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being and the enemy vacates the contested position overnight. And again (to be prosaic
on an occasion when the writer side-stepped a plank in the dark (Australian Huts) and
sloshed full length into a ditch. Wet, J—Oh-h-h N-n-n-o-t at allOnly
a bit damp. Where can I get a change ,At St. Quentin a small party was about to
look round when a distant machine gun bullét, fired at random, cut through the leading
man's collar and shirt just missing the nape of his neck. In the same Sector a party,
was called from cover on a short fatigue and Returned to find the place upside down and
its four erst-while companions all casualties. And so on ad. infinitum.
A feature one noticed about our French allies was a knack they had of making
themselves comfortable under adverse conditions. Not only in the line (wooden bunks,
light tables and wine-racks in dug-outs), but jalso of course elsewhere. The writer recalls
being on a baggage party from the
was the fortitude shown by the
weaker sex under fire. The writer
was being served at a little
shop in Riviera (the last shop
on the left leading from the v
monastry of St. Sepulcre to the
open fields) when a shell burst just to the rear, but except for turning a little pale the
young woman carried on without a pause. At pleasant little Sombrin gunfire was heard
day and night, and at night the flashes lit up the skyline. And when aged people and
children straggled out of Bailleul, then being shelled, and rested with their few belongings
on the country road they were quite composed. And as to moralThere were two old
ladies who sold milk at a farmhouse in Riviera and their parlour was a masterpiece of
cleanliness. Old oak furniture, stone mosaics, settles, brackets, pewter-ware, the French
windows opening on the fields everything was cleaned and polished in keeping with
the spotless white caps worn by these old dames.
Each scene recalls many, and the total effect is like parading a number of units
into a Company. The burial of the Major within the shadow of the Old Cloth Hall.
