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[Page 47]
left the line, after 16 days "in" . We marched to Bendigo Camp, about 5 or 6 miles, & here put the night in. Next day we marched to the train near by, and proceeded to a village some miles back called Ribemont. He [here] we turned in to billets. It was like heaven to us. We were paid, and the village shops, kept by French women, did a roaring trade. Porridge & other wholesome & filling foods the boys bought in plenty, and cooked in all kinds of improvised stoves. The sick parade however, was very large and minor ailments of all kinds showed how the hardships of the line had found the weak spots. Perhaps bad feet and diarrhoea were the most prevalent. But in a marvellously short time we had the dirt off and were again looking as tho' we were really capable of giving Fritz trouble.
For three days we did practically nothing. After that, a programme of drill, parade ground drill was arranged, and we settled down. The afternoons were spent in the football field, at which our Battalion proved champion of the Brigade, both in the Officers & Men's match. The billets were of the roughest kind. How different to all I had imagined . We simply occupied the unused barns & outhouses of the villagers. We rarely saw the owners.
But the real comfort was to be among the Estaminets, Boulangeries, and shops again, and to be able to supplement our army rations. We were taken too, to the divisional baths at Healy, a village not far away, and here had a much needed warm bath and change of underclothes. But oh! a few nights in those billets and we were as "chatty" as ever. The rats too are simply the cheekiest things I have met among the rodent tribe. They walk on your chest while asleep, and eat your rations unless you hang them from the roof. But they are not so bad as in the dugouts & trenches where the live in hoardes.