Reveille at 4 o’clock. Breakfast 4.30. Fell in at 6 and marched off. Arrived at Longpré about 8 o’clock. Train left about 10. We had choice of 3rd class carriage or cattle truck and chose truck. Passed through Boulogne and St Omer. One of our mules jumped out of the carriage at Boulogne and was run over in tunnel. Arrived at Baileul¹ about 9 o’clock. Took waggons off the rail trucks in the dark. One of the horses got in a ditch and was in about half an hour. Marched off about 10 o’clock. Had one rest. Terribly tired and sleepy. Arrived at a farm and put up there for the night. About midnight when we got there. Slept on straw in a barn and slept well.

1. Baileul: ALL always omits one ‘l’ from ‘Bailleul’ in his longhand; the transcription follows this, but where he writes it in shorthand, ie phonetically, it is transcribed with the correct spelling. Bailleul is 16km SW of Ypres. The map shows the entire journey from Longpré (A), through Boulogne (B) and Saint-Omer (C) to Bailleul (D). ↩