I

_The Shell Area_

The shell area is all the land behind the trenches which is under fire
from the enemy's guns as a matter of course. It is not a pleasant place,
for that reason, to walk about in, and our own artillery, cleverly
concealed, is apt to open fire unexpectedly within a few yards of the
passer-by in a way that is very disturbing. It is a dreary land; a dank
air broods over it, an atmosphere of destruction and death, of humanity
gone awry and desolate. I remember the almost ecstasy with which one
April afternoon some of us found ourselves among the purple hyacinths
on Kemmel hill. Poor Kemmel, once a pleasure resort whither happy
Belgians went for the benefit of their health, now far from that--and
not particularly healthy! These battered villages are now merely sordid;
only Ypres maintains a personality, an air of undefeat all its own. It
too is a ruin, but unlike the others it is a splendid ruin. At every
cross-roads the brooding crucifixes hang. The British mind does not like
this constant reiteration of mishandling and defeat in the death of
Christ. It does not seem to it to be the final message of the Cross.
Indeed, it is the product of the mediaeval, monkish mind. It was not
until the tenth century that the representations of the Crucifixion
showed Our Lord as dead; it was much later before the emphasis was laid
on agony and despair. Once from among the debris of the convent in
Voormezeele I rescued such a representation of the Body of Christ, limbs
gone, broken arms outstretched, and it seemed a symbol. But that is not
the final truth, defeat and despair. The cross-road shrines would not
look down on those groups of tramping Islanders if it were so. And as