The wet weather of the previous few days continued and the
Battalion again provided large working parties.
Pte. Willie Parkin (see 28th September) was reported by Cpl. John Bargh (see 2nd October 1914) and L.Cpl. William Edmondson Gaunt (see 1st May) as ‘refusing to obey an order’; on the orders of Lt. Col. Bartholomew (see 13th October) he would be ordered to undergo ten days’ Field Punishment No.2.
Pte. William Knox (see 26th October) again wrote to his wife, Ethel. (I am most grateful to Rachael Broadhead and family for allowing me access to William’s letters).
“… The weather is very unsettled here just at present and the streets are so very dirty it is over our boots in sludge. I think France is one of the most insanitary places I have been in. There is no drainage whatever. I can tell you it is a lot different to old England. It will be a treat to get back home again where the places are a bit clean. … I have not told you before that I have been under the Doctor for three days with pains in my stomach but I am quite well again now. The Doctor gave me a dose of castor oil on Sunday and I got light duty so I lay down all the afternoon but by gum the castor oil wasn’t half rotten. It made me as sick as a horse but it did me a lot of good. We were to go on parade this morning at nine and just as we were going to get ready it started to rain so we could not have a parade at all. We were all disappointed you may bet. ... We have had some pay since we have been over here. It is in five Francs notes. I have drawn 15 Francs. It is rotten when you go into a shop to buy anything they cannot understand what we say and they start jabbering back to us in French and we are about the same. Then we say to them ‘No compre’, which means I do not understand. You would laughed the first time I bought anything here. I gave them half a crown in our money and it came to threepence and he gave me two francs, a fifty cent and 3d. and I thought he had given me 2/9 change, but they told me it was 2/3 in our money. Their francs are the same size as our shillings and their 50 cents look just like sixpences. I would send you one of each only it would be ten to one if you got them, so I will not venture. We are expecting going into the trenches again on Saturday and it will be a very warm shop by all accounts. Some of our men have been out there working with the Royal Engineers and they say that between our front line and theirs you can see men lying dead in all shapes; some kneeling with the full pack on. It must be awful. They were telling us that the Germans were having a bit of a do as they could hear a gramophone playing. So now you may guess how near one trench is to another. It is expected to be a very great attack here before so very much longer. ... I received the Green Un (this was the nickname for the local Sheffield Saturday evening sports newspaper) and Answers last night. I’m glad you sent me Answers as it has some nice reading in it and it will pass the nights on very nicely as it is not often I go out of a night. I think I told you in my last letter not to send me no more Oxo Cubes as we have plenty given out to us every day but do not forget to send me some candles now and again as they are very dear here and they only last about two hours. … We went for a bath on Saturday afternoon and we had to walk nearly five miles and when we got there we had to bath ourselves in a tub and it was a sight. Sixty of us in different tubs at once. I should like a snap shot of it to send to you. When we were going we saw two mules and a transport fall into a river and both were drowned. But the driver was saved but was all but done for. We have heard this morning that two of our chaps were killed yesterday, Tuesday, but not in our Company (Ptes. Isaac Beardsley (14528) and Ellis Gill (15918), see 26th October). …”.
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