King diary, 1 April-31 August 1917 / James Clive Selwyn King - Page 9

[Page 9]

4th Continued
unused amunition, rifles, bombs of every kind & shape, from the deadly little "Mills" to the giant "plum pudding", bayonets, helmets caps, clothes, all lie about in profusion. What would seem impassable barriers of barbed wire entanglements have been torn up & cut into atoms by the artillery. Woods are torn up, in places only pieces of stumps left to show where a thick forest once grew. Beside the roads the shell holes are most frequent, they are large holes of some 15-20 ft. in diameter, all full of water, in some the water is very much blood stained. Light railways, the great assistance to the advance, run all over the fields, great dumps of ammunition, rifles, etc. are met with, every here & there. Little grave yards are lying among it all, men who have done their bit bravely & well & made the supreme