sands of civilians had been living on the edge of the
battlefields, believing themselves safe behind our lines. Now the line
had slipped and they were caught by German shell-fire and German guns,
and after nearly four years of war had to abandon their homes like the
first fugitives. I saw old women coming down lanes where 5.9's were
bursting and where our gunners were getting into action. I saw young
mothers packing their babies and their bundles into perambulators while
shells came hurtling over the thatched roofs of their cottages. I stood
on the Mont des Chats looking down upon a wide sweep of battle, and
saw many little farmsteads on fire and Bailleul one torch of flame and
smoke.

There was an old monastery on the Mont des Chats which had been in the
midst of a cavalry battle in October of 1914, when Prince Max of Hesse,
the Kaiser's cousin, was mortally wounded by a shot from one of our
troopers. He was carried into the cell of the old prior, who watched
over him in his dying hours when he spoke of his family and friends.
Then his body was borne down the hill at night and buried secretly by a
parish priest; and when the Kaiser wrote to the Pope, desiring to know
the whereabouts of his cousin's grave, the priest to whom his message
was conveyed said, "Tell the Kaiser he shall know when the German armies
have departed from Belgium and when reparation has been made for all
their evil deeds." It was the prior who told me that story and who
described to me how the British cavalry had forged their way up the
hill. He showed me the scars of bullets on the walls and the windows
from which the monks looked out upon the battle.

"All that is a wonderful memory," said the prior. "Thanks to the
English, we are safe and beyond the range of German shells."

I thought of his words that day I climbed the hill to see the sweep of
battle beyond. The monastery was no longer beyond the range of German
shells. An eight--inch shell had just smashed into the prior's parlor.
Others had opened gaps in the high roofs and walls. The monks had fled
by order of the prior, who stayed behind, like the captain of a sinking
ship. His corridors resounded to the tramp of army boots. The Ulster
gunners had made their headquarters in the refectory, but did not stay
there long. A few days later the monastery was a ruin.

From many little villages caught by the oncoming tide of war our
soldiers helped the people to escape in lorries or on gun-wagons