Harry Hawkins and Edith May Forshaw - 'All Australians Had Plenty of Money and Gold Teeth: a digger's diary: his daughter's memoirs', collated by Amy Auster and Arron Wood, 2002 - Page 22

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make room for the 9 Btn so we went on to Pomeray [Pommier] wood. This march was very funny there was only about 10 or 12 left in the 11 platoon and Sgt Len Barwick was in charge of it so the Btn. halted for a spell and it was cold and snowing and we was not allowed to light fires for fear it would attrack the enemy so Sgt Barwick got his herd and put them in a big shell hole and we sang Keep the Home fires burning and such songs and Major Woodford came up and said we look happy well we tryed to be. Wet through lousey hungry foot sore and weary and far from home. We stayed at Pomeray [Pommier] wood makeing roads till the 12/11/16 when we went to Durnancourt. We passed through the ruined villages of Marmetze [Mametz] Becordel and Albert. On the 13/11/16 left Durnancourt for Buire where we stayed till the 17/11/16 training for another shunt. And Lt Colonel Heane said that he was disgusted with the 1st Btn and that he did not think that the Btn would disgrace its Officers like it had done. And the general oppinion was that if he had been in charge of the Btn instead of Major Woodfood we would have taken the possition instead of a failure as did happen on the 5/11/16. On the 17/11/16 we left Buire in French Motor Transport. We passed through Ameins [Amiens] and stopped at Heliscourt 18/11/16 we left Heliscourt and marched to St. Suevaur [Sauveur] about 5 miles this was the best town that the Btn had been billeted in up to the present time on the 24/11/16 I with some more of the boys got 12 hours leave into Ameins and I liked the town very much. The French had all the main buildings sand bagged up for protection. The Cathedral which is of the Gothic artecture is a fine place and is between 4 and 500 years old.

We came back by train about 5 miles the fare was 1½ d. We had a good time during our stay in this town and did not like leaveing it. My mate McCowan came back from Blighty while we were here on the 1/12/16 we left St. Suevaur at 3 a.m. And sneaked away like a lot of thieves in the night. We went through some small villages and arrived at Vignacourt at 5.45 am and we had to stay in the railway yard till noon. And I dont think I ever felt it so cold in all my life as it was there for those few hours. Then we got aboard the train where for we did not know. We passed through St. Rock Ameins Merriecourt [Maricourt] and Buire-Sur-Ancre and we was taken about 1 mile passed Buire and we had to get out and march back through Buire to Ribemont about ½ mile from Merriecourt. During our stay we done a lot of wandering about to these towns, Ameins, Corbie, Albert, Healy this is where General Birdwood had his Headquarters. On the 6/12/16 we left for Marmetze (Melbourne Camp). Passed through Buire-Sur-Ancre, Durnancourt, Meualte [Meaulte], Becordel, Fricourt. And we were road makeing while we were in this camp we were to far from civilisation to go any where where so we would play cards and amuse ourselves the best we could. And we stayed here till the 23/12/16 when we moved to Burham wood camp where we done some more road making. It was in this camp where we spent our Exmas and we had a good time this is what we had for dinner bully beef stew a drink of water and tightened the belt up and waited and wished that we would be back in Aussie for the next Exmas. On the 30/12/16 we left for the support trenchs in the Guirdicourt [Gueudecourt] Sector and on the 1/1/17 we went into the front line. And Bob Creary McCowan and I was put on patrole work we had to report to the 20 Btn every hour