Andrew Richard Buxton. 3rd Rifle Brigade

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To his Mother.

In Farms,

March 26, 1916.

"This morning I marched with Marshall to the other farms where Battalion is billeted with a view to getting Officers to send in contributions (literary) towards a one and only one copy of a Battalion paper which we propose to try and have, giving record of the Battalion during the War and taking-off various men and Officers - I don't know if it will come off ! It is suggested that I write the City News !

..... How is old Zadok now looking ? I sometimes long more than I can say for him out here......... I am sending addressed to myself a packet of our paper cuttings, etc., which please keep for me. There is also a Wipers Times. There have only been 100 copies printed, and printed on an old printing press found in Ypres - so is an interesting thing."

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To his Father.

Farms, B.E.F.,

5 p.m. Monday, 27/3/16.

".........Yesterday afternoon I went a walk with two others to top of Mont des Cats, about half-a-mile north of our farm. There apparently used to be a monastry at the top, which is now a hospital. Very fine view all round. I saw through a fine fixed telescope of a signaller there, and looked apparently at Lille - the houses showed up very clearly, and numerous factory chimneys. Also just saw the remains of the Ypres Cathedral tower. A strong, healthy wind up there - pretty close to the west in Cassel, a town on a similar type of hill.

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Fishing the Garry from Urrard, 1914

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On March 29 the Battalion moved up into trenches at Neuve Eglise.

3 p.m. Saturday, April 1, 1916.

"I sent you an official card yesterday. It is rather hard work getting settled down in a new place and finding how the land lies, but we are getting on all right and think it will be satisfactory.

Up at 5 for 2 hours to take my turn as Officer on duty in the trenches. Then to bed again to be stirred up by a Corporal who had seen Germans working on their parapet, a long way off to know what he was to do about firing. Then again to bed till about 11, when some breakfast............

Last night I saw to the work of a working party of 60 men who came up for 3 hours, then was on trench duty 3-5 this morning. As dawn came, amongst the rifle shooting, a jolly blackbird got up by me, at a normal time for a blackbird. With usual blackbird noise as he flew, and partridges both half left and half right (i.e. 2 pairs) 'calling' quite regardless of heavy firing over their heads, they being between our lines. Sparrows are most friendly and really delightful - quite part of our life and busy talking about nests in trees knocked about by shells. The General has been along our trench this afternoon."

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B.E.F.,

3 p.m., Sunday, 2/4/16.

"An R.E. Major has just looked into the dug-out to ask certain things re drainage of our trenches. I took him out to show him. Marshall was outside 50 yards along shooting sparrows in a row of elms along the trench with one of the men's rifles. Not had a single shell to-day, only the sound of odd distant ones; on the other hand, we gave them quite a lot this morning..........

Baking hot sun to-day. You would be amused to see the men lying asleep in it. One I have just passed on a fire step lying on the step with one leg and one arm hanging down, snoring away, with cap on face to keep the sun out of his eyes - every prospect of falling off soon. Excellent dug-outs here - all quite dry and more than we want. This, together with the fact of it being obviously a very quiet place, looks like being in fortune's way."

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To his Mother.

April 2, 1916.

"I have finished the Canteen job yesterday and have come back to the Wood as O.C. 'B' Coy. I have been thanked by the Brigade for fixing up the Canteen. It has been one of the hardest bits of work I have had and I am thankful to have finished it, or rather the starting of it, because I shall have auditing and other work still to do ! Everything is at its height of beauty - trees half out and the low underwood full of birds. A nightingale singing all night close by my hut and a cuckoo this morning and endless other birds. This morning I saw a pair of nightingales, also a blackbird sitting on a nest only just of the ground. The poor old nightingale did not have the night to himself, as no doubt he is accustomed to expect, because quite a noisy time of our guns and Bosch ones and plenty of machine gun and rifle fire. I am sure he sometimes got his 'runs' of note to correspond with the tap, tap, tap of machine guns."

[marina]

A sayncopated blackbird now! And he;s a lot more interested in the sparrows than the general!

Marina

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To his Father.

B.E.F.,

Noon, Monday 3-4-16.

"I just now feel I never enjoyed life as at present. Life here is so absolutely full of interest, and with baking hot sun and star-light nights it is complete.

The Bosch have just been putting over about twenty whizz-bangs and done no damage. One of the servants has come into the dug-out and said, 'I think they have now finished their rations,' i.e. Bosch shell rations.

