Item 01: Malcolm Shore Stanley correspondence, 8 December 1916-28 October 1918 - Page 129
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[Page 129]
them & it would be hopeless to try. Going along the other day I heard a voice "dig me out" "dig me out", looking around I could see no one, but the voice continued so we prowled around untill we discerned that it came from under a tin hat, he had been buried by a shell in some soft ground, his mates were passing but they were too weary, exhausted & tired to even hear him much less dig him out - it may seem strange but I forgot the incident in less than 2 minutes - a party of Australians got him out. You have no conception how callous we become, there must be a reaction surely when we move away from here to quieter scenes. I have seen men in the open wounded & lying there for 5 days, arms & legs falling off & no one to attend to them, carried 4 out with one of my working parties, its some contract to get a man out jolly hard toil. Fritz doesn't always respect a stretcher party either it takes 8 men to bring a man in 3 miles & occupies somewhere about 6-8 hrs to do the trip.
I put in some work on a track to take men in & next day went out along it, portions were strewn with dead men, many exhausted men stumbled back, here & there little pools of blood & right along drops, drops oh! the sadness of it all, I think modern civilisation has gone mad, stark staring mad. If men could only know what like the war really is I guess they would soon adopt a peace for war policy.