s there across a beam for all the world to see. His arms are
stretched out, and his body lies head downwards, and no one can go near
the dead Belgian because the tower is too unsafe now. One day perhaps
it will fall altogether and bury him.

Meanwhile, in the tower of the ruined cathedral at Nieuport Shoppe sits
in his shirt-sleeves, with his telephone beside him and his observation
instruments. His small staff are with him. They are immensely interested
in the range of a gun and the accuracy of a hit. I believe they do not
think of anything else. No doubt the tower shakes a great deal when a
shell hits it, and no doubt the number of holes in its sides is daily
becoming more numerous. Each morning that Shoppe leaves home to spend
his day in the tower he runs an excellent chance of being killed, and in
the evening he returns and eats a good dinner in rather an uncomfortable
hotel.

In the cathedral, and amongst its crumbling battered aisles, a strange
peace rests. The pitiful columns of the church stand here and there--the
roof has long since gone. On its most sheltered side is the little
graveyard, filled with crosses, where the dead lie. Here and there a
shell has entered and torn a corpse from its resting-place, and bones
lie scattered. On other graves a few simple flowers are laid.

We went to see the dim cellars which form the two "postes au secours."
In the inner recess of one a doctor has a bed, in the outer cave some
soldiers were eating food. There is no light even during the day except
from the doorway. At Nieuport the Germans put in 3,000 shells in one
day. Nothing is left. If there ever was anything to loot, it has been
looted. One doesn't know what lies under the debris. Here one sees the
inside of a piano and a few twisted strings, and there a metal
umbrella-stand. I saw one wrought-iron sign hanging from the falling
walls of an inn.

Mr. Bevan and I wandered about in the unearthly quiet, which persisted
even when the guns began to blaze away close by us, whizzing shells over
our heads, and we walked down to the river, and saw the few boards which
are all that remain of the bridge. Afterwards a German shell landed with
its unpleasant noise in the middle of the street; but we had wandered up
a by-way, and so escaped it by a minute or less.

In a little burned house, where only a piece of blackened wall remained,
I found a little crucifix which impressed me very much--it stood out
against the smoke-stain