Saturday June 10, 1916
Not raining this morning, after breakfast I packed up my things, and then
walked over to Chartois L’Abbé. Mme. Martin was standing
outside her épicerie talking to a lot of soldiers when I came up,
but she gave me a most hearty greeting. I saluted the soldiers and went
into the shop where I found Madame Thuery just finishing the following
paper. We chatted a bit she said I must write to them, and I said I might
possibly get to Chartois “après la guerre.” I shall
certainly hope to. Dinner was at 10:30 as we were due to leave at 1. About
12:30 they got us all lined up in convoy ready to leave. At 12:45 we moved
out, and were soon speeding over the few kilometers that separated Chartois
from Triancourt. At the latter place we found our billet to be in a dinky
old farm so filthy that no one but one or two of the Frenchmen would sleep
there, some sleeping in a field and other in their car. I chose the latter
as I was not only first on call but also watchman from 3-6. Marshall and
I looked around a bit, saw the cure and got his statement that the account
in his book was true, and tried to buy maple which endeavor was a complete
failure. The church here is damaged only by one shell hole and a lot of
éclat marks. The inside shows perfect evidence of the rough usage
it received at the hands of the Boche. We learned that we are to leave
tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock for a town called Ippicourt, from
which we will, as rumor has it, do evacuation work for the 65th div. until
our, the 69th goes into the trenches.