Item 03: John Duncan McRae diary, 10 February-6 May 1917 - Page 36

[Page 36]

one feel downcast on such a day! Everything seemed to suggest that the world had decided to commence an era of peace & joy, but even then I heard in imagination the boom of distant guns & the whistling of shells on their message of slaughter, & I thought of the green hills of sunny France bathed in the blood of sacrifice & I saw the glistening tear run down the cheek of many a broken-hearted loved one & the temptation to ask "how long? O Lord! how long?" was upon one's lips, but the freshness of the spring-time breeze, & the perfume of the newly ploughed ground, & the beauty of the cloud-sprayed blue above whispered hopes.

Meanwhile some three ancient milestones found themselves between the wanderer & camp & then his footsteps were guided by fantasy down a narrow country lane, & past farmhouses & farms & fields