Showers
Worsley paid us a visit.
We all attended the "Archies" tonight.
Winter & Peake evinced a desire to be initiated into the mysteries of the grand national game + were duly put thro. – Cook presided.
Windy.
Carless came down this A.M. for a week-end visit. – Everything pretty deadly. – Wrote most of the aft. Putting in the 10 HP. Gas engine that Worley sent over.
Warm – Heavy thunderstorms.
Quiet. – Continued our study of "Courts Martial". – Shaw, Salmond & Marney in to lunch. Quite a strafe on to-night. – Mericourt. FR. BL Div moving in. – Seems to be a celebration on in the kitchen. – Dinner was rather upset.
Warm.
In a beautiful melancholy mood to-night. – Really pitiful. – Sunday's always a slow day it seems. – Felt like taking a trip somewhere but couldn't raise energy enough to start.
Tea'd over at the compound & when I got back, McCallum & Goodwin were here. – Mac, very resplendent in the glory of his 3rd pip, + talking about leave again. – All tends to cheer one up. – Also a breezy letter from Casey, with accounts of trips to Scotland & proposed honeymoon in Ireland. – Letter itself was written at Shoreham & mailed at Brighton. – I wonder how much time he spends at "Crow City" – Lordy but I am fed up. – If this mood continues, it's either back to the line, – to the Flying Corps, or suicide. – Haven't decided which.
A Sunday evening entry, and the month's bleakest. Robertson calls his mood "beautiful melancholy", no energy even for "taking a trip somewhere", just flat rear-area monotony, broken by a cheerful letter from Casey full of trips to Scotland and honeymoon plans in Ireland. Then: "If this mood continues, it's either back to the line, – to the Flying Corps, or suicide. – Haven't decided which." He does not come back to it in the following entries.
Junkin in to lunch.
Fether on leave.
Warm.
Orders to go to Corps and take Fethers job pro tem. – Rather a big order as Fether carries most of his job in his head. Living at Eng. Mess.
Nothing much. – Did a bit of filing. – Looked up my own record.
Bosche shelling Coupigny. – Put the wind up me. – 1st Div Sports. – Met everyone. – Accepted three invitations to dinner. – Got all the 3rd Bgde news. – Reeves has been killed. Hertzy stayed to dinner. Boswell didn't. – Took Hertzy out to Bully in the car after dinner.
"Reeves has been killed." A name Robertson had mentioned only twice before, visiting him for lunch on May 10 and again on May 24, both times at #2 Company of the 15th Battalion. He says nothing more about it.
May 10, 1917 entry →May 24, 1917 entry →
Hot.
Up on Lorette Spur with the Curé of Ranchicourt and Col. Hughes. – Staking out the site of the Chapel of N.D. de Lorette – Curé was an interesting old duck. – Got his skirts fearfully caught up in the wine. – Ormy Stitt went on leave tonight. – McCuaig came up to take his place and is sleeping in Fethers' bed. – Never heard such a competent snore before.
The chapel site Robertson helps survey here became the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, built 1921–1927 on the same ridge, now the centerpiece of the largest French military cemetery in the world, roughly 20,000 individual graves plus the remains of another 22,000 unknown soldiers held in eight ossuaries. The ridge had already been fought over since 1915, in some of the costliest French offensives of the war; the memorial built there afterward, and still standing today, was raised specifically to gather the dead from more than 150 smaller cemeteries scattered across the wider Artois and Flanders front.
Nothing really startling except dinner up at Boswell's. – Rolston came up to[sic] but left early – Just a merry little party. – Three C.L.C. chaps and Haigh blew in unexpectedly. – Very proud of having been over the top twice + is now running for M.P. Sask. – Hope he lasts. Bull has two new youngsters. – Dunn and Fitz something. Both good sports.
Cool.
Feeling a bit seedy. – Hung around the office all day. Went down to Mt St. Eloi for mail and more clothes and dinner.
Car went down for the C.E.
Fine.
Beautiful day. – Scott Browne dropped in to remind me of my promise to dine with them. – Went over to their place at Sains about 6 and had a slap-up dinner. – Roast duck + all sorts of things. – Chap called Dillard (2nd B.M.G. Co'y) tickled the ivories + he sure could rattle 'em. – Old Cap. Lawler (Major now) is still running the crew. – Made me homesick for old times at Wulverghem. – A lot of good chaps have gone west since then. Chief due back but didn't arrive.
A slap-up dinner at Sains (roast duck, piano, old faces from the Wulverghem days of 1916) and then, quieter: "Made me homesick for old times at Wulverghem. – A lot of good chaps have gone west since then." Not the sudden jolt of September 9 but its slower counterpart, grief surfacing inside a good evening rather than breaking it open.
Hot.
Col. Hughes wanted to know how the concrete gun pits were getting on so sallied forth to see. – Called at Gouy, saw Davison, Butler + Walker. – Went down Butler's shaft. – Chat. La Haie to see Johnston. – Called at 4th Div. I. – Saw E. Cockerell and Chambers. – Out to Ablain – lunched with Vince. – Proceeded to Petit Vimy. – Was going to visit artillery dugouts but they were receiving attention from the Huns. –
Next to Angres. – Strolled over Cemetery hill to get a line on the wire for G branch. – Tea'd at Gouy on the way back. C.E. back.
Two full days spent touring positions and revisiting old ground, Gouy, Ablain, Petit Vimy, Angres, Bully, Maroc, the Double Crossing, Cité Caumont, Hirondelle Spur among them, several already mapped from this site's earlier Vimy/Artois place batch. Passing back through Maroc (the mining hamlet near Lens where his company had held the line the previous winter, up to his February wound) he notes "Some change in the last six mos."
Hot.
Satisfied G's curiosity about the wire. – Went up to Bully to lunch with the 3rd. – Saw Pep and the gang. – Macdonald has a daughter. – Sped up thro Maroc and revisited the Double Crossing and vicinity. – Some change in the last six mos. – Down thro' Calonne to Angres. – Called at Clint's battery but didn't see him. – Left the side-car under the Ry. Bridge and tamped out on the Hirondelle Spur to see the work there. – Had to make a detour thro’ Cité Caumont coming back owing to some particularly nasty stuff that Fritz was putting round the batteries.
Fether got back at tea time so I chased off to Bethune. – Had dinner there + came back about 9.
Got the car to bring me home this aft. – Bogart arrived out here again. – Nobody knows what job he's going to get unless it is the Eng-Pool. – Anderson has the C.E.T.D. now + Sandy McPhail is only on 30 days leave.