Here we came for a week’s rest after our turn in the line. We little knew then what strenuous days were before us, nor what terrible toll was to be taken of our ranks before we would rest again. It was a very pretty countryside, though not so open as the area we had occupied in June.
It was now the end of July, and although my troops were scattered over very wide areas I managed to do good work with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth. Indeed, one evening I found one hundred and twenty-five lads of the Fourteenth waiting for me in a quaint little church at a place called Chelers, or Villers-Chatel. This was indeed extraordinary for an evening during the week, when there was no hint of our soon leaving for the front line. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth had not been having a very good chance of late to go to confession. Whenever the four battalions were separated, I always gave the Thirteenth and Fourteenth the preference for Masses, as there were more Catholics in either one of these than in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth together. These two latter battalions were often obliged to attend the village Mass said by the curé of the parish in which they happened to be.
August came, and the rich promise that was over all the land in June was now being fulfilled: great brown stacks of hay, like dark hillocks, stood over all the green land, and here and there were large golden patches of rye, weighed and bent low with the full kernels, so that now they were not much higher than my waist. In fields and gardens were low bivouacs, about three feet in height, where soldiers slept at night.
Cambligneul was a very small village and had no resident priest but was served from Camblain L’Abbey, which was only about a mile and a half distant. I was billeted in a farmhouse not far from the church. The old lady of the house resembled very much the wife of the captain in the “Katzenjammer Kids.”
One rainy afternoon the old lady made bread, and as I had never seen bread made in France, I was very interested in the process. It was a different one than that employed in country houses at home. The old lady mixed the dough in a large trough-like affair that resembled a half-barrel that had been cut horizontally on a wood-horse. Into this was poured a great quantity of flour and water which the capable arms of “mamma Katzenjammer” worked quickly into dough. When it was kneaded sufficiently, an iron door was opened in a large brick oven, and from it a few embers were quickly drawn. This part of the process surprised me very much as I did not know that a wood fire had actually been made in the oven. Then the old lady took a long-handled flat wooden shovel that stood near the kneaded dough, which had not been set to rise, but had been placed on paper in flat wicker baskets. She picked up each basket and upset the dough on the shovel; each basket contained just enough dough to cover the shovel and still be about two inches in thickness. The shovel was pushed far into the oven and then with a quick jerk by the experienced hands of old Madame, was drawn out empty. When all the dough in the baskets had been put in the oven the door was closed and, if I remember rightly, it was two hours before the oven was opened again. It was George who came to tell me that Madame was going to open the oven. I went out just in time to see the old lady pull to the front of the oven, by means of a long-handled hook, the great flat loaves of dark-brown bread: there were fifteen loaves in all, about one foot and a half in diameter and two inches deep. It was very good bread, as I discovered when I tasted some the following day.
Before the following Sunday orders came to march. First we went to Berneville, and on Saturday, after I had arranged for church service for Sunday, we were moved to Lattre-St. Quentin. The other battalions were quartered in the same area. It was late Saturday night when I finished organizing for Sunday; but the services were not to be. More marching orders came. We were to leave in the morning at five o’clock for Avesnes-le-Compte, where we were to entrain, destination not given. The hour had struck; big things were before us.