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[Page 46]
harassing us heavily – ever and anon "Enemy advancing on the right, "enemy advancing on the left" – all messages now have to be whispered along the line. There is a pale moon – any minute we are expecting the enemy to rush the trenches – we have no reserves.
I ask Captain Margolin to let me make his dug-out more secure, as every time he has to give a message he has to expose himself – after some persuasion he permits me to do so, though at the same time asking me if I had completed my own dug-out. However, after having made his position apparently secure and arranged bushes the better to make it less conspicuous, I had no sooner vacated the position and he had got into my place, than he was struck in the mouth by a bullet.
"Good God!" I exclaimed, "have they got your Sir?" "My God!" he yelled, "they have caught me at last;" but, after the first shock, he said to me, "I thought they had got me then, Silas; what shall I do? I mustn't let the boys see I have been hit" – however, I said he had better have it attended to.
Just at that moment a shot struck the parapet close to my face; I thought my turn had come; although it was nearly dark the snipers seemed well on to this particular dug-out. A body was lifted out of the trench; I thought it was a wounded man; I asked if he was dead – then I saw the top of his head – Oh God! The Turks seemed to be going to rush us – Margy grabbed