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Although I perfectly well knew the contents, I read the signal carefully when it reached me. It said that all troops would stand fast at the position they had reached at 11.00 hours on the 11th day of the 11th month. They were to cease fire but all the usual military precautions would be maintained. This I supposed was a way of saying the war was over.
For some weeks the command of the army had shown anxiety about what was called ‘peace talk’. News of the German request for an armistice was known to everyone. We could certainly understand that if our army stopped fighting it might well be impossible to start it again. Although there was no danger, as far as I was in a position to observe, that the army would stop fighting, it was behaving like an ill-trained runner who keeps looking over his shoulder instead of pressing on till he has passed the winning tape. This was the more odd because there was no winning tape.
One of my men was walking beside his tank as it was travelling back to the camp; it was an undistinguished routine trek. The tank rode over an unexploded grenade which, being under the armoured track, burst harmlessly. But Mallard, the gunner in question, fell dead. It seemed so improbable that it took time to realize that one of the grenade fragments – it must have been the only one to escape from under the track – had penetrated his heart killing him instantly and leaving only a small puncture wound to show the point of entry.
‘Dear Madam, I regret to inform you that your son …‘ was killed by accident when the war was over? Why make a fuss about it? What about his wife and children? Thank God he was too young and can't have had any. Oh yes he had though; and she was expecting a baby.
‘Dear Madam, I regret to inform you that your husband …‘. More fuss; about nothing.
Rations were bad; potatoes disappeared and the men grumbled. The company was paraded and I explained; the shortage would not last long as it was only due to the army having to give up part of