Amongst our mules is one gigantic affair about 6 ft. high (actually about 17 hands) who goes by the name of “the Poet”. As he is given to kicking I take it that his vein is satire. “Brigham” returned tonight to go on leave, hurling his tin hat on the floor by way of greeting. Who should also turn up but R. [Roche] down from the guns at last. He looks well enough though he has had a disgusting time, some of the details of his experience nearly making me sick – living for weeks in a dug-out into which various portions of long-dead Huns protruded.
More ‘buckshee’ parcels today. We were lined up like a lot of kids at a bazaar round the Corporal’s bunk receiving handfuls of this, that and the other. One group had a huge sack of heterogeneous rubbish, sweets, chocolates, pills, tobacco, chewing gum, soup, coca and whatnot and after a long and noisy effort to effect a partition they ended by each filling his hat and pockets and abandoning the balance.
R’s feet are still a fertile field of humour. His Major (now killed) went to no trouble to get him a large enough pair of jack-boots when his others wore out; eventually returning with a huge pair and the remark “Well, R. you have most extraordinary feet.”
An amusing incident of today, a civilian cab laden with Tommy officers. We rushed out and yelled “cab sir, cab sir”, to the huge delight of the two drivers on the box, but to the consternation of the officers, who looked at one another dubiously and cast stern glances in our direction.
Walk March 