Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 4]
to. They'll give a good account of themselves or I'm a Dutchman. We got to the boat in good time, but she started late. Once started though, she didn't waste much time. Three T.B.D.'s, one ahead and one each flanking us rushed along to shepherd us and, well ahead, scouted a silver-queen dirigeable. A brisk wind blew and the little airship most of the time was beating up against it obliquely. There seemed to be a good bit of channel traffic, but what it was I couldn't say. None of the vessels we saw were escorted. They looked like tramps and trawlers. Of course the boat we were on was crowded; packed full of khaki; and a fair number of women - nurses, V.A.D.'s, W.A.A.Cs, and more civilians. The first thing we saw at Boulogne was a couple of wrecked planes - one on the water and another which appeared to have crashed on a low bit of cliff. Otherwise the initial glimpse didn't reveal anything specially warlike. Our bulky traps handicapped us in getting off and once on the pier the distance to the quay seemed immense. We alternately lugged and carried them until we struck an A.M.L.O., a gentleman whose tunic must have been made for him by a Patagonian or Thibetan tailor. It was about half a foot too long for him and looked like some kind of fancy hunting coat. Perhaps it was once the fashion in Ruritania. I told him that we were to report to him and he would set us on our way, but, as we were special cases, he was at once gravelled and played for safety by deciding to send us along in the ordinary way. That's why it has taken me a week to get here instead of a day. All the other "other ranks" who had come across on the boat had by this time moved off to march to the rest camp at Osterhove, called by the Australians "Starvation Camp" or "One-blanket Hill". This A.M.L.0. said we would have to follow them and calling two sergeants, told them to escort us to the station, there to leave our luggage until we left for Havre. This gave us a chill. It meant travelling the two sides of an inverted isoceles triangle to reach from one point to the other of the base! To get our impedimenta to the station we hired a crapulous looking son of Gaul, Who had never let the repression of absinthe weigh on his mind - he had discovered satisfactory