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[Page 29]
(23)
Our officer on many occasions told me not to put my head too far over the trench when on duty on moonlight nights, as I was liable to be sniped, but I liked to know what was going on in front of us when I was on duty. I had the reputation of having good sight and good hearing – very little escaped being seen or heard by me. One night I thought I heard a noise in the wire in front of the trench, so when the officer came along I reported it to him. He and I then crawled out over the top of the trench and crept towards the wire when all of a sudden several large rats rushed out of the wire. It was the rats who were making the noise.
On New Year's Eve we were relieved and marched back to Waterlands camp. Had a good New Year's Dinner here, supplied by the Australian Comforts Fund.
Nearly every night we used to go up to the line on working parties. The tramp through the great deserted city of Armentierres every night got very tiresome. We used to march through the deserted city (which was not damaged very much – the inhabitants had evacuated it) with the grass growing in the streets and tramcars &c rusting on the trucks, [tracks] to the ruined lunatic asylum, and then, after a rest, go single file to the line a few hundred yards away and start to work and dig trenches. Several of our men were wounded on these parties, but none killed.
On 12th January 1918, we marched, over the frozen cobble stoned roads (many were the spills and busters we got through slipping on the ice) to Locre and were billetted here in circular low roofed huts. We could lie in our huts here and see the huge square tower of the church with its great chiming clock, so always knew the time. There were some good estaminets (hotels) here, also eating houses with the usual eggs and chips and coffee, and which was much sought after by the troops. The few civilians who had remained in the town done great business with the troops. We were in Belgium now and some of the civilians would do anything for money. They used to charge us exorbitant prices for anything we bought and were real profiteers. When we used to remonstrate with them about the prices, their invariable reply was "O' est la guerre" (it is the war). A lot of them were spies. Some of them used to lock their pumps so we couldn't get any water, but we soon got over that difficulty. We used to get a Mills Bomb and blow the lock off and get the water that way! Of course the Belgians made a great fuss of this and reported us to headquarters, but the officers took no notice of them. Some of the Belgians here were caught as spies and shot. They used to plough in the fields with one black and one grey horse &c. On different days they would change the position of the horses, thereby giving signals to the German 'planes, which flew over very low while our planes were away.
We used to go into Baillieul [Bailleul] a lot. This was a large town and then not shelled. During the "break through" of March 1918 Locre was (also Baillieul) in nomansland, and very heavy fighting took place here.
Working parties at Whychattie [Wytschaete] Ridge (daylight working parties) were performed by us for a week, and then all one week we were on fatigue unloading trucks of coal and stone.