"I want to make a rough sketch of all this," I said to my companions
in the middle of the Grande Place, indicating the Cloth Hall, and the
Cathedral, and other grouped ruins. The spectacle was, indeed,
majestic in the extreme, and if the British Government has not had it
officially photographed in the finest possible manner, it has failed in
a very obvious duty; detailed photographs of Ypres ought to be
distributed throughout the world.

My companions left me to myself. I sat down on the edge of a small
shell-hole some distance in front of the Hospital. I had been advised
not to remain too near the building lest it might fall on me. The
paved floor of the Place stretched out around me like a tremendous
plain, seeming the vaster because my eyes were now so much
nearer to the level of it. On a bit of facade to the left the word "CYCLE
" stood out in large black letters on a white ground. This word and
myself were the sole living things in the Square. In the distance a
cloud of smoke up a street showed that a house was burning. The
other streets visible from where I sat gave no sign whatever. The
wind, strong enough throughout my visit to the Front, was now
stronger than ever. All the window-frames and doors in the Hospital
were straining and creaking in the wind. The loud sound of guns
never ceased. A large British aeroplane hummed and buzzed at a
considerable height overhead. Dust drove along.

I said to myself: "A shell might quite well fall here any moment."

I was afraid. But I was less afraid of a shell than of the intense
loneliness. Rheims was inhabited; Arras was inhabited. In both
cities there were postmen and newspapers, shops, and even cafes.
But in Ypres there was nothing. Every street was a desert; every