Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 109]
Stenwerck & La Becque
4/7/16
Near Jesus Farm the 23rd had their cookers all at work ready to dish up a meal of bacon & tea. Lay down on the ground and had a long wait until about 4 am. Nearly all of us were fast asleep lying in equipment. Roused and pushed on in the growing dawn, all the men labouring hard under their heavy packs and feeling the foot soreness very much.
Passing showers wet us as we came into Stenwerck. This is a quaint little town with a fine church. The sound of bells ringing was home like. From here the country becomes remarkably pretty and much like Roquetoire. All the wheat and oat crops are heavy in ear and there are also acres of beans and other greens. The whole landscape is a delightful emerald green most restful to the eye.
Winding roads and lanes with hedges and tree fringed brooks add to the delight of this scene. The houses are all old and pretty looking very neat and comfortable and not blown about and ruined like those we are by now quite used to seeing.
On the outskirts of the town we got into single file and wound our way through a pretty little overrun path and them among the growing crops. The fellows were just about done up by now and could hardly struggle into the billets. To our disgust the billet we were to put the men in was a barn that was not fit to be the habitation of pigs far less of men. A lousy filthy place wet and reeking. To crown all after their 10 mile march there was no breakfast! The transport had been messed up with contradictory orders and there was no food for the boys.
I was raging & stormed up to the C.O. and got things properly stirred up. Gave Sgt [indecipherable] 20 francs to buy food for the men and later went out in heavy rain and allotted decent billets to which we moved later! As soon as possible after arrival all threw themselves down on hard floors and slept like tops without any covering at all. Hardened veterans now.
A noticeable feature in the fields was little thatched haycocks like stooks of hay, some of the buildings farmhouses &c. are very old and bear the date on their walls by means of light coloured bricks let in to the brickwork.
The little shrines by the roadside in some cases look very old but the earliest date noticed on one was 1852. In the cemeteries one notices that all tombstones are wooden and dates all recent. This is accounted for by the fact that the grounds continually being reused the graves being all dug up every five years and the bones removed. No one is allowed to buy land in perpetuity here.