_Sept. 10._ Still raining; and we spent another awful night in the outpost line. Our own 18–pounders were shooting so short that some of the shells were actually falling behind us and once we had to lie on the Bosche side of the parapet to get cover from them. The weather is our most dangerous foe now, and all wiring etc. is stopped until we can make some sort of protection for the line troops. They are going down like flies, there isn’t a dug-out worth the name in the whole sector, and the water, already a foot deep in the best posts, is increasing hourly. _Sept. 11._ Another terrible night—it is still raining and we have been soaked through now for four days and nights. Most of the companies are down to half strength and trench-foot is very prevalent—it is as much as most of the men can do to carry two sheets of iron per night for their own protection. Our own billets are flooded now and we are knee-deep in mud everywhere—the horses feel it more than we do and I have had to send them back. We had to shift their position every three or four hours to prevent them sinking, and it has been so bitterly cold—there is no protection from this biting wind as it howls and shrieks across the swamps and mud fields. But one thinks of the line, for it is always the line, poor devils, who get it worst—they could tell Dante many things. There are men up there who have not been under a shelter of any description during a week of almost continuous rain—they have forgotten what it is to feel dry, and their minds are dull and stupid with the cold and misery of it all—they have slept fitfully, wakening under the necessity of shifting their position to avoid the mud or when an unusually fierce downpour has stung their faces—and during the whole of this time no warm food or drink has passed their lips. Small wonder that they die—with gratitude. _Sept. 12._ It is two feet deep on our best main road, and we had a wild fight last night to get the necessary material up for the shelters—an unlucky shell killed two men, wounded three, and knocked out two mules. In spite of this we did a good night’s work and erected fourteen shelters. The men seem to realise how much depends on them, and I have seldom seen them work so well. _Sept. 13._ Heavy shelling on roads and tracks disorganised all parties and interfered with work. I was hit in the middle of the back with a large fragment which bruised me badly.