Wet Trenches

Second Lieutenant F A Sloan [X550/1/81]

Saturday 8th December 1917

News has reached us from the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. They are on the Ypres battlefield, between the Scherriabeek and the Reutelbeek, north of Geluveld, ground with which the old sweats in the battalion will be familiar, the Battalion having been blooded here in 1914.

As one can imagine, holding ground between two streams following an autumn of rain and, latterly, snow, the conditions are terrible. The snow is thawing adding to the thick, cloying mud for which Flanders has now become a byword. To make matters more miserable, a number of casualties have been inflicted by snipers today.

A new officer, Second Lieutenant F A Sloan has joined from base. Second Lieutenant L A Tansley has gone to hospital with bronchitis.

Second Lieutenant L A Tansley [X550/1/81]

Source: X550/3/WD