(1) Private Frank Bass, diary entry (26th September, 1916)

Up at 5.30 to depart for Front at 6.30. Breakfast supposed to be at 5.30 but had a job to get it and when we did, only jam. Paraded at 6.30 and marched to sidings.

(2) Private W. T. Colyer, Artists' Rifles, interviewed after the war.

We were not expecting to travel first or even second class on the train, but we thought we might have a reasonable chance of 3rd. It turned out we were to go about 7th class; i.e. in plain cattle-trucks with a little straw on the floor of them.

(3) Second Lieutenant Cyril Rawlins, letter to mother (December, 1914)

One of the largest trains I ever saw: 38 coaches of all sizes and shapes: we had two smashes on the way up: couplings pulled out, with a fearful jerk and consequent delays of half an hour, whilst we all got out to stretch our legs and the men made fires and cooked food in their billy cans.

(4) Lance Sergeant Elmer Cotton, 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, arrived at the front-line at Ypres in July 1915.

By the time we arrived at the outskirts of Ypres the traffic of ammunition and ambulance wagons and ceased and we were alone on the road. Suddenly we came across the corpse lying across the pavement - it was the body of a peasant. Just over the canal bridge a timber wagon and two shattered horses came into view and we walked through the blood of these noble animals as we passed them on the road. we were now in the town proper - everywhere nothing but ruins could be seen - not a house but was either shattered by shells or gutted with fire. On the way we passed more dead horses, which in many cases were in a state of decomposition and emitted a fearful odour of rottenness.

(5) Guy Chapman, A Passionate Prodigality: Fragments of Autobiography (1933)

The communication trench was just wide enough to accommodate a man with a full-pack, and about seven feet deep, so that one's vision was limited to a patch of darkening sky and the shoulders of the man in front. Its floor was covered with a foot of tensely glutinous mud. We drove slowly through the morass, wrenching out each foot before putting it down again.

Darkness fell. After what seemed half a night, the guide stopped and said: "There's a road here. See and hurry over it. There's a machine gun on it. See? One at a time."

We tore ourselves singly from the mud and bundled on to the road, diving towards a dark opening in the other bank. The machine gun threw a few desultory shots past us. The bullets cracked sharply overhead. We tumbled into another trench and went on. This one was narrow, too, but shallower and duck-boarded. We moved more quickly. We could see lights raising and falling in front of us, and the noises interpreted themselves as rifles and machine guns firing.

Suddenly someone said: "Hullo," and Smith, my company commander, loomed up. "Is this the front line? I asked. "That's it."