Diary Entry - 4th May, 1917

Walford: Another nice warm day, after breakfast Sandford goes to the OP to shoot guns on zero; they made a frightful dust each round and we seemed to attract two Bosche planes which hung about for two hours so we had to stop. A very quiet day till about five when Bosche opened up a bit and put some rounds into the Howitzers at the crossroads to our rear, setting their charges on fire. I was at the OP at the time, having relieved Bellew as we were doing Brigade duty and a large sheet of flame went up. While I was up there, I saw Kellagher and Wynne Williams walk out and look at our Nieuport Scouts down in front of the Sucrerie. Came down at eight and had a very disturbed dinner as Bosche kept worrying our vicinity with his HV gun and a five nine - none too pleasant a combination. As soon as the dinner was finished, I got off to the 58th for the night. There seemed to be a big dump of ammunition going up in Arras about seven thirty p.m. It is reported it was caused by some careless fools setting a house nearby on fire. Aeroplanes were very active in the evening and there were myriads of our triplanes, Sopwith biplanes, Spads, FEs (old fighters), Nieuports and BEs. Bosche too was lurking in the clouds, but we never came in contact with him. He avoided every opportunity, even when one brave Sopwith biplane had a go at five of them for a few seconds, without result. That evening we had a disturbed dinner as Bosche kept shelling the sunken road with the HV gun, so we had to finish dinner after making two descents of the dug out stairs. After dinner, I went to the 56th beyond the railway embankment as we still kept one officer there.