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- paintings cut frcm the frames, statuettes broken to bits beau- tiiUl j.urni i-ure hacked to pieces,- oh he did a thorough job of it nomistake about that®
,, , You® re have smiled to see Skinny and me strolling down
Jie s creet wi Ja. high silk hats on, S&nny with a cigar in his van ana carrying a long bamboo rod, and me with an old. silk parasol raised above me head. We rounded a corner to bump into our 0 C but he made no comment other than to ask us where we’d found the n el met. At intervals we® d wander bach to the R.A.P. just to show that we were on the job. J pnow
We walked up by the Cathedral, but couldn’t get into the big square, as it was burning fiercely, and all the buildings had ' ^1eer\.1:3lown down ecrose the streets leading to it. Just before dark tne R.A.P. moved up to the south east end of the town, we following Our destination was Pr. Solomon’s Clinique, a building used as a hospital. Our squad gloramed onto a. room in the basement having tiled walls, two box mattresses, a sofa, table and stove with firewood all reaoy, Lit the fire and thought we were in for a comfortable night but three close ones and the fourth hitting the building next doo^ induced us to shift our quarters out to a tunnel in the yard, nothing like playing it safe’ . **
Around eight o’clock the M.O, came in with a message for uhe O.C. ox the 10th, so Skinny and I decided we’d go down with it.
In doing so we had to pass through one of the streets that was burning \Ve didn’t linger any going through it, I can tell you, for besides being uncomfortably warm, the walls were falling every so often. [Delivered the message, end on the way back dropped in at the relay post at the Canal to have a chat wife, the boys there. Luring the day the engineers had built a bridge across the Canal, so we were able to £5°^ ®e tk°U£:h two M.P,» bstopped us and enquired our -hrough tne -own to Sol’s joint was a. good two kilos, and in all that walk we never met a single person. Talk about your deserted village.’ "
+Vlori - v Had a °f b*an8 snd 0 CUP of e,u lait for breakfast
then vOok a jaunt through a fine park to the Citadel, in peace times the nome of -French regiments, but up to the day we arrived was used by Intz as barracks for hie troops end English prisoners.. Pound that liotle cup in one of the rooms and the "Gott met uns" buckle Here too, was evidence of the manner in which he had looted the town trunks of stuff had been carted into the barracks and there rilled the stuff not wanted being thrown to one side. Statuary mirrors/ vases, crockery, in fact everything up to a sewing machine I bumped into curing my tour. Notices in English were posted in the walls where the prisoners were kept, such as "Wooden shoes must be worn in this building", "No loitering in the corridors near the orderly room".
We went through quite a few houses near the Citadel, and all of them were as thoroughly ransacked as the ones at the other end of the town. Back to Sol’s joint to find that we had been relieved. Thus ended my acquaintance with Cambrai.
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