In April 1918 our unit was billeted near Amiens in a small village from
which the inhabitants had been evacuated two days earlier, owing to the
German advance.
On the second day of our stay there Jerry was shelling the steeple of
the village church, and we had taken cover in the cellars under the
village school. All at once we heard roars of laughter coming from the
street, and wondering what on earth anyone could find to laugh at, we
tumbled up to have a look.
The sight that met our eyes was this: Gravely walking down the middle
of the street were two of the "Hackney Ghurkas," the foremost of whom
was dressed in a frock coat and top hat, evidently the property of the
village _maire_, and leading a decorated mule upon the head of which
was tied the most gaudy "creation" which ever adorned a woman's head.
The second Cockney was clad in the full garb of a twenty-stone French
peasant woman, hat and all, and was dragging at the end of a chain a
stuffed fox, minus its glass case, but still fastened to its baseboard.
They solemnly paraded the whole length of the street and back again,
and were heard to remark that the village was having at least one Lord
Mayor's Show before Jerry captured it!
And this happened at the darkest time of the war, when our backs were
to the wall.--_A. C. P. (late 58th London Division), Fulham, S.W.6._