alleys. It was a city of delight, a city that charmed and awed by its
impressive grandeur.

Now the city was massed with refugees from the ravaged parts of Belgium. In
peace times possibly the population would have numbered thirty-five to
forty thousand, at this time it seemed that sixty thousand souls were
crowded into the city limits. Every house, every _estaminet_, every barn,
every stable was filled to its capacity with folk who had fled in despair
before the cloven hoof of the advancing Hun.

Glance at the map on page 142 and judge of the condition of a city
practically surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Three miles away to the
left, three miles away to the right, and a matter of only ten miles away
from the immediate front of the city. For months the Germans had shelled
the town every day. Not with a continued violence, but with a continued,
systematic irritation which played havoc with the strongest nerves. Not a
day passed that two or three women, or half a dozen children or babies did
not pay the toll to the war god's lust of blood.

But still the people remained in the city. There was no alternative.
Conditions behind Ypres were just the same, and all the way back to Calais.
Every town and every village, every hamlet and every farm had its quota of
refugees. Here they stayed and waited grimly for the day of liberation.

One day I walked out from Ypres a few miles. I came to the village of
Vlamentinge. I went into an _estaminet_ and called for some refreshment.
From among the crowd of soldiers gathered there a civilian Belgian made his
way over to me. He was crippled or he would not have been in civilian
clothes.