Читать книгу To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May - David Crane - Страница 42

I am something of a hero today. When I have screwed up my courage to a point where it permits one to face officials, who present forms which I fill up and sign, always feel that I am. And today I have sent off a parcel to you. That entailed a three mile ride, which was joyous, and an interview with a postal official and yellow forms, which was not. And to think that all this writing and signing was all around nothing more offensive than the poor, little, shell-chipped and harmless statuette of St Joseph which I had brought from the old ruined château, of affectionate memory.

And I got hot and excited about it, entered things in the wrong places and had to rewrite the forms, so that I feel sure I have aroused the suspicions of the post people and it is doubtful if the parcel will ever reach you after all. Oh, dear, it is terrible, this war.

We have orders today that we are to split up as a Division and mix ourselves with others which have been out longer.^xv It is a good thing and shows wisdom in the higher command which decreed it. It means stiffening for us in action and the fillip for the older crowd which the introduction of young, fresh and keen troops always produces.

We don’t know when we move yet, and it may not be for a long time but the news is something in that it shows we are not forgotten. It has bucked us all up wonderfully.

I have just heard that I do not get my company back till Monday. Two more days of this sickening idleness. It does not suit me at all. I am like a childless wife, peevish and ill content through having nothing on my hands to look after.