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[Page 13]
It was whilst getting in the trench that I saw what I always considered the "gamest" fellow in the was. It was not for an action that I remember this man but simply for stoical endurance of pain. A shell landed right amongst four men. They were shattered and bruised. We dug them out and one man came out alive. His leg was broken, his hands and arm shattered and his head was burnt, besides the shock and bruises on his body. It was impossible to take him from the trench. The way back was impassable. The communication sap had ceased to exist and to go overland was out of the question. We did what we could for him, little it was too. We laid him in the bottom of the trench and obtained a stretcher. We bandaged him as well as possible and then he had to wait the opportunity to be carried away. For nearly three hours then he had to lie on the stretcher unprotected from flying pieces of earth and splinters.
What that means will be apparent from the following story:- I had lost my pipe about an hour previously an on orders being given to deepen the trench I found my pipe buried 18 inches in the bottom of the trench. This boy of whom I am speaking had to lie and allow all this debris to fall on his poor broken body and he was quite conscious all the time. At times it was impossible for him to stifle a groan, but when he did groan he at once turned to us boys and apologised for his weakness in being unable to stand the pain without a sound.
I have never forgotten, neither have others who saw this wonderful exhibition of self control and for long his name was the household word with us for what the Americans call "Guts"
The story of Tuesday in Pozieres is just a repetition of such stories. Men were broken and buried alive. Their comrades dug them out knowing that before the day was out some one would probably be doing the same for them. But there was never any thought of evacuating the trench. We just held on, most of us resigned to the knowledge that we would not come out of it unscathed. Our number we reduced to about thirty to the company. For yards one could walk along the trench and see nothing but equipments cast aside by wounded, or he would see dead men. At last about 7pm we were told we were to be relieved. We were to go back to supports which were just as bad as where we were but we felt brighter at the thought of a change.
"A" Company took on from us and we went back to supports. But the shell fire here was just as intense as the trench we had left. Yet so tired were we that we managed to snatch a few minutes sleep. The story of that night too is just a story of one long duration of shell fire.
On Wednesday morning we had to move to close supports. "A" company had gone further ahead and we had to act as supports. The shell fire had not slackened and added to the H.E. that the enemy were using were a great many 6 inch Black Shrapnel. The trench was just a long row of shell holes. All semblance to a trench had long since departed from it and we were ordered to repair the various parts that were destroyed. All day under a hail of H.E. and shrapnel we worked trying to keep the communication sap open and to give the support trench some resemblance to a trench. But it was heart rendering work for as soon as one part was repaired another shell would arrive and undo all that we had done. Such a story as this would be very poor if one did not mention the work of the cooks. Even under the heaviest bombardment and the worst days our rations somehow came through, and not only that but we had hot tea and hot stews in the front line. We were told the transport had volunteered to bring it up to us and we appreciated their bravery in facing Sausage Gully on that day.
I had one experience only of ration carrying and ammunition carrying at this time. We had to move a big lot of material from