Record Number: 30883
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'A motor bicycle drew up at our door and a haggard dispatch rider stumbled in to put a scrap of paper into my hand. It was a page torn out of an army notebook with a scribbled message in pencil from a lieutenant addressed to his commanding officer; the date and time upon it belonged to the afternoon before. The writer was holding on with a handful of men at a point (he gave a rough map reference) but they were nearly surrounded — could help be sent, very soon or it would come too late? The messenger had been trying ever since to find the CO and had failed; the message must be delivered to someone — and now to me of all people! The message, I pointed out, was twelve hours old, but the dispatch rider seemed stupefied with his utter failure and weariness. He went dumbly away with his scrap of paper. And I tried to dismiss from my mind a tiny detail in a disastrous landscape — a huddle of brown down there at the map reference, where, in all likelihood, a young officer and a dozen men would be lying together dead.'
Century:1900-1945
Date:Apr 1918
Country:France
Timemorning
Place:city: Monts des Cats
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
passive in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:1884
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:YMCA volunteer
Religion:Quaker
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:France
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:unknown
Genre:Ephemera
Form of Text:Manuscript: Letter, Pencilled note on a page torn out of an army notebook.
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceread in situ
Source Information:
Record ID:30883
Source:Barclay Baron
Editor:Michael Snape
Title:The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron, 1915-1919
Place of Publication:Woodbridge, Suffolk
Date of Publication:2009
Vol:n/a
Page:175
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Barclay Baron, Michael Snape (ed.), The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron, 1915-1919, (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2009), n/a, p. 175, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=30883, accessed: 11 November 2024
Additional Comments:
None