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[Page 17]
our way. Another chap and myself got off and wandered about the country; at one time we were only 500 yds. from the trenches. We finally found our way home, arriving at 4.15 a.m.
On Thursday, 31/5/17, saw taube bring down one of our observation balloons, which was afterward itself brought down in flames.
On Saturday, 2/6/17, was sent to ammunition dump near Ploegsteert (Messines Stunt) at 7 p.m. The work is very hard, as we work from 9 p.m. till 4 a.m. without a stop.
On Sunday night left for dump at 8 p.m. Arrived there and took one load to guns. The shells were flying round pretty thick, and several came unpleasantly close. One blew up an old house, and a full-sized brick landed only a foot behind me, smashing an ammunition case to bits, in the wagon. We were very lucky that the whole wagon full did not blow up, which would have been the case if the brick had hit the cap of a shell. When at the guns, a man was wounded by a shell. We got back to the dump and while loading wagon saw an adjacent dump blow up. Gas shells commenced to fall thickly around us and we were forced to put on our gas masks. Fritz now began to shell the dump on which we were working and made it that hot that we had to clear out, but, no sooner had we gone, than the dump, consisting of thousands of rounds of shells, blew up. Several of our fellows got killed, also a large