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Page 61
Near a small shell-hole were the remains of a German who had been blown
to bits. The clothes, limbs and trunk were in one confused heap. The
head lay some distance off; it was quite undamaged. The skin was black
and drawn tightly over the skull. The hair was matted, but the short,
blonde moustache had been neatly trimmed. The lips were shrivelled,
exposing two perfect rows of white teeth, giving the dead face a
horrible expression of ferocity. The eyelids were closed and taut, the
cracks near the nose revealed the dark, empty eye-cavities underneath.
A little further on lay another head. The face had been smashed and no
features were recognizable except the lobe of one ear, behind which
there was a deep triangular hole. Two or three yards away there was a
booted leg and beyond that a severed hand lying beside a heap of rotting
flesh, bone and sodden clothing, all covered with thick brown masses
made up of the innumerable empty cases of maggot chrysalids.
We struck a main road. It was dotted with shell-holes that had recently
been filled in with bricks and pieces of stone. To the left of the road
were many scarred tree-trunks. Some were still erect, others were
aslant, while others lay prone, having been broken off short or torn up
by the roots. They were all dead and ashen grey. Behind them was a broad
ring of stagnant water covered with duckweed. On the island within the
ring was a huge heap of loose bricks--a few months ago this had been a
picturesque ch�teau with gabled roofs, surrounded by gardens and a
wooded park. Amongst the shell-holes and scattered branches and twisted
lengths of white railing, a few michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums,
dahlias, and other garden flowers were in bloom.
Further on, to the right of the road, stood the ruins of the church. A
few thick pieces of wall were still standing and a part of the steeple
pointed upwards like a jagged finger. Heaped up inside were
brick-fragments and tiles, together with splintered beams and rafters,
riddled sheets of lead and zinc, broken chairs, twisted brass
candlesticks, bits of stained glass, and here and there chunks of
coloured plaster, the remains of apostolic or saintly images. One of
the confessionals was still visible, although all the woodwork was
shattered. Of the altar nothing could be seen. Behind a crumbling
fragment of brick wall was a band of machine-gun ammunition and a heap
of empty cartridge cases.
The big bronze bell lay outside the church in two pieces. The cemetery
had been churned by shell-fire. The tombstones were chipped and broken.
One big block of granite had been overturned by a bursting shell and the
inscription was so scarred as to be illegible. The stone Christ had been
hit in many places. His left hand was gone, so that He hung aslant by
the other. Both His legs had been blown off at the knees and His nose
and mouth had been carried away by some flying shell-fragment or
shrapnel-ball. All the graves had been thrown into confusion by the
violence of innumerable explosions. Bits of bone--femurs, ribs, lower
jaws--lay scattered about. The hip of a soldier who had been buried in
his clothes projected from the soil with the brown mass of maggot
chrysalids still clinging to it. Two bent knees of a greenish-grey
colour, that had only begun to decay, emerged from a patch of trodden
mud.
Beyond the church, by the roadside, were the dwelling-houses. Some of
them were a tangle of rafters mixed up with heaps of brick and
miscellaneous rubbish--stoves, pots and pans, chair-legs, pictures,
bedding, boxes, and all kinds of household articles. Others had been
dispersed around. Others seemed to have been tipped up bodily, so that
all their contents had been spilt into the street, and then to have been
dropped back again with such an impact that they had collapsed on their
own foundations. The sweet, sickly smell of bodies that had not been
decaying long, and the rank, pungent smell of those that were
approaching total dissolution emanated from under heaps of wreckage and
from hidden cellars.
The devastation increased with every mile and the shell-holes came
closer and closer together. Dead horses, shattered guns, wagons, and
limbers lay overturned in the ditches. At one spot on the roadside the
legs and buttocks of a man, all brown and shrivelled, slanted upwards
from a deep, wide rut, many heavy wheels having passed across the small
of his back.
Gradually houses, trees and bushes disappeared entirely. We reached the
site of a village that before the war had sheltered several thousands of
people. Nothing remained except small bits of brick mingling with the
bare soil, piled up and scooped and churned and tossed by shell-fire.
Here, too, there were many dead. A little way off the road lay an
Englishman who could not have fallen more than a few days before. His
hands were clenched, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed and staring.
Near him was a tall German. He lay at full length with arms outstretched
and legs crossed. His left hand, immersed in a pool, was white and
puffy. His right hand was half closed and only slightly wrinkled. His
side had been ripped open and fragments of entrail projected from the
rent. The water beneath and around him was stained with blood. His
pockets were turned inside out and papers and postcards lay scattered
around in the usual manner. His cloak had been thrown across his face.
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