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[Page 15]
the crest of Pashendale Ridge "digging in". For seven nights we carried rations up to the line; across the dread Zonnebeke Gully. I will now refer to my note book written just after and which I called my Diary.
Ration parties "Lost" Rum Jars "Lost" Rations
Flooded dug-outs and "dinkums".
It was the second day after the "stunt". The party of "carriers" were standing in a depression of the ground near West Hoek Ridge. The Lance-Cpl. in charge was absent. Thet were discussing him and also their rum "issue". L.Cpl Wilson of the Backbloks was evidently a "silent worker". After the party of twenty got back from the front line the night before – they looked for Wilson to receive their rum ration from him. Nobody knew that his dug-out had been flooded and that he was gone. Where was he? With an old bush chum from another unit in a dug-out and between them they forgot that the "war was on" and and their comrades too, "on the bottle".
Missing. Men & Jars.
Next night at half past eight the "silent" Wilson came along to the dug-outs and spoke: "Right-o" was all he said "Rations" "Front Line" "Fall in". We fell in and he counted us. There were two short. Only eighteen present out of twenty. We looked in their dugouts but they were flooded. We called out in vain. Then someone remembered that they had