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TRENCH LIFE 317
attempt to save all that there is a possible chance of saving.
Hildebrand was one of the inner circle which often foregathered
at the Duke’s house of an evening.
The excellent light of the early afternoons just at this time
tempted me to take several photographs, one or two of which
I am reproducing here. All through the day heavy ammuni-
tion and supply columns of all kinds kept marching through
the town, and the civilian element was almost drowned by
the military. In the course of my walks through the town I
witnessed many fascinating scenes of soldiers’ life.^ Here
are a few Landsturm soldiers sitting in a circle peeling potatoes
which are afterwards to be cooked in a bucket over a coal
fire. Others have rigged up a temporary awning over benches
and tables, where they are writing their Feldpostkarten home
to parents and sweethearts. Another little coterie is sipping
coffee beside a kitchen wagon. In a meadow stands a threshing
machine which had just finished work for the day ; the grain
is being loaded into one cart and the straw into another.
Close by an open-air barber has rigged up his shop by the side
of a train wagon. An orderly comes leading a couple of
officers’ horses, and in a field four Bavarian Landsturm men
are lazily blowing clouds of smoke out of their enormous
pipes.
Presently we come to the little square adorned by Faid-
herbe’s statue, and further honoured by the presence of the
Townhall with its handsome fagade, supported by a Gothic
arcade. Here a notice board has been posted up so that the
latest war news may be studied, for a newspaper is now
being published at Bapaume composed and printed at the
Town imprimerie, and called B{apaumer) Z[eitung) am Mittag.
Herr Cleving is its editor. Its circulation is six hundred
copies. The paper is not large, only one page, in large type
on thin yellow paper. I reproduce below a text of the number
of October 27th, which I have selected because it also refers
to the bombardment of Ostend, although with a wrong date :
(i) " The fighting on the Yser—Ypres Canal front is ex-
ceedingly violent. In the north we have succeeded in crossing
the canal with a strong force. East of Ypres and south-west
of Lille our troops have advanced slowly after severe fighting.
Ostend was yesterday bombarded by the English ships.
^ One photograph shows a street in which the only civihans are two
young ladies.
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