Christmas in the Trenches by Alan Wakefield Page B

and paid for by our own canteen. On the tables were apples, walnuts, dates, cake and bread. The first round was ham and turkey, roast beef, green peas (tinned) and cabbage, and as much as you could eat, and I have never tasted better turkey. For those who wanted it, there was as much French beer as they liked. As you can guess, a good many were having a hard job to balance theirs, and it set their tongues in great working order. After the meat came Christmas pudding and sauce. I can tell you it is the best meal I have had since I left home. Then we had some songs. There is a Sgt England here, and he has a most glorious voice. I fancy he was on the stage. He sang, ‘A Perfect Day,’ and sang it beautifully. I gave ‘Three for Jack’, and when I started I hadn’t the faintest idea what the words were, as it had never crossed my mind since goodness knows when, but I got through it without a bloomer, and we had no piano. Some others sang, drank and did otherwise, and all got a good hearing. The whole thing passed off splendidly, so our Christmas Day had a very bad beginning but a splendid ending. I forgot to tell you that every man got a bon-bon, and each had a paper cap inside. We all put them on, and you can’t imagine the funny sight it was. I saved mine and got a little flag and a tinsel flower off the decorations, also a lantern, and I am going to send them to you to keep as souvenirs of a Christmas spent with the British armies at the front, and at the very hottest front. By jove, our guns were sending over some Christmas greetings to Fritz last night, and are doing so now intermittently. 4 ( Driver Alan Gillespie, 2nd Ammunition Sub-Park Transport, AIF )
    For a lucky few the Christmas period coincided with their turn for home leave. The chance to return home was eagerly taken even if the journey to the Channel ports could take rather longer than anticipated:
    Monday, Dec. 25th
    Arrived at Candas at 12.30am. There we had to walk to the other station. On the way we all, about 300 of us, stopped at a Y.M.C.A. for some hot coffee. We went on to the other station from which the train should have started at 2.30am. The train however apparently went wrong somewhere; anyway we were told to go back to the Y.M.C.A. and return at 8.30am. We returned to the Y.M.C.A. and were all asleep when at 4.30am, a porter came to tell us that we were to go on by a special train coming up the line from Doullens. Just then I suddenly found out that I had left a rug in the last train. So with the idea that I had plenty of time I went off to the other station, found that the train had gone out, presumably with my rug, and returned as quickly as possible, just in time to see the special leave train disappearing up the line! Never mind, there is an ordinary train in the morning to Longpré and from there you can catch a Calais train. I lay down in the Station Master’s hut, and was soon asleep. I woke at 8am Xmas Day!!! The train left at 8.30am. I spent some hours in Longpré and got some food. Thence by slow train through Abbeville, Etaples and Boulogne to Calais. I spent the night in a hut prepared for officers on leave.
    Tuesday, Dec. 26th
    Awake at 7.30am and to breakfast at the Gare Maritime. There I found many I had left in the leave train I had missed the previous night. It seems the train got in so late, that they lost the leave boat in the afternoon. The boat left at 10am and we were all aboard by 9.45am. We had a very smooth crossing and reached Folkestone at 12 noon. The train went very slowly and only reached Victoria at 2.30pm. I caught the 3.35pm from Euston, and reached Northampton at 5.20pm after a journey of 48 hours. And so home once more. ( Capt James Wyatt )
    The Britain to which Capt Wyatt returned had undergone a number of changes. Conscription had been introduced for all men aged between 18 and 45 years of age under a Military Service Bill of 25 January 1916. The following month, to increase government access to funds for