Accordingly, on November 25th, 1916, I entrained at the railway siding at Etaples at 3pm and after 24 hours journey via Abbeville and Amiens, I arrived at Albert at 4 pm next day. Arrived at Albert, we were formed up and marched to a Nissen hut encampment on the outskirts of the town and there remained until the following morning, when we were again assembled and marched to a building in Albert where we were each issued with a new box gas respirator, which was then only a new invention of its kind. We were then marched through a gas chamber charged with “tear” gas, wearing our respirators, the idea being to test them to discover faults.

In the afternoon, we were loaded onto some motor lorries and rejoined our battalions at the town of Pibemont, at which place I had left them nearly three weeks before. During the last three weeks, the battalion had been in the line at Flers, where they had remained under the most terrible conditions of cold and mud and shellfire for over a fortnight, most of the men being evacuated with trench feet. In addition, two companies of the battalion had made an attempt at attacking the German trenches but had failed, owing to most of the men becoming stuck in the mud when they leapt the parapets, and were shot down in dozens by the enemy machine guns.

The whole Somme battlefield was, at this time, owing to the heavy rain of the past month, a veritable quagmire of slush and mud into which men and horses sank up to the knees at every step, while in the trenches the mud was over the knees and in some cases up to the waist. In fact the conditions were so bad that sledges drawn by mules had to be used, in place of stretcher bearers and stretchers to get the wounded out of the trenches, while it was a frequent occurrence for men to be stuck fast in the mud in the trenches and be unable to extricate themselves without assistance. Weeks of these conditions had been too much for the endurance of the men who soon got trench feet and trench fever and had to be evacuated to hospital from sheer exhaustion, and it was a sadly reduced battalion that I found when I returned at Pibemont.

Trench feet is a complaint which the troops developed from constantly having the feet wet whilst the boots were on the feet. When waterlogged, the feet became swollen and inflamed owing to the lack of circulation and became extremely painful, causing such excruciating agony, in fact, that in some case the patients were unable to bear their own weight and had to be carried. Many men were unfortunate enough to lose their feet with this complaint owing to the fact that the feet sometimes developed a kind of foot-rot, causing the flesh to go black and mortify, thus necessitating amputation. The cause was never really known, some doctors attributing the disease to a microscopic organism and others to various other reasons. Trench feet caused such havoc in the ranks during the winters that drastic and expensive measures had to be enforced to lessen the evil. The troops were first issued with whale oil which they rubbed well into the feet partly for the beneficial rubbing and partly with the idea of keeping the water from soaking in through the pores of the skin. Later, all ranks were issued with waterproof gum boots or trench waders, of all sizes, made of rubber and canvas, which encased the feet and legs and came well up the thighs and were attached to a belt worn round the waist.

When these were issued in sufficient numbers to front line troops, it made it possible for men to stand in water for three or four days on end whilst garrisoning the front line without wetting the feet at all, and had the effect of reducing the cases of Trench feet to a minimum.

However, during the tour of duty which the battalion had just performed in the line at Flers, they were not armed with the above articles, so consequently the troops suffered terribly, men having to be evacuated by the score, until when at last they were withdrawn from the trenches, their numbers hardly totalled 200 out of 600 who took over early in November.

Having reported to the adjutant of the battalion, at headquarters, I was ordered to report to my company, which I did and soon had the pleasure of seeing Harold Mitchell again in No. 10 platoons billet in a barn close by. He was looking as worn out as the rest of the men, since he had been one of those who had been through the battalion’s recent tour in the muck and slush in the line at Flers. He informed me also that during my absence over a dozen parcels had arrived for me, but since I had given instructions to the Quartermaster to distribute any parcels which were addressed to me in my absence, I did not benefit by them as the Q.M. had taken me at my word. I remained three more days at Pibemont with the battalion, floundering about in the misty rain and the liquid mud of the roads, which was over the tops of our boots in depth, when the battalion received orders to move further back to recuperate and reorganise.