Thursday March 28th, 1918
Woke up and found it was snowing hard and terrible cold. No parades but awful cold. I am orderly man – a hard struggle washing dixiesº & peeling onions and potatoes. Still snowing at night. Glad day is over & finished orderly.
Orderly in Bad Weather
Normally Frank is delighted to be on orderly duty as it usually means extra food rations. Today it is so cold that his duties are more onerous and this seems to negate the upside. The changeable weather was a popular subject with all the contemporary commentators, including Frank.º
Lt Victor Borgonon just after his arrival in Salonika recorded, ‘A shocking blizzard blowing all day, tents came down wholesale, ropes broken, self wet through. … Next day, gale still blowing, raining in torrents, self and twenty other officers slept in the mess. I slept on the table, bitterly cold, fed up. Never heard such a wind in my life. Fortunately the mess hut stood it all right. Many tents were torn to shreds.’. As the Lieutenant had arrived in Salonika without his kit bags, he conceded that the wind allowed him to appropriate a variety of ground sheets and blankets. As he noted ‘… truly ’tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’¹
Dr Isobel Emslie Hutton, with the Scottish Women’s Hospital during the War, in the introduction to her memoir wrote, ‘…the furnace-like glare of the sun, the cutting blast of the Vardar wind, and the driving sleet in your face.’²
The cartoon shows a Scottish Highlander standing in a strong ‘Vardar wind’. It was drawn by M Joilliot, a prominent artist serving with the French Army in Salonika, 1916.
Snow follows days of sunshine. Frank would have sympathy with Staff Sergeant William Lee, who wrote, ‘The Balkan climate was a thing of mystery. After days of broiling heat when we were ready to discard and hand our winter clothing into store, we would get a snowstorm with drifts three feet deep.’ ³
While the Battalion rests, Frank peels potatoes and washes dixiesº in the freezing cold.
13th (Service) Battalion War Diary – 28th March 1918 – No 1 Sector, Olasli
Battalion resting.
References and Further Reading
¹ ‘Salonika Diary:1918‘ by Lt VE Borgonon
² ‘With a Woman’s Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol’ by Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton, (London: Williams and Norgate, 1928), 14-16.
³ ‘Expenses Paid’ by Staff Sgt William J Lee, RAMC (1915-1919) , page 27/28, held by Salonika Campaign Society
* Image (Q32039) is the copyright of Imperial War Museums
º See comment from Charlie for more about dixies.
Speaking from experience, its not the most pleasant way to pass a day 🙂
Caroline,
Frank was obviously on cookhouse fatigues, he wasn‘t washing dishes but „dixies“. Dixies are the large cooking pots used in the cookhouse, a good selection is shown here https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205285512
Dixie is another Hindi word anglicised by the British Army and it is till in use today.
Charlie
As ever, thanks for the clarification. This makes much more sense. So Frank was in the cookhouse, peeling potatoes and washing Dixies. No wonder he wasn’t enjoying it so much!