Diary Entry - 28th February, 1916

On going to stables in the morning, Siggers and Hoyland find that someone has pinched all their small stores from their guns, having cut the straps with a knife. The suspected ones are the 15th Battery, who probably made a raid during the night but, of course, nothing could be done about it. At two, we get underway, for Bully Gannay, the whole battery being on the march. All the detachments march ahead of the battery, except one man, left for the break of each vehicle. The marching party, owing to 2 weeks pay being drawn two days previously, are for the most part very jubilant - in fact, so much so that three of them are put under arrest. The route we go is Bruay-Hallicourt-Ruit-Barlin-Hersin-Sains en Gobelle-Aix Moulette. At Sains en Gobelle, we were stopped by Kellagher who informed us we were not going into action that night but that we would put horses, guns etc, into a big farm there, which was to be our wagon line. At about seven thirty, we got all the horses watered, fed and groomed, and we then made speed to the billet at Aix Moulette, some 2 miles away. On arriving at the village near the guns, we were greeted with the news that we had lost a bombardier - a French pit had collapsed under shellfire and a piece of timber had pinned him down, catching him on the side of the head. Two other men were in the dugout, but they were suffering from shock and could not speak when they were dug out. We walked up to our mess, rather subdued, wondering what sort of place we had come into. We finally got to bed in a rather dirty room, wondering where we would be sent to the following day.