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Page 48
We paraded, and marched off to work. The continuous roar gradually gave
place to irregular, though frequent, outbursts of firing along the
entire front.
The next day the sound seemed to have come nearer. Rumours began to
circulate--it was said that Armenti�res had fallen, that the Portuguese
had been annihilated at Merville, that the British had counter-attacked
and taken Lille.
Rations, newspapers and letters were delayed. Large bodies of troops
passed through the village. We got no definite or official news, and
nobody had any clear notion of what was happening.
But the sound of firing grew louder and louder and our anxiety deepened.
There could no longer be any doubt about it--the Germans were advancing
on our front.
The sickening certainty transcended all other considerations. A few
miles from us thousands were being slaughtered. I ceased to ponder the
problems of failure and success. I forgot the politicians and was
conscious of only one despairing wish, that the terrible thing might
come to an end. Victory and defeat seemed irrelevant considerations. If
only the end would come quickly--nothing else really mattered.
I often wondered what was in the minds of the other men. Many of them
looked anxious, but on the whole they were normal in their behaviour.
They grumbled and quarrelled much as usual and talked rather more than
usual--but so did I, in spite of my intense mental agitation.
The sound of firing grew louder.
We marched to an extensive R.E. park and saw-mill near a railway siding.
We had to dismantle the machinery and load everything of any value on to
a train. For several hours five of us dragged a huge cylinder and piston
along the ground. We toiled and perspired. We made a ramp of heavy
wooden beams in front of the train and then we slowly pushed the iron
mass into a truck. We went back and, raising a big fly-wheel on its edge
and supporting it with a wooden beam under each axle, we rolled it
painfully along, swaying from side to side.
Then there came the long-drawn familiar whine, and the black smoke arose
behind some trees a hundred yards away and the thunder-clap followed. A
jagged piece of steel came whizzing by and lodged in a stack of timber
behind us.
We pushed the wheel up the ramp and returned to fetch heavy coils of
wire, bundles of picks and shovels, sacks and barrels of nails. Our
backs and shoulders ached, our hands and finger-tips were sore.
Another shell came whining over. It burst by a little cottage. Its
thunder made our ears sing. The fragments of flying metal made us duck
or scatter behind the stacks.
We worked until we almost dropped with sheer fatigue. Iron rods and bars
for reinforcing pill-boxes, bags of cement, boxes of tools, parts of
machinery, all went on to the train. Then we entered a big shed, where
a number of tar-barrels stood in a row. We rolled them out and placed
them by the timber stacks. We laid a pick beside each barrel so that it
could be broached, the tar set alight, and the entire park destroyed at
a moment's notice.
It was dark when we stopped work. We reached camp after an hour's
wearisome marching. We waited in a long queue outside the cook-house.
The cooks served out the greasy stew as quickly as they could, but we
were so tired and ill-tempered that we shouted abuse at them without
reason and without being provoked, and banged our plates and tins. The
war, the advance, the slaughter were forgotten. We were conscious of
nothing but weariness, stiffness, and petty irritation.
The following day we marched to a ration dump. The wooden cases of
rations were piled up in gigantic cubes, so that the entire dump looked
like a town of windowless, wooden buildings. We formed one long file
that circled slowly past the stacks, each man taking one case on to his
shoulder or back and carrying it to the train. And so we circled round
and round throughout the monotonous day.
In the evening I did not wait in the dinner queue, but went to the St.
Martin. It was kept by an old woman and her two daughters. They were
tortured by anxiety:
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