[…] We were told we were going to 2’ Monmouth Siege Coy. [company] in the Ypres sector, back to that awful place again [to replace water lines destroyed by bombs]. […] The Coy. got a Base job near Le Treport, there were a lot of workshops here and my job—no let’s say my work—was in the huts and cookhouses […] I had two chaps to help me, one came from Northumberland a tall young lad who had been in an ironworks factory, the other, a much older little man came from Essex, he was a bricklayer […] I had palled up with a Sapper [engineer] named Christian, he was a blacksmith [who made a specialised tool for the bricklayer] […] Next morning when we were in the Stores, drawing our firebricks my bricklayer said “They are not the right sort again” but I told him to bring them along, he moaned all the way to the Australian cookhouses, then I took from under my tunic this special tool. His eyes goggled, he soon cut the bricks to an exact fit and whistled all the time, then when the Aussies, who were pleased with our work, invited us to stay to dinner, his day was made.