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[Page 94]
I soon made enquiries about the location of my battalion but it was fully an hour before I found my platoon also being told that half of the men who had been in the pill box with me had not yet arrived. However during the day the missing men arrived in two & three until every man was accounted for & it appeared they the party had got lost on leaving the pill box in no mans land having to wait out in shell holes until daylight to get their bearings. We spent several days at Wytschaete my platoon being quartered in a big dug out which had been constructed underneath the ruins of an old brick house. The duties chiefly consisted of fatigues with the Engineers on trench digging & revetting on the left sector being done during the night time for no movements of any great nature was allowed during daylight. I managed to have a good look round the village which could only be discribed as a big brick dump for the place had been battered to dust by artillery fire. Fritz had built numerous big dug outs in & about the village the largest of these being called the "Cata Combs", which would easily accommodate three hundred men forty foot underground. The battalion left Wytschraete about dusk on the 22nd when our company moved forward to reserves relieving the 1st Battalion at "Rosewood" where the troops were put into pill boxes having fairly comfortable "possies" the position itself being extremely quiet as far as warfare was concerned. Whilst here the company was engaged in making supports & communication trenches also barb wiring under the supervision of the brigade engineers of a night. It was also while here that some members of our battalion discovered a huge "Steel Tree", which was situated among other tree, being used by the Huns when they held that position for observation purposes. It was a great invention for it would deceive anyone even at a very short distance for it was painted similar to the