Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 17]
warm drink we had for six awful days of wetness and cold in the trenches.
Next day under cover of the heavy fog the Company went forward to clear out a sap and clean the mud from the duck boarding in the bottom of it. I welcomed the opportunity to sieze a shovel and keep myself warm and occupied. At 9 p.m. that night we left for the front line trenches where we were to remain in a support trench a short distance from the front trench. Shall I ever forget that journey which occupied us until nearly 5 a.m. almost 8 hours. The distance as the crow flies, was not more than 3 miles at most, though perhaps, twice as far in the tortuous windings of the communication trench, so dug to prevent the enemy enfilading it. The night was pitch dark and drizzling. Stumbling and falling over the endless abandoned barbed wire and telephone wires, we were literally plastered with mud from head to foot with wet mud before entering the trench. This accumulated on our clothing and equipment to such an extent that it became a heavy burden in itself. The first mile or so of the communication trench was fairly clean and duck boarded, but the remainder merely a mass of mud and knee-deep slush. Slipping and staggering through this, it was impossible to go more than a few hundred yards without stopping and leaning against the wet side of the trench in an exhausted state. After struggling for some hours we came to the shattered village of Flers and passed over a regular river of liquid mud in a road. Here we were met with a guide (?) who quickly lost us, and we were rambling about in any order in the open for some time hoping in the light of the German flares their artillery would not "spot" us as they had already been "searching" the neighbourhood. Some of his shells fell pretty close to the great discomfort of our O/C, of whom more anon. With his exciting urgings the men had in their exhausted state lost all patience and "told him off" in an abandon of insubordinate curses and promptly sat down for a rest. Knowing his own shortcomings he could make no protest. Luckily, we
(17)