No record in the War Diary [WO/95/2694]

“Next morning as soon as it was daylight, the names of the stations we passed could be read, and those members of our Regiment that knew something of French geography soon realised that we were heading north again, that indeed was the case, much to our concern for we knew what heading north meant. It was back to trench warfare again.”

“Three days we spent in those first class compartments, they were beautifully equipped when we first got in, white head rests etc. but of course these soon went, along with the other fittings.”

“The card playing fraternity in our compartment were not to be deprived of their games at night, and because the authorities had removed all lights from the train they adopted measures – In the trenches we had been issued with little tins of non freezing rifle oil, they removed the stoppers of these tins and stuffed a wad of flannel – better known as four by two, which of course was issued to clean the barrel of the rifle, this smoking horror gave sufficient light to play cards, but the resultant fug was terrible.”

“In the cold dawn of late January 1916 our train drew to a halt, it was snowing, it was very cold and it was miserable.”

[2305 Pte Frank Longson]