Thomas James Richards, Diaries, Transcript Vol. 4, 9 November 1916 - 31 May 1918 - Part 8

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impossible to run about let alone play decent football.
At ½ time I set out for the 1st Field Ambulance
at Buire. I walked it, 6 miles, had a good bath, change
of underclothes, gathered up socks, pyjamas, towels, bed
socks, etc. and got back to camp by 9 p.m.
The roads were frozen hard and it was extremely
difficult to walk on the road in places, it was so slippery.
It reminded me of skating experiences and troubles. Once
I slipped clean off my feet and landed on the sandbag full
of goods I had on my back. It is fine to see the old boys
again and have them show their appreciation, by doing any
possible thing for me. I had dinner at the Sergeants' Mess,
and saw none of the officers at all. I came home with 6
pairs of the best socks made, thick hand made ones.
A parcel from Ruth, sister-in-law. The enclosed
card brought tears of joy to my eyes. Poor John and Lilly.
The parcel contained all good solid foodstuffs, but the 2 lb
tin of Golden Syrup was the trump card. Lovely!!
January 22nd.  Monday.
It is after tea-time and I am waiting for the dinner
bugle. The news is about that we move off for the front line
once again tomorrow, and for the first time I can hear the men
singing and laughing. The thoughts of going back would
naturally make them dull, so I presume it is to hide their
feeling and prevent one another from seeing that they detest
the line that they sing, or is it that they are thankful to get
away from these dismal and monotonous parades. It is hard to
say, the Australian temperament is hard to follow. The officers
too were in a jovial frame all around.
I had a drink with Lieut. Moffat. He is a splendid
man and carries the impression of Western Queensland where he
hails from.
 

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January 23rd.  Tuesday.
We have shifted camp again, this time into Bow
Huts at Becourt, 2 miles on the line side of Albert. I
was detailed to remain behind and hand over the camp.
This I did and got into the new camp at 7 p.m. in a huge
car with lumber aboard. The 20 men who came with me were
light-hearted and sang splendidly on the way out. Their
songs were mostly home made and very good ones.
To-day there has been a north wind blowing, and
although all days have been cold, to-day is easily the
record to date. It's the devil. The roads are as hard
as flint. My shaving brush rolled up in a bag with my
shaving gear was frozen hard this morning.
To-night the wind cuts. The stars are wonderfully
bright and clear. Very unusual.
January 24th.  Wednesday.  Becourt.
I have just had dinner. There is a lot of mail
to be censored but after reading other people's stuff no
matter how roughly, I cant settle to writing my own letters
at all, so to-night I am going to do up my own first.
I am smoking a pipe at the moment, although my
throut is a bit sore. I seem to be getting to like the
pipe, perhaps overmuch as it is not a cleanly kind of habit
in civil circles but over here its kind of cleanly to handle
tobacco.
To-night is the third night now that the stars have
been shining gloriously. Orion, Jupiter, a young moon and
the two Bears are so plainly visable, and, oh! so lovely!
The night is so dismally cold that I cannot stay out long to
admire the beauties.
To-day is the second day of sunshine and the second
day that German aeroplanes have been wandering about over our
lines. To-day they seemed to have very much their own way.
I dread the shelling that this observation will surely bring
 

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upon us, as photographs of the area will show up every camp
around and there are thousands of men and horses billeted
about, and the huts and buildings will stand out very strongly
against the snow surroundings. The pellets and shell cases
kept falling around the camp from anti-aircraft guns.
I don't know how the men in the line can live at all
in this cold weather. We can't keep warm now with all manner
of clothing on, so how it can be done in the line beats me.
We will soon find out all about it though as we go again at any
moment now. The Mining Platoon, however, has been formed up
again, and as I have charge of them I can see a chance of
getting decent quarters to get down into away from the wind
and frost.
Thankful we are that there is no mud now. A cup of
water left on the table last night was solid ice this morning.
The tinned fruit to-night was served with the juice turned into
ice. I was going to eat an orange from my haversack before
dinner but it was so hard from the cold that I decided to leave
it. One cannot believe the suffering the cold is causing,
and the fellows say but little and are quite cheerful.
Mabel Richards writes a very decent letter indeed.
I enjoyed it very much.
January 25th.  Thursday.
Parade at 9 a.m. 1½ hours of route marching. The
sun shone brightly but lifelessly as for the past few days,
and failed to thaw the ground.
The Battalion Mess is still in existence and we live
very well but not elaborately. The first 7 days cost me,
(the whole mess) 27½ francs for extras.
The behaviour of the officers sometimes is rather
childish and worries me a whole lot. But then they also are
fed up with the war and must act childishly to keep themselves
alive. Yes! its hard to live as one should do or like to do.
It's just a matter of adapting oneself to the times.
 

