Disheartening

It was at Locon that we first made our acquaintance with French beer. I can think of no sight more depressing than that of a healthy British “Tommy” seated in an estaminet[1], gloomily absorbing pint after pint of that thin, sour beverage in the pious hope that he might attain to a reasonable state of intoxication before it made him sick.

But of course he never did. Even if he mixed his drinks with vin blanc or vin rouge, he only succeeded in making himself frightfully ill. And to add insult to injury, at an adjoining table a couple of the “natives” would have attained to a state of heavenly intoxication after a couple of drinks.

It was all most disheartening.

We rejoined our unit only to learn that the battery was already in the line, having reinforced the 119th Battery instead of relieving them as originally planned. “Apparently (to use the words of the official diary) they think the Bosche may attack”.For the same reason all the gunnery NCO’s rode up to the guns on the following day in charge of the first-line wagons loaded with ammunition.

On our way up we had our first baptism of fire when a section salvo of 5·9s dropped in Beuvry[2] as we passed through, demolishing several cottages.Against orders we went through the village at a canter, narrowly escaping a disaster of our own making when one of the limbers flew open depositing several 18-pounder H.E. shells under the hoofs of the following wagon team. By some miracle, however, not a single one went off.