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[Page 27]
factory, through the walls of which one of the famous "tanks" had penetrated and rooted out its Hun defenders. I saw several of these mechanical tortoises, the shape of which will now be familar to you; but they were unable to work during the time I was there owing to the softness of the ground.
On the morning of the seventh day we were relieved before dawn by another Australian battalion and left the front for a rest (?). What character of a rest it was you may judge.
We had of course, to wait until darkness set in before we were relieved and though the enemy sent up great numbers of flares, we were undetected by them and suffered no losses going out. Our excitable O/C urges us as usual to hurry which was quite unnecesary, as you may be sure ones instinct was to hurry to get out of it. It was very slow going though, and I had frequent falls into the mud! All of the troops were so exhausted that we had perforce to rest every few hundred yards. After going in this manner for 2 or 3 miles, we got out of the Communication Trench and on to a road which made almost as hard going as it was a perfect sea of wet white mud and so treacherous that one often got stuck in unseen holes. One poor chap fell full length in it and had to be assisted up. Our O/C had almost worked the men into a state of Mutiny and they frequently roundly abused him as he deserved, when he would not allow them a sufficient spell and would sit defiantly until they were rested. One pause was made at a huge pile of howitzer shells of all calibres which supplied the wants, by a small tramway of the huge guns along the road, the flash from which lit up the whole of the inky darkness at intervals as by a great flash of tropic lightning. The military railway had not been built quite up to this point, but the heavy stuff was sent forward on light tramways.
It was here that our exasperation was most acute. Our O/C had lost the way. He bungled on for a mile or so, then halted us until he sent a messenger to find the way. At this point the muddy road, which was corduroyed was the driest spot.
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