August 3^rd 1915

Left Aberdeen at 10-7 after a very good send off with plenty of food and fruit.

4^th August 1915

Travelled to Southampton with 600. Details to proceed to Havre. Gordons furnished with Guard. Very sick.

5^th August 1915

Arrived at Havre at 2am. Started for Rouen at 7-30am. Stopped in the river for the tide. Sailed with tide at 2-30pm. Good ride up the river. Plenty to see and people very joyful. Arrived at Rouen at 8-30pm. Slept on board for the night.

6^th August 1915

Left the boat at 7am. Marched to the barrack camp about three miles distant. Medical inspection and went to our tents. Left Rouen at around 3pm to join 1^st Batt. Travelled all night in train, very much packed.

7^th August 1915

Travelled to the front. We reached Boulogne at 10 and Calais one hour afterwards. Left for Hayleborough en route and Calais one hour afterwards. Have seen many places that the enemy has been to. Plenty of troops and police on the way. Arrived at our camp four miles from firing line. No rations. Bivouacked for the night. Very cold.

8^th August 1915

Sunday. Church at 8-15. C.O. inspection and lecture. Dinner at 1pm then we had a walk round the village, our regiment being in rest for a few days. Tea at 5pm. Concert at night with pipers playing. Went to Bivouac at 2am. Heavy firing all night close to.

9^th August 1915

Pipers played at 6am. Got up and dressed for parade at 7am. Batt. Drill under the adj. Breakfast at 8am. Parade at 10am for firing. Returned at dinner. Had gas masks given out and getting ready for the trenches. Concert at night. Retired at 10pm.

10^th Aug 1915

Roused at 6am. Parade at 7-45. Breakfast at 8-30. Parade at 11am for the presentation of DCM to Private McKay (Gordons) for bravery with the bomb party. Parade at 12pm. for battalion. Saw plenty of houses that the Germans had shelled and destroyed. After a good bath marched home. Dinner at 2pm then we started to pack up our things for leaving, my com. B going into firing line to relieve the 4^th Batt. Gordons. The usual Batt. Parades and we left at 6pm and marched to the firing line. In some places we exposed to fire but we landed at the trenches about 10pm one man being wounded and many had near shaves. Posted our sentries and settled into trenches for the night, relieving our sentries every hour.

11^th Aug 1915

Stand to arms at daybreak, waiting for enemy attacks. Big guns firing at intervals. Posted day sentries and breakfast at 7am then tidied the trenches and put things in order. Dinner at 1pm. Shells continually fired by enemy aeroplanes flying over German lines. Trench duty from 3 to 5pm. Commanding officer visits us. Repairing trenches and dug-outs. Tea at 6pm. Clean rifles and stand to arms. Our trenches are being shells and the firing continued all through the night.

12^th August 1915

Stood to arms at 3am. Clean rifles and post day sentries. Snipers very busy all the time, our big guns are also firing. Our trenches are 80 yards away from the Germans. Breakfast at 6am and then we are allowed to sleep until 12am. Very heavy shell fire at our trenches, aeroplanes are flying all around. One officer wounded today. We are in first firing line at St. Eloi. I take over the duty of looking after platoons for two hours. Posting sentries and taking down reports and seeing the same reaches the officers. Dinner at 1pm. Building dug-outs and parapets. Found an old trench of the French. Smell very bad. Tea at 5pm. Stand to arms at 8pm. Sentries posted for the night. Germans firing all night. We stood to arms and building parapets up until 2-30am then waiting for enemy to attack till 5am.

18^th August 1915

Very heavy firing all night and stood to arms. Raining all night, trenches flooded. Had several killed and many wounded. Stood to arms until daylight. I was on duty visiting sentries from 12pm to 4am. Breakfast at 5am. All our kit and everything wet through and thick with mud and clay. We posted day sentries and cleared the water out of the trenches and put our things out to dry. This is our eighth day without a wash, and it is rumoured that we are getting relieved. Matters are getting very very quiet so far at 8am. I started platoon at duty at 8-30 till 12-30. Dinner at 1 and slept till 4-30. Had more rain and shelling by enemy. Tea at 5pm. After tea the enemy started a heavy bombardment of our lines with shrapnel and trench mortars. We had to keep well down. Stand to arms at 8pm. Watching the enemy very closely. As soon as it was dark we had to put out barbed wire 50 yards in front of the trenches and 50 from the German trenches. This was very risky, and we had an Officer wounded just before we finished at 11pm. Then they started to shell our trenches and we could see the shells bursting all around. I was for duty 1am to 3am.

