Grazing. Different trees and shrubs disclose their identity as they come into leaf. I recognise walnuts, wild woodbine, and other old acquaintances. Most of the big trees seem to be birches or beeches.
(“Oh to be in England now that April’s there”)*
7.30. p.m. A mile or two away at the guns. A small community of 20 or 30 of us in very makeshift shelters along-side a railway embankment. Our job is to harness up at 4 a.m. each morning in view of emergencies and if and when needed dash to the guns and haul them out.
On the other side of the wood is a village with a name like a sneeze. “Acheux”.
* The first lines of a poem by Robert Browning
[Image: Several teams of artillery horses sheltered in the lee of a railway embankment during bombardment near Mailly-Maillet on the Somme. Photograph taken 1 April 1918 by Henry Armytage Sanders. National Library New Zealand, ref: 1/2-013076-G. Mailly-Maillet is very near Acheux but it is unknown whether this is the same railway embankment referred to by Lincoln in his 15 April entry.]
Walk March 