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[Page 107]
Bois-Grenier Line
3/7/16
caused me to give quite an exhibition of "nerves". An involuntary duck which caused my cup of tea to splash all into the marmalade! More shells followed and dug big craters. Fritz has recommenced putting up his observation balloons.
During the evening a flight of cranes came flying over in echelon squawking loudly. A warm sunny day today.
Being in the trenches &c. so long has made the men very careless about their appearance and neglect of shaving & clothing is apparent. Will commence the shaking up process in a day or so.
Tonight having been relieved by the N.Z. we proceed to march 10 miles to La Creche and will be marching all night as the men are loaded up with packs it is proposed to march 30 minutes and rest 10 in intervals. It will not be easy to forget the unnerved unhinged men after their experiences in the raid!
Carwick quite upset, kept repeating "poor dead men", "poor chaps". "3 dead men lying on top of me in a shell hole" and so on just like some one babbling. Although the big "push" is in progress down on the Somme we hear very little of it here except at night when the guns roar to some purpose.
Just about 10 pm as our relief was about to start the enemy opened up a heavy shelling of the line to our left and sent up single red flares. In a second or two flashes were illuminating the whole line and our batteries opened up. It was a fine fireworks display to watch but too noisy and the poor devils up in front were getting hell put into them. Our transport was in process of shifting our gear & had to imshi.
Signs of slackening at 11.10 pm. Later it was rumoured that the enemy had raided our lines at L'Epinette. The 2nd N.Z. Rifle Batt. relieved us during the strafe and we moved out via La Chapelle. The roads were awfully congested, a N.Z. batt & and our 23rd were coming out as well as ourselves and kept crowding up. The fellows felt their packs very heavy. We turned over the Steenwerck bridge close along the towpath and marching on to Jesus Farm.
4/7/16
Enemy shells had started a fire in Armentieres & its fitful glare lit up our path as we went along.