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[Page 142]
Somme. Fritz opened a bombard down at the bottom of the rise on the road we had just left. He was throwing his flares up in front and a few machine gun bullets zizzed and cracked over the sunken road in which we lay waiting. From along the river bank ahead came the plun'g'g of bombs as our men were attacking. Dawn was hardly breaking when we got the order to advance. We got up and spread out till there was a goodly distance between each man. Advancing slowly down the grassy slope, we crossed an old trench of years before and its barb wire. I noticed how this country which had been neglected for 3 years, was going back to the wild, long dry grass, and briars growing about everywhere.
A machine gun was rattling ahead when all of a sudden it put on a belt of tracers and the bullets looked like great golden bees chasing one another out of a hive. They were speeding away towards the river, not in our direction at all. He thought we had crossed the river to attack, so we did, but not there. Presently it ceased someone had got it. Some germans came down the road with their hands up chanting "Hamerad Hamerad" in a sing song like "God Save the King". I couldn't help smiling. We advanced up a rise and down the other side. Men were coming back with blighties and prisoners were coming back in. On a sunken road were some dead Fritzs lying, with the red blood hanging from them in strings died almost in rows, where they had run out of dugouts at the sides of the road, only to meet Lewis and rifle fire. Past dugouts we advanced and started up the slopes of Mont St Quentin which is only a hill. At last we reached an old trench in which the 19th and 20th were they had reached their objective, we were now the front wave of attack. We waited here to allow all the company to get together.