Monday 13th March 1916

Billets in Bois de Bouvigny

Reveille was sounded at 6am, and the men breakfasted at 7am, in preparation for their move. There was particular concern expressed in the orders that, “Great care must be taken to ensure that the Camp is handed over in a clean condition”. The detailed instructions included that “All fur coats will be packed in sandbags, carefully labelled and stacked in the empty hut on the West side of the camp. Nothing but fur coats are to be placed in the sandbags. If any unauthorised articles are found in the bags they will be left behind. One lorry will return to pick up the above sandbags. An officer, to be detailed by OC ‘C’ Coy with 4 men per Coy will remain behind to load the above lorry. This party, after the departure of the Battalion, will search all huts in camp to ensure that nothing is left behind. They will afterwards hand over the camp to the relieving unit.` Preparations duly completed, the Battalion marched off at 10.30am and arrived in Bruay at 4pm. On arrival, “some difficulty was experienced in procuring the billets, this however was satisfactorily accomplished and all ranks made comfortable”.

The mood was doubtless also lifted by a sudden and dramatic improvement in the weather. According to the War Diary, “the sun shone out and it became very hot” and J.B. Priestley also described it with obvious joy, “a sudden, dramatic change in the weather, for behold! old sol has come, the snow has disappeared like magic, and it is Spring!”.

Whilst their letters from the front had clearly given some impression of conditions, few at home can have realised the full horror, although J.B. Priestley left little room for doubt in a letter to his family,

“We are ‘soldiering’ (as the Tommies phrase it) in earnest now. We have just been in the ghastliest part of the whole Western Front. There is nothing like it. We relieved the French there, and they looked relieved too. You must have heard of the famous ‘labyrinth’; well that’s it. Great hills half blown away with enormous shells; villages absolutely raised to the ground; old trenches full of heads, legs and arms, blood-stained clothing and old equipment. Talk about ‘souvenirs’! The place is one vast morgue, it has been taken and retaken so many times".

Pte. Francis Herbert Maltby (see 2^nd March), known as ‘Bert’, was discharged from 4^th Stationery Hospital at Arques, and re-joined the Battalion.

Pte. Francis Herbert Maltby

L.Cpl. Maurice Harcourt Denham (see 10^th March) was admitted to 2^nd Canadian General Hospital at Le Treport for treatment on his ingrowing toenail.

Pte. Farrand Kayley (see 27^th November 1915), brother of Tunstill’s recruits James and Job Kayley (see 14^th January), embarked at Southampton en route to overseas service as a transport driver with 1^st/6^th Battalion West Ridings.