At Ypres with Best-Dunkley | Page 8

the New Siding Station at
6.50. I was ordered to get into the train which was drawn up there, and
get out at Hazebrouck, where I would receive further orders from the
R.T.O. there. The train moved off at 7.40. As we passed Camiers we
noticed an American camp there; an American waved the Stars and
Stripes as we passed. We passed through Boulogne at 9. At 1 we
reached the city of St. Omer, where the great Earl Roberts had died at
Field-Marshal French's G.H.Q. in 1914. All round here we noticed
numerous German prisoners working along the line; and we passed
many dumps of various kinds. At 2.30 we steamed into Hazebrouck. I
noticed a long hospital train standing in the station, full of wounded
who were being taken to the Base hospitals. Those who were in a
condition to do so looked very pleased with life.
I reported to the R.T.O. in the square at Hazebrouck, and he gave me
instructions to go by the next train to Poperinghe. It was a sultry day
and I was glad of a drink. I managed to get one on the station. I could
occasionally hear the rumble of the guns in the distance now, but very
faint.
The train left Hazebrouck at 3.30 p.m. The country looked as calm and
peaceful as anything. The only signs which suggested war were the
German prisoners at the side of the railway and the numerous dumps.
But we drew nearer to the Front. The train halted at Abeele, a village
near the frontier of France and Flanders. As we stopped here for a few
minutes a number of us managed to dash into an estaminet opposite the
station and get a drink! From Abeele onwards the most noticeable
objects were the aeroplanes which were now very numerous above us,
the presence of which indicated our proximity to the war.
At 6.30 the train came to a standstill in a station which I was informed
was my destination, Poperinghe. "This is the railhead for the Ypres
Salient" I was told. So out I got with my kit. I was expected. There was
a mess cart awaiting me at the station; and in it I jogged along to the
Transport Lines which were in the vicinity of Brandhoek a mile or so
further on--on the left of the road from Poperinghe to Ypres.

The transport driver told me what it was like in that part, how it had
been very quiet when the 55th Division took over their positions in the
Salient from the 29th Division the previous autumn, but had grown
more lively every day; how they had received a nasty gas bombardment
only a few days ago, how the Boche had recently taken to shelling us
furiously and systematically every night, and how there were some very
hot times ahead--there was to be a raid by a battalion in our brigade that
night.
It was fairly quiet when I arrived--it was a time of the day when things
generally were somewhat quiet, when the guns were resting before
joining in the nightly fray--so I did not immediately notice how near to
the war I had come. But I was soon to realize it.
When I reached the Transport Lines I made the acquaintance of two
officers of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers of whom I was destined to see
much in the coming months, Philip Cave Humfrey and Joseph
Roake--especially Roake, as it was his good fortune to remain with the
Battalion until long after the cessation of hostilities and to be with me
in the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers in the Army of the Rhine. Humfrey, by
a curious coincidence, turned out--though I did not know it until many
months after--to be the brother-in-law of my school-friend William
Lindop!
Never shall I forget that summer evening near Brandhoek. Roake,
effervescing as always with droll wit, and Humfrey, with his natural
cheerfulness and affability, made me at home in their little hut at once.
I can well recall the scene: a tiny little wooden hut at the edge of a large
field; the wall adorned by a trench map of the Ypres Salient, on which
our present position was marked in pencil, and a striking group photo
of the Imperial War Cabinet, taken out of an illustrated journal, in
which the well-known faces of Lloyd George and Lord Curzon seemed
to dominate the picture; a little table upon which Humfrey drafted a
signal message to the Adjutant of the 2/5th, announcing my arrival and
asking for instructions, the table upon which an excellent little dinner
was almost immediately served; outside the observation balloons in a
curved line, denoting the Salient, and aircraft sweeping through the

skies.
It was then that I first saw what was going