To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May. David Crane

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СКАЧАТЬ endured with a dull eye and rebellious heart, but I do not remember ever having the faintest desire to sink so low when the man who spoke did so from knowledge born of what he had actually done himself. And Captain Woodgate was like that today when he spoke to us. Much he told us we already knew and there was much which we did not but whether he spoke of familiar or unfamiliar things, he held us just the same because we felt he had done and seen those things of which he spoke. He is a good fellow and a fine man and once again I must record our feeling for the E. Lancs. They have done all they can for us, no trouble has been too much for them and I trust we will all benefit from their example and experiences.

      We have finished our paths today. They are broad brick fairways through a sea of mud and are very clean and dry and comforting. Did we stay here a week or two I feel sure the château would become something of home from home. Certainly we have an affection for our stable and as for the old rat who sports about my carcase of a night I feel that he and I would become firm friends in time were it not for his bad habit of pinching our scanty cheese. That one little failing will, however, yet prove his undoing do we but remain here long enough. There is almost an element of sadness in the thought. Sadness, that is, for the rat.

      4th December ’15

      D Company has come out of the trenches today very muddy, very wet but quite cheery and safe. They have had rather a tough time from the rain and trench mortars. The latter have pounded the trenches without cessation for two days but without effecting a single casualty. This afternoon our guns set about them in retaliation and have pounded their lines most unmercifully. I hope they have laid out a few of the beggars.

      I got working parties of the Coy. going first thing this morning and cleaned up billets and lit fires for D coming in. Poor devils they were grateful for the job, the fires putting new life into them.

      Tomorrow we turf out at 7.45 am to march some 15 miles back. I believe we march on again the next day to reserve billets where I trust we may stay a while and get thoroughly cleaned up.

      Tonight I am going to dinner with the CO of the E. Lancs and am looking forward to it. All the other of our officers are pigging with D Company in our billet on tinned grub and whiskey. The E. Lancs fellows are coming up later to say farewell and I have no doubt if we do not watch it but that we will march out of Mesnil with fat-heads in the morning. Never mind, it’s worth it when you have bumped into jolly good pals.

      5th December ’15

      Sixteen miles march today [to Puchevillers].^xii And a long sixteen they were, what with wet great-coats, mud-laden, feet still wet and puttees hard-caked with trench clay. Still, we are here now and right for a night’s rest in good billets which is a reward one gets to look forward to with amazing keenness. The men are all comfortably tucked down on good, clean straw and the officers are in various cottages with a little mess room in an old lady’s cottage. We have a fire, a bottle [of] vin blanche [sic] and the old Madame to chatter to us about her boy who is fighting in the Argonne.

      It is quite interesting, quite warm and produces in one that grand feeling of happy sleepiness which a hard day’s slog always produces.

      We have left our good friends the East Lancs but I trust only for the time and that we may meet again one of these fine days. They were most decent to me last evening and I must once more speak of all their kindnesses to us.

      Young Shelmerdine has done well again today. He always turns up trumps when it is wanted of him and I think he will do well before this job is over.

      We move on again first thing tomorrow morning for another dose but I hope by then we will be finished for a time so that the men may get dry, have a bath and get their clothes cleaned. They do wonderfully, the men, putting up with every inconvenience and discomfort cheerfully and slogging along on their flat feet to the end. The battalion has had a good dose of graft ever since we landed, as good a dose as any could have had but every time it has got [at] them, and that is everything. The Manchesters are all right and the 22nd one of their best battalions.

      And now to bed to the sleep of the just. I share my couch with Prince so at least we will be warm.

      6th December ’15

      Another march today [to Candas]. It was only ten miles but it very nearly beat the men, already tired and worn out as they were. Old B got rather messed up this morning through Murray getting mixed over some order about great-coats with the Brigade Sergeant-Major. They got them off for the wagons to carry only to find that idea was off. We therefore had to put them on again, which made us late and the CO left us to follow on by ourselves. This we did to the best of our ability and eventually arrived at this village just on the tail of the battn. The Coy had been near beat but they bucked up to pass the other Coys, swinging along at a great rate and singing. Only we, their officers, knew how done the poor devils were. But they have a good sleep before them tonight and, as we are here for a fortnight at least, we hope to be right as rain and a thoroughly fit battalion before that time is out. And no doubt we shall be.

      7th December ’15

      I stole an hour this afternoon and rode out towards Canaples for a look round and to forget the battalion and the war and for a little time to imagine that you were with me and that we had the open countryside to stroll through as so often we have done in the dear days before all the world were soldiers. It is pretty country out this road, especially to the left where the ground slopes down into a little valley the sides of which are dotted with clumps of larch and birch and other such spidery limbed, delicate trees. I turned off the highway out there and Lizzie and I strolled down the slopes to the valley’s foot where we wandered along the edge of the woods cut off from all sight of man’s handiwork and with only the wood-pigeons and the magpies for company. It was all damp and clean-looking, fresh and peaceful – one of the few pretty spots I have yet seen in France – and it cleared my head and made me happy and sent me back to my work refreshed.

      I thought of you as we strolled there, Lizzie with her reins slack wandering where she would and at her own pace and I longed that you could have been with me, for I know how you would have loved it and how happy we two would have been.^xiii The green rides of Epping came back to me in a flash. You in that black spotted muslin dress you used to wear looking cool and lovely so that I just asked nothing more than to walk along and gaze at you dumbly, like any simple country lout gazes at his maid.

      It is a strange world. Here I am in the midst of men, of work and dirt and close to fire and steel and sudden death. My heart should be fired with martial ardour, I should have no thought for anything but the fighting I am paid for but instead my whole being is filled to the exclusion of all else with the thought of you, dear heart, of our darling Baby and of the happiness which has been ours.

      We are here I hear for about three weeks and already seem to have returned to our wonted routine. The Army is wonderful. One day it strains and strives and fights with blood and noise and dirt predominant, the next it returns to all its old starch and buckram and curses a man for a dirty boot whom the day before it had loved though he was mud-caked to his eyebrows in the trenches.

      8th December ’15

      We are now filled with ambition as house builders. Orders have arrived that we are to look out suitable buildings and convert them into fit habitations for L’Armée Brittanique, which is to feed, wash and sleep in them at its own sweet will and get strong and dangerous ready for the ever-recurring ‘new offensive in the Spring’. It is most interesting, and no end of a problem. We have one hammer per company, the promise of some wood, 25 yards СКАЧАТЬ