April 28th
Went into action on the edge of a wood on the
left of Ypres, this seemed more quiet than the place we had vacated. In the
afternoon we ran our wire to a point for observing just over the canal.
Everywhere about here was a scene of desolation, half starved cattle roaming
about, pigs, and all sorts of farm commodities; many lying about dead. The
French Infantry held this front and just in rear of the trenches were 4 of
their Howitzers, which showed how far the enemy had advanced. We stopped to
observe some big shell bursting near, a kind we had never seen before and
promptly named it “Black Jack” on account of the great volume of black smoke
they gave off. While we were watching one burst directly over the heads of a
few Frenchman, they scattered and I didn’t think any were harmed. We went back,
shells of large caliber were continually passing right over the guns, but only
one burst near, about 20 yards from where I had made my dugout, at the foot of
a large tree – it did no harm.
The night passed uneventful, except for the
continual shelling and during night, two batteries of French 7.5’s took up
position about 50 yards in our rear.
April 29th
Was impossible to fire from observation, as we
could not get to observing point and the wire was broken in many places by the
continual shelling. We fired by map and wireless from aeroplane – hostile
aeroplanes were very active and one must have spotted us for they gave it to us
warm in the afternoon and evening. The officers had made a bivouac beneath a
large tree, a few yards on my left. A few shell, and they were real coal-boxes,
burst very near. They moved over to the left and lucky they did, a few minutes
later a shell hit the tree and snapped it off like a match. Other shells
followed and we had to leave the guns for a while. When it was over, we went back,
the officers huts had been blown to pieces, two coats that hung on a tree were
absolutely in ribbons, almost everything there was irrevocably ruined. One of
them had been sitting on a box of biscuits; this box was blown yards away and
not even a biscuit that was inside remained. The tin box was like a piece of
twisted tin. Everything was almost unrecognizable.
Dowling one of the servants got both arms badly
splintered - continually shelling roads to our rear and right all night.
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