He would
have described himself as belonging to, say, the 2nd Battalion of the
Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. I hastily retreated from this vision of
the past, and recounted my experiences to R----. As much mystified as
myself, he moved with me on the sound of the broom. The man gave him the
same answer as he did to me, and produced the same sense of mystery. But
then there came the prosaic explanation. He belonged, he added, to the
Canadians. His far-away manner was soon accounted for by the fact that
he was a French-speaking Canadian and only very dimly understood my
question. So passed into prose a very pretty piece of mystery! He was no
doubt a Roman Catholic and anxious to do anything he could to keep the
sanctuary clean. From the Grande Place, with its air of Pompeian
melancholy, we passed on to the ramparts. There, I was thrilled to see
the guard being relieved in the dead silence of the dawn by helmet-clad
men. Mounting or relieving guard on these ramparts is no empty pageant,
for at any moment a German shell may drop and obliterate the post....
When we had gone what I judge to be about a mile along the canal, it
being now seven o'clock, we turned off to the left into some fields, in
order to take a path which led to a point in the road where our car had
been sent round to meet us.
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