To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May - David Crane

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I am exceedingly pleased with mine. It was just the thing I wanted but couldn’t find. I have already written you the first note on it and have no doubt but that I will finish the pad on you, my dear girlie.

      I wonder what you are doing tonight and of what you are thinking. My darling soul, when shall we meet again. When will the time come that we can once more set up our home and recommence our life of utter happiness. Ah, Maudie, how little I realised where happiness lay till this old war came along and it was denied me. How limited is a man’s mind. It does not allow him to enjoy life in the present but only to realise what moments have meant to him by looking back on them when they have passed. At any rate it has been so with me.

      8.45 p.m. Fresh orders have just arrived. The 5.30 a.m. idea is now off and we do not move till 11.40. Thank heaven for its mercies and also for the forethought which led me to sneak the Second-in-Command’s blankets after he had left yesterday. I look like having a warm night’s sleep after all.

      10th November ’15

      At last we are under way. But our journey is destined not to be a straightforward one.ix

      We came like birds as far as Folkestone, even to the pier of that town. But there we stopped. A Scotch major met us with the announcement that the Channel is closed and that we must stop the night in Folkestone billets.

      A long march out into the night is the result with a longer halt on the Leasx where the wind blows chill and people say nasty things about the Army in whispers. The men were great. Never a murmur out of them after they had been warned that all was to be treated as night operations.

      Our billets were eventually allotted and we got the fellows into several large empty houses – 150 in each. They are right as trivets.xi We officers dropped on a top-hole billet also. A large boarding house where guests were non est before our advent.xii

      They hunted up steak and chips for us and what with this and a whiskey and soda to wash it down, we are happy as bugs in a blanket and quite satisfied with the war up to now. Don Murray, D. S. Murrayxiii and myself share a room where we have sheets and a cheval glass.xiv Corn in Egypt, I have not known such luxury since I left you, my sweetheart, and it has a most heartening effect upon one.

      Especially is this so after my journey down. I came with Major Merriman and he, poor fellow, is rather depressing. I think he is obsessed with the idea that he is going to be shot. He is rather mournful about everything. I am no good in that attitude. The rest of the boys are so bright, God bless them. And yet I have no doubt but what the chances are the same for all of us.

      If we don’t get away tomorrow I am going to try and find Miss Carey’sxv and see her for you. I’d be tickled to death to meet her after all you have told me of her.

       Chapter 1

       ‘And all because it is war!’

      11–27 November 1915

      11th November ’15

      At last we are in France! We had no word in Folkestone of what they wanted us to do until 3 p.m. Then it came in a hurry that we were to embark at 4 p.m. A rush and a hurry and then the job was done, the whole battalion getting aboard intact. It was a good passage till about ten minutes out from here but then we ran into the rain.i At 3.30 p.m. the battalion finally sailed, with destroyer escort, for Boulogne.

      What rain! Bow-wow. And it must have been going all day. They have put us into tents on the top of a hill and the whole place is a quag with running streams feet deep all about it.ii

      We are soaked to the skin and cheery as the devil. Cotton, Don Murray, Bowlyiii and myself are in one tent all cuddled up close together for warmth. 10.20 p.m.

      Townsendiv has just poked his head under the flap and asked for shelter. The CO’s tent has blown down and its three occupants are hunting for homes. We have taken Towny in and he is now cheerily pessimistic, wondering why he joined the Army and expressing the wish that his mother could see him now.

      We are a happy party, even though wet.

      My stars, what strange creatures men are. Six months ago and half these fellows would have been half dead with less than half this dampness and now here we are happy as Larry and busily preparing for sleep. And all because it is war!

      12th November ’15, 8.10 a.m.

      What a night it has been! Rain in torrents and a gale which sent the camp dustbins hurtling along the ground to fetch up with a bang against the sides of various tents, the occupants of which thereupon effectively contrived to make the night yet more hideous by heartfelt and lurid cursing.

      Twice we had to get up and re-peg down our frail home, but at length we got it more or less secure and were able to get to sleep.

      The men have stood it very well and everyone is cheerful this morning in the chill, dry breeze.

      We officers are being cared for in the Salvation Army hut where the two young women in charge have proved good Samaritans indeed, getting Bowly and myself hot tea and some warm water wherein to wash. We already had gruesome shaves in our tents and now feel fit as fiddles.

      I believe we leave here at 9.30 for a 48 hours train journey.v We hear a rumour we go to the Argonne. If so, the St Omer tale falls heavily to earth.

      [Later]

      Neither Argonne nor St Omer has materialized but we are here, off the beaten track, but close to Amiens and within thirty miles of the new Arras front, for which we are destined. We have had a truly awful day. It has, of course, rained but that is a minor evil now. The train journey was slow and uncomfortable but at length we got to Pont-Remy. There we started to march and there the fun began. The men were beat. A night with no sleep and soaked to the skin they had little heart for a twelve mile slog, overloaded as they were.

      Then the guides took us three miles wrong and we had to about turn just at dusk. No one knew where we were for or how to get there, the guides being a pair of damn fools. However, the CO got us right at last and we went slowly forward again.

      I handed B over to Don Murray and was sent to the rear with the doctor.vi Don Murray did well. He is a good chap for his job.

      The Doc & I have had an appalling time.vii He is a regular nailer is the Doc and I admire him from the bottom of my heart.

      The men fell out in bunches till at last we were left on an open plain with 60 footsore men, separated from the battalion and utterly lost.

      I bet there will be some grey hairs to show for the night’s adventure. The men were so done that they sneaked away from us and hid where they could lie down in the wet and sleep. We dug ’em out and booted them on and in the end we got here, bringing every straggler with us.viii

      I hope I may long be spared a similar tour.

      Don & I are now billeted in a large French house from which the family is absent, and are happy as Larry now the day is over.

      13th November ’15

      A busy and a good day. It has not rained. Let that be noised abroad. Our village is small and poor on the whole but we have sorted out good billets for both officers and men. The latter for the most part are in lofts and barns with plenty of dry, warm straw to lie on.

      They are well fed and rested & the trying tour of yesterday is now only a memory to be talked about to wondering friends and relatives when the war is over and the beer of peace foams in the

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