Amateur Gunners by Ian Ronayne

Author:Ian Ronayne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2014-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

13 August 1916

Dear Papa

I go down tomorrow morning for a spell of four days with the infantry. I had some night last night, got back from synchronising watches with the other batteries at 10.30 pm. Slept from 11.00 pm till 1.20 am. Then 1.20 to 2.00 am preparing for action, 2.00 to 2.30 am rapid fire, 2.30 to 3.00 am cocoa, 3.00 to 3.30 am read letters, etc. and Weekly Times (which will be a great addition), 3.30 to 4.00 am fired again, 4.00 to 4.30 read Times, 4.30 to 5.30 am ‘stand to’ the detachment at guns, 5.30 to 7.30 am sleep. That is an exceptionally heavy night.

We have to be very careful on the telephone as both we and the Bosch can take off each other’s messages, so we use all sorts of roundabout ways of saying things and a most absurd and clumsy code initiated by the brigade CO. All places are named by letters. People have nicknames, e.g. I am ‘Fly-by-Night’.

Get Mama to buy and send me out another torch of the same pattern with the next lot of refills. I’m getting the hang of things a bit better, but it is not so easy to keep all the new things in your head at once.

Had heavy rain to make things more unpleasant last night. I see in The Times no less than three of my fellow cadets have been wounded. Only one of them a friend.

Yours truly, Douglas

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