19^th August 1915

Slept until breakfast at 5am. After breakfast, clean rifles and on duty from 10am to 12. Rest until 4pm. Tea at 5 then we were relieved after 8 days in the trenches. We marched to our dug-outs about 2 miles away, then I went on water carrying for the firing line. One man of our transport was shot in the side close to where I was standing. The graveyard was here with all the little crosses erected. Firing going on all through the night. We heard of a ship sunk with 1,000 lives lost at sea. We went to bed at 11pm not having had our boots off for 13 days. We had just fallen asleep when they turned us out to fix F.A. [field artillery] gun. We pulled it with ropes up the slope and got it in the gun pit then went to rest at 2am.

Another month passes in the diary, with only similar entries being recorded but an interesting event on 28^th August mentions "Sports in 4^th Gordon lines-Football match". Unfortunately no further details are given.

25^th September 1915

Went to trench to await for the time to attack at 4am. Climbed out of the trenches and charged for the German trenches about 100 yards away. Met with bad obstacles of wire. In some places the men got into their trenches and the bomb party did good work until the bombs ran out and then the Germans took advantage of their bombs and we were forced to retire after men had fallen. My company lost 62 killed and wounded. I went with our officer and was with him when he was wounded very badly, just at the German trench. The Prussian Guards were in the trenches and they put up a good fight. After we retired I saw the fire was too heavy for us to go far and I dropped into a shell hole in the ground with 3 more men and we started to put earth up in front of us. Then we pulled all the wounded in that was lying around and dressed their wounds. Then the fight with the big guns began and we lay in the middle of it with shells ploughing the ground up all around us and to make things worse it started raining and our hole got full of water and we could not move for fear of being seen so there we lay all day from 4-30am to 7pm. We then stole out one at a time and I started for our trench about 90 yards distant. Our regiment lost 638 all told. Our trenches were all broken up and the wounded and dead lay all around. We started to bring in the wounded and bury the dead. We were very pleased to be relieved by the Worcester Regt. about 12am and after some trouble we got down the communication trench, which was blown in in many places.

26^th September 1915

We started to walk to our billet about 10 miles away and reached there about 3am very tired and wet through. We had some warm tea and were very pleased to get in the blankets and have some sleep. I slept until 12 noon then we had a C.O. inspection and we presented ourselves after scraping the clay off our things with knives. Church at 5pm. Tea at 6pm. This experience I shall never forget nor shall I forget how pleased we were to have a few days rest. We lost 22 Officers so we shall remember Hooge Battle. We lost in killed and wounded 638.

5^th October 1915

Rise at 7am. Breakfast at 8am. The dug-outs were very bad, for the rain came through and the place was alive with rats. Work until 12pm. Rifle inspection. After dinner returned to work at 2pm making ammunition stores. Here we had some Officers join us. We only had three Officers of our own Regt. left, and one of the Shropshire Lieutenants was in charge. In the evening the enemy began shelling the wood, and we had to make for the best cover we could get. One man had his leg blown off. Tea at 5pm. Stood to arms. Parade for taking the rations to firing line. We always got shelled about this time. Finished about 11pm and retired to rest.

17^th November 1915

Breakfast at 8am. We were very busy preparing for the trenches and we had a good march before us. We had dinner at 1pm. The mail was drawn. That is always welcome. The next days rations were issued out. Paraded at 2-30pm for the trenches. The roads were very bad and here and there for the enemy had shelled them. We had to make a wide detour and it was about 7pm when we met the Guides of the 7^th London Regt. They were pleased to be going on rest. My company was conducted to their part of the firing line and we had two miles to walk on the lines of a light railway. This was very bad. If one slipped off the rails you were up to the knee in a puddle and someone would have to pull you out. But we linked arms and two men walked together taking a rail each and in this fashion we got there safely, but very dirty and wet. About 10pm we took over the trenches, posted the men, and had a look around at our new quarters. They call the place St. Aloy about three miles from Hill 60. We had our reserve trenches in the wood of St. Gean, the old battleground of Napoleon. We found the Germans were very active here and they were only about 20 yards from us at some points so we had to keep our eyes about us. We had the usual sniping and looked to our gas helmets but things went well until daybreak.

17^th January 1916

Rise at 7am. Breakfast at 8am, start work at 9am making new trench. Bombardment at 10. Some shells dropped in our trench killing one man (J. Barclay) and wounding two others. Very heavy shell fire all day. Carried dead man to Dump and repaired dug-outs that were knocked in. Dinner at 1pm. Work at 2pm. At 4-30 we took the dead man to B. Dump. Brought material back to trenches. We are expecting a gas attack as there is very much sniping. Finished at 9-30. Our guns were still shelling the enemy. One of our aeroplanes was brought down in our lines and one of the enemies was brought down by our Machine gun, though it reached enemy lines. It is now 11-30pm.

This Photo attached in Cpl. Kelly's diary shows some of the horrors of war.

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Many thanks to George Cairncross for allowing the diary extracts to be uploaded