Wednesday September 13, 1916

There has been a tremendous bombardment all night and all to-day so far (11:30 a.m.). It is rumoured that on Sept 15th (Friday) there will be a triple advance on the Russian, eastern and Italian fronts. Our little party, sent up to help the overworked ammunition column, is handling excess ammunition of all kinds, from howitzer shells down to rifle grenades and the deadly little Mills hand grenade. I am a permanent guard to act as long as our little party is up here on this work so I have little time to write. At time of writing I can by stepping out of any dug-out face a living panorama not equalled in reality by moving pictures. I stand with my face to the German line. Behind my right shoulder is the much battered city of Albert, on my right front Contalmaison, Poziers is on my left front, won at such great cost by the gallant Australians and away off on the left and north is the strongly German held town of Thiepville. There is a terrific bombardment taking place. All around me is high rolling country. Our front line at last victoriously straddling the highest ridge, is hidden by another ridge, a few hundred yards in front. These different named towns are all hidden in folds in the ground though all near at hand. There is a regular thunder of British shells screaming overhead, and just in front, the ground is constantly torn up by huge German shells, persistently nosing out our batteries. Two new Imperial batteries settled down in our immediate neighbourhood yesterday, and another one came in to-day. They just come in, dig four big holes, wheel the big guns in, lay a few railroad rails across, put on a few pieces of corrugated steel, mound up with earth to make it shrapnel proof, bring in ammunition and another battery starts to add its little bit of hell to the awful uproar. We are told that there are 20,000 cavalry waiting to take part in the drive if we ever get Fritzie well on the move.