Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 56]
{Written in long hand at top of page – " Charge bloody Angle see also written description."}
same manner and fight in the same spirit that I know my comrades will display, for they know not defeat.
May 2
Our supplies are getting cut off – Turks have complete command of the roads through which we have to bring them – to-night we are to take the Ridge. I wonder how I shall get on in a charge, for I have not the least idea how to use a bayonet; even if I had, I should not be able to do so, the thing is too revolting – I can only hope that I get shot – why do they not let me do R.A.M.C. work? I have told the authorities that be often enough that I cannot kill.
One poor chap in a dug-out close to us was killed while preparing his meal; he has been lying there two day – his mess tin full of tea, the charred remains of the fire he was cooking by, a few biscuits scattered about, his pipe by his side – we cannot bury him on account of the snipers; it seems no place is safe from them – efforts are being made to clear them out but it is a difficult job as we cannot spare the men to do it. We are very hard pressed – we were to have had four days' rest from the firing line but now the situation is so critical that at all costs the enemy must be shifted from the Ridge. Colonel Pope has aged much during these first terrible days.
5.30 pm.
In half an hour we have to move off for the charge. Close to where we have fallen in, enemy snipers are putting in