Our new Brigadier turned up and proved to be a pleasant, sensible kind of man, looking rather like Lord Derby.  Having just come from France, he keeps quite cool whatever we encounter. (P.S.  We have had a new Brigadier since this one, I haven’t yet seen the present one.)

The march was slow and rough, as most of the ground was hard-baked plough.  The country was as level and bare as a table, bar the ditches, and we hardly saw a human being all day.  It took us till after 4 p.m. to do our sixteen miles.  About 2 p.m. we began to hear firing and see shrapnel in the distance, and it soon became clear that we were approaching a big battle.  Consequently we had to push on beyond our sixteen miles, and went on till Sunset.  By this time we were all very footsore and exhausted.  The men had had no food since the night before, the ration-cart having stuck in a ditch; and many of the inexperienced ones had brought nothing with them.  My leg held out wonderfully well, and in fact has given me no trouble worth speaking of.

We had to wait an hour for orders, the Brigadier knowing nothing of the General’s intentions.  By six it was quite dark, and the firing had ceased:  and we got orders to retrace our steps to a certain camping place (marked I on sketch).  This meant an extra mile, and immense trouble and confusion in finding our way over ditches and then sorting kits in the dark:  but finally we did it, ate a meal, and turned in about 9.30 p.m. pretty well tired out, as we had been on the move fourteen hours and had marched about twenty-one miles.  To put the lid on it, a sharp shower of exceedingly frigid rain surprised us all in our beauty sleep, about 11 p.m. and soaked the men’s blankets and clothes.  Luckily I had everything covered up, and I spread my overcoat over my head and slept on, breathing through the pocket-holes.

(I will continue this in diary form and post it if and when I get a chance.)

Friday 7th. Started at 8.30 and marched quietly about five miles.  This brought us within view of the large village of D., which is roughly half-way between B. and C. Between us and it the battle was in full swing.  We halted by a pontoon bridge (2 on sketch), just out of range of the enemy’s guns, and watched it for several hours.  Owing to the utter flatness of the ground, we could see very little of the infantry.  It was hot and the mirage blurred everything.  Our artillery was clearly very superior to theirs, both in quantity (quite five to one it seemed) and in the possession of high explosive shell, of which the enemy had none:  but we were cruelly handicapped (a) by the fact that their men and guns were entrenched and ours exposed; and (b) by the mirage, which made the location of their trenches and emplacements almost impossible.

I had better not say much about the battle yet, but I will give a rough sketch and describe our own experiences.  I will only say this, that the two great difficulties our side had to contend with were:  (1) the inability of the artillery to locate anything with certainly in the mists and mirage, and (2) the difficulty of finding and getting round the enemy’s flanks.  Either they had a far larger force than we expected, or they were very skilfully spread out—­for they covered an amazingly wide front, quite eight miles, I should say, or more.