Tag Archives: Vauchelles

6 August 1916; Sunday

August 1916, ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Field service at 11 o’clock and preaching good. Went up by the new little church in the afternoon and commenced reading “List, Ye Landsmen!” by Clark Russell1. Beautiful day and beautiful scenery. Had short walk at night with Duggins. Wrote up diary. Turned in about 9 o’clock. Orders to be up at 4 o’clock in the morning.

  1. William Clark Russell (1844-1911); writer of sea and horror stories. List, Ye Landsmen! (subtitled “A Romance of Incident”) is a seafaring adventure set in the year 1815. See also List, Ye Landsmen! and Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩

5 August 1916; Saturday

August 1916, , ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Did nothing all day. Had boots repaired in the afternoon. Wrote some letters. Went to a little town called Flixecourt1 with Corporal Stanton and Duggins. Beautiful night. Had a feed of chips and eggs. Enjoyed walk back. Thought of home in the pleasant melancholy of the evening. Wonderful scenery and the woods and corn fields were lovely in the setting sun.

  1. Flixecourt (A): 5km SE of Vauchelles-lès-Domart (B), on the D1001 between Abbeville and Amiens. ↩

3 August 1916; Thursday

August 1916, , ,

Up at 5.30. Breakfast at 6 o’clock. I was told off for a waggon. Put my kit up a motor ambulance and went with it to take some Worcesters† to Méricourt Station. Made our lot up and was told to follow them. Went back to Laviéville, got a pack and hurried to Mericourt Stn1 with the others. Entrained then in cattle truck at 10 o’clock. Passed through Amiens. Arrived Longpré about 1.30. Set off to march in the wrong direction. Marched for about 3 hours in the sun and was very much fagged out. Washed feet and legs. Terribly dusty and had a bruise under my right heel. Billeted in a field in a bivouac along with Duggins. Walked round village (Vauchelle2) at night. Had two eggs at one house and a feed at another.

  1. Méricourt-l’Abbé (A) has a railway station where ALL could have boarded a train to pass through Amiens as he describes and travel on to Longpré-les-Corps-Saints (B). ↩

  2. Assuming that Longpré is Longpré-les-Corps-Saints (where ALL had been on 8 June, a week or so after arriving in France), and taking the 3 hours’ march on 3 August into account, “Vauchelle” would seem to be Vauchelles-lès-Domart, 7km NE of Longpré (C); there is also a Vauchelles-lès-Quesnoy (D), on the outskirts of Abbeville (and a Vauchelles-lès-Authie, between Doullens and Albert, as well as a plain Vauchelles near Noyon.)  ↩