Mercer papers, 9 December 1917-19 June 1919 / Harold Mercer - Page 34
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[Page 34]
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for the Fritz flares, which gave us all the light we had, and were constant, and the occasional startled barking of machine guns – "tut-tut-tut-tut-tut – like awakened dogs, bursting into a chorus of noise. We have a system of outposts here – not regular front line tenches; & the only sign of a "line" I saw was a few men standing by some mounds of ruins, reinforced with sandbags, here & there.
The night was very dark, I hardly think I could have found my way back, myself. The twisting duckboard track, broken here & there in places by shell fire, & the difficult muddy path twisting round shell-holes, was puzzling in the extreme. The whole ground seems pitted with holes, merely separated by a fretwork of natural country; and the whole place is swampy. Even without falling into shell-holes we were up to our knees frequently. As I had anticipated feeling my first experiences rather a strain; I