CHAPTER VI1 DURING the Night of March 25Th, on Which the Pickets Of
CHAPTER VI1 BEFORE AMIENS DURINGthe night of March 25th, on which the pickets of rhe 4th Australian Division were, not without a grim eagerness, waiting for the Germans on the roads south-west of Arras, the 3rd Division had been entraining near St. Omer in Flanders to assemble next to the 4th. Some of its trains were intended to stop at Doullens on the main line of road and rail, due east of Arras, and twenty-one miles north of Amiens, and the troops to march thence towards Arras; other trains were, to be switched at Doullens to the Arras branch line, and to empty their troops at Mondicourt-Pas, where they would be billetted immediately south-west of the 4th Division. The eight trains allotted for the division were due to leave from 9.10 p.m. onwards at three hours’ intervals during the night and the next day; but, after the first trains had departed, carrying head- quarters of the 10th and 11th Brigades and some advanced units, there was delay in the arrival oi those for the rest of the division. The waiting battalions lay down at the roadside in the bitter cold; some companies were stowed into barns. During the morning of the 26th the trains again began to appear regularly. On the journey to Doullens the troops saw first evidences of the great battle in the south-a number of men who had been in the fighting, and several red cross trains full of wounded. There was a most depressing atmosphere of hopelessness about them all (says the history of the 40th Battalion),l but we saw some New Zealanders who told us that their division had gone down, and that the 4th Australian Division was also on the way, so we bucked up considerably.
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