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[Page 68]
be completed; the lack of accommodation; the looking after traps; the want of help and the insignificance of one's non-commissioned self all of which tend to limit production: both as to quality and quantity. Not knowing how much those in authority require of one, one tries to do too much and makes a bungle of things which ordinarily one would easily do well. As, if successful, we are on for the duration, it would be by far the best plan to let us pick and choose carefully and bank on quality, I have tried to do both and I'm afraid as the flying men say that I've "come a thud". It is shameful to think that one I know should have a path of gold for the exploitation of his kind of art just because his rank differs from mine. The one I think of is wildly enthusiastic and complacently boastful of the deference paid to him by those in authority, and, so would I be.. But, even after getting the com, (if I do) I will have little prestige in the unit where everyone, from batman up, knows me as "Mac" and most of them think me a sort of assistant or understrapper to Fullwood and Leist.
France, Villers Brettonneux, 8/8/18.
I have just had the pleasure of walking on ground that this morning was occupied by the Hun. This is the day of a vast success and out matchless boys have taken a glorious part in it. The enemy has been taken by surprise and towelled up in masterly fashion. The prisoners have been coming in in thousands. They were swooped on and swept up, unable to offer any resistance – "driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing". The cages were too few and small to hold them and they were put in charge of drovers and pushed off down the road in a never-ending column. All day long there has been unprecedented air activity, the sky dotted with an unbelievable number of machines, while the roads were crammed with wagons, armoured cars, tanks, lorries and motor cars. The day has been one great crescendo of success. Every goal aimed at has been won and with, on our side, few casualties. An immense number of vehicles of all kinds were pulled up on either side of the main