Follow me! I Will Lead You! - Letters of a BEF Battalion Leader 1914-1915 by Laurie George Brenton

Author:Laurie, George Brenton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War I
ISBN: 9781473851146
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

January 22nd, 1915.

Thanks for your note last night of January 19th. As you say, considering war time, this is quick. But at present it is a stationary war, and there is no reason why it should not be so. Once we get on the move, you will see that things will work badly, and we shall be short of food and of mails too. I was glad to get Aunt B——’s letter. Yesterday was an absolute drench. I rode, all the same, for exercise, and on the way back the enemy proceeded to shell the road; at the very extremity of their range, I fancy. It is curious how one takes the shelling nowadays. One becomes a fatalist! “If it hits me, it must hit me; I cannot escape, but I hope it will not” sort of thing. We return to the trenches this afternoon. Our General leaves to-night, but before then he has elected to inspect our billets in the afternoon, and to have a night alarm in the trenches early this evening. All the Colonels have therefore put their heads together to keep things as right as possible for him. Major Baker also goes on leave for about 10 days or so to-night, with various other officers who have well earned a rest. I see you had Zeppelins over you yesterday, or rather the day before; but I think that where you live you are as safe as anywhere in England. It shows what gentlemen these Germans are in the way they treat non-combatants.

To-day is a bright rather beautiful frosty day, and I am going to look at a large church in a village on a road when reconnoitring. I went to see another two days ago, and found only the tower and the walls standing; the Germans had burnt the rest.

P. S. - The billets we leave to-day are like a very tiny 9th-rate hotel, about as large as the house opposite the blacksmith’s forge at Carlton, or a little larger, with another storey added on. Tiny rooms, and stoves in only two of them, which can be used as sitting-rooms. We found a small tub, to our great delight, and this allows us first to wash ourselves and then our things, so we are perfectly happy in it.…

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