“No, I have not seen the King or the Queen out here; but I knew that the Queen was inspecting the hospitals in the town where we get off the train for this part of the front.

“Talking of hospitals—­the Padre says that Barker is not expected to live many hours longer.  The other three are pulling through.  We have got another officer gas casualty to-day.  Kerr, who has been suffering from the effects of gas ever since July 12, has reported sick to-day and has gone to hospital for a fortnight.  One by one we diminish!  I feel quite all right.

“I was talking to Sergeant Brogden—­the new gas N.C.O.—­last night.  He comes from Middleton Junction.  He says that he was in the Church Lads Brigade at St. Gabriel’s.

“I have been reading the leading article about popular scapegoats in the Church Times, and I agree with it.  I think the young Duke of Argyll’s attack on Archbishop Davidson in the Sunday Herald was conspicuous rather for venom than for good taste.

“Earl Curzon’s speech in the Lords on Mesopotamia I thought very sober and statesmanlike indeed.  I read it in the Times.”

The next day (July 20) I wrote home as follows: 

“We actually had no working parties to take last night.  How considerate of the Brigade-Major!  So we had a good night’s sleep.  And we have not done anything particular to-day.  We are going to have a change at last.  After twenty days in the line we are going out to-night, and are going to have a few days in a rest camp some distance behind.  The place to which we are going on this occasion is nothing like as far back as we were last month; but I can assure you it is a perfectly safe distance.  So you need not worry.  I can tell you it has been some twenty days!  I have never experienced such a twenty days before; and I am glad to be looking back upon them, writing during the last few hours, rather than at the beginning.  We are all glad to be going out again.  General Stockwell has ordered that we have three days’ complete rest; and Sir Hubert Gough has issued an order that on no account are the men in his Army to be worked more than four hours per day, inclusive of marching to and from parade ground, while out of the line.  So the prospect is bright.  It is now 4.10, and we are going to have tea.  Our bombardment is still making a great row.”

My diary of the same date (July 20) states: 

“At 4.30 p.m.  Captain Briggs, Dickinson, Allen, Sergeant Donovan and I walked via Wells Cross Roads, La Brique (where our guns were very close together, their sound almost deafening us as we passed them), to Liverpool Trench.  Here we reconnoitred our starting points for the forthcoming push.  Then Allen and I went on with Sergeant Donovan up Threadneedle Street to Bilge Trench.  We watched, through glasses, the German line going up in smoke.  In present-day warfare I certainly think that artillery is the most formidable arm of the Service; it is artillery which is the chief factor deciding success or failure in all the great battles in the West.  It is even now preparing the way for us.  After having had a look round from over the parapet in Bilge Trench we returned the same way we had come; and we actually got safely back to the Ramparts without having any adventures whatever!”