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[Page 13]
dealt with by our A.C. and he asked me if I would do it again well he asked me for a lie and he got it. I told him no and we got 7 days C.B. answer the bugle the same as the others. During our stay in this place we mostly done night work and drill with our gas mask. On the 19/4/16 No.3.7.11. & 15 Platoons were told off to go to the line at Fromelles and it is raining a treat and very cold on our way we stoped behind Sally [Sailly-sur-la-Lys] to have some dinner Luit Graham and a 2nd Btn Officer bought us two casks of beer but it was that cold we could not drink it then we went on to Sally where we had to stay till nearly dark then we got our guides and away we went and the war was getting very close to us now we could hear shells of all sizes going over our heads and machine guns rattling and star shell going up we passed Weather cock corner onto V.C. corner and up V.C. Avenue (this is the place where Aleary [?] won his V.C) to the front line where we releaved the 19th Lancashire (Bantams) or at least 4 Platoons of them. Then on the night of the 20th the 20th Btn of Lancashire Bantams relieved the rest of the 19th. Well they made us laugh the trench was over there head by inchs but we could kneel down and then see over the parapet and the dugouts would hold 2 & 3 of them but only one of us. So we had to build up the trenchs. And when the whole Btn came in on the 23/4/16 we working day and night doing them up and by the time we left we had a good fireing line and it was a nice quite place. But I did not stop with the Btn all the time they were there L/C Tomlinson, Gibson, Benning, and myself were detained off to and look after some reserve trenchs at a place called Maison de Rouge it was a sort of strange post built by the Huns and we had to keep them clean in case of an attack being made on us. It was a real good job but it not last long enough we had a house to live in and beds and a mother and daughter to look after us.
We were there from 27/4/16 to 15/5/16 dureing the time we were there the Btn had a raid and they got some prisoners and killed and wounded others. I think we only had one killed 5 or 6 wounded I beleave it was on the 13/5/16 that Dave Lowe was killed. But I never heard of it till after I joined the Btn again at the back of Sally [Sailly] I will write about the Maison De Rouge the day we got to this place to releave the other party I dont know what they belong to they walked out and we walked in. Well the daughter was nurseing a baby 6 or 7 months old and of course we all had to have a nurse of the child and the mother said as I got hold of the child that I was a married man she knew by the way I got hold of the child. Then we got talking about the war and the Huns. In 1914 the Huns were in possession [of] there farm and they stabled there horses in the kitchen. They treated the mother and daughter alright so they said but the son 16 years of age had to look after the horses and do other work for them. It was rumoured that a Hun was the father of the child. But I asked her one day point blank and she would not answer me so I often thought there was truth in the rumour. At any rate she was a very nice girl also her mother. They would do anything for us. We used to get our rations from the A.S.C. dump and we lived on the best during our stay there. The Cpl went to Estaires and brought home some chocalate and they charged him a Franc and a half and when he told Mrs Le Roge she asked him