On the morning of the fourth day after my return, therefore, we set off on our route march in the mist and drizzling rain and after a march of about 15 kilometres via Heally, arrived at a small village on the Doullens-Amiens road called Coisy. For twelve days we remained in this inhospitable and dirty little farming village, during which time the weather froze hard and owing to the presence of a driving mist which froze on the twigs of the bushes and trees, the country side had a rather weird appearance of snowy whiteness. The hoar frost was quite an inch long and formed most fantastic designs as it fastened to the sticks, grass and bushes, giving the village that Christmastide appearance that one sees on Christmas cards.

Of course, the weather was bitterly cold with it and our winter clothing, including sheep skin vest, balaclava caps and mufflers was called into use in order to try and enable us to cope with the keen winds and frost. However, our billets were a trifle above the average as we had wire stretchers, or bunks made of 2″ wire netting and built in tiers in the barns, to sleep on, and generally managed to gather enough burnable wood from various quarters to enable us to keep a fire going.

Our training at Coisy mostly consisted of elementary musketry and miniature range firing practice, interspersed with organised games and bayonet fighting. We did not get much platoon or company drill to do as we were so weak in numbers, that most of the platoons were composed of more N.C.O.’s than men, the total company strength only being about sixty. Every second day we were required to do duty as quarter guard, since we unfortunately possessed several inhabitants of the guard room. The reason our company got that duty every second day was because A company had been taken away to Vaux-en-Amcenois for the purpose of building a trench mortar school, leaving the battalion with barely sufficient men to supply the routine duties.

Whilst at Coisy, our Brigade was inspected by General Legge who was General commanding the 2nd Division at the time, and on neither occasion did he seem to be much impressed with our appearance as he passed some rather uncomplimentary remarks which we in return reiterated (behind his back of course). He was never very popular with the 2nd Division, as he seemed to be too unsympathetic and blustering in manner.

At Coisy also, both Harold and I managed to get leave to the City of Amiens on two separate occasions, which of course we spent in the usual private soldiers way, in eating and drinking and purchasing little things we wanted from the well stocked shops in that bustling city. Amiens boasts a magnificent Gothic style Cathedral of which most people have read or seen. At that time Amiens was full of troops of all nationalities, it being the Mecca of men on leave of the armies in the neighbourhood, and on the Boulevards the crowd, clad in winter garb, was very cosmopolitan. There were French officers and men, British officers and men, Colonials of all countries, both British and French, Portuguese and many coloured troops, all of whom wore their own distinctive uniform, the strange and picturesque crowd being varied by ladies with beautiful clothes, faces and figures. Amiens was also at the time a supply base, consequently there was a great bustle and a great deal of road transport hurrying in all directions with much clattering and tooting of motor horns.

In the midst of the dreary, cold, frosty and drizzling weather, during which we had not seen the sun for a month, we left Coisy on December 17th and began to make our way back to the trenches again. Our first halt was at La Houssoye on the road to Albert at which uninteresting place we remained the night, it being my misfortune to be detailed as a member of the blanket guard which kept me away from the cheerful warmth of the estaminets most of the evening. Next morning, we marched to a village called Dernancourt, where we were billeted for the night. During the past two days, the weather still remained frozen hard, and the ground underfoot crunched as we trudged along, making it difficult for us keep our feet on the slippery surface as we marched along, burdened by our heavy packs. At every halt the first thing we always did was to eat whatever there was to be eaten after which we set about obtaining some fuel for a fire in the billet. Some dirty work used to happen too in obtaining wood for our fires and I have seen a barn absolutely disappear without a trace in one night when the foragers got to work, much to the indignation of the local inhabitants.

All night long at Dernancourt, we lay and froze, listening to the sound of the heavy guns which as usual were roaring and belching forth their constant stream of high explosive shells into German territory. The “barks” of the guns were as varied as the barks of dogs. There was the deep roar of the 12″ and 9.2″ Howitzers, followed by the bang of the 8″ and 6″ whilst in the distance, the more rapid discharge of the 4.5’s and 18 pounders made night hideous with their noise which was something like being in close proximity to a mine crushing battery.

