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[Page 94]
Lille Post
16/6/16
Very quiet day here fatigues as usual. 50 for baths in the afternoon. The Brigadier was round in the afternoon.The enemy bombarded the trench line containing our Batt. H.Q. Went up into loft of a ruined building before lunch and from there and had a good view of the German lines and the country behind them. There is a belt of forest behind the trenches. Their firing line runs through the front of Wez Macquart. They have erected canvas screens and I could see no one in sight. The observer can watch them coming and going very freely. A good many observation balloons up today & some aeroplanes.
At 20 minutes past 10 tonight it was still daylight enough to stand outside the dugout and read a paper, owing to two things (1) the abnormally long twilight (2) true time being 20 past 9.
Just about 10.45 pm the ration fatigue reported that they could see two men moving about on top of the ruined wall of the of mill directly I looked and thought there seemed to be a moving shadow so took a party and surrounded the place and then went in myself. Found that it had been an old observation post and there were long ladders leading right up. Crawled up and searched the little roof left but found nothing. A splendid view of the trenches at night from here.
At about 11.15 the artillery opened up and merry hell started while we raided their trenches on the NZ front. The air was soon lurid with flashes and the bursting shells were pretty viewed through field glasses. The air was full of noise of course and a haze of smoke soon collected from the guns, the smell of explosives being very pungent in the air. The first time this has been noticed. Most of the men being old soldiers just slept on though ready to turn out at a moments notice. The area affected by the bursting shells was a mass of darting flames flashing up and down.