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<p>a4701779.html</p><p>5/ out end, cross & recross @ all times of day & night. Yes, in those dawning hours in between the lulls, you could be dumbfounded to hear those songs. No wonder we thought, & deeply too, those thoughts were not of War but of sunny "Aussie", its own lovely songsters of the air, the quiet, cool & serene valleys - oh what a dream!! - & lots of other beauties that make life worthwhile. It all seemed a huge mockery to me in contrasting our positions. There were we soldiers cooped up in a block-house, "armed-to-the-teeth" with death dealing man-made implements, wading & peering into the murky [ground?] mist for any sign of attack or surprise, fearing to venture into a hand's breadth outside (tho. we had to continually pass to & fro throughout the night hours for rations, etc) owing to the unwelcome "souvenirs" thrown our way by the enemy & altogether feeling as tho. life was not worth while striving for, whilst amongst the sickening lines of broken & battered trees outside flittered these birds the while singing & whistling as tho. nothing unusual had transformed the once smiling prosperous countryside into the debacle & [...lation] that we beheld. Ah yes, the birds are common enough in God's Universe & their chirpings in peace times are practically un-noticed, but any lover of wonderful nature who comes to this Hell-on-Earth Region must be struck by the seeming out-of-place-ness of things such as that. The monster rats still "rule-the-roost" in the way of animals in & about the outposts & "Pill Boxes" & they're becoming more game or cheeky as the war draws on. Some of the boys accuse these rodents of purloining "Tin-'Ats" & gas-helmets, which mysteriously disappear just when they're so much required (of course it is some 2-legged rat who causes the bother, being either too bloomin' lazy or careless to get their own property P.T.O → To No.</p>