Item 04: Walter Bruce Rainsford diary, 3 January 1917-31 December 1917 - Page 74

[Page 74]

comforts that one does not get in a Field Ambulance. Plenty of water for washing purposes, hot showers, good tucker & a decent table to eat it off, plenty of blankets to sleep on etc etc. I am attached to the Orderly Room registering deaths ( averaging about 18 per day) – not a very strenuous job. The weather has changed suddenly and is now cold, wet and windy. Winter has commenced! And what a prospect! Memories of last winter rise up before me.

Sund. 7th Oct 1917 (9 pm) :-

The weather is continuing rotten and the days are rapidly getting shorter. At 1 am after midnight to-day we reverted to winter time; all clocks & watches being put back one hour. Now it is dark at 7 o'clock in the evening.

Tuesd. 16th Oct 1917 (7 pm)

Things have been going quietly for the past few days. Our chaps had several hopovers with very heavy casualties but little progress made. The ground is a perfect quagmire