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[Page 62]
after we had got the trench this was the worst engagement we had been in for casualties & when we went out again we got fresh reinforcements who were waiting for us when we came out again. The Hop over took place on November 14th 1916 & we were sent back for a rest to Billets at Friecourt Wood where we had a good rest.
A strange thing happened when we first went in, we went in at night & early next morning just a daybreak we heard someone calling Stretcher bearer, in a queer sort of tone as if someone was wounded out in no mans land. So two bearers got a stretcher & went out & found a man lying in a shell hole not wounded & out of his mind. they brought him in, it seems that the 7th Brigade had made an attack at this place a some few days before we went in about 5 I think & he must have got lost, anyway he was out of his mind and had evidently lived on the food out of dead mens haversacks, he had his tin dixey tied to his foot with string. another of the wars tradegies.
After going out we had a good spell & made up the companies again & then went into Trenches opposite Delville Wood from a Camp Called E Camp. This was rather a quiet sector when we first went in but woke up a lot after. We went into the trenches on Xmas eve & I thought at the time this is the limit Xmas peace on earth & goodwill to all men & here we were just the opposite. This part of the Trenches & ground have been fought over a good few times like Ypres & the whole place was one mass of shell holes especially Delville Wood where the South Africans lost such a lot of men. We went up in a gradual