THE YPRES TIMES
41
recognisable, for it ran through the old French cemetery on the edge of the mine
craters. We looked into the huge crater blown on July 1st, 1916; well I remember
the carrying parties to the mines which led at last to thatThen to Ovillers,
Crucifix Corner, Aveluy and Bouzincourt, and home to Albert.
Saturday was our longest day. We were in training after a week and we had
need to be. How many miles we walked, I do not know, but veterans of the
Somme are asked to believe that we touched Aveluy, Authuille Wood, Thiepval,
Mouquet Farm, Pozières, Martinpuich, High Wood, Longueval, Delville Wood,
Flers, Ginchy and Guillemont. We were prepared to walk home, but we found a
railway station at Guillemont, and an evening train to Albert. We were lucky in
having filled our pockets with cheese before starting out, as we were unable to get
any food in the estaminets and buvettes. Fortunately we found no difficulty in
getting enough to drink, especially at Pozières, where we met a party from a
Lancashire Territorial Division. I took the opportunity of thanking one of the
party for the great courtesy of his division which once relieved us two hours before
the appointed time. The memory seemed still to rankle and at his suggestion we
left the estaminet in a considerable hurry.
On the morning of Easter Sunday we were up very early, for by a perusal of
a French railway guide we had discovered a means of reaching St. Quentin during
the day. When in Albert in 1916 I had followed on trench maps the light railway
which crossed the Bapaume Road and passed in and out of the German lines in the
vicinity of Fricourt, Mametz and Carpoy, and then turned east through Bernafay
and T rones Woods to Guillemont and Peronne. Little did I think then that one
day I would proudly buy a ticket from the office of the Chemin de Fer Economique
et Agricole in Albert and be transported to Peronne. I have used the word
transport advisedly, for the movement of the train had a distinct resemblance to
that of a G.S. Wagon moving fast on a pavé road. But a bottle of wine from
which, and the French guard from whom, we were rarely separated, consoled us.
We arrived in good order at Peronne. Here we could get no food at the station,
where we had a wait for a bus. But we found a gunsmith's shop in whose window
was a stuffed fox encircled by twelve different patterns of shot-guns. Vive le sport.
We were bound for Cepy Farm where my regiment had been heavily engaged
when the Germans retreated in March 1917. We never reached it, as at Holnon
we met an old friend, the custodian of the War Graves, Corporal Butcher. The
re-union lasted some hours and led to the consumption of much Amer Picon. In
the afternoon we decided that a long walk would be advantageous and we covered
the seven miles to St. Quentin in a straight line and without a halt.
Easter Monday was our last day. We entrained for Lille, with a view to
intercepting a fast train to Calais. At Lille Station we purchased a postcard, such
as we had not seen for some years. A lady in evéning dress, with a tennis racket
in the wrong hand, was gazing into the eyes of a French soldier in uniform. The
legend ran Apres le jeu, il faut causer; et ga finit par un baiser." We addressed
it to an eminent official in Whitehall. It arrived, very late and embellished with
several hundred thumb-marks.
C. O. G. D.
