Diary Entry - 18th October, 1916

Walford: Wednesday, at the guns all day, superintended work on the position during the morning and the Captain, after lunching with me, cut wire all the afternoon. Bosche during the morning had thrown over a good many 8-inch very indiscriminately but the closest had fallen at the Euston crossroads. However, in the afternoon, as an aeroplane had approached unobserved to the 15th and seen them firing, the 8-inch was turned on to them. This made it very uncomfortable for us as the batteries were only about 30 yards apart. The 15th while firing had one direct hit on a pit but the one man inside emerged unscathed. Several landed on our side of the tram line rather close and so we evacuated for about 15 minutes to see what they would do. The 15th had also evacuated. Bosch however chucked it and we came back and went to gun fire first with the right section then right half battery finally the whole battery and fairly hurled the shells over, firing 800 for the afternoon, which, of course, ends at four forty-five now, on account of the light.

Bee: Damned cold last night, but I had nothing to complain of as I had my blankets and a bed, but the signallers found it very cold as one was on duty all night. The dugout has two entrances but is nothing extra. Kellagher built the OP which is a very fine structure. It is built of bricks which they carried from the Sugar Factory and has steel girders and a concrete roof, but it rained hard last night and the roof leaked like fun. I got out about six, mainly because I was cold, thinking I might get a shot at the Hun but it was such a rotten light I did not see much. The OP became a very popular place for OS who were cutting wire. The 34th Brigade's Colonel Parry came along and was rather on heat re being in view of his battery op, but I think he is rather selfish. Anyway, he must have gone back and seen our colonel as we had to shift to another op that night. I hardly got a look at the front at all between ten a.m. and four p.m. Major Jones and Captain Grant Suttie and a few others occupied the loop hole.