Item 04: James I. Marshall diary, 24 November-12 December 1916 - Page 26

[Page 26]

dumps, large & small, of all kinds of war material.

We landed at our assembly point at last and tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night. The first thing to be done was to sew an oblong patch of yellow on our backs. Perhaps that was evidence Why, we do not know! Our expectations of the morning show were dashed – perhaps not to our sorrow either – for the Canadian GOC refused to let anyone else do his units' work. What a pity some Tommy heads are not of the same strain.

We stayed there two nights then, before embarking on our long & tiresome search for a fight. From there we marched across country one dark night to the ravine of Cerisy, near Susan Wood. The march was not very exciting as we struck no shelling but when we rested alongside the road, and our 6" hows opened up amongst us it was not too pleasant.

When we reached our destination it was to find that the 60th Bn had taken all of the possies, so we had to scratch in wherever it was possible. As I was feeling far from energetic I was not altogether sorry when we moved up towards Proyart, to take up positions in a trench line there, the next