United States or Kiribati ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Any moment one may be put out of action, but one does not worry. That quiet time alone with God at the Holy Communion was most comforting. Immediately after writing these words, the writer fell in action. Captain Clarke, a famous Cambridge athlete, President of the C.U.A.C., bled to death according to one account from a frightful wound received in the advance near Hooge on September 25th.
The excitement started about a mile away on our left, when, on the evening of the 19th, the next Division blew up an enormous mine at Hooge, and, with the aid of an intense artillery bombardment, attacked and captured part of the village, including the chateau stables.
This part of the British line was under the command of Sir Herbert Plumer. His troops occupied themselves from the first week in May to the middle of August, 1915, in fighting in the Hooge district.
Peter de Hooch spelt often, De Hooge was the genre painter of full, clear sunlight. The dates of his birth and death can only be guessed by those of his pictures, which extend from 1656 to 1670. His groups are generally playing cards, smoking, drinking, or engaged in domestic occupations almost always in the open air.
Worn, spent, but with spirit unbroken, they crawled out from under that matted mass of tangled trunks, sending out their wounded before them, and leaving their buried dead behind them, to hold with other Canadian dead the line which from St. Julien, by Hooge, Sanctuary Wood, and Maple Copse, and Mount Sorel, and Hill 60, and on to St. Eloi, guards the way to Ypres and to the sea.
'The Herald says there's been a big battle at Eepers, he announced. I tore open the sheet and read of the great attack of 31 July which was spoiled by the weather. 'My God! I cried. 'They've got St Julien and that dirty Frezenberg ridge ... and Hooge ... and Sanctuary Wood. I know every inch of the damned place.... 'Mr Brand, said a warning voice, 'that'll never do.
It was here that arrangements were first made for the prevention of trench feet. Sunday, the 19th December, was marked by a German gas attack north of Hooge, but the Battalion was not involved. The following day the artillery activity continued, and Lieut.-Col. Jeffreys was wounded whilst going round a new piece of the line which had been taken over from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
I remember one young Irish officer who came down to bur quarters on a brief respite from commanding the garrison at Hooge. He was a handsome fellow, like young Philip of Spain by Velasquez, and he had a profound melancholy in his eyes in spite of a charming smile. "Do you mind if I have a bath before I join you?" he asked. He walked about in the open air until the bath was ready.
Surely if the leaders of the warring nations were put together for even a week in some such place as Hooge, or the Hohenzollern redoubt, afflicted by the usual harassing fire, poison-gas, mine explosions, lice, rats, and the stench of rotting corpses, with the certainty of death or dismemberment at the week-end, they would settle the business and come to terms before the week was out.
He came back quietly happy, telling us that he had had a good time, though the noise had been a little overwhelming. We learned afterwards that the enemy had been registering very accurately upon the Hooge road. So the time passed without any excitement until November 23, when first we caught hold of a definite rumour that we should be granted leave.
Word Of The Day