The Story of the Munsters at Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Officer's Report as Narrative Backbone

The most extended excerpt from the Etreux action reads like a transcribed after-action report: precise times ('At 2.30 p.m. the withdrawal recommenced'), unit designations ('D Company as left flank guard'), and tactical details ('gaps having to be hacked in the hedges'). Rickard does not rewrite this material into a novelistic scene; she preserves its clipped, factual tone. The effect is a narrative that feels authoritative but also emotionally restrained. When casualties are noted—'cost only six or eight wounded'—the understatement is striking. The author seems to trust the facts themselves to carry weight, a choice that gives the early passages a deliberate, almost bureaucratic pace.

Sudden Acceleration into Chaos

Midway through the Etreux account, the rhythm changes abruptly. The sentence 'Before they could do this a heavy fire from rifle and Maxim guns was opened on us from East and South' marks a pivot. Rickard shifts from measured withdrawal to a cascade of events: a shell strikes the guns, horses are hit, and 'a raking rifle fire took us in flank.' The syntax becomes shorter, more paratactic: 'The enemy’s fire was intense... the whole party was put out of action.' The final charge is rendered in a series of rapid, declarative clauses—'The men sprang up with a cheer, fixed bayonets and charged'—that mimic the accelerating violence. This change in pace is not merely stylistic; it mirrors the soldiers' loss of control as the battle turns against them.

Voice and the Absent Author

Rickard's own voice is almost entirely submerged in the excerpts. She does not use first-person pronouns or overt commentary; the narrative is relayed through a third-person omniscient that seems to channel multiple sources—the commanding officer's perspective, the gunners' actions, the enemy's position. The dedication and preface, however, reveal a personal stake: the book is 'a little tribute' to her husband and his comrades. This tension between intimate motive and impersonal execution shapes the reader's experience. The author's restraint may reflect the conventions of regimental history, but it also creates a peculiar distance: we see men die—'Lieutenant Phayre fell, shot through the heart'—without the narrator's grief intruding. The voice remains that of a compiler, not a mourner.

Readers approaching this text should attend to the shifts in tempo and the deliberate flatness of the prose. Rickard's method—letting official language stand beside moments of intense action—creates a documentary feel that is both a strength and a limitation. The excerpts do not reveal how the later engagements (Festubert, Rue du Bois, Hulloch) are handled, but the pattern established in the Etreux account suggests a work that values accuracy over atmosphere. For those interested in the texture of World War I regimental histories, this book offers a case study in how a writer can balance the demands of tribute and record.

Years after first reading Mrs. Rickard’s account, I still recall its patient, almost weary documentation of mud and waiting. That same unhurried, unflinching voice lives in Kelly of the Foreign Legion: Letters of Légionnaire Russell A. Kelly — A Closer Reading, a quieter testament to how men endure, not by flourish, but by small daily notations. They sit well together on my shelf, two old friends who share a solemn hush.