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Our casualties since the beginning of the War have been:
    17 Officers killed
    15 Officers wounded
    739 Other Ranks killed and wounded
    188 Other Ranks missing
    Total 959
Practically the strength of a whole Battalion. The missing must nearly all be dead. Some were probably hit direct by big shells, or buried. Others may have dropped in the woods and not been found.
Major 'Ma' Jeffreys

We've had a play in ragtime, and we've
       had a ragtime band,
We've had a ragtime army, and we've
       had a ragtime land;
But why not let us have what we have
       never had before?
Let's wade right in tomorrow and let's
       have a ragtime war.
The Wipers Times

All day it has rained – I have lain down on my mackintosh sheet which is wet with my blanket over me which is also wet – my trousers, puttees and tunic are wet through so I have lain in a less wet pair of pants and a sweater – there are no opportunities of drying things so we take our chances of pneumonia etc. several people have got it this morning I think. I am still wet and very cold and I suppose my wet things will have to dry on me – we lost two men, one killed and one wounded – This life is awful and I cannot think that the trench fighting can continue long – no human being can stand it – I heard today two platoons of Germans came in and surrendered as they couldn't stand it any longer – the conditions of the Royal Scots who were in the trenches next to us was more pitiful than our own – several of their men went off their heads from exposure and cold and wretchedness.
Private Mervyn Rees

Halted last night in a field and had to stand in pitch darkness in the worst rainstorm I have ever experienced. At dusk tonight we advance to attack the enemy, three miles away. It will be hard work, but as the artillery have been shelling them for a week, per- haps we shall do it. I don't know exactly how many are opposed to us, a considerable number, I believe. Well, Au Revoir, all. God Bless you. We have marched and fought our way from St. Nazaire to this place, Bourg-et-Comin. I may not write any more, Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit. Ah, me: Wife, Children, Mother, all farewell.
Private Charles Rainbird

Excerpts from the diary entries of Major 'Ma' Jeffreys, Private Mervyn Rees, and Private Charles Rainbird and the letter from Lieutenant Angus Macnaughton are from 1914: The Men Who Went to War by Malcolm Brown, quoting from the archives of the Imperial war Museum, London.