Charlie Wilcox Quotes
1.“At first I thought I’d go with him, back to the hospital, and then onto England, Blighty they call it…”(Pg.35, P.7)
I learned England is called Blighty.
2.“At first glance it looked like the floor was painted red. He sniffed. Blood. There was blood everywhere.”(Pg.37, P.1)
I learned that everything is covered with blood, and many of the wounds where people get put in carts to go to the FDS, are shot wounds.
3.“You could smell them from a distance---blood, piss, petrol, and enough shell fire to scorch the nose and back of the throat.”(Pg.37, P.2)
I learned that the trenches really stink. I also learned that shell fire leaves a smell.
4.“He spent the rest of the day removing bodies, or bits of bodies. Occasionally they found someone alive.”(Pg.38, P.8)
I learned that the trenches are filled with bodies, or parts of bodies that were torn off by rats, or blown off by shell fire. Many of these people are dead not wounded.
5.“Heard they they’ve regrouped in the St. John’s trench, what’s left of’em, plus the 10 percent they held back in reserve.”(Pg.39, P.6)
I learned that 10 percent of the regiment is held back in reserve before the battle.
6.“Just then a water-resistant rat paddled happily through the foul black sludge that covered the trench floor.”(Pg.42, P.5)
I learned that the trenches are filled with a black sludge and rats.
7.“I’m looking for volunteers to go on a raiding party tonight. Capture a few Boche. There’s a week’s pass in England for any who come back alive.”
“What does he mean come back alive?”
(Pg.43/44, P.11/1)
I learned that if you go on a raiding party, you generally don’t come back alive.
8.“Phil scratched his chest too. Fact was both of them were alive with lice. Charlie knew the signs. A blind man would know the sight of lice making a meal of the body. They could do a man in, drive him crazy.”(Pg,44, P.9)
I learned that there are lice, living on the soldiers, and that they eat the body.
9.“There was black bread, hard cheese, a can of stew, and a can of plum and apple jam to share.”(Pg.47, P.3)
I learned that the rations are very bad, as they are hard cheese, and black bread, both of which don’t sound very appetizing.
10.“They heard a sound, thunk---like a fist coming down on a table.
“Down! Sniper!” The soldiers all threw themselves down onto the soggy duckboards and lay there, as still as dead men.”(Pg.48, P.3+4)
I learned that there is a sound made when sniper’s fire, and that you can hear it all the way across no man’s land. Also when the soldiers hear the sound, they throw themselves down to hopefully avoid the bullet.
11.“It was a haunting, ravaged place, a moonscape. The once green, rolling French hills were now black, and pockmarked with craters---some as big as a house, others small enough to camouflage a single German machine gun and gunner. The sounds of German artillery had been replaced by the ping, ping of snipers bullets as they hit the curly barbed wire that lay in fierce loops along the battlefield.”(Pg.57/58, P.9/1)
I learned that no man’s land is ravaged with craters from artillery, and all grass is gone too. I also learned that there is barbed wire along the battlefield, in front of the trenches.
12.“Mother!” The soldiers body went into a spasm, vibrating and quaking.”(Pg.60, P.5)
I learned that when dying, or in serious pain, the soldiers would scream for their mother, and lose control of their body.
13.“The place reeked of blood, iodine, urine, and antiseptic.”
I learned that the Field Dressing Stations stink of blood, and the other materials listed above, because they can’t clean it because too many patients have to be tended.
14.“Giant cucumber-shaped zeppelins often cruised silently across the night sky, dropping little bomb bundles at anything that twinkled. They seldom hit much, but they were a nuisance.”(Pg.89, P6)
I learned that planes fly across the Allies territory, and drop bombs at night, trying to injure soldiers.
15.“Most of the wounded would be patched up and tossed back lie fish into a stream. The next biggest group was made up of “Blighty wounds” bound for England. Lucky was the soldier with a Blighty wound.”(Pg.97, P.4)
I learned that people with serious wounds are sent back to Blighty.
16.“But it all looked clean from up there. Tidy. No smells. No rats. No decay. The war in the air was a tidy affair, different from the war on the ground.”(Pg.138, P.4)
I learned that the war in the air is completely different than on the ground, nothing stinks and there is no evidence.
17.“In the middle of the dugout, flanked by three other cots, stood a scarred wooden desk with a lantern on top. A small coke brazier squatted in another corner. The place stank of paraffin, tobacco, and damp mud.”(Pg.189, P.5)
I learned that even the best living conditions in the trenches, which is the dugouts, are very poor.
18.“Down!” Tom had heard the sizzle of a flare going up. He and Charlie dove into a shallow sap.”(Pg.206, P.2)
I learned that flares are sent up to try and allow snipers to see targets at night, and if they are seen moving a sniper will shoot them.
19.“Daw had made Tom a permanent stretcher-bearer, which, despite the added danger, was to Tom’s liking.”(Pg.196, P.2)
I learned that being a stretcher-bearer is more dangerous than being a regular soldier.
20.“And it had been said that a pilot would try harder to land his plane safely f he knew he couldn’t bail out. Planes were more valuable than pilots, that’s what the brass thought. Now the German pilots, they were protected by armored plates and wore parachutes.”(Pg.136/137, P.8/1)
I learned that the German’s protect their pilots more than the British. And the British don’t get parachutes or armored planes.
