Beloved Soldiers (The Regiment Family Saga Book 3) by CL Skelton

Author:CL Skelton [Skelton, CL]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: family secrets, family saga, Western Front, Scottish, Edwardian, Great War, First World War, pageturner, historical romance, twentieth century
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Family Saga)
Published: 2017-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

At the same dawn hour in which Johnny Bruce was carried from the new trenches on hill 70, his cousin Tenny Maclaren and his company of Inverness Pals were at last making their weary way in a ragged column of fours into the ruined village of Vermelles. They had had no proper food, nor fresh water, for two whole days.

The last two nights had been spent in forced marches, in rainy darkness, over foot-battering pavé roads packed with a confusion of men and vehicles, to advance from the too distant points of their encampments. For that matter, they had done little but march since their arrival in France a bare two weeks earlier, since they had crossed the entire distance to the Loos front on foot. Even their brief respites, like that at Bimont, had been marred by the ever-present need to search the countryside for the means of augmenting meagre rations. The occasional chicken, or basket of eggs or fruit thus gathered, did little to offset the energy spent when men should be resting. Now, with their cookers left behind, and each man labouring under the weight of pack, rifle, and greatcoat, all pretence of proper provisioning was abandoned. Extra iron and cheese rations, and a portion of cold pea soup, so salty that their meagre water ration was already sorely taxed, were their sole comforts.

Albert Maclaren, in spite of a brave face, was really suffering. Somehow, all through his life, at home at Culbrech, amongst his boisterous athletic family, or at school in those halls of hearty masochism to which ‘for his own good’ he had been sent, Albert had somehow managed to avoid the worst physical strains affronting his gentle, sensual, easy-going body. There were little dodges that always worked, at home, or on the playing field, little ploys that had always managed to get him somewhere warm, snug and comfortable, with a good fire, while others were indulging their delight in muscle-wrenching play. Even at the camp at Inverness, where his enthusiastic older brother had in record time turned weedy city lads and underfed crofters into fine examples of manhood, Albert had effected a few small escapes. He had done his share of square-bashing like the rest, but managed to twist an ankle once, and dislocate a shoulder later, and put himself temporarily out of action. He had emerged somewhat tougher than he went in, but it was not until reaching France that he finally came face to face with real, unrelenting, body-breaking physical hardship. There was no escape, on the miles of bitter French roads, and his pain was very real.

The pain of others was real as well. The pavé was narrow and bordered on either side with trampled mud, and the unfortunate man in either outside rank found himself hobbling along the broken edge, sometimes on stone, sometimes in the dirt, his swelling, boot-bound feet thudding blindly into the jagged edges of cobbles. Packs bore down on bent shoulders, straps chafing, and the fourteen pounds of a man’s rifle became sometimes an unbearable load.

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