November 15th 1915
Hello, I'm Lieutenant Hugh Jenkinson of PALS Battalion of the Warwickshire Regiment. I am stationed on the Western Front in France. Our Battalion has been stationed here for 2 months now.
We are woken up at 4am every morning by that night's Night Watchman. It is an early start, I know, but you get used to it.
I signed up to the Army with a bunch of friends of whom only 6 of us are left. We felt we should help the country, but we thought the War would be over by Christmas, that's what the Prime Minister was saying, but it wasn't, and know the War has been going on for one and a half years, a year longer than it was supposed to.
Conditions in the trenches are evil - the rain is non-stop at the moment and the mud and slime is everywhere. Exploding shells have created a landscape of churned mud and water-filled craters. A few of my troops have got trench foot, one was so bad, he had to go to the field hospital in the Parados. We all live in fear of shells and snipers.
