Diary Entry - 20th July, 1916

I gave the IMS the list of supplies I wanted drawn – rations for 92 men and 100 horses. Two ASC wagons were to be at supplies to draw the material and then come on to join the troop at the church. In the morning, I was rather worried about some coffee bar material left in the village, and it was not very long before Colonel Robinson turned up and informed me it had to be loaded on my already loaded transport and put on the train at Bryas, a station some eight miles away. At eleven thirty, I, assisted by Hoyland, started loading up - or overloading the wagons - with this surplus coffee bar material. By twelve thirty, we were all ready and got under way but, before a mile was covered, the float (Vets[?]) had to be abandoned, being hopelessly out of action, with the spokes breaking off at the rim. Having sent a man back to Hannie and left a man there to look after it, we moved off again. One of the numerous old French wagons was giving a lot of trouble on hills, as its brake shoe had snapped and, at lunchtime, two p.m., when we stopped to water, I found an ASC cart with supplies on it, with a dished front wheel, and the above-mentioned wagon with a cracked perch. Well, the only remedy was to heave off all coffee bar material on these vehicles, leave two men with it, send the ASC wagon to the village, and tell it to look after itself. The other wagon, all heavy stuff off it and supplies loaded, looked strong enough for the voyage. Well I did not like the hopes of seeing Bryas by seven, but we covered the five miles left in good style, only having one accident – the wheel coming off a small DAC wagon, so I left the fitter with it and told him to do his best. He proved a handy man and brought it along to Bryas before I had finished unloading. Bryas reached by about five forty, I sent Sergeant Munday, my only reliable NCO, on to bivouac the vehicles, which hadn't any coffee bar boxes on them. The remainder were unloaded onto trains standing by and, on picking up five more wagons, one of our own, I trekked after Sergeant Munday. We got into a field about six forty-five, had horses watered at bad pond and fed them and then looked after the inner man. I must mention that there was no time to arrange any bundubus [?] en route as had not a chance to collect the NCO, such as they were.