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<p>a4701779.html</p><p>5/&nbsp; out end, cross &amp; recross @ all times of day &amp; night.&nbsp; Yes, in those dawning hours in between the lulls, you could be dumbfounded to hear those songs.&nbsp; No wonder we thought, &amp; deeply too, those thoughts were not of War but of sunny &quot;Aussie&quot;, its own lovely songsters of the air, the quiet, cool &amp; serene valleys - oh what a dream!! - &amp; lots of other beauties that make life worthwhile.&nbsp; It all seemed a huge mockery to me in contrasting our positions.&nbsp; There were we soldiers cooped up in a block-house, &quot;armed-to-the-teeth&quot; with death dealing man-made implements, wading &amp; peering into the murky [ground?] mist for any sign of attack or surprise, fearing to venture into a hand&#39;s breadth outside (tho. we had to continually pass to &amp; fro throughout the night hours for rations, etc) owing to the unwelcome &quot;souvenirs&quot; thrown our way by the enemy &amp; altogether feeling as tho. life was not worth while striving for, whilst amongst the sickening lines of broken &amp; battered trees outside flittered these birds the while singing &amp; whistling as tho. nothing unusual had transformed the once smiling prosperous countryside into the debacle &amp; [...lation] that we beheld.&nbsp; Ah yes, the birds are common enough in God&#39;s Universe &amp; 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.&nbsp; The monster rats still &quot;rule-the-roost&quot; in the way of animals in &amp; about the outposts &amp; &quot;Pill Boxes&quot; &amp; they&#39;re becoming more game or cheeky as the war draws on.&nbsp; Some of the boys accuse these rodents of purloining &quot;Tin-&#39;Ats&quot; &amp; gas-helmets, which mysteriously disappear just when they&#39;re so much required (of course it is some 2-legged rat who causes the bother, being either too bloomin&#39; lazy or careless to get their own property&nbsp;&nbsp; P.T.O &rarr; To No.</p>

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