World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
General Paris had been obliged to shift his headquarters to the
Pilotage, on the docks and at the farthest end of the city from us. He
was very considerate, and after some discussion said that we had
better leave Antwerp, and sent Colonel Farquharson with us to get six
buses. The Pilotage is at the extreme north end of the Avenue des
Arts, which extends the whole length of Antwerp, and the buses were
on the quay by the Arsenal at the extreme south end, so that we had
to drive the whole length of this, the most magnificent street of
Antwerp, and a distance of about three miles. It was an extraordinary
drive. In the whole length of that Avenue I do not think that we passed
a single individual. It was utterly deserted. All around were signs of
the bombardment--tops of houses blown off, and scattered about
the street, trees knocked down, holes in the roadway where shells
had struck. On the left stood the great Palais de Justice, with most of
its windows broken and part of the roof blown away, and just beyond
this three houses in a row blazing from cellar to chimney, the front
wall gone, and all that remained of the rooms exposed. As I said, only
small shells had been used, and the damage was nothing at all to that
which we afterwards saw at Ypres; but it gave one an impression of
dreariness and utter desolation that could scarcely be surpassed.
Think of driving from Hyde Park Corner down the Strand to the Bank,
not meeting a soul on the way, passing a few clubs in Piccadilly
burning comfortably, the Cecil a blazing furnace, and the Law Courts
lying in little bits about the street, and you will get some idea of
what it looked like. The scream of the shells and the crash when
they fell near by formed quite a suitable if somewhat Futurist
accompaniment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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