Cicognani diary, 1 November 1914-September 1915 / Henry Claude Cicognani - Page 64

[Page 64]

against this rotten stuff. The days are still hot & sultry & bad smells from the dead almost take ones breath away. Our old donkey has given birth to a lovely little baby donkey & its antics are watched by all with great glee. It is marvellous how it survives the shot & shell which daily goes across the plain on which these animals graze. We are at last on to something definite & we hope it may mean finish to this campaign here. Everything is astir & general bustle is the order of the day. Iron rations are being taken up behind the trenches & rest houses for the wounded are springing up everywhere. A general attack is being launched all along our lines & our boys are all alive to a good amount of killing, etc. August 6th, Friday & a day prior to our own gentle surprise, the Turks on our right wing attempted a bomb charge on a trench we had captured a week previously at a loss of a hundred men – they gained their objective temporarily but the Turks who gained the trenches never got back to their lines again. I saw three go along as prisoners & a whole heap more piled dead in a corner nearby. Their own field guns killed them in our trenches & altho the scrapping continued throughout the day the casualties were not too numerous considering all things.