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[Page 72]
A shell burst at the back of the trench & I ducked my head good job too as a piece of shell came crashing through my waterbottle & let what water I had left out on the ground. my equipment was on the bank just above my head as I had taken it off to do some more work as it had been raining & the trench was all sloppy so that was the end of my water bottle.
The same night we got orders that as soon as it was dark I was to have all the men ready & get as many picks & shovells together as I could muster & lead out of the trench & the men were to follow me at two paces interval & when I got out I was to advance half left & go two hundred yards then halt & the men would form up at two yards interval on my left which we did as soon as the shell fire had died down & it was dark enough to move.
As soon as we got there we started to dig a new trench (we were dinkum diggers all right) & dug all night long & next morning we were in a bit more comfort tHan the old trench & besides that we dodged the shells as Fritz was shelling an almost empty trench which we had left only two stretcher Bearers were there.
in the morning Fritz started early to put over a lot of Gas shells & as there was a dense fog on early that morning until about 8 oclock when it cleared, we could not distinguish Gas from Fog & there was a lot of sniffing going on to try & detect gas which came along alright on the breeze & we had to put