Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

By Siegfried Sassoon.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. I: At the Army School
   1. I
   2. II
4. II: The Raid
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
5. III: Before the Push
   1. I
   2. II
6. IV: Battle
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
7. V: Escape
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
8. VI: At the Depot
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
9. VII: Rouen in February
   1. I
   2. II
10. VIII: The Second Battalion
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
11. IX: Hospital and Convalescence
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
12. X: Independent Action
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
    6. VI
    7. VII
13. Colophon
14. Uncopyright

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription from Faded Page and on digital scans from the Internet Archive.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

I

At the Army School

I

I have said that Spring arrived late in 1916, and that up in the trenches opposite Mametz it seemed as though Winter would last forever. I also stated that as for me, I had more or less made up my mind to die because in the circumstances there didn’t seem anything else to be done. Well, we came back to Morlancourt after Easter, and on the same evening a message from the Orderly Room instructed me to proceed to the Fourth Army School next morning for a month’s refresher-course. Perhaps Colonel Kinjack had heard that I’d been looking for trouble. Anyhow, my personal grievance against the Germans was interrupted for at least four weeks, and a motorbus carried me away from all possibility of dying a murky death in the mine-craters.

Barton saw me off at the crossroads in the middle of the village. It was a fine day and he had recovered his good spirits. “Lucky Kangaroo⁠—to be hopping away for a holiday!” he exclaimed, as I climbed into the elderly bus. My servant Flook hoisted up my bulging valise, wiped his red face with his sleeve, and followed me to the roof. “Mind and keep Mr. Sherston well polished up and punctual on parade, Flook!” said Barton. Flook grinned; and away we went. Looking back, I saw Barton’s good-natured face, with the early sun shining on his glasses.

There were several of us on board (each Battalion in our Brigade was sending two officers) and we must have stopped at the next village to pick up a few more. But memory tries to misinform me that Flook and I were alone on that omnibus, with a fresh breeze in our faces and our minds “making a separate peace” with the late April landscape. With sober satisfaction I watched a train moving out of a station with rumble and clank of wheels while we waited at the crossing gates. Children in a village street surprised me: I saw a little one fall, to be gathered, dusted, cuffed and cherished by its mother. Up in the line one somehow lost touch with such humanities.

The War was abundantly visible in supply-convoys, artillery horse-lines, in the dirty white tents of a Red Cross camp, or in troops going placidly to their billets. But everyone seemed to be off duty; spring had arrived and the fruit trees were in blossom; breezes ruffled the reedy pools and creeks along the Somme, and here and there a peaceful fisherman forgot that he was a soldier on active service. I had been in close contact with trench warfare, and here was a demonstration of its contrast with cosy civilian comfort. One has to find things out as one goes along, I thought; and I was wholeheartedly grateful for the green grass and a miller’s wagon with four horses, and the spire of Amiens Cathedral rising above the congregated roofs of an undamaged city.

---

The Fourth Army School was at Flixécourt, a clean little town exactly halfway between Amiens and Abbeville. Between Flixécourt and the War (which for my locally experienced mind meant the Fricourt trenches) there were more than thirty English miles. Mentally, the distance became immeasurable during my first days at the School. Parades and lectures were all in the day’s work, but they failed to convince me of their affinity with our long days and nights in the Front Line. For instance, although I was closely acquainted with the mine-craters in the Fricourt sector, I would have welcomed a few practical hints on how to patrol those Godforsaken cavities. But the Army School instructors were all in favour of Open Warfare, which was sure to come soon, they said. They had learnt all about it in peacetime; it was essential that we should be taught to “think in terms of mobility.”