——and fifty miles away the guns!
June 16. Sunday. Received orders to proceed to Corps Gas School for a course of training in Anti-Gas Warfare, etc. Went with ten other officers in a lorry from Brigade H.Q., and persuaded our driver (20 francs) to get lost in St. Omer. We had an excellent four-course lunch in approved civilian style, and on arrival at the school at 3 p.m. well——
“Since ’twas very clear,
We drank only ginger beer;
Faith, there must have been
Some stingo in the ginger.”
June 17. Spent a quiet restful day, work starting at 9 a.m. and finishing at 4 p.m. Wrote letters in the evening and early to bed.
June 18. Had a very interesting day making gas attacks and committing sundry other barbarities—among them walking round a room smelling bottles and trying to identify the contents by their stinks—my nose feels as if the world were composed of one vast unmentionable stink! In the evening went for an hour’s march in gasmasks—what sublime, unutterable joy to get them off again!
June 19. Nothing doing at the School, so we made up a party and again tasted the somewhat bitter-sweets of semi-civilisation.
June 20. Boring day—fed up.