The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J. C. Dunn

Author:Captain J. C. Dunn [Dunn, Captain J. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349106359
Amazon: 0349106355
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 1988-12-01T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

Somme — Winter, a hard one — A chilly rest — Live and let live: Abbeville: The downs above Clery — The thermometer below zero — Les Bouffes! — “Thank God — and the Brigadier:” — Implications and Interactions

Contributors: — Kent; Morgan Jones; Moody; Radford

Sketches: — 1, 11, 12

At 11.15 forenoon we marched to Buire, and entrained at 2. The train took 11 hours to do the first 15 miles. At the end of an hour of one of the halts a wag at the rear called, “Pass it along, November 12th — ‘steady in front.’” We arrived at Airaines at 3.30, then we marched 7 miles more alongside the same railway line to Forceville, where there is a station: C and D Companies went on to adjoining Neuville. Since the Transport left us three days ago to travel by road the men had to carry a lot of gear, but they came along well. Those near me had breath to spare to speak of the scenery, a rare topic of outspoken remark. What charmed them to speech was a wooded knoll rising from pasture, with horses and cattle and more trees, in a Corotesque mist. On beech and chestnut the deeper yellows, amber, graded brown, russet and red of leaves ripe to fall were beautiful even in a sunless dawn. A little snow, our first this winter, fell as we neared our billets. H.Q. is in the château of the Comte de Forceville. It may be seventeenth century. Trees grow close to it; the ground floor is the ground paved with flags of freestone, our room has coco-matting, it smells musty and is raw-cold. A bit of English park is unkept, but pleasing, nothing else is. The pall of neglect is on everything. The comfortless barns, that are the Companies billets, struck everyone with a chill, but our conjurer again raised his voice to the tune, more or less, of “Somewhere the sun is shining.” Then he found an estaminet where cafe cognac, so called, was on sale. Next morning he was charged with being “drunk and resisting his escort.” D’Arcy Fox, the Acting C.O., suggested that the second charge be dropped since the prisoner had to be wheeled to the Guard-room in a barrow. Bracey, Butcher’s mild-mannered successor, had, in fact, given him a belting before carting him. I left Mann putting into shape a scheme of training the C.O. drew up before going on leave, and went on leave myself. In London I made a note of driving from the station in a hansom; the scarcity of taxis caused many of these famed, obsolete carriages to be brought back to the streets.

November 24th. — Returning through Etaples these lines painted in bold letters on a board at the station confronted us:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.