A Company of Tanks

Ith CORP

to Decemb

gin to show, and passed by the square and the church and that trap for despatch-riders where the chemin-de-fer vicinal crosses to the left of the road from the right, you would have come to a scrap of orchard on your left where the British cavalrymen are buried

ntre of the room. She never would sit down except to eat and sew, but would always stand by her stove. Papa sits comfortably, with legs straight out, smoking a pipe of caporal and reading the 'Telegramme.' Julienne, pretty like a sparrow, with quick brown eyes, jerky movements, and fuzzy hair, the flapper from t

es, with the solemnity of ritual, a battered water-bottle. He looks at Papa, who gravely nods, and a few drops from the

ghter out of Richebourg St Vaast; of the oddities and benevolence of M. le Maire. Adrienne discusses learnedly the merits of the Divisions who have been billeted in the village. She knows their names and numbers from the time the Lahore Division came in 1914.1 We wonder what are these heavy armoured motor-cars of a new t

eir linen, and some furniture on the big waggon, and set out for Hinges?-?Bethune was shelled and full of gas. I wonder if they took with them the phot

list Battalion, which I commanded, was ordered to reinforce a battalion of the 5th Division in the line at Givenchy and another of my companies to repair the old British line by Festubert, and to work on the "islands,"2 I determined to move

re. Old Maman, understanding that I was too tired to live, would drag out with great trouble grandfather's arm-chair, pla

914, protected the left flank of the advancing 5th Division, through Gorre, with its enormous ramshackle chateau, and along the low and sordid banks of the La Bassée C

h the low ridge of Givenchy on my left, unti

ugh the farm-buildings of Canteleux to the cottages of Violaines, whence you looked across open fields to the sugar factory, which so greatly troubled us, and the clustered red walls of La Bassée. The Cheshires held Violaines. They were driven out by a sudden attack in November. The line broke badl

two years later, the 5th

re is a little story about his headquarters. A smell developed, and they dug hard, thinking it came from a corpse. The sergeant-major discovered th

Red Dragon Crater. Afterwards I would walk through the complicated defences of

uth of the canal must crumble and the left flank of the Loos salient would be in the air. But the attack did not come u

s, where the water in the summer is just below the surface. It is dreary country,

old British line, for in these marshes it was impo

were drowned. Behind were dead level meadows, often covered with water, and dismal ruined villages. The country was filth

of Givenchy and immediately south of the La Bassée Canal. It was a unique and damnable sector, in w

detect, made life miserable. Occasionally we tried to take each other's brick-stacks, but these attempts were unsuccessful, and we settled down, each as uncomfortable as he well could be. And in this sector the enemy employed minenwerfer with the utmost enterprise. Our trenches were literally blown to pieces. In the daytime we ran about like disturbed a

On this rail material was slung and conveyed forwards. It was an excellent substitute for a light railway, but it compelled a tall man to walk along the trench with his head on one side. This s

our casualties were few, but it was a trying time. A

the XIth Corps front was th

able. The restaurants were varied and good. The patisserie was famous before the war. The oyster-bar approached that of Lillers. I know of but one coiffeur better than "Eugene's." The shops provided for eve

irl of fourteen, with dark admiring eyes, waited on me. She was charmingly hindered by Annette, a child of three or four, who with due gravity managed to push some bread on to my table and thus break a plate. When I returned in the summer of 1916, I expected that I would at least be recognised. I found th

hostelry, at which the staff and French officials congregated. When

and 1917 it was wiser to try the "Paon d'Or" in the outskirts of the town, near the canal. At that stuffy restau

, and a belief that all her customers required verbal entertainment. It was touching to see madame seat herself briskly beside a morose colonel who kn

reater friend to the soldier for a brief period out of th

en have called it smart, after Wiggans, my adjutant, had cleared away the midden-heap, drained the courtyard, and had whitewashed everything that would take the

eltered by large trees. At the best of times the ditches were full of soaking flax, which gave out a most pungent odour. After rain the ditches overflowed and flooded the

g little black pony and I of a staff officer's discarded charger. In spite of the dreariness of our surroundings, we felt almost alive at the end of an afternoon's splash over water-logged fields. Nobody could damp Wiggans' cheerfulness when he returned with a yet

remedies had been provided. We learned from an officer, who had met the quartermaster of a battalion that had been on the Somme, the approximate shape and appearance of tanks. We pictured them and wondered what a cyclist battalion could do against

the Corps area. Most of my officers and men were under somebody else's command. I sent in an application for transfer to the heavy branch o

cheered a depressed battalion, but there was at the time no likelihood of the mildest excitement. Hamond had disappeared suddenly?-?it was rumo

his latest acquisition in the shafts, bedecked with some second-hand harness

wimming-bath was consequently crowded. The oyster-bar provided a slight feminine interest as well as particularly fine marennes verts. Lillers was an army headquarters. Like all towns so fated it bristled with neat notices, clean

child of uncertain age, who, with or without encouragement, would climb on to the piano-stool and pick out simple tunes with one fing

yself were thrown on board, and alighted at the next sta

offensive of April 1918, and gained everlasting honour by holding back the enemy, when the Portuguese withdrew, until our infan