Fatal mistakes

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2020)

Don't get me wrong, this movie is riveting. And it will probably win Oscars. But I left feeling that Mendes should have done better. As another reviewer has commented, it felt like a FPS with the character moving through a number of vaguely related scenes overcoming all the set obstacles. My questions are:
Who milked the cow and why didn't they take the milk?
When all other cattle were slaughtered by retreating Germans, why not this one?
Has Mendes actually been to Picardy? It's a flat swamp, with not a fast running rocky sided stream within 100 km. My grandfather was injured in May 1917 at Bullecourt, the village next up the road from Ã‰coust; I know what this countryside looks like.