Item 04: G. O. Hawkins letters to his family, 2 January 1915-November 1917 - Page 226
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[Page 226]
Somewhere in France
11 November 1917
This morning we are to leave Ypres. Our Colonel hands over to an English Colonel, for the ____Division succeed us. We have put in about 20 days and are now relieved. Our division moves out; we of the D.E.H.Q. staff packed up our boxes of office effects & papers yesterday and practically handed over to officers of the incoming staff so that there is nothing to do but load up the motor lorry when it arrives.
I am up at dawn. A pale grey dawn of serene beauty. There are seas of clear sky and continents of flat cloud in the East. It is all cloud and haze in the west giving doubtful promise of fair weather.
In the pre dawn darkness our cooks had prepared a scanty breakfast of fried bacon and hot tea. I now go to their sloppy lean-to dugout and get what is allowed for four of us and take it into our quarters where the Sergeant the runner, the Colonels batman and I soon dispose of it. We are in candle light