We were out of the town by this time, and started on the road to
Ypres. Between Poperinghe and Ypres were numerous small villages with
narrow, twisting streets. They were filled with soldiers at rest, with
tethered horses being re-shod by army blacksmiths, with small fires in
sheltered corners on which an anxious cook had balanced a kettle.
In each town a proclamation had been nailed to a wall and the
townspeople stood about it, gaping.
"An inoculation proclamation," explained the Commandant. "There is
typhoid here, so the civilians are to be inoculated. They are very
much excited about it. It appears to them worse than a bombardment."
We passed a file of Spahis, native Algerians who speak Arabic. They
come from Tunis and Algeria, and, as may be imagined, they were
suffering bitterly from the cold.
They peered at us with bright, black eyes from the encircling folds of
the great cloaks with pointed hoods which they had drawn closely about
them. They have French officers and interpreters, and during the
spring fighting they probably proved very valuable. During the winter
they gave me the impression of being out of place and rather forlorn.
Like the Indian troops with the British, they were fighting a new
warfare. For gallant charges over dry desert sands had been
substituted mud and mist and bitter cold, and the stagnation of
armies.
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