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My Mining Party is now complete and I hope that
we will be on a deep dugout job so that I will be able to
avoid the cold.
A lovely moon to-night. A crimson sunset too.
January 26th.  Friday.
We move up to the line in the morning. It is so
cold that one wonders how the men will live through it.
Rumour has it that Australians have already been found
frozen at their posts. I don’t believe it, yet I feel sure
that there is going to be a lot of frozen feet. My experience
is that unless I keep moving both feet and hands become hard
and powerless. But then I might be with my Mining Platoon,
if so, we will probably have a decently warm dugout to live
in. Yet my heart goes out to those who have to keep watch at
their posts throughout the long night, from 5 o'clock until
6 or 6.30 in the morning. There will be a fairly strong moon
which, with the pure white snow on the ground will make it
almost impossible for patrol parties to move about let alone
an attack or a raid. I doubt if there will be any sapping
done or wire to be put up the light will be so good; if the
weather breaks and the sky becomes overcast, well anything
might happen.
I badly want to do a turn in the trenches, but
somehow or other I feel satisfied to stay in the rear while
the weather is so bad. I doubt at the same time whether or
not this frozen weather is not a whole lot better for our men
than the rain and continual wet feet and dull clouds with a
dank atmosphere and an environment of depression.
It is about 7 days now since the sky cleared and the
ground froze up. It is about 7 days also since I heard our
men sing and laugh and they have been bright ever since. Yes,
the sun plays a very important part on the spirit of an
Australian. So that, although I believe there is 15 to 20
degrees of frost showing it doesn't so much matter as long as
the sun shines.
 

No. 19
1917.
Jan. 27th.
April 3rd.
YARRA BANK.
Tirancourt School
 

(a)
(Written between
Jan. 26th and Jan. 27th)
The drift of conversation is indeed strange under the any
usual circumstances, but when herded together in an old dugout
as at the moment; all of whom have gone stale and are fed up
of war.
Dr. Kirkward, Sparke, Waller and self are down together
near Gueudecourt. The recalling of old time joys and frivolities.
The lavatorily coustoms of the Egyptians and French
were discussed. I tell my football experience, Toulouse.
Waller told of how his brother met an Egyptian girl at Helawan
in the train to Cairo Helawan to Holawan. She touched him and went
into the far sidewalk where she asked his address and wrote
making an appointment, which was repeated. She now sends
parcels and signs her letter, "A thousand salutes to my only
love."
The pretty girls of Sydney society are charming, talked
of and recognised by one and the other. Dancing and other
accomplished are commented upon and the exceptionally good
dances the dreamy light footed girls complimented and enthusiastic
over. And the dancing tunes that appealed and drove
one into dreamland.
Pickquet patroling the street and the fellow dodging
them. An arguement between two Tommys with side arms drawn
and a Gipo steek sellers trying to bluff them. A crowd of
Australians came on got steeks dispersed the but when they
saw the Tommy with bayonets out they chased them at a gallop.
At Fremanental a party of leave breakers were marshalled
in file and marched up the gangway pass the O.C. who had sent
a patrol out for these men but thinking they were a fatigue
party returning took the salute and let them pass. Leave
breakers go out onto parties of 6 as a town guard or picket.
Boots: Walking is heavy mud covered bluchers. How will
the light shoes feel with thin soles once again?
The dugout was in Pilgrims Way which was at one time a
strong German artillery position and in the days of peace a
sunken road leading down past Gueudecourt where it met a
 

(b)
road, also sunken leading into the village and continued on
past the Chalk Cliffs, although no signs other than than an
embankment remains to show the existance of a road. Back near
our dugout there is a German 77 gun badly shattered. The
thoroughness of the German is in strong evidence by the number
of deep dugouts in which the men could sleep and rest in
comfort and evade our shell fire, some 8 or 10 in number all
close timbered. Fritz ment to have them all connected 20 ft.
down but he got moved out to soon. Our dugout is a weird
picture as it stands. It is 5 ft. by 3 ft. in the shaft has
18 steps leading down on the sides of the steps the boys do
our cooking and pack their odds and ends as well as muddy
boots and puttees, jam jars. On the sides hangs hip high
rubber boots gas helmets steel helmets, water proof coat,
sheep skin vests, walking sticks water bottles and a bayonet
blade. At the bottom of the stairway is a short duckboard
forming the hall. To the left is a cubical 6 ft. long and
2 ft. wide divided in the centre by a bunk with another on
the ground. Waller lives on the top one myself underneath.
Straight ahead is the second chamber just 6 ft. long but 4½
feet wide. This has a wide bunk in which Sparke and Kirkwood
live underneath them is the two batmen and the eatables.
Sparke has gathered some 6 pictures of woman from magazine
and they ornament the wall. Each of which are given a fancy
name and freely critised. One of them a bust showing bare
shoulders the Doctor says is sitting in a bath.
 

