Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

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Malcolm V. Hay. Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST TEN DAYS

II

CHAPTER II. THE RETREAT

II

III

CHAPTER III. CAMBRAI

CHAPTER IV. LE NUMÉRO 106

CHAPTER V. STORIES FROM LE NUMÉRO 106

CHAPTER VI. CAMBRAI TO WÜRZBURG

I

II

III

CHAPTER VII. WÜRZBURG

II

III

IV. EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY, EXPANDED AND EXPLAINED

V

VI

CHAPTER VIII. WÜRZBURG TO ENGLAND

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Malcolm V. Hay

Published by Good Press, 2021

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In the days of peace, when soldiering was mostly confined to a manœuvring space on some open heath, and the route-march along the King's highway, the word "battlefield" had lost its meaning, and was a contradiction in terms in its literal sense. Fields were always "out of bounds." Since landing in France we had not yet lost the fear of cultivated ground, and at every halting-place precautions were taken to prevent troops straying off the highway; and when in billets, entrance into orchards, gardens, and fields surrounding the village was strictly forbidden. We had marched along many miles of long straight dusty road between the pleasant trees, and halted many times by a roadside such as this, when nothing but a shallow ditch and the conventions of soldiering in peace time prevented our entry into potential battlefields. The word of command to fall in had for so many years been followed inevitably by a simple "quick march," and so on to the next halt.

Now, with the command "left wheel, quick march," we left the straight road and entered the cultivated fields, marching across a piece of bare stubble, then over some thickly growing beetroot still wet with dew, and again without hindrance, for there was no fence on all the land; across yet another plot of stubble up to the edge of a large cabbage patch, where two sticks were standing freshly cut, and stuck into the ground as if to mark the stand for guns at a cover shoot.

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