The ground is white everywhere

TCD MS 10822 folio 15 recto

TCD MS 10822 folio 15 recto

[April 9th 1917] attack. From there it was possible to see the attack for quite ten miles to the North. Everything at first went well and the Boche were driven back further and further. Many prisoners kept coming in all day: they did very good work carrying in our wounded and even gave them their coats when they were cold. The second attack on the ‘Brown’ line was not so successful: the Cavalry had all come up in order to go through but the 43rd Brigade did not reach their objective owing to the 56th Div. failing to come up. Another soft job at home for some Brigadier I suppose. If only the 56th Div. had come on, we should have got the Brown line and the Cavalry could have gone through. As it was they had to go back again. It turned bitterly cold in the night and snowed hard. No one had blankets or great coats so we all suffered very much from the cold, as we had to hold ourselves in readiness to go forward and take the Brown line.
April 10th. We did not move during the night and all through the morning snow-storms and bitter winds continued. The ground is white everywhere and there seems to be no spring at all in this country. At 11 a.m. we received orders to move forward to the Blue line, which we did, suffering no casualties on the way though several shells came very near. I lunched in a German dug-out off German tinned rations which tasted very good but which made me very sick in the evening. In the afternoon we suddenly received orders to relieve the K.O.Y.L.I.s who were supposed to be in the Brown line. We advanced in Artillery formation towards where they were supposed to be, but after going about three quarters of a mile we came under machine gun fire from the right flank where the 56th Div were supposed to be. We halted for a while in a trench which we discovered, until we could spy out the land. Then on a heavy snow-storm coming on I moved up two Companies into the Brown line. The snow-storm afforded cover from the Machine guns for most of the way, but unluckily it lifted just as they were crossing a very thick wire entanglement and they had here about ninety casualties with Williams & F. T. St. Aubyn killed and three Officers wounded. Altogether in the day we lost seven and 100 men killed and wounded. The 8th R.B. came up in the evening