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[Page 8]
On a very frosty morning we left that village on a 3 or 4 mile march to a rendezvous where we were to be picked up by a fleet of French Motor'Busses. It was amusing to note the busy eagerness of our "Allemand" hostess in helping us away, no doubt glad to be well rid of us, before the boys should have accomplished their jesting announcement on making a general conflagration of the premises.
After the usual wait in the stinging frosty air, the 'busses arrived driven by goat skin covered French and Algerian drivers. In an orderly manner we were embarked and were quite comfortable. We rod for hours - through Abbeville, Amiens and almost to Albert where "the push" started from. Here we camped in a village in a great windy barn with no straw. It was a very frosty night and with one blanket and lying so closely together as possible it was almost impossible to keep warm. The floor was just white dust, but it was dry. I was always a good eater and it took something to turn me from food, but in civil life I was always somewhat fastidious about my personal clothing, its cleanliness and I abhorred dirt on my hands and was very particular whom I chose to sit near. (O Youth) I wonder will I be as particular in later years, or will it have that boomerang effect of making one more fastidious than ever. Ugh! In your reasonable senses imagine hobnobbing with some of the scum of the public houses. But here I was charitable, "A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind".
Reveillé had us astir early and we were soon tramping on towards the increasing roar of guns. Now as we advanced became more apparent the evidence of what was doing ahead. Streams of men and transports so tightly packed that it took us hours to go a few miles, so slowly could we go ahead. Fresh troops and supplies going in. Worn and haggard mud-bespattered troops and empty wagons coming out. Lining this road were batches of German prisoners repairing the road, and it was strange to see some of them though guarded walking about as if they were Allies, nobody apparently paying any heed to them. Similarly with prisoners I have seen before and since, they were a fairly well built
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