Lewis war diary, August 1917-March 1919 / James Ray Lewis - Page 99

[Page 99]

as rifles tin hats, equipment, loaves of black bread and paper sandbags. I got a dugout all on my own, it must have been a Fritz quartermasters judging by the odds and ends I found in it.

I got two tins of German bully and opened them, one chap said it was great stuff better than our own, to hear some fellows talk all the stuff Fritz has, is better than our own, even his rubbish; the stuff was half jelly, and judging by the coarseness was evidently horse meat by the smell I thought it was poodle dog, perhaps it was. The roof of the dugout had rafters formed of our wiring screw pegs, the long ones, and the crosspieces, of our rifles, supporting one corner was portion of a Lewis gun. A dud had come through the top and stuck in one wall. It was a cheerfull place, there was a dead Hun about 12 yards from the door he had been dead a week or so and it was midsummer. He was so swelled up his trousers were bursting, and he was literally crawling away that was why I had the dugout all on my own. As the flies came off him onto us, we decided to interre him. So 3 of us set to work, the ground was dry and hard and we could not carry him as he would fall to pieces. So there was nothing to do for it but to kneel down along side him and dig. We could not stand up as Fritz would see us and put a