Item 06: Frank H. Molony diary, 25 March 1918-7 August 1918 - Page 211

[Page 211]

July 16, 17
268.
Written for and posted – Siegfried Sassoon's "Counter Attack", Theodore Maynard's ""Folly" & J.B. Yeats' "Essay: Irish &amp Amer [American]", to T.B.C.

July 17
269.
Another sunburning day. At 5 away towards Hondeghem and there with the S.A.s till 9, swimming in their pool, there all the others while yarning to one of them, a splendidly built lad golden brown in the sun, with eyes the colour of copper sulphate, and a face burned and finely freckled. Met again those we were with in the earlier evening of June 28 – the dark Dutchman of the S.A.s – he of the slow lazy smile.

Rain again – at 10 p.m. All day long at slow intervals, the booming of the heavies: long distance guns on to the Boche's dumps about the Lep Valley?

Today two Frenchmen cycle 40 miles to the Estaminet here, to tell their people of the Boche attacking in Flanders on the 18th.

No Mail!!!

July 17, 18
Letters to Billy and Mother posted, and today to Aunt Louie the second series of "The Elizabethean Playhouse".

Library now – "Resentment", "Songs of a Campaign", "English Cathedrals", "Building Construction", Keats & Brooke.

270.
"One who died"
Eight days suns and rains & troubled nights,
And now the grasses slow
About your body grow,
Quietly she dreams, remembering your smile,
And you lie dead the while.
To "Aussy".

July 18
271.
A sky of green hazing to blue: above Cassel one long thin cloud line of deep full blue: the trees of the camp's field still and of silent loveliness. An hour ago in the pool, and the water still warm from the day's sun.

Midday brought a wire from the Aisne-Marne front of French successes against the Boche's attack in force, and tonight another of further advances – 4000 prisoners and the Boche artillery retiring.

Today the guns quiet, the guns firing of yesterday all harassing. No mail.