Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 85
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[Page 85]
there at night, it was to direct artillery or something, of course it was shaded; one night as we came by on fatigue it was gone, and there was a hole in the wall where it had been. This was between Heilly and Merricourt.
I forgot to record when we were in the other reserve & 2 Fritz's aeroplanes came over about 5 oclock in the morning to try and locate the 4.2 guns. One of our planes was flying around underneath them, firing upwards, but could not drive them away, occasionally they rat-tat-tated back. Suddenly one of our planes came over from the direction of the line. He manouvred until he was paralell to Fritz, and then opened up with his machine gun. We saw the bullets fly into the heart of the enemy machine (for "tracers" are always used by airplanes) and he swerved and began to descend. he landed a long way off. We all ran about cheering and Fritz's other plane spotted us ere it scooted and we got some shells killing and wounding some. I often saw them driven down.
The last few days here, I got ill, and went off my food, and when I do that I am really ill. I went to the doctor and had a temperature of 102 degrees. My mates called it, "swinging the lead",