The
smallest, a girl about six years of age, had a tiny bundle in a
handkerchief; the next, a boy about eight, had a larger one. All were
dressed in their best Sunday clothes, and carried umbrellas--a wise
precaution in the climate of Flanders. We agreed with him that it was
wise to move away, because it would be possible to return, if the
Germans were driven back, whereas if they stayed they might be killed.
As we talked to the father, the eldest, a boy of eighteen, came down
to the gate with his grandmother, a little old lady perhaps eighty
years of age, and weighing about as many pounds. The boy stooped down
to pick her up in his arms, but she shook her head in indignant
protest. Accordingly he crouched down, she put her arms around his
neck, he took her feet under his arms, and set off down the road
towards Ypres with the rest of the family trailing behind him. About
ten o'clock that night my friend, Captain Eddie Robertson, standing
with his regiment on the roadside ten miles nearer Poperinge, waiting
for orders to advance, noticed a youth with a little old lady on his
back, trudging by in the stream of fleeing refugees.
Wieltze was a picture; the kind of moving picture that the movie man
would pay thousands for, but never can obtain. The old adage held that
you always see the best shots when you have no gun. Small detachments
of Canadian troops moved rapidly through the streets.
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