Lives of the First World War

5 September 1915 “By Jove, would not it be pleasant to have a family holiday again… Another thing I rather like about the army is the men. It’s surprising to me how very little and attention influences them towards you… I was ‘on the tiles’ last night, that is to say, visiting the sentries. It’s a poor job missing your sleep but I am sorry to say that the men get it more than I do… I wish the men’s leave were coming through better, in that case I could apply after I had been out here 3 months. I don’t care to apply till they have all had it as many of these kids (they are a very young battalion) have not seen their homes for about 13 months… I am wondering whether at your working parties you could make 40 or 50 pairs of woolen (sic.) gloves. If it would be at all possible, will you let me know…There is one thing which we can never have enough of, i.e. socks. If therefore you can induce any working parties to make some, you know where to send them. If it’s at all possible to get 50 pairs, I could do with them very well… …there has been solid rain here today. It’s very rotten work for sentries who have to be out for 2 hours and get soaked. They come back to a wet guardroom where you can’t have a fire on account of explosive material. Thank goodness, though, they will be getting into a hut in a few days…” 16 February 1916 “Dear family, …I had thought of trenches rather like the following: Had you not? (Ed: Douglas included a drawing with two parallel trenches, two sets of “wire entanglements”, and “dead ground” in between). Instead this particular bit is interesting – Hilly country with various bunkers – such as village, cemetery, railway station, woods, big mine craters, railways, cuttings and embankments, high roads. In fact the old trenches seem to be cut with complete indifference through any obstacle… Again till you get used to them they seems like a Chinese puzzle as these are regular rabbit warrens of trenches, tunnels, etc. Again the shells, whizz-bangs etc… have very kindly been nowhere near me” 20 February 1916 “Dear family, …Rats are one of the worst foes. They are so frightfully fat on government rations that they can hardly waddle…” 4 March 1916 “My dear Honor, … As regards normal conditions, the day starts with “stand to arms” at dawn and finishes with “stand to arms” at dusk… The day is spent with a mixture of eating, snatching a bit of sleep if possible, work on the trenches which unfortunately always wants doing – draining, repairing fire steps, dug outs etc. observing the ground, weak spots in the wire and so on. Also of course trying to see if there is any alteration in the enemy’s saps, parapets, wire, etc. so as to give you a chance of giving the enemy’s working parties a touching up if you could catch them napping. The night is spent sleeping, doing your time “on” of visiting and doing work you can’t do in the day. As regards the shells, they never came unpleasantly near me. I think the machine gun work is very wonderful as they rip up the top sandbags of the parapet and its very rarely that the guns can be located. Weak spots and places where, say from a building, there is likely to be a ricochet get particular attention. Again shots from fixed rifles are very carefully aimed at weak places in the line. You have of course heard of the old Whizz-bang. They make a fine noise but rarely seem to do much damage. Then there is the rifle grenade, a grenade fired from a special rifle (or gun?) which on rare occasions does drop in – (None anywhere near me!) At closer quarters of course there are hand grenades…”

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