TCD MS 10822 folio 2 recto
[Nov 7th-11th 1916] the final of the Brigade football competition and every morning that we can get out at all we spend on the range shooting, doing physical drill and platoon drill. The men are now beginning to get very fit.
Nov 12th-14th. A finer spell of weather. We are having some very good concerts in the evenings now, the men are improving very much and the shows they give are quite excellent now. An inter platoon football competition is going on now for a barrel of beer and there is great keenness to win this. There are extraordinary numbers of partridges about in the fields – quite close to my billet, I put up a woodcock, a jack snipe, teal and two water rails, more ought soon to come in, if the weather gets colder.
Decr 4th. I have been too lazy to keep up the Diary every day as there has been very little to relate. There were many Brigade Competitions of which we won the football, boxing and cross-country race, only losing the relay race. On the 23rd the whole brigade moved into Arras to find working parties for the 35th Div. In Arras we had very comfortable billets from which the Corps Heavy Gunners tried to oust us, but without success, though we had a hard fight to remain there, but the Town Mayor an old Rifleman was on our side and would not allow us to be moved. The Companies are out working all day in the K Sector making a trench tram line, improving the support line and working at deep dug outs. It takes me a good four hours walk to go round. The Bantams for whom we are working are the most comical little dwarfs, very dirty and unshaven and seldom reaching as far as my shoulder. Porter went away on the 28th on a C. O.’s cruise and I have been left in command since. A new pattern box-respirator arrived on the 1st and we have been busy fitting them and putting everyone through a gas chamber, they are a great improvement on the old ones. The weather has been consistently cold and foggy, the ground remaining frozen all day.
Dec 10th. Porter returned on the 5th and took over command. The heavy gunners tried several more times to come into our billets but without success. On the 8th we left Arras, starting in the dark at 5-43 a.m. and marched eighteen miles to Magnicourt. It was a nasty wet