The roads from Ypres radiate like spokes of a wheel. To pass from westward to eastward of Ypres you must go through the city. During the fight all the immense activity of the rear of an army, redoubled in intensity when a battle is in progress, went on in and about Ypres, whose century-old houses, with their red roofs and overhanging gables, will be ever associated with the battle in the minds of those who fought there. For three weeks, while our thin line resisted the mighty smashes of the flower of the German army, the guns drummed almost unceasingly in the distance, and the little motor ambulances came whirring over the uneven cobble-stones of the city, bearing in the wounded to the field dressing-station, an unending procession of pain. Ypres could not remain unscathed in the battle. Soon the German batteries took the proud towers of the Cloth Hall and St. Martin’s for their goal, and amid a rain of shells pouring into the city, the luckless inhabitants, once again after centuries, were compelled to fly for safety out along the bare and dusty road that leads to Poperinghe. The Poperinghe road! Who of our army in the field that has ever passed along it will ever forget that hideous highway--the road of pain for many, the road of death for many, the road of glory for all? I have traversed it in all weathers and in all conditions, and never have I seen it without a feeling almost of dread, the sensation of treading on ground sanctified by the feet of heroes going to their death. Straight and ugly and flat, lined with tall poplars with bushy tops, set in the centre with uneven _pavé_ worn bright by the wheels of a thousand motor-cars and lorries and carts, the Poperinghe road has been the silent witness of all the vicissitudes of the stupendous struggles which have raged about Ypres. On its polished _pavé_ the emotions of a million men have been ground fine by the relentless wheels of the chariot of war. Men have passed along that road into battle, their hearts singing with the thrill of great deeds standing before, and along it have returned from the front pale, silent forms, the Angel of Death their escort--or have returned no more. I have met them going into action along that road, in the blazing heat of noonday, tramping steadily in the thick dust of the footpath lining the _pavé_, tunics unbuttoned, sweat streaming down their begrimed faces. I have seen them returning, lying very still in the motor ambulances, with the stolid philosophy of wounded men, or else stifling in the ghastly grip of the asphyxiating gas. Not even 17-inch shells blindly dropped at arbitrary intervals will permanently separate the Fleming from his home. Therefore, as soon as the German bombardment of Ypres slackened, the refugees came streaming back to find a great slice cut out of the tower of the Cloth Hall, the tower and roof of St. Martin’s irreparably damaged, and many houses in different quarters of the town considerably battered.