e quartered in huts close to an old
ruined town, and we were within shell fire. Directly we had supper we
were outside watching the shells burst about a mile away; I don't think
we ever thought of Fritz shelling us. Aeroplanes were flying overhead
and our guns were keeping up an incessant roar, but it seemed more on
our right; afterwards we knew that it was the big bombardment before
the Battle of Loos. We all slept well that night and were up early the
next morning. We lounged around all day, and a party of officers and
N.C.O.'s went to look over the trenches we were going in. Just at
nightfall it started to rain, a cold wet drizzling rain, and when we
fell in, it looked as if we were in for a wetting, and we were. We
were carrying our packs, and as we started off we were all feeling
fine, and if it hadn't been for the rain we wouldn't have minded. I
often laugh when I think of that march; we were miles away from any
Germans when we started, yet we spoke in whispers,--of course we didn't
know any better then,--and whenever a flare went up we stopped, then
went on again. We could see where the trenches were as flares were
continually going up, lighting up things for a while and then dying
out. At last we met some men from the battalion that we were going to
relieve, and they acted as guides; past tumble-down houses, along roads
full of holes, in and out of mudholes. We were very careful at first,
but we might just as well have walked through the lot, for we were all
mud to our knees when we got in. We at last entered the communicating
trenches and we followed each other, cracking a joke now and again to
keep our spirits up; every little while whiz! would go a bullet
overhead and we ducked our nuts--we were perfectly safe if we had only
known. We passed some Highlanders (Canadians); I suppose they must
have been amused at us, as we were all eager to know where the Germans
were--I think we had an idea that we were going into a bayonet charge
every morning before breakfast. Soon we came to a place where the
trench jogged in and out, and in every jog were men standing up and
looking across into the blackness; we were in the front line. After
much confusion we at last relieved the others. Listening-posts had to
be placed and machine guns manned and lots of other things done. We
soon found out that one could look over at night and be comparatively
safe; there was always a certain amount of rifle fire, but one ca