Diary Entry - 23rd January, 1917

Walford: Tuesday. I started for the WL about ten thirty a.m., walking, and had a perilous journey down the duckboards to Pozieres, as a lot of Bosche were crossing our lines and our antis were firing a lot of stuff into the blue.Well, I only had on a soft hat and fids[?] were rattling down all roads. On reaching the wagon line at one, I find Murdoch just off to hospital to have his leg seen to. Hoyland as usual had not censored any letters so I spent all the afternoon on a big pile that was there. The roads were as hard as bricks and I met Hoyland riding in Pozieres, but decided I should keep warmer if I walked and was about all out when I got down there, as gumboots are not the best things to walk in.

Bee: Harder frost than ever last night - about twelve degrees. We were woken early in the morning - about four forty-five - by that damn 5"[?] gun. They were falling fairly close. Two fell within ten yards of the house and two more practically amongst the horses, but no damage done. If they only shot all day, it would cause no end of trouble. Thank goodness they stopped at seven a.m. Walrond and I came back to the guns this morning. Kershaw came down. It was a bitterly cold day. We started riding but it was so cold we got off and walked. The roads are so awfully slippery you cannot stand up. Just before we got to the battery, I saw a Hun aeroplane, which was bright red. I had never seen one like it before but take it that the colour was to frighten our airmen. There was one of our old machines up, spotting for the heavies and an old bus. The Hun machine dived at him and fairly spat out machine-gun bullets but our fellow took it quite calmly and finally red wings rolled over three times in the air and came crashing to the ground with engines full on and in flames. I have never seen anything like it before. It was a splendid effort on our fellow's part as his opponent's was a far superior machine. We heard tonight that we brought down two of their machines. We found that a lot of work had been done in our position and everything is quite dry due to the frost.