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Christmas Eve. Now for the jollifications.
The camp was dilapidated. When snow fell that night there was not a hut into which it had not driven, covering the sleeping men with an inch of freezing slush by morning. I was not surprised that I saw the first drunks by 9.30. An A Company sergeant arrested them and put them in the Guard room.
It was customary for the officers to wait on the men at Christmas dinner. Surprisingly this was not an occasion for settling scores; in spite of the opportunity it offered it passed off in good humour and friendly expressions. By the time it had become alcoholic the officers had withdrawn. I was disconcerted to find that the men were not known to us. I was fortunate in having four of my original crew present, but Hauser, Quainton and Broome had none, and men of other crews were still not more than faces to us.
After our own dinner the three of us, with Cartwright, Green and Robinson, sat on in the hut that served as our company mess. We must all have been oppressed by the lack of familiar faces. The new officers were surprised that we knew as little of the men as they did. When we talked of this and explained why, the conversation rapidly petered out. Either we knew little of our job as officers or else …
It was clear that something terrible must have happened at Cambrai. Robinson, who had been wounded during previous service with the infantry, asked if the battalion had been “unlucky”. No; it had not occurred to us that the battalion had been unlucky.
“On the contrary” – it was Hauser speaking – “we've been damned lucky. The 51st Division had never had so few casualties – not even in trench warfare. They told us that in an advance of over five miles they had had only six men wounded.”