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 24 December 1915
Rained frightfully all night but ceased in morning till boys went digging then it poured.
No. 3 and 4 companies shift their billets. No. 4 Company go to Mont Noir and take over [huts] where there is lots of mud and plenty of rats. A windmill still in action is above us on top of the hill. We receive Christmas presents – packet or box of cigarettes and tobacco from “friends in Montreal”, a book and packet of Player Cigarettes from “Canadian Field Comforts Commission” of Moore Barracks Shorncliffe, a field service writing pad from Major Gault’s Mother a Christmas pudding. I walk into La Clytte with Wallach. The Huns are busy with their blue lights. Plenty of rats run around us at night.
*Canadian Field Comforts Commission- A Canadian government agency whose aim was the distribution of extra clothing and comforts to Canadian soldiers in England and the front. The commission sent goods such as clothes, food, hygiene products and tobacco directly to soldiers.
Friday 26 November 1915
Snow fell best part of the day. Very cold and awfully miserable. The troops rest all day. Major Gault visits the barns and apologises to the men regarding strenuous day yesterday.
Tuesday 9 November 1915
The machinery started to revolve at 6 am so slept thro it.
At 10:30 am I meet Captain Barclay who asks me to come to Officers Quarters to cut their hair at 11:30 am. I do so. In afternoon to No. 2 Company cutting hair.
Major Gault lectures the Battalion on Esprit de Corps on the big name the Battalion has made and orders them to keep it. “Do not live on the honors of the past”.
To the factory in afternoon and evening to see the machinery and workings of textile industry.
Watch them make sacking and carpets of all shades. To the dye room and drying machine room.
After a bath in hot water I retire to a bed of skeins of hemp, at 9 pm.
*Esprit de Corps – Another term for morale
Monday 8 November 1915
The Battalion parades at 8 am and march to a field to be inspected by General Smith and also for him to say a farewell speech. Major Gault responded with a grand speech and called for 3 cheers for the General. We sever all communications with the 80th Brigade and 27th Division. We move on to Picquigny with the Band of the General Staff at our head.
Lovely Country with undulating ground and covert woods (spinneys).
Arrived at Picquigny at 10 am. The ruins of an old castle with the portcullis and main entrance in good condition. The castle stands on a prominent hill above and in the town. The walls of the city gateway are visible.
Rested outside the town for ¼ hour and proceeded to Flixecourt arriving at 1:30 pm.
Billeted at Saint Brothers Carpet, Sack, and oil sheet factory in the drying rooms. Amidst oils and dyes. Sickly and warm. After a rest a party (Wallach, Brulungie, Rowley, and self) of us went to visit the Chateau on the hill. Madame Saint gave permission to us to go around the grounds and detailed a servant to shew us around. Visited the gardens, conservatory, [Vinery?] Stable and Kennels.
Afterwards to tea and bed.
I sleep on a pile of hemp skeins and had a good sleep.
Thursday 8 July 1915 – windy and cloudy
Assisting carpenter in morning.
Wrote letters in the morning.
Colonel Buller and Major Gault paid a visit to what remains of Princess Pats.
* Lt Col H.C. Buller – Colonel Buller took command of the regiment after the death of Colonel Farquhar. He was injured during the Second Battle of Ypres and lost an eye but returned to command the regiment in 1916. He was killed in the Battle of Mount Sorrel on June 2nd 1916.
** Lt Col A. Hamilton Gault –Was a driving force behind the creation of the Princess Pat’s. Gault offered the Canadian government 100,000 dollars to help raise and equip the battalion for overseas duties. Upon the formation of the Regiment he was made Major and was second in command. Gault was also wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres and was forced to give up command until he returned in October of 1915. Gault lost a leg during the Battle of Mount Sorrel in 1916 but again returned to the war, eventually commanding the Princess Pats near the end of the WWI.
Saturday 2 January 1915 – Rain
Another wet miserable day with high wind. Major Gault arrives back from the trenches. He says the men are being pulled out of the muddy trenches, being unable to get out themselves, legs swollen with rheumatics. Men in trenches standing on their fallen dead comrades to avoid standing in the water which is thigh deep (your King and Country needs you?)
The Companies go out and dig more trenches in the rain and biting winds.
Our men have been paid and the usual drinking crimes are the result.
