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Updated: June 11, 2025
Since 8 Platoon has practically ceased to exist owing to gas casualties, 7 and 8 are again combined under Giffin, and I am second-in-command. Baldwin remains platoon sergeant. If and when we get sufficient reinforcements the two platoons will separate again. "The Germans have been bombarding Poperinghe with very big shells to-day. The shops, I hear, are all shut.
At 11 p.m., the relief having been carried out, Captain Andrews, Dickinson and I, with Sergeant-Major Preston and a few runners, proceeded to Battalion Headquarters, which are at a strong point a little nearer the line. Then we turned back and proceeded to the dug-outs where we were on July 1 and July 2. Allen had preceded us to take over, and Giffin was with a working party in the trenches.
"At 7.40 the padre conducted a short voluntary church parade service in an orchard behind the farm in which C Company hangs out just opposite the farm in which I am billeted. Allen, Priestley, Barker, Giffin, and I were there. The band was there for the first hymn it then had to go to Headquarters to play 'retreat' at 8 p.m. There were about twenty men...."
Giffin brought up the question of the platoon sergeants, and Captain Andrews immediately replied: 'Oh, you will have to carry on with Sergeant Williams at present; Sergeant Baldwin is going to remain with his old platoon' 7 Platoon! Giffin then asked whether Sergeant Williams would be going over the top with him; Captain Andrews replied that it would probably end in his doing so.
Giffin also left us, as he was detailed to take over billets for us in the Prison. "At 8.40 we moved off. We went at intervals of three hundred yards between platoons, with six connecting files. As Giffin had been sent on much earlier to 'take over, I was in command of the combined 7th and 8th platoons.
Then Giffin came on the scene and said that he wanted him in 8 Platoon because, since he is to go over the top with 8 Platoon he ought to be with them now in order to get to know the men.
While we were on our way a deuce of a row began on the north; it was a German raid on our trenches. So we watched it all the way. We got along quite well until we were almost here. Then two shells burst just in front of us. But we managed to get in quite safely. "I am now in the same dug-out as Giffin and Allen. We did not get up until midday to-day.
Now, as you know, Baldwin was in 7 Platoon as a corporal, so he naturally knows the men in 7 Platoon very well indeed; also, he himself prefers, I believe, to be in 7 Platoon; also, I want him as my platoon sergeant: three excellent arguments why he should remain, as Captain Andrews has ordered to-day. Giffin said that he would see Captain Andrews about it. Then we fell to discussing the matter.
It was 6.30 when we got back to the Ramparts. I reported to Carberry at Brigade. I felt very bad indeed now. The exercise in the heat, after gas, was taking effect upon me. I did not have any dinner, but lay down. I was told that I looked white. I felt rotten. Giffin also is bad; he got some more gas last night. A good many more have reported sick with gas to-day.
When I was in that Brigade dug-out last night the M.O. casually remarked to me that he had attended to four officers, who appeared to belong to our brigade, at about 6 in the evening. They were all wounded; one was very bad. In the light of the present situation it certainly looks as if they must have been the unfortunate four. So Captain Andrews has sent Giffin down there to inquire.
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