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[Page 24]
line we passed through some nice country not blown up and tore about and we passed through some villages but I don't know the name of them this is a part of the country that the Huns had avacuated. At last we arrived at the front line on the outskirts of Doiggnies [Doignes?]. I was one of the Coy H.Q. staff who went into a big house. The only house standing intact in the village but our officer Cpt McKenzie (of the Waverly Dairy Bondi) said it was a better place then the place that the 54 Btn had had for there HQ. So we booked [looked] over it and down the seller we found 2 mines which the engineers had found before us and had cut the wires which was to explode them at a certain time so I carried one out and put it about 50 yard away from the place there was beds chairs tables and everything we wanted exept food. Jack Bourk and I laid on a double bed and we were soon asleep. All went well till daylight on the 6/5/17 when Old Fritz started to shell our home the first two burst over the house sending shrappnell through the roof and killed Sig Bowers sitting in a chair at the tables while sending a phone message to Btn H.Q. A peace of shell came through the roof and through his steel helmet into his brain and his head just fell down on the table. Institanious death and Pte Patterson was killed while asleep with the same shell. A piece went right [through] his head in the left temple and out the right the hole it made you could put ones arm right through and it broke anothers fellow leg then McKenzie ordered the rest of us down the seller and it was quete for about 1 hour and he at it again and he landed 2. 9-2 shells in the house and bloked us down the seller and as luck had it we had a pick in with us and then the work started we had to dig our way through the brick wall and he shelled that place till he fired it he had set a trap in it and when the mines had failed to explode he shelled it till it was destroyed then we had to go and make dugouts in a sunken Rd.
And at night Pte Bourke and I had to go and bury Bowers and Patterson. So we dug the two graves beside each other and went and brought Bowers down and put him in then went for the other and when we brought him down a shell had come over and blew Bower out of the grave and put him in the other one and we shook hands with ourselves that we were away when it happened. And on the 7/4/17 I and some more was carring water for the cooks and a whiz bang stuck its nose through a brick wall and frightened 10 years growth out of us the 12th Btn went over on our left and of course we got a lot of the spare parts of iron and at times through the night we had it pretty rough and all day on the 8/4/17. All the time we are here the Btn was moveing forward for Fritzo was fighting a rear gaurd action. So on the 9/4/17 we had to move up closer to the line and all the time we was in this sector it rained and snowed all the time. We that wa detailed as Company Head Quarters Staff and our duty was to carry rations to the line and water to the cooks and the job was not much good for there was too much walking in the mud and danger zone. On the 10/4/17 we had to go and reinforce 12 Platoon. We had about ¾ of a mile to go and he played the M. guns on us all the time but we got to the place safe. And when we made the place a bit safe Pte Grant went out on to a road to see some wounded Huns and for what we could find but some one else had been there before us then Fritzo seen us and he put a shower of bullets over to us and then we had to make a retreat and