The billets were very poor & most of us slept on the floor of a shed

TCD MS 10821 folio 37 recto

TCD MS 10821 folio 37 recto

July 27th [1916]. The sun actually came out & it turned quite hot. We did not start till the evening to march to Sombrin about 8 miles from Arras, so that it was fairly cool. We did not arrive there till after dark & the transport did not turn up till 3.30 am. The billets were very poor & most of us slept on the floor of a shed, where the rats were very lively & several times I thought my toes would be bitten. Benson ran all the way from Arras in order to get fit, & passed many of the 21st Div who all thought he was running away & called him all kinds of names.
July 28th. We did not start till 10.30 am & it turned out to be a really hot day. The men after all their months in the trenches were absolutely unfit & their feet in very bad condition, so that todays march accounted for many of them. No less than 88 fell out & over three hundred have very sore feet. We have not had a chance to do a march or to take any exercise, as we were not allowed to leave billets in Arras by day, for months now. A heavy pack, steel helmets, 120 rounds of ammunition & a rifle make a heavy load. The road was quite pretty but rather up & down hill, through pleasant shady villages with picturesque little gardens. We billeted in the village of Beaudricourt