Diary Entry - 27th August, 1916

Sunday I had arranged a bivouac the previous night, made out of waterproof sheets, tied to a barbed wire fence, and I slept under it on a stretcher. It rained very heavily through the night, but my bivouac kept it all out, and I awoke quite dry at six a.m. for stables. I was a bit previous though, as stables, instead of being at six thirty a.m., was at seven a.m. Bailey and Hoyland went off looking for a new wagon line in the morning, which we were to take over from a battery in the Guards division, who we were relieving. Cruickshank and I had a gas helmet inspection at two thirty p.m. The rest of the afternoon, the men spent packing the guns and getting ready to go up into action at five thirty, the left section remaining at the wagon line. In the afternoon, on walking through the village, there seemed to be a lot of men the worse for drink, but we never saw any of the 48s. The 71s were very bad, so also D36, the latter mainly caused, I think, through Hortayne's section having to parade and bathe when it was raining. They evidently thought they ought to take something to warm them up. It rained off and on throughout the day. All our men were all right again at eight p.m. parade, and we congratulated ourselves on having no drunken men. At ten p.m. the Colonel ordered a rollcall, having evidently returned at three thirty p.m. and being kept away from the village, but the town Mayor had to report to him at nine p.m. that two men of the fifteenth were causing much trouble in the main street, trying to assault a young girl, so the adjutant was sent out round the batteries at ten. Evidently, the sergeant majors of the 15th, 71st and D36 had got wind he was coming and threw their drunken men in the river so as they could parade and, between this dodge and the adjutants not knowing who had gone to the guns and who hadn't, the sergeant majors won the day, not a man being discovered actually tight.