stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Voices among the audience. 'Well there's that place in Oxford Street.' 'Oh ! The Savoy's hopeless.' 'I say, what did our Adjutant say about _______?' 'Oh! my Burberry keeps it out all right.' The Lecturer. (Overcome by matter of greater interest) :- 'Oh! Burberrys? Well, look at mone. This thing wets me all here. Won't some one tell us about mines? Is there a miner here? Tell you a thing you have to be careful of.' (Tells a story about a mine which blew up - no apparent bearing on the matter in hand, and contains very little advice as to what we ought to be careful of.) 'Well I think if we all take a walk round those trees and back, it'll be getting on for 12 o'clock.' (Finally we all go home at 11.20.) Dined at Rouen, at the Restaurant de la Cathedrale. I wonder if Stephenson meant all he said about 'great churches being my favourite kind of mountain scenery'. For it is astonishly true. Rouen Cathedral has that same breath holding effect upon me as a big mountain has, when one comes suddenly upon it round a corner, and looks up at the pinnacles which look so small and are really so big; the saints in their niches like gendarmes, the grey towers by the lower lights of the town at night like hinted snow-fields. The Cathedral, from the left bank of the river, looks over its foot-hills of the quais and other buildings just as Tryfaen peeps out over the Gogof, something farther away but bigger and more mysterious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Thursday. Feb. 17. Orders to go up to the 1st Rifle Brigade. I called on Madame Morel before leaving Rouen at 5.30, when Robertson and I (Kirkland and Billington are to come later) boarded our train, a long string of wagons and trucks and carriages, which bumped slowly along in the dark and finally we spent the night in a siding at Abbeville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Friday, Feb. 18. We are there now, and I suppose we shall hear the guns in a few hours. It is difficult to realise this. We took a cart from the inn, and joined our Regiment. It was good to find oneself among Riflemen, and to find Russell-Smith. Best of all, to find letters from Father, Mary, Arnold, and C.A.A. One feels here is the presence of something quitly efficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Saturday, Feb. 19. R.-S. says the French are more patriotic than the English. I wonder if 'Empire Building' nations are ever really patriotic. Perhaps we have expended our patriotism in imperialism. Puck of Pook's Hill and the Sussex enthusiasm of Kipling have always been a suprise to me. Moved to 'A' Company, where people received one with the same silent and detached air of saying, 'This isn't much of a picnic. Take a chair and share our boredom. Carry on.' I heard the guns for the first time. Rumours of the Man's Battalion coming here. That seems to incredible. Got many letters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Monday, Feb. 21. Parades. C.O. coming over. It is true about the Man, and I went over to a village 2 Km away and found him. I was awfully disappointed not to take him more by suprise. An officer gave me away by telling him there was an officer of the 12st R.B., a Shrewsbury Master, waiting to see him. The whole incident is much more amazing than I can realise - that's the worst of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Friday, Feb. 25. Stayed in bed all day till tea-time. Fortunate enough to see a doctor. It is desperate business being ill now. I am lucky to be in Reserve; otherwise I am feeling very wild about it all. The people of my billet are good people - 'des honnetes gens' (Somerville {1}). I did not really understand that even here we are in Picardy, until the girl of the house said, 'Vous ne comprenez pas le Picard, m'sieur?' {1} Somerville's Primer of French Grammar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Tuesday, April 4. Went to Shrewsbury to lunch. It was First Day; otherwise I would not have gone, for after my visit last November I have always felt that I mustn't go again till I have faced things at the Front. There are many motives which have driven men to fight in this war; the violation of Belgian neutrality, a very few; more, the love of country; some, the hatred of militarism: and I think my motives are not uncommon; which are, the feeling that one's friends have been through this test and that I must, and a kind of personal challenge to oneself, which is the strongest thing in my morality and leads so often to irrational results, which says, 'You dare not do this thing; therefore you must'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 Wednesday, April 5. Left by the breakfast train, and Mary and Arnold and Ella saw me off. I met West in London and we saw Jerome in hospital after lunch. Reached Southampton at 6.30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 April 7. I was set down at 11 p.m. by a motor lorry in a dark unknown country. I walked to St. Amand and woke up the Transport Officer, who found me a bed. On this walk I discovered the War. