State Library of NSW
[Page 88]
been marvellously worked. Stories told by the Tommies give tales of orders issued which led to confusion – orders, in some cases, for withdrawal. A A.S.C. man told me that his unit got orders to go to Peronne; could not find out why they were there, or to whom they had to report; then somehow – the information came in such a way that noone knew who was responsible, where sent back to Corbie, where they were furiously told that they should not be there & were ordered forward to Bray.His story that cyclists in Tommy uniforms have been scouring the country warning the people to evacuate, with the result that the roads becoming congested with fleeing people & their goods hampered reinforcements for the line and supply columns is amply corroborated by others. The place is full of stories about spies being caught & summarily shot. One of them says that a man dressed as a major who came to an Australian unit of the second division with an instruction that they were to withdraw was shot dead by a junior officer; and inquiries justified the officers action; no such instruction was authorised, & the man was a spy.
The A.S.C. man told me some yarns about the deserted villages ahead. In Corbie, hearing a commotion in a house, they broke in (he & others) & found that before the owners fled they had locked
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