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[page 78]
153
(9).
Corporal back to Nos. 3 and 2 posts telling them to fire a few rifle grenades over at the Boche and to rattle up the Lewis Guns a bit so as to attract attention down that end whilst the strange stretcher party got away. This worked well. Several times they must have been sighted and fired on for we would suddenly see them flatten out. This was done by the crawlers just straightening themselves out flat allowing the inert man to roll off into the snow. After a few minutes they would hoist him up again and carry on. They got him safely down to the Dressing Station and I heard afterwards that it wasn't a fit he had after all but some rather serious affair. I don't suppose that lying on ice with and entrenching tool handle between his teeth from 4 in the afternoon until 9 at night did him much good, but still at last report he was getting along well.
Number 5 was the most exposed post of the lot being only about 80 yards from one of the enemies positions and to get to it from No. 4 took us just on three quarters of an hour although the journey was under 150 yards. The moon seemed to be brighter than ever and the only way we could get along with safety was to lie flat and wriggle along. The least attempt at crawling brought the machine guns and snipers on to us causing hurried scrambles into shell holes. Some of these shell holes had recently been the landing place of other shells with the result that the ice has smashed up but the water thus exposed had frozen immediately cementing the whole together in such a manner as to leave the jagged pieces of ice sticking up like almonds on top of a cake. To have to suddenly dive in on top of this or even to have to crawl through such shell holes is no pleasantry.
After much wallowing during which the Corporal