But the worst calamity of the day was yet to befall. Some fifteen or sixteen ammunition wagons, unable to get through the village, had halted in the Square--"Wipers Square" it had been named. Each wagon was loaded with nine-point-two shells. An enemy-shot fell on a wagon and set it on fire; then the village became like unto Sodom and Gomorrah on their day of doom. One or two drivers bravely stuck to their wagons, and got them out but the rest of the wagons were lost. The scene that followed was indescribable. Doré could never have pictured such horrors. The wagons all caught fire and their loads of shells began to explode. We stood out in the fields and watched the conflagration, while all the time the Germans continued to shell the village. The large village-hall and the houses on each side of the square were utterly destroyed. Great explosions sent fragments of wagons and houses sky-high, and showers of missiles fell even where we stood. The fore part of one wagon was blown on to the roof of a house. Houses caught fire and blazed all afternoon. Some machine-gunners joined us and told how, when choking smoke began to penetrate into their cellar they had to rush through the square and its bursting shells to preserve their lives. A German shell burst in a billet where a platoon of our men were sheltering in the cellar, and those who were not killed by the shell were crushed to death by the fall of the house. Another shell hit the roof of the house in the cellar of which was our Advanced Dressing Station for the morrow’s battle. Two orderlies who happened to be in the street were killed, and the colonel was knocked down. In the cellars of almost every house were soldiers or civilians, and all day the ammunition wagons continued burning; shell after shell getting red hot and exploding.