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[Page 135]
Tues. Sept. 25 (cont) I took his place with A. Butler, B. W. Howard & Ralph Watts. Just after he returned, Arthur Butler made a casualty of himself by drinking about ½ a pint of kerosene in mistake for water, so I still continued to carry with the squad, Wyn taking Arthur's place. During the day Sgt Mathieson took a number of squads & formed a relay post, down at the crater. This improved matters a lot, as it halved the distance we had to carry. The 60th Batt. went into the Line at midday & we got a few of them through. Fritz kept shelling heavily & we were kept busy. We were "No 7" squad, & the Figure 7 will linger long in my memory. At night a bright moon shone, & made things good for us, as it is terrible to carry over shell riddled ground in the dark.
The 54th & 56 Batt. went up during the night. They were sitting along the road as we passed by with a stretched case. A shell burst among them, killing & wounding quite a number including a M.O. & an officer. Ted Grey, Eli Dodson & a number of others came along to give us a hand. Things got a bit quiet & we had a spell of about 2 hours.
At about 5 on Wed. SEPT 26 we got another carry. Things were very rough & shells were bursting in all directions. We arrived at Hooge Crater safely, but found that it was badly knocked about. A number of dug-outs had been blown in & quite a lot of dead were lying about. Ralph Watts & I were just lifting our Patient into the Y.M.C.A, canteen when a shell burst right behind us. I got a bit of it in my thigh & a chap named West 1745. A. Coy. 31 Batt. who came down with us as a walking case, got a crack on the Jaw. He was already wounded in the chest.