United States or San Marino ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I remember a score of genuine offers from French demoiselles, who enclosed their cartes in billets more surprising and enterprising than any other "proposals" it was my office to translate.
They presented billets de logement, requesting to be given possession. We tried to discourage them, assuring them that the rooms contained no conveniences of any kind, not even furniture: but the young men were evidently easily satisfied; they politely but firmly insisted their only wish, they said, being to camp under cover.
The Division was then withdrawn and the Battalion was put into rest billets at Nielles. After about a month spent there in re-organisation and training for the attack, it moved up to Emile Camp, just outside Elverdinghe. The weather was bitterly cold and the ground frozen hard. On Christmas Day the Battalion went into the shell crater line at Poelcappelle, and spent four days there.
Wetherell had at one time been actually a resident of Boston, he received quite as many cautions from his neighbors as Monsieur Dumollet. Billets doux and pistols were, of course, not mentioned, but it certainly behooved him, when he should have arrived at that place of intrigues, to be on the lookout for cabals.
These men, who performed their duties with great lack of consideration, had supposed that they had provided for all the expected arrivals, but, after counting heads, they discovered that the billets were sufficient for only half the number. Their attempt to escape providing for the wives was baffled by the vigorous interposition of the treasurer and by a positive order from Quijada.
Some brought blocks and billets to the fire, which roared, blazed, and ascended, half in smoke, half in flame, up a huge tunnel, with an opening wide enough to accommodate a stone seat within its ample vault, and which was fronted, by way of chimney-piece, with a huge piece of heavy architecture, where the monsters of heraldry, embodied by the art of some Northumbrian chisel, grinned and ramped in red free-stone, now japanned by the smoke of centuries.
While in a front-line trench, orders forbid Tommy from removing his boots, puttees, clothing, or equipment. The "cooties" take advantage of this order and mobilize their forces, and Tommy swears vengeance on them and mutters to himself, "just wait until I hit rest billets and am able to get my own back."
We did not stay long at Authie, for the billets were wanted to accommodate French troops who were being hurried northwards to the battle now raging about Kemmel. On April 12 the 7th N.F. moved forward to the village of Coigneux and H.Q. were established in a French estaminet. There were civilians here too, but the village was liable to be shelled and half of them had gone away.
Take Citrons, & boil them in their skins, then scrape all the pulp from the core, strain it through a piece of Cushion Canvas, take twice the weight of the pulp in Sugar, put to it twice as much water as will melt it that is half a pint to every pound of Sugar, boil it to a Candy height; dry the Pulp upon a Chafing-dish of Coales, then put the syrup and the Pulp hot together, boil it with stirring until it will lye upon a Pye-plate, set it in a warm stone Oven upon two billets of wood, from the heat of the Oven, all one night, in the morning turn it, and set it in the like heat again, so turn it every day till it be dry.
The billets are usually piled up on end, so that the flames rise and twine round them with a fierce intensity that causes them to crack and sputter cheerfully, sending innumerable sparks of fire into the room, and throwing out a rich glow of brilliant light that warms a man even to look at it, and renders candles quite unnecessary.
Word Of The Day