Читать книгу The War History of the 1st/ 4th Battalion, 1914-1918. The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment онлайн

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On the 6th, about 7 15 p.m., we received orders to move, and marched out at 8 p.m. to LILLERS, where we joined the rear of the Brigade at 2 47 p.m. Here began the worst march that any of us remember, over strange uneven roads, in pitch darkness. To us, marching in rear of the whole Brigade, it seemed interminable; halts were irregular, and by the time “ten minutes’ halt” came along to us it was time to move again, and it was impossible to maintain a steady pace. Added to this someone had seen fit to billet from the front of the column instead of the rear, which held us up at each billeting village and prolonged the march considerably. The last mile nearly finished us, but we stumbled into CALONNE-SUR-LE-LYS at 4 a.m.—dead beat—and slept it off.

We had a pretty easy time for the next few days, as, beyond being required to be ready to move at an hour’s notice, we were left alone. The weather was fine, and many of us bivouacked; we did a little training, and tried to teach the local people a little sanitation, a word which apparently did not exist in their language. We, on the other hand, learnt that faggots and soil had a market value; one Company, taking soil from a heap in a field, were pounced on by the owner for taking “ma bonne terre” to cover someone else’s smelly midden, and he was quite rude about it. The Officers’ Mess was in a private house on the main street; one night when an al fresco concert was in progress to the great delight of the troops, a man passing on the road enquired what was going on, and received the laconic reply, “Officers’ rum issue!”