the church to which he belonged. He reminded us often of the old
fighting Crusaders.

On the evening of our arrival at Ypres I visited the Cloth Square a
short distance away, and reviewed the ruins of the fine Gothic
building known as Cloth Hall. This building was one of the glories of
Flanders. In every niche over its hundreds of pointed windows there
was a full-sized statue of some noted Count of Flanders and his wife.
But the place was one great ruin, the inside having been blown out,
and now it is turned into an horse stable. The town itself was
resuming some of its wonted activity and workmen were busy mending the
scars of war in the tiles and brick of the houses of the city.

Ypres was, in days gone by, the capital of Old Flanders. Within its
walls there was an Irish convent, and in this convent was shown one of
the few colors ever taken from a British regiment. Clare's Irish
Regiment in the service of France, it is said, took this flag at the
Battle of Fontenoy.

We were now among the Flemings proper, and they are a fine race of
tall people, some with light brown eyes and flaxen hair, a rather odd
combination. They are very clean and very friendly, worthy descendants
of the warlike Belgae. They worship King Albert, who they say is the
greatest warrior and king that Belgium has ever seen. The Belgians of
to-day will not rank him second to even Claudius Civilis, the
companion of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, nor to any of those heroes
of Tacitus, who took up arms for Belgian liberty against the Romans,
nor yet to Charlemagne, the great conqueror of Middle Europe.

We were to garrison Ypres for four days, and then we were to take over
the piece of trench occupied by another battalion in our brigade, the
Canadian Scottish. Our position in the line was the extreme point of
the great salient of Ypres that has been held so valiantly for months
by the British, French and Belgians.

CHAPTER XX

THE HISTORIC SALIENT AT YPRES

On April 17th we received orders not to gather in groups on the street
if hostile aircraft were seen, and also that officers were to keep
close to their billets. Three of my companies were moved out to farms
in the outskirts. They had been billetted in a big factory, and if a
shell had come in many would have been killed. I went out to see
Brigadier-General Turner at noon. His headquarters were located at a
large farm northwest of St. Julien. I found General Alderson and
several of his