His first train journey out of Boulogne had taken him to St Pol, and the evening train on 30 September took him on to Bruay. He took his place in the compartment that evening alongside two other 2nd Lieutenants from the East Surreys – Percy High (a schoolteacher in his late 30s, who would become a great friend in the coming months) and Louis Abrams (‘Abey’). As the train approached its destination, as close to the Front as he had yet been, he could see the green Very lights glowing over No Man’s Land, and hear the occasional boom of the big guns.

They stayed that night at Bruay, and next morning moved on to join the 9th East Surreys in Estrée-Cauchy (or ‘Extra-Cushy’ as it was known, since this was where the battalion was sent for rest). They arrived on the morning of Sunday 1 October 1916: Percy was sent to ‘D’ Company, Abey to ‘B’ Company, and Sherriff to ‘C’ Company, which he would come to love almost as a surrogate family. But there was no time to rest or write letters, for the battalion was preparing to move into the reserve line the following day.

From Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, facing page 53.

Once they had made their way to their lines on Vimy Ridge he was finally able to update his mother and his father on his progress. He told his father that they had marched in full pack all the way there, although their valises had been brought up by the transport. On the march up he had been attached to the machine gun section, and carried drums of cartridges ‘up endless trenches for about an hour’. Their line was about 1,000 yards from the firing line, and he was sleeping in a corrugated iron shed with three others – there was no furniture, but ‘ a floor to sleep on, which is quite good enough for me.’ He was finding the rain ‘rather trying’ because of the mud it created, but he was happy with his books, and the food in the mess: some sweets and chocolates from home would be appreciated, however.

He told his mother that he expected to be in reserve for eight days, then up in the line for the same amount of time. He reassured her that he was quite contented, because he ‘had made up my mind to do everything I was told like an intelligent (if possible) machine, and to look upon everything that happens as a matter of course’. He was comforted by the thought that she was always thinking of him, and he said goodnight to her every night when he went to bed. And she was not to worry – he would try to be ‘as careful as possible’.

[Next letters: 4 October]