大象传媒

[Part of an account by Jeffrey Jackson, slightly edited by L Jackson.]

"We marched to Crewkerne station, and went by train to Southampton, where we boarded a ship bound for Cherbourg, arriving there after a fairly uncomfortable night crossing. I thus arrived in France early in October 1939. On the French side, we went by train via Alen莽on to a place called Sill茅-le-Guillaume in the department of the Sarthe. Our transport had got there before us, and I was on guard over it (it was parked in the For锚t de Sill茅) together with a gloomy Scot.

The next day, we started to move by road to our permanent position in northern France, which turned out to be the town of Bailleul (always referred to as Balloo), near Arras. The surroundings were grim in the extreme, especially in winter. This is (or was) an area in which sugar beet is the main crop, and also one in which coal mining was the main industry (I remember going to the pit-head baths at one mine for a shower). The winter of 1939-40 was extremely cold, and water for washing, always kept in sawn-off petrol cans, was often frozen in the morning.

Once installed in Bailleul, we started to do our job, namely to supply the units making up the Third Division. The local Salle des F锚tes was used for 'breaking bulk', i.e. opening up cases of tins and dishing up the amounts to which the various units were entitled. I was working as an 'issuer', the army job title. And yes, there were tins of plum and apple jam, just as in the First World War. Bread came from a bakery in Lille, but the system ensured that it was always a day old when it was eaten, with inevitable consequences. On one occasion only did I get sent to Lille to collect bread, and was then able to see what it tasted like when fresh.

The Salle des F锚tes had, of course, to be guarded, so I became acquainted with the horrors of two hours on, four hours off. On one spell of guard duty, I got talking to a couple of extremely scruffy French soldiers. They showed me their rifles and, to my horror, the barrels were solid with grease (this would have been a serious offence in the British Army, where barrels had to be clean and lightly oiled). However, when I commented on this, they shrugged their shoulders and said that the first shot would clear them.

The unit was divided into echelons, which worked on alternate days. 'Days off' were usually spent digging holes, including one for a latrine. When the farmer asked me what the hole was for, all I could think of to say was 'pour pisser', to which he replied in true French fashion 'Mais on peut pisser partout'."

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