[The following is in regards to the spring thaw on the Western Front of the First World War, and how the endless corpses would thaw and need to be buried.]
The following spring even the energetic Burgoyne found it hard to keep pace with death’s demands.
I saw five of the Gordons and they were smelling most unpleasantly. Got the subaltern of [position] H3 to bury two of them. On the parapet of H2 noticed the left leg, from the top of the hip to the foot, of a Frenchman. It was covered in a bit of red trouser… Had that buried too. In a Jack Johnson hole full of water within 30 yards of my trench, and on the road, I noticed a body, the face above water, of a bearded German. He had been there for months. Could do nothing but fill in the hole with stones and rocks.
Source:
Holmes, Richard. "Earth and Wire." Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918. London: HarperCollins, 2004. 297-98. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Burgoyne Diaries p. 118.
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