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[Page 101]
followed the whole way be enemy aeroplanes who were flying very high but their observation afterward proved fatal to our Brigade. At the end of this march our battalion was put into a big French Civilian Hospital which had been evacuated by the French when the Hun first began his big offensive. On being dismissed I went for a walk round finding to my surprise that the other three battalions & the brigade engineers were also quartered in the hospital it being a very big building. By this time rumours were beginning to get about that Fritz had broken through in Flanders & that our Division was being sent north again to help in checking his advance. it was not long before a good hot meal was served to the troops which was the first good meal for a couple of days. After dark the troops were wandering about the grounds when they were suddenly surprised by the humming of aircraft followed by the detonation of bombs which told us that the planes overhead belonged to the enemy. This bombing kept up for the greater part of the night, Fritz obtaining several hits in & around the hospital, our brigade suffering a number of casualties & several horses belonging to the transports were also killed & a lot had to be destroyed. During all this excitement the enemy kept shelling the railway yards at St Roche with a long range gun believed to be "Little Bertha" which is now in Sydney. Late in the night this gun proved very disastrous to our 4th Battalion while they were entraining at St Roche for their casualties were very heavy. it was well into the big hours of the night when our battalion set off on the march being the last of the Brigade to move, it being a slow & monotonous march for the time was mostly spent in waiting about in Amien. Eventually we were taken to St Roche railway yards where the troops were hurriedly put aboard a waiting train which soon started to move. After leaving Amien the train started to gather speed until it was travelling like a mail train maintaining the speed until we arrived at the outskirts of Hazebrouck in Flanders about 4P.M. that afternoon. The train was brought to a stand still outside Hazebrouck where we remained for some time & whilst waiting here I witnessed some of the most cruel sights of my life. The Huns were shelling the town of Hazebrouck causing the inhabitants, old men, women & children to run for their lives leaving their homes & all their worldly treasures behind them. Women were pushing their babies in prams with the other small members of the family hanging on to the prams or their mothers clothes all being terror stricken & crying. it was a terrible sight which stirred every man aboard the train to the core all vowing that they would kill every Hun who dared to show himself in the future. Imperial troops were running about absolutely disorganised & from what we could gather from them, the Huns were just pushing on with very little opposition which meant that our duties were to check the advance at all costs. About dusk our train started to move at a snail pace towards the on coming Huns until we arrived at Hodginghem Siding where we disentrained orders being issued to discard our pack & to get our gear into battle order as soon as possible. it was not long before we were swinging along the road on a forced march passing many families who were moving back with all they could carry in carts, prambulators & in many cases their gear was tied on the backs of horses & cattle. These little groups had a pleasant word for our boys wishing us their best of luck but their grief was far to strained to express terms of kindness to our boys. After marching a short distance we were hurriedly put aboard motor lorries which soon started to move forward