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guns with their teams, the ammunition supplies following at intervals, and then the rolling columns of khaki clad men in almost endless succession, a nation under arms, provided an ever varying and endless source of surprise to young Australians, and we knew that our goal was reached – we were to meet the Hun.
CHAPTER II
"My First Stunt"
It was very evident to us that a push of some description was in the making, in fact our papers told us as much, and that we were drawing near the time when we would take the offensive and do the "hopping over stunt". When things were considered to be in readiness, every unit from the long naval guns down to the humble hard working infantry man, and our objectives had been shown to us in Plans and described in every detail, the signal was given to "hop over". Of this I must not say much, except we had some splendid shooting, took the first line, and dug ourselves in about a hundred yards beyond. The digging in did not go very deep as when we were about a foot in depth we found water, we had to make a barricade. Those of us who had reached so far held on, and made as much cover as possible, and were complimenting ourselves on a good success for the first advance, when the order came "We are surrounded, every man for himself!". Although surprised, we formed up and tried to charge back to our lines, but a piece of shrapnel, whether from friend or foe I could not say, was stopped by my nose, the force of which toppled me into a nearby shell hole and robbed me of my senses for some time. On coming to consciousness all was quiet, or comparatively quiet, but "Fritz" was around gathering up the living, and then the awful realisation came over me "I am a Prisoner of War". The thought alone was enough to try the strongest nerve, and by what I saw and had heard, I fully expected to be killed outright or worked to death behind the lines. My feelings were made even more miserable by the fact that I was the only man then living in that sector, and began to think "my number" surely was up, but on getting into their communication trench I found, to my immense relief, there were others of my comrades in the same plight, and on reaching the road to which this trench led, I met more of our boys, about twenty in all. We were then marched to the first field dressing Station, where the worst of wounds were dressed, and in any cases of men unable to walk, they were sent direct to hospital. On reaching this station I found three hundred in all "Tommies" and "Aussies". From here we were placed under a mounted guard and taken right through Lille, where we were greeted at almost every window by a camera, anxious to get a good photo of the first batch of "Aussies" The sight of us, battle worn, muddy with clots of blood all over us, had a very depressing effect on the French population, and it was a very frequent and depressing sight to see an elderly woman dressed in black sobbing and crying over our apparent failure. Another common experience was when some French lady, was probably depriving herself and family of needed food, would venture as close as possible, and attempt to hand to some of us a piece of their