Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 63
Primary tabs
Error message
No active batch.Transcription
[Page 63]
I went down into the suburbs of Calais it is pretty much the same as English towns. I went through the boneyard which is a very good one, it made one think of a part of ,"Zala's 'L'Assomoir", old fritz's must have thought of something else for he had lobbed a couple of bombs in it, and blown a few tombstones up.
I don't like Calais though it is full of "Gardens of Eden" (licensed houses) wretchedly immoral places" and beershops, I like nice towns not "hells".
At last, we have been issued with 120 rounds of ammunition, and rations. We were lined up, and marched off to the railway station, about 4 miles with those infernal packs up, and boarded cattle trucks and lumbered away to the front, via Boulonge Etaples, and Abbeyville. They say our troops are down this way near Amiens. On the road down I saw some of the most barren land it has ever been my lot to see sandunes bare except for tufts of coarse grass here and there.
The train stopped just after dark and we got out and tramped for what seemed miles and miles along the road to the French village of Vignacourt where we were billeted in a farm stables. French farmhouses are not built on sanitary lines at all.