True Stories of the Great War, Volume 2 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 2 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
At Bordeaux, whence he arrived from Lemnos, he landed without money,
and consequently could not telegraph to his wife. During the whole of
the journey to Quimper, however, he relished keenly the thought of
the pleasure he would see on her face when she saw him. Of his two
children, too, he thought, anticipating gleefully the welcome they
would give him. He sailed on a coasting vessel, one of those that
bring the red wine from Bordeaux to Brittany. Into the River Odet
at last they came, and its banks became narrower and steeper until
Quimper hove in sight, the twin towers of St. Corenten showing warm
and venerable in the waning light. His home was in the Rue Kéréron, a
mediæval street of old mansions. Trembling with excitement, Colbert
lifted the latch. There was nobody in the passage, but from the kitchen
he heard the merry laugh of a happy family circle. He recognized
Babette's laugh--and another man's. Listening, he distinguished the
latter as that of his friend, Maurice, a potter who turned lumps of
clay into Quimper faience.
It is a sad little story, the rest of it. Her husband being given up
as dead, Babette, with scarcely sufficient money to buy bread for
her children, had married Maurice. Rannou did not chide her; in the
circumstances he considered she had done the obvious thing. She was
broken-hearted and so was he. That night he left for Concarneau. He
saw that his wife and Maurice had sufficient money to live on; and he,
a cripple, did not wish to burden her. He determined to earn what he
could and live his own life.
He managed to secure a berth at Concarneau, where he had relations, and
was employed on the quays, checking the giant mackerel unloaded from
the tunny-boats. Some time later, hearing that Maurice had fallen out
of work, Rannou sent to his old home as much as he could spare from his
scanty earnings. Truly the ways of men are passing strange! One day,
perhaps, Maurice will die; and Rannou will return to Quimper and to the
Babette who loves him still.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] Australian slang for "chum."
THE IRISHMEN OF THE FIGHTING TENTH AT MACEDONIA
_Told by One of the Fighting Irishmen_
This is a spirited story of how the heroic Tenth (Irish) Division
saved the situation for the Allies in retreat from Macedonia to
Salonica. It is told for the first time by the _London Weekly
Despatch_.
I--TALES OF THE IRISHMEN AND THE BULGARS
On December 3, which was a Friday, the British outposts brought in
six Bulgar deserters who had much of interest to tell. They said that
the Bulgars not only had suffered very heavily in their engagements
with the Serbians but were losing men rapidly owing to sickness and
frostbite.
What is more to the point, they warned the officers that a big attack
against our line was impending, that it had been arranged to take place
that day but that the severe snowstorm had caused them to put it off to
another day which would not be long delayed.
_March, 1916._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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