1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [217]
Major Cowan, who was in charge of 175th Tunnelling Company and had just been forced to move from the pleasant village of Terdeghem to an undesirable dug-out in Vlamertinghe close to Ypres, was only too happy to take any opportunity of improving it.
Major S. H. Cowan, 175th Tunnelling Coy., Royal Engineers.
About 11 a.m. Hart and I set off. We called first of all at 171st Company to see my NCO in charge of stores and then on into Ypres to the HQ of the 7th Brigade which was established in some old casemates under the ancient ramparts of the town. Beds, tables, carpets even, had been salvaged from the ruins and the place was really very comfortable indeed. As we were coming up towards the square where the Cloth Hall was, Fritz began to unload some ‘hate’ and we turned off hurriedly into a more secluded route. Just as we had started along there was a deuce of a bang fifty yards away and a badly wounded horse rushed past us. I took refuge with Benskin who gave me tea, and I stayed till the row stopped and Hart reappeared for me. He had a tale to tell! He had just got a very nice stove out of a ruined house and into the lorry, and very luckily the tailboard was up, when round the corner came a Brigadier and a Provost Marshal. Now, looting was a crime of the first water, but Hart had a real flash of genius and he ordered the two Army Service Corps drivers to get under the lorry and start ‘tinkering’. ‘What is this lorry doing here?’ said the Provost Marshal. ‘We’re waiting for Major Cowan of 175th Company, RE,’ replied Hart, ‘but something has gone wrong with the lorry and the drivers are trying to find out what it is.’ And as soon as the Staff were round the corner, would you believe it, that lorry seemed to get better all at once and was off and away out of Ypres by another route. I got back to the car where my intelligent driver had found time to souvenir a coffee-mill for our mess! The stove was a great acquisition, and if we hadn’t got it, a shell would probably have damaged it beyond repair the next week.
An ordinary soldier of the line whose duties did not take him into Ypres had little opportunity for souveniring expeditions. Off-duty, the town was strictly out of bounds and on their way to and from the trenches it was an unhealthy place for troops to linger.
Sgt. A. Rule, U Coy., 4th Bn., Gordon Highlanders (TF), 8th Brig., 3rd Div.
A party of us detailed for fatigue duty went through Ypres on our way to the front line. Brick dust from shell-shattered buildings lay thick in the streets, muffling our tread, and as we marched on in this silent, almost ghostly, fashion, we felt like mourners assisting at the funeral rites of a city of the dead. Tumbled masonry, and occasional street barricades, constantly slowed us up. In some cases the front of a house had been sheared off as if by a gigantic knife. Floors, precariously supported by splintered joists, looked as if they only needed a touch to topple them into the street. Even the foliage of the trees in the streets had been blighted by shell-fire, and there was a foul stench of corruption from neglected sewers. The great Cloth Hall with its magnificent facade had also suffered badly. Its square tower offered a splendid ranging mark for the German guns, and at the base of it lay the clock, a twisted maze of works. The interior was completely gutted.
Near the Grand’ Place, we came on the Church of St Martin, where an altar among a tangled wreckage of oak pews had miraculously escaped destruction. In front of the church stood a vacant pedestal, and at its base, just as if it was in the act of taking cover, lay the stone statue of some civic dignitary – staff in hand and complete with robes and chains of office. To our irreverent minds it appeared as if the old boy had gone to earth, and must now be cursing the corpulent stomach that had doubtless been his pride in many a bygone civic function. That wonderful