1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [102]
It was a quiet night but after dark the flares went up intermittently, as they always did, all round the German line, and the flickering flashes, the fiery fingers stabbing into the sky to bathe the night in a brief glow of luminescent green, showed the outline of the German positions. Now a sentry on the fire-step of the shadowy trenches, turning cautiously to look about him, could see the arc of the salient etched in fire – stretching in a long straggling semi-circle that hugged the ridges from Hill 60 to Herenthage Wood, crept round to enclose Polygon Wood and Zonnebeke and, far to the left, curved down and trailed into the distance. It marked the line where the remnants of the British Army had stopped and held the Germans in the dying days of autumn, giving ground but holding fast to the beleaguered city of Ypres, fighting to keep open the vital route to the sea and to prevent this last small corner of Belgium from being swallowed up by the Germans as they had swallowed up all the rest.
Over tumultuous centuries of warfare in Flanders, Ypres had been threatened by invaders many times and the thick ramparts that were built round the town to keep them out had been designed by the famous Vauban – prince of military architects. Within its stout walls and ancient gateways Ypres had slumbered in safety and prosperity. Merchants grew rich on the wool trade and built grand houses, gabled and curlicued with statues and carvings. They raised churches, a cathedral, and fine civic buildings round the wide market square where the great Cloth Hall towered over them all. The towers and spires of Ypres could be seen from every part of the salient but they were sadly battered now, for they presented an irresistible target to the German guns.
There were empty spaces in the streets like unsightly gaps in a fine set of teeth, and heaps of rubble where a house once stood. Here and there a whole wall had been blown down to expose some abandoned doll’s-house interior with furniture teetering askew on sagging floors. There were ugly holes that exposed the ancient timbers of steep red-tiled roofs, and broken chimneys that had slithered down and pitched into the cobbled streets. There were sightless windows gazing from the empty shells of burnt-out buildings and others in still habitable houses hastily patched up with wooden panels when the panes and shutters had been blown away. The central tower of the Cloth Hall, blackened by fire, lacked two of its four spires, the embrasures of its high arched windows were innocent of glass and the end wall of the medieval town hall they called the Kleinstadthuis had been blown away. But Ypres still lived and although many of its inhabitants had fled during the November bombardment, much of the population hung grimly on. The town was far from empty and large numbers of the refugees who had flooded in as the Germans advanced across the surrounding countryside had simply stopped there, squatting in the ruins and abandoned houses because they had nowhere else to go.
People managed as best they could, taking their chance by day when stray shells fell from time to time, retiring at night to cellars for fear of heavier bombardments. There was business to be done and there was a large new clientele for the town was stiff with soldiers – headquarters troops, engineers and signallers who lived like troglodytes in the catacomb passages of the old ramparts, troops passing through and briefly resting on their way to the line on the salient, sightseeing groups from nearby rest-camps and billets, curious to see the heroic town for themselves. The fame of Ypres had spread and its name was fast becoming a byword in the British Army.
For the permanent inhabitants life in Ypres was far from easy. The town water supply was drawn