room in every house was empty. Not a dog roamed in search of
food. The weight upon my heart was sickening. To avoid complications
I had promised the Staff officer not to move from the Place until
he returned; neither of us had any desire to be hunting for each
other in the sinister labyrinth of the town's thoroughfares. I
was, therefore, a prisoner in the Place, condemned to solitary
confinement. I ardently wanted my companions to come back. . . .
Then I heard echoing sounds of voices and footsteps. Two British
soldiers appeared round a corner and passed slowly along the
Square. In the immensity of the Square they made very small
figures. I had a wish to accost them, but Englishmen do not do
these things, even in Ypres. They glanced casually at me; I glanced
casually at them, carefully pretending that the circumstances of my
situation were entirely ordinary.

I felt safer while they were in view; but when they had gone I was
afraid again. I was more than afraid; I was inexplicably uneasy. I
made the sketch simply because I had said that I would make it.
And as soon as it was done, I jumped up out of the hole and walked
about, peering down streets for the reappearance of my friends. I
was very depressed, very irritable; and I honestly wished that I had
never accepted any invitation to visit the Front. I somehow thought I
might never get out of Ypres alive. When at length I caught sight of
the Staff officer I felt instantly relieved. My depression, however,
remained for hours afterwards.

Perhaps the chief street in Ypres is the wide Rue de Lille, which
runs from opposite the Cloth Hall down to the Lille Gate, and over
the moat water into the Lille road and on to the German lines. The
Rue de Lille was especially famous for its fine old buildings. There