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(5).
drill. As soon as we come out of the trenches we start "right turn by numbers", and "form fours" and all this sort of elementary stuff. It seems absurd but there is nothing like it to smarten the men up after their cramped life in the trenches. This is really a very smart Battalion and after they have been out of the trenches about two days and have had a chance to smarten up they drill better than any Australian soldiers I have seen drilling in Australia. This from men who have been at trench warefare for about 12 months - Gallipoli and here - is very good. Our Church Parade (I couldn't get out of it) last Sunday was a particularly fine turn out and was held under a big chestnut tree. Every officer and man was there and it was the first time I had seen the Battalion all together. I couldn't help thinking that the Huns would have had a big bag had they put a couple of shells into us. Fortunately none of the planes were about at the time or we might have got strafed - it does not take the planes long to put their artillery on to a target. Better than planes for general artillery observation are these Kite balloons commonly known as "sausages" owing to their likeness to this favourite article of German diet. Both sides use them and each side tries to destroy each others balloons by aeroplanes dropping incendiary bombs on them. Only last week I saw our aeroplane destroy three of Fritz's sausages. It was about seven or eight o'clock in the evening that he sent up four balloons evidently intending to do a bit of shelling in the twilight with the aid of the observers in the baskets attached to the balloons. They had not been up a quarter of an hour before our planes were over and destroyed three out of the four - they just managed to haul the other one down in time. We had a very good view of the