FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  
rve, and the Bedfords and Cheshires on their way back to Ypres. Then, with a sigh of some thankfulness apiece, we stumbled back in the darkness to the chateau, where we waited to collect the remains of the Signal Section and staff, and then moved off, mounted this time, down the Menin-Ypres road. It was freezing very hard--as I think I remarked before--and the road was frightfully slippery. Trotting was almost out of the question, but I tried it on Squeaky for a few yards, on a dry broken bit. She pulled back on to the slippery part, slid up, and sat down heavily, whilst I fell gracefully off on to my shoulder. And she repeated the performance the other side of the town. Ypres, in the bright starlight, was still quite impressive, and the Cloth Hall was still almost intact. But there were many shell-holes about, and some of the houses were still smouldering. The town happened to be respited from shells for the actual moment, but I believe that the very next day a heavy bombardment began again, and the Cloth Hall was destroyed till hardly the skeleton thereof was left. _Nov. 21st._ We were due to billet in Locre, and there we arrived at about 7 A.M. It was frightfully cold, but, after we had seen the two battalions billeted, the military policeman who had been told to turn up and show us to our billets was nowhere to be found, so we wandered on as far as the Convent, staggering and slipping on the snowy ice and blowing on our fingers as we went. The thermometer must have shown ten degrees of frost or more, but I only know that I was very glad to reach our little house at last (having passed it already once half a mile before) and get in between the sheets of an ancient but respectably clean bed, covered by all the mackintoshes, blankets, and rugs I could get hold of. The Cheshires were billeted on the Mont Rouge close by, and the Bedfords near us, at the corner of the Westoutre road. They had all struggled over the fourteen miles or so that divided them from their trenches, but having arrived and their feet having swollen terribly during the long march, any number of them could not get their boots on again, and they went to hospital by twenties and thirties, hobbling along the road with their feet tied up in rags or socks, for they were deformed with rheumatism and swollen joints,[23] and would not fit any boot. The Cheshires, as I expected, were much the worse of the two battalions, for their trenches had b
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  



Top keywords:

Cheshires

 
slippery
 

trenches

 

swollen

 

frightfully

 

battalions

 
billeted
 
Bedfords
 

arrived

 

fingers


wandered

 

passed

 

billets

 

thermometer

 

Convent

 
degrees
 

blowing

 
slipping
 

staggering

 

hobbling


thirties

 

twenties

 

hospital

 
number
 

deformed

 

expected

 

rheumatism

 

joints

 
terribly
 

mackintoshes


covered

 

blankets

 
sheets
 

ancient

 

respectably

 

fourteen

 
divided
 
struggled
 

corner

 

Westoutre


thereof
 

broken

 

Squeaky

 

remarked

 

Trotting

 

question

 

pulled

 
gracefully
 

shoulder

 
whilst