Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 78
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[Page 78]
which lifted my tinhat off my head I snatched it and popped it back on again.Two of those closest to where it burst were knocked down. And in the confusion I heard Charlie shout R-is hit, and after fuddling about a few minutes, he said, I think he's finished. A piece from the pineapple had caught him in the temple, and he had never had time to take his hands out of his pockets. The pineapple had landed on the parados at the end of a bay and he was standing at the other end. We put him in the corner of the trench until nightfall when he was carried to the rare of the trench and buried.
Early the next morning about 4 o'clock, Fritz put over a regular barrage of pineapples, minnies and whizzbangs (77 Mm gun) & after a while it slackened and Charley who was on watch at the time suddenly said, "There's the B - ", and started firing. I looked over the parapet but I could only see what looked like shadows so I blazed away and Jimmy kept the Lewis plopping. As far as our section was concerned it was soon all over, but not so further to the right the No. 5 gun had had to abandon their post, saveing their gun. Fritz had occupied the trench we had laboured to dig, and so our grenadiers set to work to bomb him out using the new cup thrower