Cocks letter diary, 1916-1919 / Verner Cocks - Page 141
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 141]
who seem very poor & very amiable. I find my French comes in very useful. I am quite an interpreter. We are having a fine journey, seeing everything as the train goes along, leaving it at one end of a village walking through buying coffee & eatables & pick it up again further on.
Passed through Rouen on the Seine R going to Abbéville to Calais to Hazeebrouke [Hazebrouck], to Armentiéres, the quiet [?] part of the line for experience & then to the Somme. I must try & get a Tommy going on leave to post this - it would never pass the censor. This journey is proving to be a wonderful experience - we are seeing all the country - have travelled five miles this morning in five hours - chaps shave & wash in the waterholes on the wayside, tour the villages & spout French to all the passers by. Night time is the worst when we have to lie down, 35 of us in a small cattle truck - it would be terrible only for the humour of the thing & the fine chaps. As it is it is just the opposite - plenty of fun, bully beef & biscuits. We are very near Abbéville now. Goodbye for the present.
Love from Verner