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[Page 22]
shrapnel. The pellets dug up the mud all around our feet, & by all the laws of chance it should have been someone on my side of the stretcher who was hit, for that was the side on which it burst. It failed even to get the man fully exposed to it on the stretcher, but killed the one man less most covered against it. Two of us returning over the Crest on another occasion had a "Cole Box" [Coal Box, (slang) heavy German shell, usually a 5.9, from the black smoke of the shell-burst] burst over our heads, we saw the smoking nose-caps of the shell land at the side of an Infantryman taking off his boots, the lead spattered the mud all around him "Nearly a 'Blighty'" was his only cheerful remark as we passed him. There has been shells burst directly in our path, & dug hole large enough to bury a horse & cart.