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[Page 133]
had reached their objective. Fritz had fixed up all the reapers and binders, and every crop had been cut and used. He had gathered all the sound bricks out of any smashed buildings, and stacked them in nice little heaps and had been carting them away. Occasionally one saw a sign up verboten (forbidden) or Kanteen. There was a great big pile of postcards in one of the trenches here from Martha Wilinski to her father, Hanonier, Mase Wilinski. She must have been a very affectionate daughter by the number and kind sent. I have some of them now including one I think is her, not bad looking for a Fritz.
A lot of the German soldiers must have been of Polish origin here, for a lot of the names ended in 'ski'. I got a couple of Roumanian cards showing what front the local hun had been on. I saw lots of his photos the remarkable thing about them was that they all look alike, as if they were brothers. A few nights later we were relieved and it was a terror. Fritz was dropping bombs everywhere. He commenced by dropping a lot along the hedge, and one could see them flashing at every crossroads. We kept in the shadow of the trees as much as possible. Just after we crossed the railway line where we hopped off from, we nearly met our end . Fritz was trying to bomb the line and a plane came over low. Someone said "oh! it's one of ours. I suppose some fool was smoking a fag for I heard it swoop towards us and someone shouted run and I did run , then I heard his-s-s-s-s z two of them , as I threw myself on my face, I heard a voice nearly sobbing, "Oh! my God this is the end'; there was a crash a shower of sparks behind and I expected the world to vanish; but no not a man in the company was hurt, miraculous it seemed. We spent the night in a trench and next day went over and had a look there were two holes in the earth one quite 10 feet