| A WOUNDED TANK This Tank got hit as it was walking over a house in Flers. They covered it up with tarpaulins to prevent the Hun aeroplanes from obtaining too much information about it. The black stuff is shrapnel. The pink clouds are sent up by crumps as they explode amongst the remains of the brick houses. |
November 1.
It's a superb day, and we are back at ——, one of our old billets, right away from the beastliness. And although leave won't be for another week or two, still, it will come soon. And Swallow is in tremendous spirits.
Here is a drawing done surreptitiously of a tank in full view of Fritz. You see those little stumps of trees? Well, I'll tell you what those are called when we meet, and also what village is just on their left. You may say it was stupid to sit in full view of Fritz, but it was the day after an advance, and there's hardly ever anything doing then in the way of sniping. The guns, of course, are all pooping off, but they weren't shelling just there, so it was quite safe. This drawing gives you some idea of the desolation, but none of the unevenness of the ground. You can't walk in a bee-line for three yards without getting into a hole. The last time I was in those parts, by the way, I came on a rather jolly cottage wineglass that had been thrown out into some soft mud, and was not even cracked.
November 6.
COCQUEREL
An extraordinary change. Let me now give you an idea.
We are in a pretty little country village miles and miles away, and (although one of Fritz's aeroplanes flew over the church as bold as brass just before we got in) the quiet and peace of the place is very refreshing. And, droll to relate, I'm writing this in bed, with a touch of flu—such a bed, too, all soft and billowy. In ordinary life it would be condemned as a "feather" bed, but now it is a bed for princes.
And the room. A rather dark old-fashioned paper, an old clock ticking, an old shining chest of drawers with a marble top, and clothes hanging on pegs. Hale has arranged the pistol, and ammunition, and maps, and gas helmets, and steel helmet, and spare kit, with great elaboration, all over the room. At the present moment he is "sweeping out" with the appropriate hissing noises. The dust will, I hope, subside during the course of the day.