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I left the buffet for a moment to go across to the Transport Office, and walking along through the throng ran into my greatest friend. A most extraordinary chance this! I had not the least idea whereabouts in France he was, or when he might be likely to get leave. His job was in quite a different part, many miles from the Douve.
The castle is clean gone; and the traveller to whom Normandy is chiefly attractive in its Norman aspect may perhaps sacrifice the Roman remains of Alleaume if the choice lies between them and a full examination of the castle and abbey of Saint Saviour on the Douve, Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, the home of the two Neals, the centre, in the days of the second of the rebellions which caused William to ride so hard from Valognes to Rye.
Quite a thrill went round the room when the door opened and a sergeant came in with an armful of letters and parcels. Yet during all this latter time at the Douve I longed for a change in trench life. Some activity, some march to somewhere or other; anything to smash up the everlasting stagnant appearance of life there. Suddenly the change came.
This, of course, happened every time we "came in." The land where these trenches lay was a vast and lugubrious expanse of mud, with here and there a charred and ragged building. On our right lay the River Douve, and, on our left, the trenches turned a corner back inwards again. In front lay the long line of the Messines ridge.
I was exposed to the full view of the German lines, from my shoulders upwards. I started exposing; the shells came in rapid succession, dropping right in the middle of the Petite Douve. As they fell clouds of bricks and other débris were thrown in the air; the din was terrific. Nothing in the world could possibly have lived there.
In front of me were our front-line trenches, following the line of the little stream which ran into the Douve on the right. On the far side of the stream the ground gently rose in a long slope up to Messines, where you could see a shattered mass of red brick buildings with the old grey tower in the middle.
Reaching the front trenches, I made my way along to a point from which I could best view the Petite Douve. Obtaining a waterproof sheet we carefully raised it very, very slowly above the parapet with the aid of a couple of bayonets. Without a doubt, I thought, the Germans would be sure to notice something different on that section after a few seconds. And so it proved.
As time went on at these Douve trenches, I became more and more familiar with the details of the surrounding country, for each day I used to creep out of the farm, and when I had crossed the moat by a small wooden bridge at the back, I would go off into the country near by looking at everything.
And for many miles we rode along the western bank of the river Douve, that runs by my uncle's castle, but at length the stream took a great bend to the west, and we had to cross within some twelve miles of Valognes.
Wedgwood cites, points in the direction of crescere; and the O. Fr. cressonage, implying a verb cressoner, means the right of grazing. Under dock Mr. He cites Prov. doga, which he translates by bank. Raynouard has only "dogua, douve, creux, cavité," and refers to It. doga.
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