The day following, we marched from Dernancourt via Meault up to ruined Montauban Nissen hut encampment. All that day, I was a member of the prisoners escort and accompanied the inmates of the guard room with bayonet fixed and marching with the guard and with the prisoners in the Centre. Arrived at Montauban, the prisoners were taken over by another company and I returned to my platoon and obtained a meal and a night’s rest, sleeping on the pine floor of a Nissen hut whilst a blazing fire burned nearly all night in a brazier in the centre of the hut. Montauban Camp, like many other similar camps in this shell torn desolate sea of mud, was a collection or group of Nissen semi-circular galvanised huts, used for sheltering and billeting troops during their journey into and out of the firing line. I do not suppose that in a hundred square miles of the surrounding country, it would be possible to find a house of any description so that it was imperative that such encampments should be erected.

The approach to the Camp from the “stream-of-slush-with-a-hard-bottom” known as the main road, was a corduroy track made of logs of wood, which on being followed, led to the huts themselves which were built in rows of twelve, connected by duck boards on raised piles. Once make a false step off the corduroy track or off the duck boards, and you bogged up to the knees in the mud.

Owing to the bad drainage and the constant rain of the past two months, there was mud, mud everywhere. There was a sea of mud of the stickiest consistency in which a mule or a horse, or a human being were likely to stick fast. Vehicles constantly became entangled in the morass, it being quite a common occurrence for a mule team attached to a transport waggon to bog to the axle, making it necessary to call many extra mules into play before the waggon could be extricated. The country was covered in every conceivable direction with duckboard tracks by now, they being the only possible means of overcoming the mud problem as far as the troops were concerned; the troops themselves, generally spending most of their time whilst in reserve in laying them. These tracks were a favourite target of the artillery on both sides, since they were the only paths by which troops could move about and salvos were constantly aimed at selected spots in the hope of killing a few people.

The Germans, with their 5 and 9’s were particularly accurate in hitting these duckboard tracks and frequently indulged in the sport of chasing whole companies of men off them into the mud on either side off the track. We only enjoyed the shelter afforded by Montauban camp, which was like an island in a sea of mud, for one night, when we once more dragged our weary bodies along the slushy road, a distance of four kilometres to “E” camp near Barnafay Wood, threading our way in amongst the limbers guns, supply waggons and long lines of troops all the way.

We were now in amongst the sixty pounder guns and not infrequently a long range shell from the enemy would find its way as far back as the Nissen huts in the vicinity of Barnafay Wood. In fact we were just entering the camp which we were destined to occupy, when a shell came screeching towards us and burst under one of the huts 500 yards away, blowing it to pieces and killing 9 men into the bargain. (No very pleasant prospect for future comfort, I am sure.) Two or three months before, the village of Montauban and the surrounding country had been the scene of terrific barrages and stiff fights for the possession of the ridges and trench systems, and like the rest of the villages in the area between the firing line and as far back as Albert, it had been absolutely blotted out of existence, and in the place of a once prosperous and smiling country side, the general aspect of the country had changed to one of a wilderness of shell torn ground over which it was impossible to pass, except per the medium duck board tracks. At “E” camp we remained another night and part of the following day, in order to obtain some necessary rest, when we again set out by companies, in Indian file, up the duckboards, towards the firing line, passing through that scene of fearful combats and wholesale slaughter, Delville Wood, until after a march of four kilometres, we arrived at “Switch Trench.”

We arrived at nightfall and immediately took possession of the splinter-proof dugouts which was the only shelter obtainable and in these we camped. Switch Trench was a position which followed a ridge of ground north and south parallel to the firing line, and was then four kilometres from it. It had recently been the scene of a stiff fight in which the New Zealanders had been cut up very badly and was also the scene of the first introduction of tanks into trench warfare. Several disabled tanks were lying about in the neighbourhood where they had mostly become stranded owing to the insurmountable difficulties in the shape of mud and shell torn ground, which had proved too much for the mechanism of the tanks as they were then really only being tried out for the first time and had not reached the stage of development which they attained later on in the war.