We made the run to Ypres Square in an hour and a half. As soon as we
entered I noticed a woman clinging tightly to a little girl and hugging
the wall of the Nunshouse, a building standing immediately opposite the
town hall in the square. The square itself was a large open place in the
city about 350 feet long by 150 wide. I jumped off my horse, gave it to
the driver and went over. In broken English I learned they wanted to
cross, but on account of the fire continually bursting the woman would
not, so I picked up the child and carried her across to a cellar about
five doors out of the square. A chunk had been blown out of the building
and there was no difficulty in getting into the cellar, and as soon as I
got to this place the child murmured, "_Bon! bon!_" and indicated she
would go in there. I set her down and she turned her pretty little face
to me for a kiss. She then caught my arm as I was about to go and
slipping off a tiny locket from her little neck, handed it to me,
indicating that she wanted me to keep it. I have it to this day and I
prize it tenderly. It has a small picture of the patron saint of France,
Joan of Arc.

I ran back to her mother, pointed out where the child was, but she still
seemed afraid to venture across. Although my little adventure did not
occupy over three minutes, I could wait no longer, and jumped on my
horse and the train of wagons trotted sharply out of the square. As the
last wagon was leaving, I heard a sound like a train leaving a
depot--choo! choo! choo! choo! growing louder each instant, and as the
tail-end of the last wagon was trotting out of the square a shell, the
largest ever employed by the German command and called the Ypres
Express, landed full in the square, killing every living thing there and
destroying ambulances and wagons of every kind, catching our rear wagon
and blowing it up, wounding the driver and destroying the magnificent
Cloth Hall, the last vestige of this most beautiful piece of