last visit. The streets were absolutely deserted. Many of the houses
had been damaged by shells. The Cathedral roof itself had been (p. 272)
pierced in some places and the noble interior looked very dreary, the
floor of the nave being covered with bits of broken stone and glass.
It was sad to think that it might share the fate of Rheims. Some
Canadians were wandering about the streets rather disconsolately. The
empty city gave one a terrible sense of loneliness. On the following
evening about midnight the 16th Battalion and the 3rd Battalion of
Engineers passed through Hornoy in trains, going forward.
Our own orders to move came two days later, on August 7th, and I left
for St. Feuchien. I went off in my side-car to the quaint old village.
It is situated on the top of a low hill, and consists of a few streets
and some large buildings standing in their own grounds. One of these
was the country home of the Archbishop of Amiens, and this was to be
our billet. I entered the grounds by a broken-down gate and drew up in
front of a large brick building, one wing of which was a chapel and
kept locked up. In front of the building was a well full of empty tins
and other refuse. The interior of the place had once been quite fine,
but was now absolutely filthy, having been used as billets. The
billiard tables, however, could still be used. The room assigned to me
was on the ground floor at the back. The dirt on the floor was thick,
and a sofa and two red plush chairs were covered with dust. A bed in
the corner did not look inviting, and through the broken windows
innumerable swarms of blue-bottle flies came from the rubbish heaps in
the yard. The weather was very hot and there was apparently no water
for washing. I made an inspection of the building upstairs, but all
the rooms had been assigned to different officers. The Archbishop's
room was very large with a huge bed in it, but wore an air of soiled
magnificence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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