The sun has disappeared and the darkness falls. Most of the lads are trying to sleep. Sleep takes the mind off food for a few hours. Jack Mason is asleep in the corner, just underneath the steel-barred window, the same type of window through which I was to escape a few months later. Charlie Forsyth, the shy boy in the RAMC, has just urinated into his empty Red Cross box and is stepping over the sleeping bodies to the window, through which he will pour out the urine. He reaches through the window and tips the contents out, but some of it runs though the box into the mouth of Jack Mason, sleeping in the corner. He was asleep, but he is certainly awake now, spluttering and cursing at poor Forsyth.
'What the bloody hell is going on?' 'S, s, s, sorry, ch, chum,' mumbles Charlie, 'couldn't help it, it's dripping.'
'Dripping? That's the queerest bloody dripping I've ever tasted!' shouts Mason at the top of his voice. All were awake now, but heartily amused at the incident.
Soon, it is quiet again, except for the rumble of the train as it heads its way north. The cold night air is coming up through the floorboards. I try to sleep, but my mind wanders back...
The cold and grey, a winter's day,
Before the break of dawn,
The guns are still, there's such a chill,
So early in the morn.
The field is hazed, the men half-dazed,
Their nerves are highly-strung,
They take the strain, an awful pain,
For zero hour has come.
A moment's spell, and then a YELL,
Word has come to charge,
Bared bayonets flash, wild men dash,
Over No Man's Land at large.
The silence broke, the guns have spoke,
Stark death fills the air,
The surge is on, the strain has gone,
There is no shirking there.
Their faces set, their goal they'll get,
Their object is to win,
They are gaining ground, their voices drowned,
Beneath the bullet's din.
Then, at last, the worst is past,
A battle's given birth
Each picks his man, fulfils his plan,
And bodies fall to earth.
The fight is fought, its life was short,
No greater deed is done,
There's time for rest, but not for jest,
A battle had been won.
I had cramp and woke up rubbing my legs, and soon had the blood circulating again. It was light now and many were eating the last morsel of food. I ate mine and wished for a drink of good English tea to wash it down.
Some of the lads are standing at the grille, looking out. Two of them have their noses through the bars, and for good reason, as someone has used the corner of the wagon for other purposes than sleeping. No wonder that corner of the wagon is deserted, and this end is so cramped. 'Dirty bastard!' says the little chap with the Ronald Colman moustache. 'Who was it? Why, it's poor old Forsyth again - dripping and now this!'
My watch has stopped, but guess the time is about 8am. A running commentary is being given by Jimmy James, who has levered a bar out of the window and has half his face outside. 'Pulling into a station, boys!' he shouts, 'give you the name in a sec!'
The train stops before we reach the station. A few minutes later the train starts to go back, but Jimmy says we are going onto a branch line. As the train goes on round a bend, Jimmy shouts that the train is only half the length it was when it left Bari, so somewhere, at some stop, some of the lads had been taken in another direction, to another camp. Fifteen minutes later, the train stops for the last time as far as we are concerned. We have arrived at our next camp!
The wagon doors are slid open, and gathering our small belongings, jumped down to the ground. Looking to the left, we all see great wooden gates ahead. This is our new home, Campo PG70, Monturano, Italy.
Irritable guards tell us to march towards the gates, but half the lads are urinating on the railway track, and themselves are in no mood to be pushed around. Presto! Presto! shout the guards, as slowly we make our way towards the gate. As we get nearer, I note that mounted machine guns are trained on us from the sentry box above the gates.
* This chap was also in PG70.
