It was barred to all officers for certain
hours of the day without special permits from the A.P.M., who made
trouble in granting them. Three Scottish officers rode down into
Cassel. They had ridden down from hell-fire to sit at a table covered
with a table-cloth, and drink tea in a room again. They were refused
permission, and their language to me about the A.P.M. was unprintable.
They desired his blood and bones. They raised their hands to heaven to
send down wrath upon all skunks dwelling behind the lines in luxury
and denying any kind of comfort to fighting-men. They included the
P.M. in their rage, and all staff-officers from Cassel to Boulogne,
and away back to Whitehall.
To cheer up the war correspondents' mess when we assembled at night
after miserable days, and when in the darkness gusts of wind and rain
clouted the window-panes and distant gun-fire rumbled, or bombs were
falling in near villages, telling of peasant girls killed in their
beds and soldiers mangled in wayside burns, we had the company
sometimes of an officer (a black-eyed fellow) who told merry little
tales of executions and prison happenings at which he assisted in the
course of his duty.
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