About June 13, we suddenly received orders for the battalion to entrain at a Village called Puchivillers, so the same afternoon we entrained and shortly after, left behind the peaceful village of Rubempre on our way to Bapaume. After three hours journey over the deserted looking battlefield between Albert and Bapaume, we arrived at a siding on the outskirts of Bapaume and disentrained. We then marched to the tent encampment which we had occupied when|the Battalion had arrived back from the Battle of Bullecourt. For the next week, we continued our training in the open fields around about the camp, reveille being blown at 4 am when we fell in and performed an hours physical exercise.

Breakfast was at 6.30 am and after it was got through, we fell in on our Battalion parade grounds and continued our training until 11 am when the training ceased and we were free for the remainder of the day. The afternoons were employed in games such as cricket or kicking the football, whilst at night time we often had concerts or held boxing tournaments.

All the time we were at Bapaume camp, we as part of the 2nd Division, were required to “stand to” every night at 10 pm the Division being in reserve to the front line troops at Bullecourt.

It being the month of June and mid summer, it did not become dark until 10.30 pm and as dawn came at 4 am, there only remained about five hours of darkness and since we were required to stand to at 10 pm and rise at 4 o’clock in the morning, we consequently rarely obtained more than five or six hours sleep during the night.