October 9th will be a day to be remembered

October 9th Was [going to] be [a] well remembered day of this period. During the morning things were a little more quiet than usual, we were sitting around the guns. I left my telephone, which was beneath [a] gun limber. We were having a feast of Bully Beef and potatoes - (potatoes did not come our way often), [when] a battery of German artillery found us with shrapnel. The first round burst directly over our No 3 gun, which was just by me, we [all] scattered. Poor old Bramwell, who was by my side, ducked, and got it in the head. I dived under the limber to phone my chum Collins, [while] two more gunners dragged Bramwell to the limber, for what shelter it gave. [Then] the two gunners were hit. Collins and I did what we could to poor Bramwell, but it was useless. The [shell] bullets simply hailed on the limber, and we expected to be hit every second, but it saved us. After the shower stopped, we removed poor Bramwell, it was an unpleasant sight to see a chums brains by ones [sic] side. A shell case was stuck in the ground 2 yards from where I lay – lucky it didn’t splinter for Collins and I. would have been bowled over. Everything seemed to bear marks of that lively hour excepting we two. We dug a hole that night and many times while there the hole saved us, for when it was most quiet, inevitably they would switch over on to us. Several were wounded at different times when it was least expected, and about this time, night attacks were very frequent and severe, often 3 attacks during the night. My wire often got broken by shell fire, through a wood of the observation point, in spite of a double line and was unhealthy at times to repair. On the morning of the 8th October a “coal-box” dropped by No 5 gun – killing one gunner and wounding four. We were shelled in the afternoon [and] they flung no fewer than 40 “Dud” shell [sic] over us in an hour. It was amusing to feel the thud when they struck the earth, and no explosion ensuing. We lost several horses and a couple wounded in Wagon Line. A party was sent out to prepare a new position, but [they] were shelled out. The Major asked us at night would we prefer to move as the position was warm, but we decided at once to stop, for our place was as good as another.