A Tell-tale Diary
I found this diary on a German officer we had captured:
July 20: At last the day! To have lived to see it! We are ready. Let him come who may. The world race is destined to be German.
August 11: And now for the English, used to fighting farmers. To-night William the Greater has given us beautiful advice. You think each day of your Emperor. Do not forget God. His Majesty should remember that in thinking of him we think of God, for is he not the Almighty’s instrument in this glorious fight for right?
August 20: The conceited English have ranged themselves up against us at absurd odds, our airmen say.
August 25: An English shell burst on a Red Cross wagon to-day. Full of English. Ha! ha! serve the swine right. Still, they fight well. I salute the officer who kept on swearing at Germany and her Emperor in his agony. And then to ask calmly for a bath. These English! We have hardly time to bury our own dead, so they are being weighted in the river: Pte. Crow, 2nd Seaforth Highlanders.
[V. CAMPAIGNING IN GENERAL]
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing grey,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away?
Thomas Hardy.
It is a rough life, getting food the best way you can, and cooking it all ways. One morning we were cooking some rabbits and the Germans surprised us, so we had to leave quick: Corpl. Prickard, 11th Hussars.