Bring sad thoughts to the mind.”
I saw an English village with a quaint old Norman church, and there, too, the mists were gathering in the meadows round about.
Oct. 28. Now we know why we are here—to train, practise, and rehearse for the crossing of the Scheldt. All the Corps Engineers met in conference in the town and spent the day designing and testing various types of foot-bridge. The men had the pontoons out and the officers spent the day in polishing up their drill. I saw where we crossed the first time in the driving rain, with the machine-guns hammering in the houses in front of us, and I saw the spot where I nursed the first pontoon bridge through an interminable night. But how different now!
A company of Canadian Railway troops were making a permanent bridge on the very spot where my crazy pontoons had all but foundered. A broad-gauge loco was hauling ballast up to the very edge of the river, and a steam pile-driver hissed and chattered over the trestles.
After all, our pontoons had played their part and it was comforting to see how our feeble, vanguard efforts were followed up.
Returned to the farm, I was delighted to hear that the recommendations for Military Medals had passed through—my own D.S.O. has dwindled into another “mention in despatches.”
Oct. 29. More conferences and bridge-building. I have been asked to reconnoitre the existing bridges over the river, and the Huns are half a mile on this side of them! Spent several hours studying maps and aeroplane photos and discussing ways and means.
Oct. 30. More conferences and training. Completed my plans and decided to take Stephens out with me on the night of the 31st.
Oct. 31. At 2.30 p.m. I lay down quite peacefully, intending to sleep until dusk, when I could set out on my venture. I was looking forward to it, and felt perfectly confident.
Just as I was dozing off the orderly corporal came in, bringing, of all things, a warrant for me to go on leave to-morrow. Instantly the whole affair changed, and I was seized with a blue shivering funk. In six hours I was due to go through the German lines, and there, lying on the table was a bit of paper waiting to take me to England in the morning. It was the cruellest stroke of all, for I felt certain that I should never return. I went back to my bunk and sweated and shivered with fear. My mind and my body seemed to be completely separated from each other, and I found it quite impossible to stop the quaking of my limbs. I saw Death in a thousand forms just as on the night before the attack at Courtrai. Sleep was impossible, so I got up at last and wrote these lines with a trembling hand. The others are chipping me about “My Last Will and Testament,” and there is the usual fatuous talk of medals. Day says that if I come back they will roll all my previous non-fructifying recommendations into one and make it a real V.C. at last. Oh! God, if they only knew—and they look to me as a sort of Bayard.—Written at Calais waiting for leave boat.