Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 48
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[Page 43]
is over and the winners are given a rousing cheer.
Chapter VII, England
We sighted some islands on the 20th December, said to be the Azores. They were a goodly distance off, showing faintly blue against the skyline. We are getting close to the the old land now, and every day it gets colder.
On Christmas night we sighted the coasts of England and next morning we were anchored in the harbour of Devonport, it was midwinter and the shores of the harbour were bleak and barren looking and oh! how we shivered after for 2 weeks before, we were in the Tropics.
The hammocks were all collected the night before and we shivered all the night of Christmas eve on the bare decks. We landed about 2 o'clock and entrained for somewhere around Salisbury plains. I imagined myself speeding along at 60 miles an hour, but that train fairly crawled and worse still stopped at every station en route. We arrived at our destination at about 9 o'clock at night, and proceeded to mar on getting out of the train we stood about in the drizzle