Over
the whole countryside hung a melancholy and weird desolation, cottages,
homesteads, fields, the very trees crying aloud to high heaven for pity
and vengeance.
At Vlammertinghe, itself, the church tower still stood whole, but
the church itself was wrecked, as were most of the village shops and
dwellings. In the village was to be seen no living thing except some
soldiers, who in the broken cellars were making their bivouacs. The
village stood deserted of its inhabitants, ever since the terrific
onslaught of the Huns, on the 22nd of April, 1915, which had driven them
forth from their homes, a panic-stricken, terror-hunted crowd of old
men, women and little babes, while over them broke, with a continuous
and appalling roar, a pitiless rain of shells.
At the cross-roads stood a mounted officer, directing the traffic,
which here tended to congestion. As they entered the village, the sentry
halted them to enquire as to their bona fides. Having satisfied him,
they enquired their way to the Menin Mill.
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