Had egg for breakfast then proceeded up to some dugouts near the A.D.S.1 Wonderful places with some long tunnels underground. Some Canadians in them and one sat and told stories. Were ordered up the line at 5 o’clock. Went to Captain King’s dressing station. Nothing for us to do. Sat in the cold all night and managed to scrape about 2 hours sleep. Felt pretty miserable and funky all night. Very few German shells over, but our guns bombarded fearfully all night and the noise nearly deafened us. The 6th Black Watch2 cut up a good lot in the reserve trenches. Lavere and I built a shelter, and then the side fell in and pinned me until I got Lavere to lift off the packs. 7 dead men lying on stretchers outside the aid post. Wrapped myself up in a wounded soldier’s overcoat and ground sheet. Kept awake with, *, guns, *, lice, German shells and nowhere to lie.
“A.D.S.”: advanced dressing station. ↩
The Black Watch’s own (on-line) newsletter says that their 6th (Perthshire) battalion was in the central sector at the Somme, but does not give dates. However according to information gathered from the Aberfeldy Museum by a correspondent to whom we are grateful, the 6th Black Watch had arrived at the Somme battlefield shortly after 20 July, and as ALL records, suffered considerable casualties. ↩