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Updated: June 1, 2025
The day was spent in inspection, and the paymaster came and gave us our first pay in France, fifty francs; that night we were allowed downtown, and we made our first acquaintance with the French estaminets or wine-shops; they are only allowed to sell light wines, red and white, to the troops, and French beer. Well, one might just as well drink water.
There were few Y.M.C.A. huts so far behind the lines, and the short time up to nine was usually spent in the estaminets. The games of house were in full blast all the time. On the hike we were paid weekly. Privates got five francs, corporals ten, and sergeants fifteen to twenty a week. That's a lot of money. Anything left over was held back to be paid when we got to Blighty.
The lessons learned as boys in those excellent institutions have been carried into France. Tea shops and restaurants at the bases, audacious estaminets near the front, witness to the fact that we wage war with something of the spirit of schoolboys with pocket money to spend on "grub." Nobody will grudge our young officers their boyish taste for innocent feasts. It is a boys' war anyway.
A strange half deserted little town on the right bank of the river Scheldt, clustered about a bridge, on both sides of a small sluggish stream called the "Dendre," where long lines of women were washing clothes the live-long day, and chattering like magpies the while. A Grand' Place, with heavy trees at one side, and on the other many small estaminets and drinking shops. That was Termonde.
Shells fell near Laventie cross-roads on most days and, when a 12 inch howitzer established itself behind the village, the Germans retaliated upon it with 5.9s, but otherwise shops and estaminets flourished with national nonchalance. The railway, which ran from La Gorgue to Armentières, was used by night as far as Bac St. Maur an instance of unenterprise on the part of German gunners.
As soon as the battalion marches back from the trenches to the village in the first light of the morning, everyone turns his mind to methods which will help the few days of rest to pass as pleasantly as war and the limited amusements afforded by two estaminets and a row of cottages will permit. "Chacun son goût."
They have eyes in their heads; they can see practice charges being carried through, and note which regiments carry battle-marks on their uniforms; and the little shops and estaminets are just soldiers' clubs where gossip is 'swapped' as freely as in the London west-end clubs, and unfortunately, is much better informed.
The settled sadness of her face and voice haunts me still. Others, however, stay in danger because they are making so much money. Several shopkeepers in this town admitted they had never known such prosperity. The estaminets make enormous profits from the sale of very weak beer.
It is one of the great needs of our army that the boys should be amused and kept clean mentally and morally. I don't believe there is any organization better qualified to do this than the Y.M.C.A. Most of our chaps spent their time "on their own" either in the Y.M.C.A. hut or in the estaminets while we were in Petite-Saens. Our stop there was hardly typical of the rest in billets.
As they passed through the mean little villages not a light was to be seen; even the estaminets were shut, but now and again a dog barked mournfully at its chain.
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