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[Page 141]
Cecil Healy been killed by a bullet through the head in trying to swim the Somme, to form a covering party. We left our trench at dawn, and retired to a hollow some kilo or so back. Here was a trench with a lot of old german coats, and some of his machine guns in it. The locks in the river had been burst and the river was running a few feet deep down in the bottom of its bed. We lay down and slept until about 2 oclock when we set out on the trail again. We crossed the Somme on a small bridge; near it the Germans had been building a big wooden one but had never completed it, down in the river was a limber with dead horses in it, and dead huns near by, the water running through and by it, washing them. After we got across we sheltered from view and advanced under the river screen (i,e, trees and bushes that grew along the river). We rested for a short time near where some battery men were haveing their dinner. They had a 20th Batt man there suffering from shellshock, found him down by the river wandering about, not knowing anything, he was lying in a shellhole and trembling all over when I saw him, a wreck of nerves. Some of the battery men were trying to calm him but it was useless, for a quarter of a mile away the shells were bursting around our batteries. The guns took some sticking to here, for Fritz was standing away miles off and hounding the roads and batteries with 5 and 8 inch shells. Great black clouds of smoke were rising up around the 18 pounder and 4,5 batteries and