It was rather inclined to rain at eleven in the morning when I set out for the wagon line, but it kept off till the afternoon. My old black nag was full of buck when we started, so we had a nice little canter along the footpath. On arriving at the line, the horses were all filing off to water, and I just caught a glimpse of Griffith making for the troughs along the canal bank. I pursued him, and we went on and watched the horses watering and then returned to see them feed, inspecting a billet on the way back. Griffith was brave enough to go into the billet, which was a loft above a Frenchwoman's house, but I was driven out by the odour. Really, you never got a smell on "Stink Flat" to compete with it. And, to top the whole thing, the old woman and a child came up to the top of the steps and blocked my passage, and it was a case of 'your child is no violet'. At one, I rode back to the Mess for lunch, and it just commenced to rain as I got in. It was wet all the afternoon, and I wrote letters and wrote the diary up. In the evening, we were pleased to hear that the gas show had been put off for a second time, and so we did not have to stay up all night. After firing a salvo of H.E. into Auchy, I retired to bed.
Wonder what 'Stink Flat' is? Somewhere over here? When I lived in the Hunter Valley as a child we had an area called 'dead cow gulch' (called by we kids!) and maybe he has an area of stinkwort in mind.
ReplyDeleteI think it must be a bit of the property where he grew up - and yes, probably some horrible smelly plant grew on it, don't you think?
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