TCD MS 10821 folio 34 recto
[July 20th 1916] turned up. For an hour after lunch we had quite a heavy shelling with showers of fin bombs & trench mortars which blew in the trench we had dug out last night. Several men had extraordinarily narrow escapes & we were very lucky to have no casualties. One mortar landed within two yards of a sentry, knocked him over & covered him with earth, but did not hurt him at all. The evening was quite quiet. A great bombardment was going on to the North.
July 21st. Another fine day. Hear the pleasant news that we are to be relieved tomorrow. This means however that we are destined for the big show further South. A very quiet day. No shelling. In the evening the C.O & 2nd in command insisted on patrolling in front of our line. Quite wrong.
July 22nd. Our dug out, though very deep & safe is extremely damp & I feel rather rheumatick in consequence. No shelling again during the day. Several from the 6th Battalion have come to join us. The new Battalion arrived very late at night to relieve us. They have just come from Egypt & so this trench is very new to them. The relieving took some time but we got back to Arras by 2.30 am, just before day light & I promptly retired