October 24, 1916
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Spent a very cold night and woke up to find it raining, with mud everywhere. After breakfast decided to take a run out to the front and see what things were like so set off with a pal without saying anything to the others. Never will I forget the awful conditions under which our chaps labour. The road was a sea of mud, thousands of men doing nothing except scraping and sweeping off the mud, laying huge logs or tree trunks, filling holes with stone and otherwise repairing it.
Practically all the bricks of the destroyed villages have been used to make the roads and metal is brought up as fast as possible. Brushwood wired together in long bundles is also used, everything possible, in fact, being pressed into service. Waggons, limbers, etc. had eight horses apiece and even then could not get along, and I witnessed several bogged, also the animals themselves. In places they would sink to the belly, I myself was soon covered in mud, in one place sinking in mud up to my knees.
Fine weather would be worth millions to the British. From a railway siding ammunition limbers were loading shells, also thousands of pack mules, long strings of which could be seen threading the country side carrying shells in baskets, carried to the guns, forward, mostly 18 pounders. I found the 8th Field Amb. at Thistle Dump with only a couple of tarpaulin shelters and alongside were 4.7 howitzers by the dozen firing away merrily.
What a position for a dressing station and for wounded, but the only one available. Further on I came to our bearers, all three ambulances working together. They were fairly comfortable in dugouts, but had an awful carry of 3 to 4 miles with wounded across the open, doing 8 hour shifts, more when necessary. To walk without falling occasionally is impossible owing to the fearful state of the country.
Several caterpillars were about, one of which I saw drawing a huge sledge, showing wheeled vehicles impossible in that particular part. Bodies, both our men and Germans, were still unburied in this region, why ‘tis hard. to say, but it all points to the terrible strain this offensive is. Even with the weather fine the traffic can hardly get along at more than a snails pace, a man walking by himself can easily outdistance it. How it gets along now at all is a mystery. I know of one case where a motor ambulance took 15 hours to do 4 miles when returning for wounded.
Towards the end of the day I saw our 1st Division arrive and saw several old faces. More dispiriting circumstances could hardly be imagined. They were arriving in the wet, mud of course everywhere, and knew that these conditions would last until they were relieved. Billets there were none, as all houses were leveled. A few dugouts existed, not nearly enough for the number of men, hot meals were out of the question for the time and the weather was bitterly cold.
‘Tis war with a vengeance, cruel beyond human imagination, but evidently not beyond human endurance, seeing that it still goes on. Who can stand the strain longest is the question. It will decide the winner, I have no doubts myself. Had I the violent literary qualities which literary men call realism in my pen, pages could be filled on the scene before me, but I can only put down a few thoughts which cross my mind at this moment.