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[Page 73]
shrapnel clouds puff puffing around them. They rarely if ever bring one down though. One night the Welsh made a raid under a smoke barage. We could see figures silhouetting in the smoke, as the flares went up and the rattle of rifle fire. But soon all was quiet. After 5 days of these trenches we were relieved by the Welsh one night it was drizzling rain and we tramped back to Warloy
One of the most gruelling things in France are these marches. One gets dead tired and as we stood in the drizzle and slush, if one bumped another and it was "mind who your bumpin", "I wish these packs was in 'ell", "How long are they going to keep us standing in this muck", "I suppose they'll find there's no billets in the blessed place and take us to another", "They couldn't run a dog cart." The men often talk like this when they are dogtired and weary.
Presently the order comes, "prepare to move", and the weary ones get up off the roadside and its sludge, sludge,sludge, as we move forward to our billets, oh! it's only Australians marching through Warloy. I buried myself deep in the beeswing that night and slept the sleep of the just. About 10 oclock next morning we marched out to go to another village and it was beastly hot for France and we perspired and cursed the heat. That is the worst of the climate of France it beastly hot or its freezing cold.