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[Page 5]
III The Somme
Only leaving the North, adverse conditions were experienced right from the outset; the train journey was exceptionally slow, the train was overcrowded & when the detraining station (Pont Remy – near Abbeville) was reached it was pitch dark & raining. The station yard was ankle deep in [indecipherable] mud & the unloading arrangements extremely crude. To crown it all it was learnt that the billets were 8 miles off, - when each man had a full pack, a full quota of ammunition & a second blanket in addition.
On arriving at their billets (Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher) therefore at 2 am everyone was thoroughly exhausted but a days respite soon corrected this. The battalion was then conveyed by a French motor convoy thro' Amiens to Dernancourt & the following day marched to its first camp on the Somme near Montauban. Ones feeling on being shown a hillside of mud with a few dugouts & being told to "make yourself comfortable" can well be imagined for this was all that the camp amounted to.
The battalion was then ordered to maintain two long communication trenches, known as Turk Lane & Fish Alley – both were over 2 miles long & were the only two trenches leading to the front in the Divisional sector allotted. Fish Alley was incomplete Fish Alley moreover had the last ½ mile to the front line incomplete. This was first of all finished off by 'B' Coy & both trenches were beginning to get into shape when almost continuous rain set in. after two or three days of rain the sides of these trenches which were quite unsupported became so loose that they fell in & both trenches became quite impassable. Tracks were therefore made along the top beside these trenches but even these cut up badly & unduly fatiguing. Experiments were made to use sledges over the mud & some success was obtained in this direction for the carriage of wounded but no sledge was successful with loads owing to the wildly varying consistency of the mud.