From the diary of Osborn H. Oldroyd
June 27TH.–A number of our boys went a few miles, blackberrying, and picked quite a quantity to bring home, when we heard the sound of horses’ hoofs, and suddenly concluding we had berries enough, we beat a hasty retreat for camp and got there safely.
The weather is not quite as hot here as it was in our close quarters at the front, but while we enjoy that change we would much prefer remaining at our post there, until the end of the siege.
Some of the boys have had to boil their pants–the only process which is sure death to an enemy lurking there which we find most troublesome. While our pants are boiling the owner leans over the kettle anxiously, for it is probably his only pair. Well, it is now summer time, and, it will do to sun ourselves an hour or two. These little pests lurking in our pants become very annoying when they go foraging. These creatures are about the only war relics from which I have not gathered specimens to send home. I have, in fact, gathered enough of them, but with no view to a museum or cabinet. It is fun to see a fellow get into a pair of boiled pants. The boiling has shrunk them till they fail to reach the top of his brogans by some inches, and accordingly he bends over to try to pull them down to a junction, when the contrary things seem to recoil still further ; and the only satisfaction left to him at last–and it is no mean one, either–is that they are at least clean, and he himself is once more their sole occupant. How long he will remain so, however, it is hard to say.