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[Page 7]
On Sunday 9th April we received orders to make a move, & accordingly on the following morning we left our billet in full marching order at 6 A.M. The march lay the cobble-stone road to Hazbrouck some 13 kilos from Renescure & as there were few shops we were rather tired by the time we arrived at the former town. The streets were lined with munition workers as we marched through to the tune of Boys of the Dardenelles. From here we marched through Borre towards Bailleul, the cannonading to the north getting louder each Kilometre we advanced & incidentally the column getting much shorter through men falling out. At 1.30 P.M. three hours before time we arrived at Meteren after some 4 kilometres from the Belgian frontier after a fifteen mile march. We were billeted at a prosperous farm-house but the proprietor did not seem to be too friendly. His house was held by Germans during the advance of winter 1914 and the farms around are dotted bywith the graves of fallen soldiers.
[Sketches of Soldier, captioned: A Straggler]
On Wednesday 12th April we were inspected at 6.15 A.M. by General Plumer. The morning was raw & foggy & we felt the cold keenly standing to attention on the boggy ground. The remainder of the day continuing wet. We were given several lectures on the M.G.s in the trenches on the notes gathered by the party who had visited the trenches. Thursday