Free Pass Guard at Ypres by Ronald; Gurner Page B

Fancies. You can easily shove along from there at any time. That’s what we’ll do—you just come along. Just along there’s our mess—just along the road. Just one more and then we’ll push along.”
    Given the company and the freedom, there was nothing better than a day in Pop. What Blackpool is to Lancashire, or Brighton to the Metropolis, that, or something like it, was Poperinghe to the Salient in 1915. The members of the A.S.C. mess appeared as care-free as Lieutenant Kaye, and two of his fellows found after a cheerful lunch that it was possible for them to tear themselves away from their duties and accompany them on the flivver down the road from Watou, through St. Jan-ter-Biezen. In Pop itself they had tea, indulged in a little desultory shopping, dined, arranged to meet Lieutenant Kaye outside 5 Bis, within the hallowed portals of which it was not apparently thought advisable that they should enter, and to finish the evening dropped in at the Fancies, where Freddy Mann, thoughts of raids, standtos and shelling far removed, helped to cheer Margarine and Glycerine to the echo and joined manfully in the chorus of Jerry Brum. Good sort of a day, they concluded, as they finally bade goodnight outside the Town Hall and Robbie and he set out past the station on their homeward trek. A peaceful day, fine weather, and a peaceful night. There was nothing the matter with the Wipers Road on a night likethis. Just the usual traffic moving along—ambulances, a few guns, an odd working party or two, a battalion of the neighbouring division moving from the line—nothing ahead but the usual star shells and clatter of machine guns, and just a little shelling here and there. Somewhere in the region of Vlamertinghe it seemed to be, but as something usually was happening in that region of Vlamertinghe, there was nothing much in that.
    â€œP’raps it’s Goldfish Château,” remarked Robbie hopefully. “About time they had something at D.H.Q. Let’s shove along. It’ll probably die down soon.”
    After a few minutes even this disturbance ceased, and the subalterns walked for the last mile along a quiet and deserted road to turn the somewhat forbidding corner by the mill and take the lane to the left that led towards their huts. Here for the first time they were conscious of some disturbance: figures were moving quickly in the distance, and two men, one an officer, were doubling down the lane.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with Harry?” asked Freddy Mann, as the tense features appeared in the darkness, lips drawn thin and white and the corners of the mouth hard set. “What’s up, Harry? Anything up?”
    â€œGo and see. They got on to us, the devils. Six direct hits. Done Malcolm in and knocked out B.G. and God knows how many in “C” Company alone. Better get along and help. ’Bout time you came. Better get along and see what they’ve left of your platoons. Where the hell are those ambulances? Sort of thing that would happen. You get along.”
    There was nothing to the already partially trained eyes of Freddy Mann and Robbie unusual in the sight they saw by the wrecked huts one hundred yards to the left of the lane. They’d seen men bleeding to death before, an officer minus a leg, a head lying by itself in the corner of a field, figures tossing on stretchers and moaning as they rolled along the ground. It was a little unexpected, perhaps, and it seemed a curious thing to return from a peaceful countryside, peasants working in fields and children playing on the roads, to this. But, as Freddy Mann realised as he knelt to close Malcolm’s eyes, it showed that it was difficult to know what would happen next at Ypres, and that the theory of the war of attrition so well expounded by Kaye was working as it should. This loss of eighty men meant 120 casualties in the last ten days of rest. Roughly, that tallied with the figures, and so long