Saturday, 24 June, 16.

... The weather here is most unsettled and must make plans, at any rate for air reconnaissance and so forth up the line, most difficult to arrange. There has been some more fighting up in the salient, though things have slackened off a bit, I think, from the fierce fighting of what is now called the third battle of Ypres. We, at any rate, are not so busy, although things are not slack by any means. You’ll remember gas was used again, and we got a fair proportion of those cases. The cough they have is like no other cough you ever heard — not dry or hard, but as if their throats were full of froth of some sort. It’s fearful. . . . 

I wish I could see some way of getting out of this unit before the fall. Every one is getting out some way, mostly commissions. Both our sergeant-majors are going — a sergeant-major either makes a unit a great one, or puts it on the bum as far as the fellows are concerned. Luckily we have had two of the best in France; but when they go, I see everything going wrong.