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[Page 66]
11th Battalion from the position they had advanced to that night. On relieving we found that more digging in had to be done so as to provide cover during daylight & this digging had to be carried out with entrenching tools for no shovels were available which made the task far from being easy. As soon as the relief was completed I was sent forward about four hundred yards with three men to act as a covering party to the company while they were digging in. When day broke next morning we could see the Huns moving about on the top of a big ridge some eleven hundred yards away behind which lay the city of Bapaume. our duties in this position were to remain as quiet as possible during the day to prevent enemy observation and consolidation & patrol work of a night. Patrol work was carried out very extensively by both sides which often ended in our patrols meeting Fritz always ending in a fair dinkum go in the dark. During the night of the 28th a very strong enemy patrol worked its way in behind our "B" Company taking most of it prisoners but after a scramble most of our boys managed to get away but before doing so took several of the Huns prisoners.
the Huns that did escape captured returned to their lines with thirteen of our boys these being the first in the battalion to be taken prisoners of war. our stay lasted fifty two hours in this position & during that time we were not troubled much although the enemy tried to find our position with artillery, trench mortars & machine guns but the distance was to great for him to be accurate. our company suffered only four casualties caused by a Pineapple trench mortar landing in a machine gun post wounding four of the gun crew. it was well into the night of the 1st of March when we were relieved by the 5th Battalion then started to move back & after wandering about until nearly daylight found our position in big German dug outs used as reserves at the Maize. This place was so called owing to its net work of trenches & under ground which were a great system of defence & it was in one of these dug outs, which was inhabited by millions of lice, that we spent our time. We occupied this position for six days & during that period I was able to have a good look over the ground Fritz had first evacuated. It was a wonder he had held the position for so long for his, first, second & third lines were simply torn to pieces by our artillery & in many cases his big dug outs had been pierced by heavy shells & the dug outs completely blown in. His dead were lying about everywhere appearing as though he had been unable to bury them & that job fell to us for orders were issued to bury all dead this having to be done about dusk each evening. He also had mines set everywhere especially in all the big dug out but luck favoured us for all those that were discovered were successfully unload, mostly by the engineers without suffering a casualty. Within a few hundred yards to the right of the dug out we occupied were signs of some previous Australian struggle of a very strenuous character. It appeared to me to have been a raiding party which had met with very disastrous results for the old no mans land was spotted with dead belonging to some unit of our Second Division as indicated by the shape of the colors on their shoulders but at that time the colors had faded with age being indiscernable. Most of the dead men were armed with revolvers & a number of small cog wheels attached to short thick sticks were lying about these being impliments that were generally used by raiding parties instead of rifles & bayonets which were considered too awkward in such operations. Several of the men had been caught in the enemy's barb wire entanglements including a sergeant who had practically