Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. At last I have got a moment’s breathing space. These last fifteen days have been days of trial for all of us, officers and men – constantly on the move day and night, sometimes with the squadron, at other times with the Destroyer Flotilla in terrible weather and fiendish cold!<br><br>And always, always the same monotony. I cannot understand why they have chosen this dogs’ weather for our man A uvres, for the only result is to sicken us of it all and to damage the materiel. If only we were sure that war would be declared! In that case everything would wear a different aspect.