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 30 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 30 July , 2006 April 8. After a delightful slack day, in the evening I rode up with the Transport to Battalion H.Q. I wonder if those bored Transport men and that bored Transport officer knew how excited I was. Or the orderly who led me along a deep, star-roofed communication trench, did he know that that walk thrilled me as little else has done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 April 8,9,and 10. I have been introduced to War, and at present I find him a sunshiny old devil by day and a star spangled old wizard by night, attended by countless elfish little devils who sigh through the air when we stand to arms just before daybreak, and noisy chattering fellows who always try to get in the last word and must all be talking at once, especially when one of them thinks that an aeroplane is flying low enough to be hit. It is hard to believe, in fine weather, 12oo yards from the Bosches, that all this chattering and banging is anything more than an uncouth game, into which one has been drawn by curiosity. So strange are the emotions stirred by all the circumstances of this trench-life - the rough awakening after an hour or two of sleep, when one staggers out of a dug-out, chill and sleepy, to hear the monosyllabic rifles and the chattering machine guns, who have, it seems, kept up their palaver during one's period of forgetfulness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 April 17 - 22. A week of rain and mud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Easter Day, April 23. A really beautiful Easter Day. The chaplain came round to our trenches at 6.0 a.m., to hold a communion Service in a large dug-out. This is a good man and makes me realise what good men Christians are, when they are Christians. There is a good 'influence' from him, of which one is conscious at his first appearance. Not many men would cry out 'A Happy Easter to you', with meaning and without any impediment of self consciousness or spinality. It makes one rather sad about the slight shyness with which we returned his greetings, the shyness of laymen towards the parson. At 6.30 this wonderful west-wind day had begun, and I went to bed, smoking a pipe and thinking of father and many other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 31 July , 2006 Share Posted 31 July , 2006 I have been introduced to War, and at present I find him a sunshiny old devil by day and a star spangled old wizard by night, attended by countless elfish little devils who sigh through the air when we stand to arms just before daybreak, and noisy chattering fellows who always try to get in the last word and must all be talking at once, especially when one of them thinks that an aeroplane is flying low enough to be hit. Very vivid. Also hope we meet the lecturer officer without the compasses again! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Monday, April 24, and Tuesday, April 25. A glorious Apring day. 'Le temps a laisse son manteau'; there is a delicate green on the trees, and the swallows are returning to their village, of which the toher inhabitants have left the ruins. It must have been a happy place at the Easter of 1914. On a working party at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Friday, April 28. Russell-Smith lent me E.F. Benson's new scholl story. E.F.B. and Ian Hay, etc., represent a kind of breezy school in modern literature, who have the ideas of the last generation and the smart phraseology of the present. An Anthology of theri words might be made by E.V. Lucas and called 'In Praise of Public School Men.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Tuesday, May 2. A shell burst on a traverse within twenty yards of me. I was very frightened, and rather proud to have had one at really close quarters. Took over command of Company temporarily, as Fraser went to the Army School. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Wednesday, May 3. The Battalion marched through beautiful country. Everywhere Corot landscapes, and avenues like those of de Hooch, and orchards just beginning to blossom; in one of which we halted. The first time I have marched as part of the Battalion with Transport etc. The pleasure of it all was partly spoiled by my regrets at some gross pieces of incompetence on my part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Saturday, May 6. A good village, and the lilacs are out. Billeted at the house of a dressmakier, who has been spending this morning fastening, smoothing, and pinning her small girl, who is to make her first Communion to-day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Wenesday, May 10. Another black day, though it should have been a good one, for I did an interesting Advanced Guard march with the Company and the Company Lewis gun detachment, which accompanied me for the first time. The country and weather bith are very beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Sunday, May 14. Things are calming down a bit now, and it has been a beastly week, and I have learnt a good deal. There was a good church parade this morning. In the afternoon the sports. Wonderful side-shows, Aunt Sallies, etc. A wonderfully organised obstacle race. It is amazing what a Battalion in the field can produce. There was a Rifleman doing clownish side-shows in a complete evening-dress suit. Nor was a megaphone wanting. The Divisional Band played. (But I hate sports.) We had a concert in a barn at 8 p.m., at which I played on a very poor violin, which the Quartermaster-Sgt. of 'A' Company carries about with him, though he doesn't play himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 31 July , 2006 Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Shells and communion dresses... Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Tuesday, May 16. A big 'extended order' parade over 'champs de manoeuvres' belonging to the French Government. Weather glorious, and oh! this place is beautiful. I long for an idle day to linger under the hawthorn, to be on the red clover just outside the farm gate listening to the cuckoo, and to watch those immacualte magpies stalking cooly in the long grass below the railway cutting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Wednesday, May 17. Battalion parade in the same place. Letters from Shrewsbury. How I want to be there! And the more I feel the glory of this early summer, the more I want it. Night outposts in a wood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 31 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2006 Friday, May 19. The hawthorn is now glorious here, as it surely is round the foot of Caradoc.(1) (1) At Church Stretton, near Shrewsbury Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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