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Updated: May 28, 2025
After the roll-call and some orders and counter-orders, we heard the command "Forward!" and we left the rest-camp as exhausted as when we entered it. And thus we set out, no one knew where. At first it was the same exodus as always. It was on the same road that we disappeared: into the same great circles of blackness that we sank.
Then came rumours of a move to a rest-camp, probably back at Compiègne. The 6th Division arrived to take over from us, or so we were told, and Rich and Cuffe came over with despatches. We had not seen them since Chatham. They regarded us as veterans, and we told them the tale. One afternoon some artillery of this division came through the valley.
'Tis like the judgmint av God hittin' down from the nakid sky! We run into a rest-camp as ut might have been Ludianny, but not by any means so comfortable. The Orficer Commandin' sent a telegrapt up the line, three hundher' mile up, askin' for help.
In the afternoon there was a run, and when I returned I found that the rest-camp rumour had been replaced by two others either we were going into action immediately a little farther along the line beyond Soissons, or we were about to make a dash to Ostend for the purpose of outflanking the Germans.
They are borne down by their bones and muscles, by their own human weight. At halts of only ten minutes, they sink down. "There's no time to sleep!" "No matter," they say, and they go to sleep as happy people do. Suddenly we learned that nothing was going to happen! It was all over for us, and we were going to return to the rest-camp. We said it over again to ourselves.
"Whin I was about three-quarters av a mile off the rest-camp, powtherin' along fit to burrst, I heard the noise av the men, an', on my sowl, Sorr, I cud catch the voice av Peg Barney bellowin' like a bison wid the belly-ache. You remimber Peg Barney that was in D Comp'ny a red, hairy scraun, wid a scar on his jaw?
The nearer my throlly came to the rest-camp, the woilder was the shine, an' the louder was the voice av Peg Barney. "'Tis good I am here," thinks I to myself, "for Peg alone is employmint for two or three." He bein', I well knew, as copped as a dhrover. 'Faith, that rest-camp was a sight!
Later in the day we passed gangs of Hun prisoners clumsy looking fellows, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, who seemed to be thanking God every minute with smiles that they were out of danger and on our side of the line. Late in the afternoon the engine jumped the rails; we were advised to wander off to a rest-camp, the direction of which was sketchily indicated.
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