I went out to France on the 3/11/14 and I was two days at Le Havre and then we went on to our 1st Batt. When we arrived at our destination the regiment was in the trenches so we had to go in. It was snowing hard and I felt it very cold. This was at Givenchy. We were relieved the following night and we went back for a rest. The next place we went to was just opposite Neuve Chapelle on the La Bassée Road and it was awful, the trenches were up to the knees in mud and water. The first night was very quiet, but the following morning about 9 p.m. the Germans started shelling and continued all day; the next was the same, but about 1 o’clock the Germans were seen to be coming up in masses. They got to within a distance of about twenty-five yards, then they turned. They commenced shelling us again and they had another try about three o’clock but they did not get far. One of the men on my left had the half of his face blown away and we had about ninety-two killed and wounded. We got relieved after being in five days, then we went back for three days’ rest. The next place we went to was Rue de l’Epinette and we had an awful time there just before Christmas. We went into the trenches and we were up to our middle in water and in some places it would have taken you over the head. We were in these trenches for twenty-four hours. There was nothing unusual happened and we got relieved by the Royal North Lancs.; but we did not get far away; we had just got into our billets and were making some tea when the fall-in went and we were told that the Germans had broken through the North Lancs. We went away without any great-coats, and into the trenches we went for other seventy-two hours, and if the Germans had attacked again we could not have fired a shot as we were hardly able to stand for the cold and with the wet kilts on our legs it was awful. We got nothing to eat except three biscuits that some of the men went out and got. When we came out of the trenches on Christmas Eve we looked all like old men and a lot of them had to be carried. We went back for a rest to (Nervaille?) about thirty kilometers from the firing line for a month. When we came back again we went to La Bassée and had a pretty hot time there. The next place we were at was at that big fight at Neuve Chapelle when 472 guns bombarded the German trench for thirty-five minutes. At about 7 p.m. the word was passed along that we were to charge the German trench in front supported by the City of London Territorials. We got the trench all right and I got orders about 4 p.m. to go back to our own trench and bring along the belt-filling machine belonging to the machine gun. There was not a proper communication trench, there was a small dry ditch that ran out in the direction of the trench we