I have always been on the look-out for Brimstone Butterflies (yellow ones) as being the first to show up in the Spring, but did not expect to see the first one yesterday through a periscope.

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"On tour of duty I walk along and look over the parapet with the sentries and listen to perhaps machine gun working half a mile to one side, then nearer some sector of trench firing rifle grenades, then somewhere between the lines two bombs in rapid succession. The perhaps I think I hear something against wire in front, so send up a 'Very' flarelight. We send up hardly any of these; the Bosch keep the whole line lit up with them and much better than ours. They go in an arc of nearly 200 yards. Then perhaps I go out and visit some listening post in front of our lines and lie out with them for a bit............

Since I have been writing this, they have been shelling us quite heavily, although splendidly, just over the trench I write from. A great number of whizz-bangs and 5.9 H.E. shot at trenches we are not using. The only trouble is that instead of lunch at 1 o'clock, it is now 2, the shelling having upset cooking arrangements. It has now stopped, which I thought would be the latest for Bosch Artilleryman's dinner hour ! And it is correct. No one damaged, and very little harm to the trench. They have cut by the shelling both our lines of telephone, so till to-night we cannot ring up. One shell cut one of the elms almost in half. Your elms come doen by gale, ours by shell !

I now hear the firing this morning was an attack by us, not the Bosch - 80 prisoners. Going out to see a listening post last night I slipped into a shell-hole, with water in it, and made a rare splash, at which two Germans flare-lights were sent over the place. When back in the trenches I asked the sentries if they had heard a 'splash.' The men, especially when on sentry work, are very keen to report anything they hear or see. You would like to walk along and see the sentries standing in pairs on fire-steps, with heads above the parapet, watching the front. By day of course nothing but periscopes.

A Sunday paper has somehow just arrived with news of Zeppelin brought down at mouth of Thames. That is excellent good news.

This life does suit me so well - anything of drills or parades makes me ill. I toddle about the trenches without a coat these warm days, just in my old Cardigan, steel hat and respirator in bag round my shoulders. I told my servant to 'trim' my steel hat, as otherwise apt to show up. He first of all fixed a sand bag over it, but this came off, he then fixed something else he had found with elastic round the side but too small, so the last and final trimming is mud, plain and simple."

[marina]

When he first talked of enjoying the life, at first i thought he was just playing down to allay family fears for him, but he really does, doesn't he?

Marina

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To his Mother.

Trenches, B.E.F.,

7.30 a.m., Wednesday, 5-4-16.

"This is a good opportunity as Marshall and Elliot are both asleep in the dug-out (our Coy. H.Q.'s) - Elliot on my bed, he being on duty before me and last night being one place short for lyoing down, as an Officer of another Regiment came up for a certain purpose, so that whichever Officer was on duty had the one whom he relieved taking his dug-out as soon as he got up. Our trench is just in front of what must have been a ripping old farm building with very jolly shallow-sided moat all round it. The buildings of course knocked to bits, though a good many bits of wall standing 10 - 20 feet high, on which sparrows are trying to find nesting places. Also this morning a pair of wagtails, and in a little gully by the side, I saw two kingfishers. I shall be very interested to watch for their nest. For some way along the side of this moat we have no parados to our trench, and moreover the trench is on ground lavel - i.e. breastwork (Irish as this may sound). So very jolly having this pond in which plenty of minnows, and ruin behind us to look on.

The brick debris of the farm we collect at night to put on top of dug-outs in order to burst any shell as quickly as possible. They gave us moderate shellings both yesterday and the day before, usually about an hour each day, giving us about 130 shells each time. The day before yesterday no one harmed, but yesterday unfortunately one of the Officer's (Chamberlain) servants was killed and two men slightly harmed all by different shells...........................

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"You can hardly believe how natural and undisturbing it is to have a man killed in the trenches from time to time, though only undisturbing if you have not got to know the one well. Some are absolutely charming and first-rate boys, and when one of these gets hit or killed it hits me very hard. The course taken is his Pay Book and other papers and things are sent in by the Coy.-Sergt.-Major to H.Qrs., who forward them to his family, the Coy.-Sergt.-Major writing a short line with them. The man is taken down the same night on a stretcher and buried in one of the recognized burial-places near by..............The cases which are troubling are when you have men hit and in pain - killed outright or able to walk down seem both so merciful compared with the other.........

