This page has already been transcribed. You can find new pages to transcribe here.

Transcription

[Page 139]

knew nothing & would do nothing.

However the officer eventually was directed to where most of them could be found & he mustered up about 100. As there was still a huge stack of stuff to be shifted & as we had previously helped the Pioneers to build the Railway line, about 50 of these who were also "hanging around", were joined up & the Stuff was loaded on to trucks & sent down over the railway to be carried at the end about 200 yards.

In the course of this line there were three, only three, trees, but after the first truck had been loaded & sent on its journey it was found that the line had been laid to pass so close to the trees (with a field on either side) that the truck had clearance, but not the load. By prising, pulling & canting, the load was forced past the first tree but had to be unloaded at the second.

As this was one of the "spots" exposed to Machine Gun fire, which with one further on, had been responsible for 16 Casualties amongst the Pioneers up till then, the unloading & reloading of that truck was quite a "lively time" & if a man could not find a place between the load & the Machine Gun post, "his lace had come undone" & wanted refastening, & it was rather surprising how long this took & how many had become loose. As the load became less, the speed with which the material was taken off was wonderful. The truck was then pushed past "the spot" & reloaded. A messenger being sent back to warn the loaders of the trucks to follow, in order to avoid the same troubles.

The truck was shoved along merrily till at a fairly level patch after passing the third "Obstacle" the truck ran off the line through the rail spreading because the joint was not properly screwed "home".

We soon found out why! This

Current Status: 
Completed