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Updated: June 20, 2025
Even the houses were gaunt and ill-favoured. On our way out we came across a deserted motor-cycle. Some one suggested sending it on by train, until some one else remarked that there were no trains, and this was fifteen miles from Paris. We cut across country, rejoined the column, and rode with it to Vinantes, passing on the way a lost motor-lorry.
In fact, as neither a locomotive nor a motor-lorry, nor a boat wherein to carry them can be built in five minutes, the offensive temporarily recedes from view, until the next boatload of material is safely landed.
When 2.15 A.M. came there was no train, and we kept walking about till dawn broke, but still no train. The R.T.O. then told us that there had been a breakdown and that the train could not be expected for a long time. So we decided to go and get breakfast at our billets and then to go to Amiens by motor-lorry, and catch the train there.
The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other despatch rider into the ditch. Estaires, as always, produced much grease. It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem, halting only once for the necessary café-cognac.
It all so affected the mind of one good lady at H that she used to rush out into the street every time she saw a motor-lorry coming and make uncouth gestures with her arms and legs, to the no small embarrassment of the supply columns, the confusion of the military police, and the unconcealed delight of our soldiers, who regard the latter as their natural enemy.
In the shelter of a doorway stood a group of territorials, getting their first real news of the battle from a Paris newspaper. I heard "Nous avons reculé huit kilomètres le général Pétain " A motor-lorry drowned out the rest. That night we were given orders to be ready to evacuate the château in case the Boches advanced.
Grimers, under the Skipper's instructions, began to plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much beyond mustard and cress. On particularly unpleasant days we were told off to make fascines. N'Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Cecil did vague things with the motor-lorry. I was called upon to write the Company's War Diary.
At D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an aeroplane.
While I was standing on the summit of a little eminence beyond Fricourt, looking down on that amazing scene of industry, a big German shell burst squarely on the road. It wrecked a motor-lorry, it killed several horses and half a dozen men, but, most serious of all, it blew in the road a hole as large as a cottage cellar.
One time he had met a girl that he thought was all right, and he wanted to treat her to a feed, so he drew a picture of a chicken, thinking he would get it roasted. She had chattered away to the waiter, and he had come back with two soft-boiled eggs. That was the French notion of taking a girl out to dinner! They loaded Jimmie into a motor-lorry and whirled him away.
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