Item 01: Frank Hurley war diary, 21 August-28 October 1917 - Page 87
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[Page 87]
a blinding sheet of flame: & the roar - Nothing I have heard in this world or can in the next could possibly approach its equal. The firing was so continuous that it resembled the beating of an army of great drums. No sight could be more impressive than walking along this infamous shell swept road, to the chorus of the deep bass booming of the drum fire, & the screaming shriek of thousands of shells. It was great, stupendous & awesome. We were glad notwithstanding to reach the more or less sheltered site of the mine crater at Hooge, wherein are the excavated dugouts of the brigade headquarters, some 25 feet below the level of the ground. Here we met Bean who introduced me to General Bennet, the director of operations on this front. [No 43] Last nights rain had made things frightfully sloppy & muddy: the dugouts being no exception, as the soakage percolated through the roof & oozed through the walls. This filthy liquid had to be