(Signed) The Vicar.
Recruiting notices ten feet by six feet with the sentence “Your King and Country Need You” are to be seen everywhere in shops, on barns, trees, and even church doors.
Motorists and cyclists are warned to pull up whenever requested or the results may be [pg 038] serious. Most of the motors have O.H.M.S. plates above the number plate.
We billeted in a village school; all slept in our blankets on the floor. Left the school and cleaned up before the kids came for their lessons next day.
Salisbury Plain. Arrived to-day. This part is called Bustard and takes its name from the small Bustard Inn, Headquarters of General Alderson, General Officer Commanding. Troops are here in thousands and we are no novelty. The roads are torn up. Mud is two feet deep in places. All through the day and night motor lorries, artillery and cavalry are traveling over the ground. Aeroplanes are circling overhead and heavy artillery are firing. We see the shells bursting on the ranges every day.
Always raining. Everything is wet, and I am sleeping in a rotten tent which leaks. Still, we are all so fit that what would kill an ordinary man doesn't worry us much.
We all get three days' leave and are trying [pg 039] by every means possible to wangle another day or two. Many men have to see dentists, and lots of men have grandparents in Scotland who display signs of dying suddenly. If the excuse is good enough, we get four days and sometimes five. I have a sweetheart in Scotland, but if that is played out I have to work something else.
Wonderful sight from where I am now. Miles of tents, motors and horse lines on this desolate moorland. No houses; only camps and a few trees which have been planted as wind screens. The soil is very poor, too poor for farming. It is government property and it is only used for troops. We are ten miles from a railroad. We are so isolated that we might be in Africa, except that it's so cold.