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Updated: June 13, 2025
A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the wounded. Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded men. Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and one a bandage around his arm.
Wait till you hear what come off today Al. In the first place my feet's been going back on me for a long wile and they walked us all over France yesterday and this A. M. I couldn't hardly get my shoes on and they was going out for riffle practice and I don't need no riffle practice Al and besides that I couldn't of stood it so I got excused and I set around a wile after the rest of the bunch was gone and finely my feet got feeling a little better and I walked over to the estaminet where that little gal's at to see if maybe I couldn't brighten things up a little for her and sure enough she was all smiles when she seen me and we talked a wile about this in that and she tried to get personal and called me cherry which is like we say dearie and finely I made the remark that I didn't think we would be here much longer and then I seen she was going to blubber so I kind of petted her hand and stroked her hair and she poked her lips out and I give her a smack Al but just like you would kiss a kid or something after they fell down and hurt themself.
Of course he spent most of the time in an estaminet himself, eating eggs and chips and flirting with the girl ... I couldn't keep warm and there was no shelter anywhere. It was like doing an eight-hour guard." All the windows in the streets of the village were shuttered, but the light shone through cracks and chinks a promise of warmth within that cheered us a little. We entered an estaminet.
The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small. I slept in a stinking barn, half-full of dirty straw, and rose with the sun for the discomfort of it. Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters, and looked for what might come to pass.
Outside an Estaminet was a horse and cart partly across the road, and just sufficiently blocking it. The driver called out to a Tommy lounging outside the Inn to pull it over a little. He gave a truly British grunt, and went to the horse's head. Nothing happened for some seconds, and we waited impatiently. Presently he reappeared.
Slowly, with weary, drooping heads, they walked across the road, past a wretched custom-house, where two painted sentry-boxes leaned, past a squalid barnyard full of amber-coloured, unsavoury puddles and gaunt poultry, up to the thatched stone house where Grahame stood waiting. Over the door hung a withered branch of mistletoe, above this swung a sign: ESTAMINET.
There is a group of cottages or an estaminet at every cross-roads. When our great invading line sweeps forward, each one of these buildings will be held by the enemy, and must be captured, house by house, room by room, and used as a base for another rush. And how is this to be done? Well, it will be no military secret by the time these lines appear. It is no secret now.
After dinner the Tommies congregate at these places to drink French beer at a penny a glass and play "House." As soon as the estaminet is sufficiently crowded the proprietors of the "House Game" get busy and as they term it "form a school." This consists of going around and selling cards at a franc each.
The English soldiers are very fond of harping on the old idea of the difficulty of making a Scotsman see a joke. That is a base slander, I'll say, but no matter. There were two regiments in rest close to one another, one English and one Scots. They met at the estaminet or pub in the nearby town.
We rose at dawn, and had some coffee at a little estaminet, where a middle-aged dame, horribly arch, cleaned my canteen for me, "pour l'amour de toi." We managed an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs before establishing the Signal Office at the barracks. A few of us rode off to keep touch with the various brigades that were billeted round.
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