I got into Ypres about seven days after the Germans had left the city, and I learned from a school-teacher who spoke English that they had commandeered a good many things, and had pillaged the jewellers’ shops and other places of business. At that time the Germans did not seem to have done any exceptional damage; but they made up for any neglect later on, when they acted like barbarians in bombarding and destroying the beautiful old city, and smashing its priceless ancient buildings into ruins. That is part of the system of savagery which they boast about as “culture.” We had been in Ypres about a week when the first German shell came. It was the beginning of a fearful havoc. That was about ten o’clock in the morning. The shell dropped plumb into the prison. There were a good many civil prisoners in the gaol at the time, but I do not know what happened to them, and I cannot say whether any of the helpless creatures were killed or wounded. At that time I was helping to supply the Siege Artillery Brigade, the guns of which--the famous 6 in. howitzers--were a mile or so out of the city. We had four cars, each carrying three tons of lyddite--twelve tons in all--standing in the Market Square, and exposed to the full artillery fire of the enemy. It was a perilous position, for if a shell had struck that enormous amount of lyddite probably the whole city would have been wrecked, and the loss of life would have been appalling. We had to wait for several hours before we could move, because of the difficulty in communicating with the brigade; but when the order did at last arrive, we lost no time in getting to a safer place than the Market Square. It was while we were standing under fire that I saw a mother and her child--a girl--struck by a fragment of a bursting shell. They were the first people to be wounded in Ypres. The shell--a big brute--burst on the roof of a house, and the fragments scattered with terrific force all around. People were flying for their lives, or hiding, terror-stricken, in the cellars; and the woman and her daughter were struck as we watched them fly. Some of us rushed up and found that one of the boots of the woman had been ripped open, and that the child had been struck on the face and badly cut. I picked her up, and saw that she was unconscious; but I got at my field-dressing and did all I could for her, and was thankful to find that she soon came back to her senses, though she was suffering terribly from shock and began to cry bitterly.