remains of
a window blind and half its roller hung in the space left by the absent
window, and mournfully tapped against the remnant of the framework in
the light, cold breeze that was blowing in from outside. Place this
scene in your imagination in some luxuriant country vicarage in England,
and you will get an idea of what Belgium has had to put up with from
these Teutonic madmen. I went into all the rooms; they were in very much
the same state. In the back part of the house the litter was added to by
empty tins and old military equipment. Soldiers had evidently had to
live there temporarily on their way to some part of our lines. I heard a
movement in the room opposite the one I had first gone into; I went back
and saw a cat sitting in the corner amongst a pile of leather-backed
books. I made a movement towards it, but with a cadaverous, wild glare
at me, it sprang through the broken window and disappeared.

The church was just opposite the priest's house. I went across the road
to look at it. It was a large reddish-grey stone building, pretty old, I
should say, and surrounded by a graveyard. Shell holes everywhere; the
old, grey grave stones and slabs cracked and sticking about at odd
angles. As I entered by the vestry door I noticed the tower was fairly
all right, but that was about the only part that was. Belgium and
Northern France are full of churches which have been sadly knocked
about, and all present very much the same appearance. I will describe
this one to give you a sample. I went through the vestry into the main
part of the church, deciding to examine the vestry later. The roof had
had most of the tiles blown off, and underneath them the roofing-boards
had been shat