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[Page 28]
There was not a log or stick or anything solid at all to sit on. The whole place was simply sodden earth. I sat down on the corduroy road which could not make me any wetter than I was. Though it was bitterly cold I sank into a stupid sleep for maybe an hour and when I awoke almost every man had disappeared in search of some kind of shelter. It must have been about 2 a.m. I had let my watch run down purposely. I did not wish to know what time it was in the trenches. That would only add to the monotony. Two others and myself then determined to push on to try and find the Camp we were making for. We tramped on for miles and were fortunate enough at one place to be able to get a cup of hot Oxo. The first drop of warm stuff I had tasted for a week and it did go well. I wished it had been a bucketful. At about 6.30 we came to an Artillery Camp and a cook gave us a drink of tea, which helped us on again. It was strange how badly we were misdirected and nobody seemed to know where the place was. We had almost given in and resolved to spend a few hours in a wagon if we could find one when one of the fellows recognised an old mate in one of the Australian Camps. He was a Russian and the Cook of his company, so we had another drink of tea which seemed delectable. Shortly afterwards we met other small parties of wanderers trying to find our camp, which we soon reached. It was 8.30 when we arrived; that meant we had been something like 15 hours going what I discovered afterwards was about 7 miles in a direct line and we had travelled an almost horseshoe route.
There was further delay in being alloted to billets, as the other men had also only arrived during the previous half-hour. A small piece of bacon and bread and a drink of tea were issued and we sought our billets. Billets? They consisted of a hole dug in the ground about 18 inches deep, surrounded by sandbags of wet earth, built another 18 inches high and covered over by a tarpaulin in such a manner as I had described before. The rain was pelting down and the ground round about was churned up into a wet mass 6 or 7 ins deep. However, we tried by taking off our muddy boots at the door, the moving in and out of 15 men in
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