"Oh, yes, one gets used to anything, you know. Though, strangely
enough, I was disturbed last night--two of my juniors had to camp over
my head, their quarters were blown up rather yesterday afternoon, and
believe me, the young beggars talked and chattered so that I couldn't
get a wink of sleep--had to send and order them to shut up."
"You seem to have been getting it pretty hot since I was here last,"
said the Intelligence Officer, waving a hand round the crumbling ruin
about us.
"Fairly so," nodded the Major.
"One would wonder the enemy wastes any more shells on Ypres," said I,
"there's nothing left to destroy, is there?"
"Well, there's us, you know!" said the Major, gently, "and then the
Boche is rather a revengeful beggar anyhow--you see, he wasted quite a
number of army corps trying to take Ypres. And he hasn't got it yet."
"Nor ever will," said I.
The Major smiled and held out his hand.
"It's a pity you hadn't time to see that aqueduct" he sighed. "However,
I shall take some flashlight photos of it--if my luck holds. Good-bye."
So saying, he raised a hand to his weather-beaten trench-cap and strode
back into his dim-lit, dingy office.
The one-time glory of Ypres has vanished in ruin but thereby she has
found a glory everlasting. For over the wreck of noble edifice and
fallen tower is another glory that shall never fade but rather grow
with coming years--an imperishable glory. As pilgrims sought it once to
tread its quaint streets and behold its old time beauty, so in days to
come other pilgrims will come with reverent feet and with eyes that
shall see in these shattered ruins a monument to the deathless valour
of that brave host that met death unflinching and unafraid for the sake
of a great ideal and the welfare of unborn generations.
And thus in her ruin Ypres has found the Glory Everlasting.
XIV.
WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE.
The struggle of Democracy and Reason against Autocracy and Brute-force,
on land and in the air, upon the sea and under the sea, is reaching its
climax. With each succeeding month the ignoble foe has smirched himself
with new atrocities which yet in the end bring their own terrible
retribution.
Three of the bloodiest years in the world's history lie behind us;
but these years of agony and self-sacrifice, of heroic achievements,
of indomitable purpose and unswerving loyalty to an ideal, are surely
three of the most tremendous in the annals of the British Empire.
I am to tell something of what Britain has accomplished during these
awful three years, of the mighty changes she has wrought in this
short time, of how, with her every thought and effort bent in the one
direction, she has armed and equipped herself and many of her allies;
of the armies she has raised, the vast sums she has expended and the
munitions and armaments she has amassed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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