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[Page 60]
being relieved that same night we had to bury the Sergeant at once after taking his disc & papers out of his pockets & Handing them over to the Sergeant Major who in turn Hands them over to the Officer who is supposed to send them home to his people any private property found on the dead man, but in this war there being such a lot of men killed in action it will be a long time before things are straightened out.
We were relieved soon after by some of the 6th Brigade & we asked them to erect a cross over the grave as we had no time to do it then as they were waiting for us to finish the job, so they promised to see to the grave which I hope they did to mark out the place of a fine chap who gave his young life for a good cause.
We went back to a trench called Switch Trench & there we stopped that night and all next day resting & out of sight & at six oclock we expected going further back to a camp or Billets somewhere when order came along that we were to go in again & go over the top in the morning
this was a great surprise as nearly all the men were bad with trench feet & in the morning after we came out a lot of men were excused duty on account of having Trench feet so when the Battalion was mustered to go in again only 430 men were fit (& even a lot of them were not) to go in so they started & got into position about 12 pm & slept what they could with the idea of going over the Top in the morning on their minds I don't suppose many slept soundly & even if they did it was the last sleep many a man had as the casualties next day was about the worst we have