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Saturday 4 December 2010

Diary Entry - 4th December, 1915

The captain sent me down to the wagon line on one of his horses, with his groom. Kellagher, who is going to Béthune, accompanies me and shows me the way. The wagon line lies in the little village called Beuvry about two miles from Cambrin. We found Captain Griffith in his billet and he showed me round the lines. The things that strike one are the muck and the filth of the place, which have been counteracted as well as possible with bricks, and the fitness of the horses. The wagons look to be in a dilapidated condition, as they are exposed to all the weather. In the course of the morning, I met the Sergeant Major and asked him to pick me out two horses and a groom and send them along, which he said he would do in the afternoon. I am told the Bosch shelled the place on the afternoon of the third with 4.2s and 77 mms and I saw a couple of holes behind the sick horses' lines. I returned to the mess for lunch and joined Siggers at the guns in the afternoon. About three, the Bosch put six pipsqueaks in the vicinity of the tourbières loop and La Bassée road, but they burst too high to do much damage. Thus ends the day.

4 comments:

  1. Ah, a bit of the world we know from history is seeping into his tale. Still hard to contemplate grooms, though.

    Now, I finally, need to work up a google map. I need to be able to see all this in my mind's eye in more detail.

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  2. I have set up a Google Map showing Walford's location. I have posted it up on my Plumbing blog at http://jstorry.blogspot.com/2010/12/walford-manifolds-ww1-diary.html

    If this is not to your liking, I am quite willing to take it down from my blog, and just keep it for my own private viewing. Just let me know ...

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  3. You are absolutely wonderful - I am going to put up a post with the link right now. Please, if you can be bothered, do also alert me where spellings of place names come out wrong. Sometimes I find the writing hard to read.

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  4. My pleasure. 'If I can be bothered' - never question that. I am quite fascinated with this unfolding of family history in such a very special way.

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