The Weather Of The Gods

In Summer Hill Camp overlooking the Greek port of Salonika, Lieutenant Victor Farmer and his draft of men destined to join 1st Suffolk in the front line in Macedonia, experienced the extremes of the Grecian climate. "One day, the 3rd January" wrote Victor "we had torrential rainfall which softened all the ground; then we had a tempest of wind, the Verdon Wind, which blew on to Salonica does the great valley of the Verdon River. The wind blew down the marquees and most of the tents and by nightfall came a heavy frost which effectively prevented the re-erection of the tents; then came the violent blizzard of heavy snow and when we woke on the 4th January we emerged from our fox holes to find a tumultuous area of heavy snow. The officers then did a sort of treadmill march across the snow finding tents with bodies in them which were dragged out. nobody was hurt in this episode and eventually the ground thawed and we were able to put all the tents up again with stouter pegs. The camp cooks also produced hot tea and hot soup. It was not long after this that our quarantine came to an end and we prepared to get to our respective regiments".

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