TCD MS 10247/1/831 folio 2 recto
[13 April 1917] Id be up at the O.P. before daylight – have maps telephone etc all ready. Then at the first stream of dawn start off. “Battery Action! Gunfire commence firing” – I’ll bet the battery would get the stuff through quick enough too! I keep on pumping it in – with an occasional switch as I’d finished with one section – and wouldn’t leave off till the last rays had faded from the sky – there’d be scores of batteries each with their own sector, a good few 12″ & 15″ sprinkled in and occasional little “hors d’oevres” of gas <acid> & liquid fire etc. for any stray Hun who might want a little extra excitement and by the time the operation was finished I be ready to offer a pretty useful reward to anyone who <was> able to identify the site of the town!!! I’m afraid you’ll think I’m getting a Hun myself – but thats what one feels like sitting in the midst of complete ruin pumping stuff into what must once have been quite a nice little French village; and picturing all the Huns sitting smug and comfortable in the houses without so much as a slate falling off their roof. – Well anyway so much for that – for certainly there’ll be some pretty terrible work done when we do get into Germany – which it would seem, may not be so very far off after all.