Explore "Goodbye to all That" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
BY the end of August 1915, particulars of the coming offensive against La Bassée were beginning to leak through the young staff officers. The French civilians knew about it; and so, naturally, did the Germans. Every night now new batteries and lorry-trains of shells came rumbling up the Béthune-La Bassée road. Other signs of movement included sapping forward at Vermelles and Cambrin, where the lines lay too far apart for a quick rush across, and the joining up of the sap-heads to make a new front line. Also, orders for evacuation of hospitals; the appearance of cavalry and New Army divisions; issue of new types of weapons. Then Royal Engineer officers supervised the digging of pits at intervals along the front line. They were sworn not to reveal what these were for, but we knew that it would be gas-cylinders. Ladders for climbing quickly out of the trenches were brought up by the lorry-load and dumped at Cambrin village.
As early as September 3rd I had a bet with Robertson that our division would attack from the Cambrin-Cuinchy line. When I went home on leave six days later, the sense of impending events had become so strong that I almost hated to go.