Item 01: Clifford M. Geddes diary, 31 March-1 August 1918 - Page 121
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[Page 121]
with a rotten smell. It was a job to throw it out from the bottom, you couldn't hoist it off the shovel, it was too sticky, & if you put it near the edge at your head, some of the muck fell in on you. The engineers brought the cable, 3 ropes of it, laid it along the bottom, & we shovelled 6 feet of earth in again. The poor old infantry do all the dirty work & fighting too. Got back about 12, when I was sad indeed to hear Freedman was killed by a shell last night, & 5 others wounded. I went across to A Coy's dugouts, & it was only too true, his body was on a stretcher, & 4 of them carried it off, the chaplain with them. No language could describe the horror of this cursed war, & if God would only end this awful slaughter of good men! A man hasn't a chance, here was Freedman back here at night, & suddenly struck down like a leaf. Only a few days ago, I was talking to him, & he looked a picture of health & vigour, he said he had a whiff of gas, & was hoping he might get worse & get a Blighty out of it. Everyone hopes for a "Blighty", that is a wound or sickness just bad enough to get them over to England out of it all. At night I