Busy sketching & forget all about Sunday. Enemy shell Poperinghe & Busseboom camp. Pt. Peart is wounded in eye when firing from parapet. My best chum.
A Zeppelin passes overhead making westward with much noise.
Saturday 15 April 1916
Snow & hail in morning.
I go twice under shell & rifle fire to Co H.Q. (the culvert). Interview McD. at 12 & again at 1 PM. We study positions together and decide on making a fresh line on our front. We have aerial photos to go on & compare with our maps. I meet Major Gault who exchanges greetings with a merry laugh & a joke.
Leave H.Q. at 3:30 for Ypres to visit Brigade H.Q. As I pass on Menin road a whiz bang shell strikes within 20 feet from us. I enter Ypres at 4:15 PM & leave at 5:30 PM thro’ Vlamertinge & Busseboom arr. camp 9:30 PM after calling on Wallach.
Friday 14 April 1916
(Lieut. Horner & Pvt. Evans are killed also Pvt. Warren & Pvt. Craighead)
Sketching up to 3 PM.
Leave camp for the trenches by myself. Take route thro’ Kriusstraat & Ypres arr. at Bn H.Q. at 6:30. Lt. MacDougal (intelligence officer) & I view maps. At 9 PM McD. & I go along the front firing line. As we go over Menin Road Pte. Peart is shot in eye (right) by bullet. The ground all round is pitted with shell holes. We visit the crater which was made by one of our mines when Enemy occupied the ground. All trenches in very bad shape. Only 2 dug outs stench horrible. Many dead Germans & ours near crater, our troops occupy shell holes for 48 hours. I return to H.Q. at 2:30 am.
Thursday 13 April 1916
To Poperinghe in the morning for sketching supplies.
Do some sketching in afternoon in the hut by myself.
Wednesday 12 April 1916
Raining Heavy
I am presented to Colonel Buller & Major Hamilton Gault & congratulated on my excellent sketching & map drawing.
I trace and sketch all morning for Mr. MacDougall the intelligence officer & again in afternoon.
Appointed Regimental Topographer.
Battalion goes into trenches, I leave billet at 6:30 PM.
I to Ouderdom with Battalion headquarters for map drawing. Promoted to full corporal.
Tuesday 11 April 1916 – rain
Raining heavy during night. Heavy bombardment all along our front.
I am called upon to do some sketching & tracing for Col. Buller.
Monday 10 April 1916
Awful bombardment during night & early morning.
Rains
Sunday 9 April 1916
Little or no bombardment.
I go to bomb pit & throw live bombs.
Saturday 8 April 1916
Heavy shelling at St. Eloi & Dickebusch.
To Dickebusch & inspect the interior of church also graves of P.P.’s. Lance Corporal W.J. Huston’s is in good shape. I trim it off. After a burial service I meet the parson (chaplain) a Captain Sherring of St. Paul’s Church Fort William.
We enter the church together (with Pvt Carey) and I find a nose cap of a shell (German). I give it to Capt. Sherring who is much pleased.
Witness aerial duel & bombardment by enemy. Our plane dodges backwards & forward amidst the shells. After half hour reconnaissance our plane returns safely to our lines. Heavy bombardment during night.
Friday 7 April 1916 – fine
Rained heavy at night & awfully heavy bombardment is going on by both sides.
The 27th Battn suffer heavily.
I get a letter from Bessie to say my property has suffered a great deal from floods.
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