eyes of any of you that were there, let your
minds run back for a moment, and smile at your recollections. Do you
remember how we dosed Wilson's glass so that he left us before the
sweets were on the table? Do you remember how we found him later sitting
on the stairs, poor fellow, clasping his head in a vain effort to stop
the world from whirling round? Do you remember the toasts that we drank,
and the plans we made for that dim period, "after the war"? I confess
that I have completely forgotten everything that we ate--beyond the
whisky, I forget even what we drank; but I know that the daintiest
little dinner in London could not have pleased us nearly so much. And
then, when it was all over and we broke up to go home to bed, do you
remember how young Carter stood in the middle of the Grande Place and
made rhapsodies to the moon--though, to the rest of us, it seemed much
like any other moon--until we took him up and carried him home by force?

It does you good to look back sometimes. You may find it sad because so
many are gone that were our companions then. But this is the way of war;
they must die sooner or later, and they could not have chosen better
graves. If one must die, why not die fighting for England and Ypres?

* * * * *

There is one street in Ypres that I knew in peace time. It wound in and
out between the stiff, white houses, and the little Flemish children
would make it echo to their shouts and laughter, until you could
scarcely hear the rumble and the rattle of the carts on the cobbles of
the main street, near by. And I passed along the same winding way during
the second battle of Ypres. The shattered houses stretched jagged edges
of brickwork towards the sky, the road was torn up, and the paving
stones were piled up grotesquely against each other. Outside the
convent, where I seemed to catch the dim echo of children's laughter,
lay a smashed limber--the horse was on its back, with its legs stuck up
stiffly; and, just touching the broken stone cross that had fallen from
above the convent door, lay the figure of the dead driver.

And, of all that I remember of Ypres, it is of this that I think most
often, for it is a symbol of the place itself--the dead man lying by the
cross, sign of suffering that leads to another life. The agony of Ypres
will render it immortal; for if ever a town deserved immortality, it is
surely this old, ruined city on the plains of Flanders.