Lives of the First World War

known 7th April 1915

April 7th Rotten night and dirty; hard floor, full of draughts. Battalion moving today. 12.50 am – First halt. Marched an hour and a half with fixed bayonets at the slope; fearfully hot; shoulder and foot weary. 1.50pm – Ten minutes halt. Five kilos from Bethune. E… gave up rifle and pack, then feinted dead off and fell. 3.15 pm – Arrived Bethune. Billeted in a huge Convent school which contains all the transport. 7.30 pm – Am going to sleep in a big room up six flights of stairs on bare boards. The place is U shaped. Connecting the two arms and running across the courtyard (which contains the transport) is a grass-covered path. Every pane of glass as well as every other one in the rear of the place is broken – a bomb from an aeroplane. The washing arrangements are a long way out in the garden, auguring discomfort in early morning. I just had a lucky chance to say goodbye to Natalie this morning … Guard is a beastly job. Drew 20 francs today. Sergeant Evans brought me a letter from Orderly Room asking if I were still willing to take a commission. April 8th Marched off in loose order with mess tins by the side of a canal, which I found (by a life-buoy at a bridge) was the Canal D’aire, and arrived Brigade Headquarters. Telegraph poles broken down – we ourselves liable to artillery fire – and so came within the limits of Kultur. A broken tree or two, three graves with neat wooden crosses and flower covered, the two hind legs of a dead horse sticking out of the river, and then in the distance, becoming plainer as we approached, the ruined roof a large building. All the houses with their tiles off. An occasional crash to right or left as distant artillery roared, and even one or two snaps of rifle fire – nothing immense. As we thus approached Cuinchy – as we saw it was from the milestones – I saw the air of desolation hanging around it: not a living soul; the only sign of life a red-cross flag, a smoke-pipe between sand-bags, denoting a subterranean refuge, and a barricade of bricks. In Cuinchy we met the Herts Regiment and proceeded to draw tools and go out to build up and pump trenches. Marched in single file down, apparently, miles of communication trenches; an occasional dug-out; men mostly sleeping; trenches paved with boards or bricks. Went on and on under the guidance of a Herts corporal who pointed out La Bassee Church and the famous Brickworks where Mick O’Leary won the V.C

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