TCD MS 10822 folio 11 recto
March 23rd [1917]. Another bitter day. Heavy shelling during the night and all day with our guns. To-morrow we are to move up into the line in support, so I went and reconnoitred our positions. Our H.Q. are in a cave, part of an amazing system of caves all lighted with electric light along which we wandered for three quarters of an hour. Our entrance to these caves came out in no man’s land. I wandered round part of our old front line and the Boche line: it was a terrible sense of desolation everywhere. Returned back above ground. Very busy all the evening making arrangements for the move and was very glad to get to bed.
March 24th. Very hard frost with an icy N. E. wind when I was woken up at 4 a.m. by a very heavy bombardment. During the day we relieved the D.C. L. 1 who were holding our old front line in support. My head quarters are in the Bluff cave, where we made ourselves very comfortable. There are 65 feet of chalk about us, so we feel very safe and scarcely hear any sounds of the bombardment. Our guns fire all day and the Boche guns all night. The transport did not arrive up till midnight. I spend some time exploring these caves which can hold 7 or 8000 troops. They were only discovered quite by accident and date back to 1630.
March 25th. The caves are very damp to live in and everything is clammy. In the morning I went up to reconnoitre the new front that we shall have to take over from the 8th Bt. To get there we had to pass through a maze of shell holes and destroyed trenches. Up in the line it was quite quiet and we had very good views over Tilléy and the Harp and Neuville Vitasse. Parties were busy opening out the old German dugouts which had been blown in. During the morning we had 2 men killed by shell fire in Ronville. At night we had to find working parties to dig new trenches in front of the front line. I went up to visit them. It was a cloudy night with drizzling rain and so dark that it was impossible to see a yard in any direction. I lost my way and seeing a sentry of the 8th Bt asked him where the Preussin Wig was. He said he would show me the way and then said “Are you not Mr Bury”? I said “Yes” How on earth do you know me?” He said he recognised my