Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 93
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[Page 93]
and a shell burst close. In the moonlight I took a dark patch on the bank for a hole in it, and dashed my head into it luckily I had my tin hat on and my head wasn't broken.
About 11 oclock we got up into the Front line and settled down. In the morning one could see where one was; about half a mile to the right, back, was Villers Brettonneux town. Just close among the trenches on the right were some of our old aeroplane hangars, fast going to pieces under the gentle influence of the shells. Looking out over the Parados of the trenches one could see the pretty picture of Amiens down in the Somme valley. We were clinging onto the edge of the upland. The Cathedral showed up so fine and clear, that Fritz must have felt that he could have put out his hand and grasped it "so near and yet so far".
Every morning early at dawn, our artillery used to lay a nice level line of shrapnel along Fritzs line, and then the stokes would send a shower down on him as a finisher off, and there would be much dust on Fritzs line. Strange to say he would not reply at all; but one morning the artillery did not fire and the stokes put one up on their own accord.