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[Page 44]
there was not much activity except for the shelling of poor, pretty little Corbie down in the valley. The town is deserted, our men are well ahead of it, and the reason for the strafe isn't apparent. I counted at one time eleven shell bursts in the air and all the time I was working the hanging, black smudges of smoke kept on accumulating. They hung in the air for quite a long time. Down in the valley and to the right, a very big French gun goes off at intervals. They tell me it's piqueted as it is a new, secret gun and no one is allowed to get near it. It's in a wood and from its deafening crack is, I should say, a naval gun. When our men first got to this town the inhabitants had just cleared out, leaving it almost intact - that is - they hadn't time to take any of their possessions and the shops and vegetable gardens and poultry yards were abandoned - as the owners thought - to the Huns. Our boys it was though, who got there first and they made their short stay there a holiday - a festa. During that time they acquired and wore evening dress - swallow tail coats and silk hats, such as French men getting married wear, for some; and low-necked, short sleeved frocks for others; the latter when they could get them wearing women's wigs and make up, elbow length gloves, silk stockings, stays, underwear etc. When they met the Hun, some of them only had on the underwear, but it was the real thing, frilled, with insertion and baby blue or pink ribbons in the proper places. I know of an officer who, missing his way, followed up the sound of a tinkling bell and it led him to a roofless house where, when he got near it, he could hear merry wassail going on. He looked through the door and saw a dozen Australians seated at a table dressed in the height of Picardian fashion and doing themselves remarkably well on turkey and champagne; a quart bottle at the right hand of each digger. A host was at one end and a hostess at the other with lady and gentleman guests on either side. The gentlemen and ladies were each acting their parts, in full evening rig, paying elaborate attention on one hand and simpering – all unshaven - on the other. A butler waited on them! The officer could see them and