There has been a terrific barrage on since eleven a. m. We could hear the roar all through dinner, and constantly Very lights were being put up. The night was pitch black and we lost our way in the mud and darkness in trying to get to the 2/6.
This afternoon we went out with the Padre to A. D. S. at Eauze. We were going out on the railway embankment toward St. Léger when they began a pretty stiff bombardment (the English). Shells were hurled over from all directions and the air fairly hummed. It stopped our trip and we watched behind an old piece of wall the shells breaking on Bull-dog Trench, the German front lines. Some were big 5·9's and they threw up a perfectly enormous cloud of earth.
We had tea in the A. D. S. with House and Blackburn. It is their casual conversation that gives one the real sidelights on the situation. Fox, an Engineer, was standing a bit down the road when a shell broke near him. He came sauntering in as if it had been a rose-fall. When things quieted down we walked down the road and joined some of the Engineers for a bit of gossip. Then home in the ambulance.
Took a short walk into a small German cemetery. Boche when he retreated scratched off the number of the unit on every cross.
October 6th. Rain. Nothing doing. Bitterly cold.
October 7th. Bitter cold. Had ten blankets and still shivered. Went to service this morning. It was one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen. The Divisional Yorkshire Band. Most of the men were going up the line and were in heavy marching order. It made shivers up and down one's spine.
We move to 45 C. C. S. this afternoon. Shall be sorry to go.
October 9th. We moved to C. C. S. in a pouring rain and came into a wallowing mud hole after dark. We got a real British reception and were shown into a tent that contained nothing. "Have you a servant?" was the first question. "We have not," was the answer. So they detailed us the camp idiot. Mud, rain and a howling gale, and British stoicism. They are not a bit like the nice bunch we left.
There is nothing doing here but some trench fever cases (P. N. O.). There is absolutely nothing to do or see, so we hang around in the wet and cold and shiver.