22.12.1916 SOUASTRE: Lieut AH GOODHALL and 2/Lieut VTG HORE proceeded to join Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps.
Alec Harrison Goodall
Casualties during Brigade Support – 2 other ranks wounded.
Battalion relieved 5th Battalion in same sector trenches. Distribution of Companies:-
- “A” Company SUPPORT
- “B” Company Centre Sub Sector
- “C” Company Left Sub Sector
- “D” Company Right Sub Sector
War Diary [WO/95/2694]
We took over a front line position about December 20th and it was the exact position we occupied on July 1st. The front line trench was exactly the same as it had been on that date. Of course it had been repaired and strengthened and the approach trenches were in good order and easy to travel along.
Christmas Eve the letters and parcels had arrived from home. Life was bearable. My little unit was quartered in a dug-out just behind the front line. All seemed set fair for a comparatively decent Christmas considering we were in the middle of a war and within easy rifle fire of the front line.
Dug-out rats!
The dug-out was a sort of mud and sand-bag dwelling with half a dozen wood and wire-netting beds arranged in pair bunks and I occupied one of the top beds which was close to the ceiling. The walls and the ceiling were honeycombed with rat-runs, so much so that the rats that infected those runs were really a menace. They were a very large species and had grown so impudent that you could see them waiting on the edge of the run-ways for the time that the candles stuck on the walls and on a make-shift table were blown out. As soon as it was sort of safe for them they came out of the walls, the floors and the ceiling and ran over everything and everybody. You could feel them crawling over you and hear them turning over the various articles in the dug-out in search of scraps of food. They seemed in a way afraid of light and if anyone struck a match or switched on a flashlight they made a squealing scramble to get into the runways, it was like a flock of sheep trying to get through the gate of a field.
[2305 Pte Frank Longson]
22nd: 6th and 8th Battalions relieved 5th and 7th in the front line. A quite day.
139 Infantry Brigade: Headquarters War Diary [WO95/2692]
Derbyshire Territorials in the Great War 