Diary Entry - 8th March, 1916

In the afternoon, Suttie, Cottew and I went up to the trenches to follow the infantry wire, mark it and staple it into the walls of the trench. We went right up to the front line and out into the saps and had a look over the top but, to my mind, you could not see much. In one we went to, we were only 25 yards from Boschie, and it was supposed to be a listening post, but Suttie made a devil of a noise out there, not knowing at the time. On our return, we had two rifle grenades fall unpleasantly close to us, and I was covered with mud from the burst each time. We were going along once and there was a noise like a shell coming and I ducked, but someone said, 'There she goes,' and, on looking up into the air, I saw one of our trench mortar shells floating on in the blue. It made a splendid bang on coming down.