The Bosch put up one of their 'sausage' observation balloons opposite us at 7 this morning. How greatly you would enjoy to walk along after 'Stand To' at dawn and see the fellows cooking their bacon breakfasts - lighting their tin braziers with splinter wood and coke, then cooking bacon in lid of canteens. Most mess in together in parties f 4 or 5 - one brazier for all. Tea is boiled in canteen on it. I had to tell off several this morning for making smoke - unless the wood is cut absolutely fine it smokes. They love muddling over their rations and somehow seem to do it, limited as they are, all day.

This morning they all said the rum ration (the best intitution that ever was, they live for their one and a half tablespoons at dawn) was watered, which it certainly was, and was confirmed by the Coy.-Segt.-Major who had noticed it when opening the rum jars. Some one had helped himself at the base or elsewhere !"

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Hi Marina,

He certainly does seem to be loving it.

Andy

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Huts,

1 p.m., Thursday, April 6, 1916.

"I have not re-read what I wrote yesterday morning, but now I write my dearest of dear love for your birthday in two days time. Many, many happy returns of it. No birthday present, except that perhaps to tell you that I am alive and most flourishing. I am thankful to be able to report this, as we yesterday had one of the worst days I have had out here. I told you of the exceptionally quiet morning we started with. It was indeed a quiet before the storm, as at about 10.45 a.m. they began shelling us with 5.2's. 5.9's. and whizz-bangs which lasted, with but few short intervals, till 4.45. It was a most awfully hot time and really marvelous how I dodged them as I shifted about the trenches. Sometimes I wopuld sit in a dug-out for a few minutes, half a minute afterwards a shell on top. They followed me about or barred my way in front. I can understand a rabbit's feelings when going slow and a shot is fired to cut up the ground in front of him and he stops or turns !

We got some lunch and a cup of tea - at a quarter to five. It was rather difficult to fix up anything for the men. They of course had not had their mid-day meal of fresh meat, and this had either got lost, buried or coated with earth thrown up by shells, but found some tinned bully beef, etc. I thought they had finished for the day, but at about 8 o'clock, after dark, they gave us a very heavy shelling again. When that started I was visiting certain outlying posts, which are always a bit of a strain on men's nerves, and specially so he hey had had the rattling they had had during the day. I found our Coy.-Sergt.-Major sitting in the trench at the end of the line, who said he had been hit. A bit of shell or shrapnel had dug a hole and gone into the top of his thigh. By means of my torch I got a bandage on it, but thought at the time what Ros with her hospital experience and your working party with their beautifully clean cuffs and aprons would have thought in that before I could get the bandage on the wound it was twice over dressed with a coating of earth thrown up by the shells, to fall down again like rain and only a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe it off with !

I poured in one of the little tubes of iodine you gave me, and can only hope he will be none the worse, but I fear there is some risk of septic trouble. He was able after a time to walk down the trench slowly. A most splendid and valuable man and will be a great loss.

[marina]

Nothing seems to phase our Andrew. This is what courage under fire means. Still fretting on the men's behalf, and able to produce the needful for his sergeant. Good on him!

Marina

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"The men were decidedly 'windy,' but for some reason I think the Bosch were equally so, to judge by the number of flare lights sent up, which was exceptional. I think I never spent such a day of cursing and blessing - cursingmen for shifting about without rifles or without equipment, and blessing them by patting them on the back to try and cheer them uo and restore some colour to their faces and stability to their nerves. We really had wonderfully few casualties - the terror is to hear a big H.E. coming (you almost always hear them 4 or 5 seconds before they arrive), then huge burst with shooting straight up of dense black smoke and round and above bits of footboard and wood or whatever it has come near, and to say to oneself 'certainly half-a-dozen men just where that landed' - but amazing and an awful relief to go and find that not one touched. From a distance you would say anything anywhere near the burst of these shells would be killed, but it quite the other way, the effect being in many cases absolutely local.

Don't let this worry you; it is just one more of a few quite bad days experience I have had. We came back a little way early this morning into the Wood [Ploegsteert]. Had supper at 2 a.m. when we got in, and breakfast at noon. At 1 p.m. the cook asked what time we would have lunch. I said we would have tea at 4 o'clock.

Another ripping day and fine for a walk round as I now have the chance of seeing some migrant birds in the wood. I slept magnificently and never felt so fit. Yesterday has not in the least upset me. The men now are also in good spirits, singing 'On the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond,' etc............."

[marina]

I can imagine him blessing and cursing!

Marina

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To his Father.

Huts in Wood, [Ploegsteert]

April 7, 1916.

