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[Page 320]

to crawl on hands & knees through mud & water to enter a "dugout" the height of the roof being barely sufficient to enable one to sit up, & mud, mud, the muddiest mud everywhere.

Although the living in such a place was horrible the men were in the best of order & spirits for the Division had been ordered to march back to a billet. In the meantime an acquaintance with the new O/C made one more than regret the late one. Fancy men in a muddy state & living under such conditions being given just 20 minutes to clean Rifle & equipment & be ready for inspection, & one of the men whose rifle was a picture, was fined a days pay for having a dirtied bayonet, having evidently knocked against the muddy sides of the "Dug out" in getting out.

This was the first time this man was fined although he had been 7 years in the Imperial Army. A more disgusted man on that day there could not have been found, & he never forgot nor forgave. He talked about that incident for days.

Attached to a small party, having to take a short cut when the Company started to move back, the Sentry had one experience with mud that he would not forget. After climbing a rise, a flat that did not look bad had to be crossed but the mud was quite up to the knees.

Instead of keeping to short steps, in trying to hurry he made a normal stride & found it was then impossible to move either foot, and before the nearest man could "lend him a hand", both feet kept slipping till at last he fell full length into the mire. His Clothes & Rifles were something awful to look at & some of that mud seem to stick ever afterwards. Even the floors of the huts in which they camped had mud 3 & 4 Inches deep within 10 feet of the door & a spade had to be kept handy to remove the mud

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