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Sleeping in these Bow Huts is very cold even with four
blankets and all surplus clothing.
There were four tins of crab for supper to-night but
it had to be warmed up before it would come out of the tin.
The bread too gets awfully hard and really has to be heated up.
There is a fire burning now in the Hut but it is only a pine
fire, where the pine wood comes from is beyond me, but I've
got an idea that the batman had to break up some doors or tear
the lining boards out of a Hut or building of some sort nearby.
The waste that goes on in the army is astounding;
the fellows, neither men or officers seem to have the slightest
regard for property of any sort.
January 27th.  Saturday.
We have "moved up". To-night I sit in a low dugout
in the side of a trench. My mining platoon is similarly
quartered.
The accommodation is better than I expected and by
sleeping close together no doubt the men will keep fairly warm,
say 10 to a dugout one blanket each.
I have only one other man in with me but two blankets
and I fear for a cold night.
Food is very scarce. This morning there was only
1 loaf of bread to 5 men, so they have gone hungry to bed
to-night. I had only the contents of the parcel Ruth sent me,
so I opened the tin of plum pudding and ate it with some real
dinkum golden syrup, C.S.R., which however was hard and almost
frozen.
It seems an awful shame to see good old North Q'ld
products so absolutely out of their element. Fancy pineapple
with the juice turned to ice and the fruit hardened, also golden
syrup half frozen. It seems so very awful.
Our men are taking over a new line of trenches from
the Tommys. It seems that the Tommys have on this sector
(50th Division Yorks) got so friendly with the Germans that they
 

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seldom fire a shot at one another. This was the same when
the Australians took over in front of Flers in fact it is
beginning to look like as if the Australians are the "Make
War" party all along the sector, or different sectors, that
we take over. In Flanders the Tommys never fired a shot,
and it was our men who stirred up the war and made things
willing. Now we have more cases of the same thing. Its
rather hard on our men as the Germans return our fire and
knock nasty holes in our lines.
I think that we are in this present position now
just to stir Fritz up. Our men are too impatient to remain
idle, they must be at Fritz the whole time. If we leave
him alone he would not interfere at all.
Anyhow the ground is white with snow and a good
moon is shining so that we may have to keep very quiet this
spell also as one dare not venture over on No Man's Land
just now.
It was an unique experience coming along that
three miles of duckboard track to-night. We left Becourt
at 9.30 a.m. for Bazentin. At 12.30 I came on out past
High Wood to see where we were to work, and so that I would
be able to bring my party along without trouble at dusk.
I returned to Bazentin at 4 p.m., having been through shell
fire on the High Wood corner. At 4.30, as the day was
failing, I came alone with my Platoon on the duckboards, as
on the road, we had to keep 100 yards between platoons.
On nearing High Wood it was parties of 10 men only and 100
yards distance between each. The duckboard track is only
15 inches wide and so frozen over that it was dangerous,
owing to it being so slippery, to walk on. I got my men
to put sand bags over their boots before leaving so that
they would have less chance of falling down. I had some
leather studs put in my boots to play football in and to-day
 

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I was mighty glad that I had not removed them as they kept
me upon my feet and saved many a fall. I never could walk
on ice or slippery ground, or skate in the least, so those
football studs were a blessing. I had to keep my eyes
fixed on the track but when we stopped I had a chance to
look around and there shining with great brilliancy was
Jupiter following the beautiful young moon with the Sisters
and Orion following behind. It was quite inspiring to me
and overcame any thought of the shell fire locality that we
had entered into.
January 28th.  Sunday.
We slept in this morning until 9.30 o'clock. Our
dugout, with ½ round iron roof supported on layers of sand
bags 2½ feet about the duckboard floor and giving a height
in the centre of 5 feet working down to 2½ feet, turned out
to be fairly warm all things considered. There is about
3 feet of sand bags and earth overhead and the entrance is
off an old trench. There is a fireplace in the end but the
chimney does not draw, the result is much smoke and weeping
eyes. About midday when Lieut. Issacs appeared I went up
to our working place given on the reference map as M 24
B. 1 - 2. Nothing further could I find out, although the
map did show our front lines in blue colour and the German
lines in red. It was plain to me that my job was to be
right in the front line but there was no duckboards shown,
names of trenches or roads, so that there was no guidance
to the desired or rather looked for portion of the map.
I had a splendid little compass ring that gave me my bearing
to correspond with the map so that I could walk, and did walk
directly to the spot, but my trouble arose in the fact that
all the track seemed so open and exposed.
On Factory Road I saw some machine gunners working
on an emplacement. They told me that they were given the