"..............The Bosch plumped some shells round our huts yesterday afternoon, which meant an exodus of all men and Officers into the fields - rather strange to see one or two rabbit hunts on the way, but too close to be pleasant. I was surprised how ar bits of the 5.9 shell flew - some bits came 600 or 700 yards. It is not often that I have experienced H.E.'s in the open.

I was this morning in what must have been such lovely grounds and chateau, now gone to the winds - long winding paths in the woods, kitchen garden, summer-houses, rockeries, fountain and very pretty cemented winding way from it. Entrance lodges from the main road. The chateau I have not seen, but believe it is levelled except for cellars. So strange to see things still struggling to carry on in the garden - low box-borders, berberries and laurel, vegetables and flowers (iris, etc.). It must have been a ripping situation and place.

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April 9, 1916.

"......... This morning I saw two magpies on a stick-nest and later a sparrow-hawk, and wonder which is going to have it. To-day I have heard a willow-wren - the first migrant. The shell-holes with water in them soon get those black flies which run on water. I wonder how they get there. To-day I saw the chateau in the grounds of which I wrote - an appalling sight indeed. It must have been a big house, and it is now a pile of ruins, hardly a bit of wall remaining; massive buttresses and pillars and girders chucked down in a heap - two or three girders are sticking up from it almost straight. It must have been a very jolly place with a little pond just by the house and paths through the wood up to summer-houses and fancy places. The wood is on the steep side of a hill and is now a mass of English Tommies in sandbag huts, and, near by, trenches and entanglements.

I am just (7 p.m.) back from a Service in a Y.M.C.A. hut - I suppose the nearest Y.M.C.A. hut to the firing line; only possible as being sheltered by the a hill, but none the less it has very nearly had shells on it since we have been here. I have heard from Arthur that he would like to come to this Brigade."

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To his Mother.

April 9, 1916.

"I know you wish to hear if anything nice is said about anything. I do, so tell you that on the 5th when we were heavily shelled there happened to be three Brigade Majors in our Coy. H.Q.'s who for several hours could not get away. They said nothing at the time, but three days after our Adjutant, who has been temporarily at Brigade H.Q.'s, told Marshall what good work they thought I was doing that day, and Marshall whoi had not said anything to me, added 'I must say you did awfully well.' They saw nothing except that I went out of H.Qrs. once or twice and knew something of what I had been up to. This was rather pleasing and you, no doubt, would like to appreciate with me."

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April 10, 1916.

"Another absolutely perfect morning, and after a splendid long night I feel just bursting with life and enter thoroughly into the singing of tits arouind.All the men singing and jovial too."

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To his Mother.

B.E.F.,

April 10, 1916.

".........One thing I have never told you as to shell-fire is the way any shell that lands near puts out a candle in a dug-out. On 5th we had three candles in H.Qrs. dug-out which were several times all blown out by bursts of shells. We have to-day got back about 16 men who have been away sick or wounded. It is a real joy to have them back.

Two days ago I went to find P.Hall (Ploegsteert) built in this wood by Ken Trotter and was awfully pleased to find it with inscription :

'Built by A Coy. 1st R.B. March 1915.'

Just like a Canadian log-hut, and in front a ripping grass and flower garden about ten yards long. I must write and tell Mrs. Trotter I have seen it."

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April 13, 1916.

"................I saw a most ripping pair of black-caps hopping about on the ground and bushes quite close, from a small sand-bag place I was in. I first heard the cock singing, though rather badly, and then saw them............I saw a rabbit this morning, which surprised me as I thought there was nothing but English Tommies and rats !"

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Huts, B.E.F.,

11 a.m. Saturday, April 15, 1916.

"Nine months to-day sinde I got to France. I am much fitter now than then. Since I wrote this we have had a most exciting rat hunt with a splendid little fox terrier - a splendid run with a big rat from under Tatham's hut opposite us, about thirty yards off round through brambles to our hut, from which after some time it was bolted and killed by the dog. After which a first aid of boracic acid ointment I put on the bite he got. About eight men joined in the 'run.' Last night Cox xhot a woodpidgeon with a rifle outside our hut, so we are not without sport.

How strange you would think it, and during the hunt two Bosch shells came over our heads, and landed in the wood about thirty yards behind us."

[marina]

Just noticed I missed today's earlier postings.

I;m going to keep a list of all the thngs Andrew produces from his pack. First it was iodine, now boracic acid ointment! Then there was an assortment of mouth organs. And chocolate for the troops...his writing implements...

Marina