Leaving Pernois, we route marched under our colonel, a Lt. Col. Ralston, passing the villages of Senlis and Harponville to Brickfield Hill just outside the sadly battered town of Albert and there halted and stacked our packs again, and assumed our fighting order in readiness for another tour of duty in the line. Passing through the battered town of Albert, with its half destroyed and famous old cathedral, on the tower of which was hanging a beautiful golden image of the Madonna and Child, and we then made our way back to Sausage Gully, where we remained the night, and found that the guns had been moved up about another kilometre in consequence of the advance we had made but otherwise, it was the same old place we had known before.

Having an hour to spare, some of us walked over and had a look at the huge mine crater of La Boisselle, a little to our left which was a colossal hole, about 60 ft. deep and 100 yards across, blown up by the British miners on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and was the cause of numerous casualties on both sides. The guns in and about Sausage Gully still kept up their fearful fire on the German trenches to which the Germans replied with their terrific salvos and area shoots, as instanced by the fact that between 6 pm and 6.30 pm the Germans sent over 200 x 5.9 shells at one row of guns situated about half a kilo ahead, without doing much damage as their range was a little too short.

Next morning: August 19, our battalion moved up to the front line, past the scenes of our old fighting and took over the same positions as previously occupied by us, A and D company holding the front line whilst C and B were in support to them and performed all the fatigue work such as trench digging, ration and supply carrying etc. For three days, my platoon, No. 10 of C company, was employed in a most disgusting job, i.e. burying the dead.

Our headquarters was in Becourt Wood, well to the rear and out of danger of the shelling and from there we used to march up to the front line every day at 8 o’clock am and put in a few hours burying the pieces of dead men in the vicinity of the communication trenches and Pozieres Village. As things were much more quiet now, than they were on the last tour or duty, we were able to perform our work with much less danger. The whole area of ground in the neighbourhood of Pozieres Village was littered with German and Australian dead, who were in an advanced state of decomposition so that to lessen the smell and the fly pest, it was found necessary to bury the bodies, where possible, hence the reason of our burial party.

Armed with shovels we used to follow up the communication trenches and whenever we saw a body lying close to the parapets, we would jump out of the trench and poke the body, crawling with maggots, into a shell hole and then pile the earth on top, to a depth of two or three feet. Near the dressing station in the Village, the stench was frightful, as during the battle, if a man died, he was just lifted over the parapet out of the way, and there left until he could be buried later. When we came to this spot, we were nearly overwhelmed with the stench, but had to tackle the job nevertheless.

Altogether, there were about a dozen bodies, covered with clouds of flies and maggots and to get rid of them, we poked them into shell holes with our shovels, holding our breath all the while and then feverishly piled earth over them until at last they were out of sight. Ugh! I will never forget the horrible sight and the smell seems to be in my nostrils even now. I could dilate on the horribleness of this job to some length, but what is the use? War is war and they were killed, and for sanitary reasons had to be buried and I happened to be one of the unfortunates selected for the duty. Up till the Battle of Pozieres, I had never seen a dead body, and yet there I was, after about a month of soldiering, callously stirring dead men’s remains with a shovel and tossing them into shellholes for burial!

This disgusting business lasted for three days, during which time I could not eat, no matter how hungry I was, and I could not take anything except rum of which we were well supplied, and then we were relieved to take our turn in the firing line. On one occasion, whilst we were searching for bodies in the Village, we came to an opening in the ground at the foot of a wall.

Being curious, we descended about 30 steps and came to a German dug out which was most luxuriously furnished with beds, chairs, tables, pictures, crockery and even electric light, and must have been quite 30 ft. underground and therefore perfectly safe. The German officers knew how to make themselves comfortable without doubt, as such havens of rest were frequent right through the German lines, and later on we saw several even more luxurious than this one, all furnished from material taken from French houses in the vicinity.

These dugouts had a bad effect on the morale of the Germans though, as during an attack or when the shelling was heavy, they used to take shelter in them and generally ended by being caught by our infantry who mostly threw two or three grenades down which acted as an incentive to force them to surrender in large numbers without so much as a fight.

After being relieved from our disgusting work of burying the dead, B and C companies took over the front line from A and B companies, who had had a quiet turn in the line and had had only three casualties during their term of duty. We, however, were not so fortunate, as we had barely settled down on our posts before the Germans opened up a heavy bombardment on four positions with the result that within two hours we had over thirty men killed and wounded. Things were much quieter next day and the following night and except for a desultory bombardment and a good deal of machine gun and trench mortar fire, which did not cause much damage, there was nothing much doing. Towards morning, of the second night the weather broke and we had several heavy showers of rain which soon filled the trenches with water, and the soil being composed of chocolate clay, it gave way from the sides and fell into the bottom of the trenches so that very soon we found ourselves floundering about up to our knees in sticky mud and slush, making us very uncomfortable.

At 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the third day, I was detailed to go to the rear as a guide to bring in the relieving troops for our company, so I made my way back to battalion headquarters down the flooded trenches, up to my knees, and there reported as a guide. Much to my gratification, I was told that I was not required, as the officer in charge of the relieving company was acquainted with the position, having been in the line himself the day previous, so that it being unnecessary for me to return to my post, I made my way to our quartermasters dug out to enquire if there was any letters for me. The Q.M. loaded me up with 23 letters and six parcels.

Loaded with my fighting gear, and the letters and parcels in a sandbag, I made my way back to Becourt Wood, where Harold Mitchell joined me later on in the evening and there we had the pleasure of reading our letters from home and from our friends and relatives in England and had a sumptuous repast of tinned fruit and camp pie, and etc. topped up with coconut ice and such sweets, sent to me from Australia.

Thus ended our second experience of the firing line, which term of duty had lasted for six days, during which time we found things infinitely quieter than during the previous occasion.

The Germans had shelled us a good deal, especially in our support line and one day managed to drop a shell in the midst of a crowd of the 4th Division men at Gordon dump, accounting for 26 men killed and wounded, but otherwise our battalion got off comparatively lightly.

Harold Mitchell and I camped the night in Becourt Wood in an old dugout and next morning, August 28th, we rejoined our battalion on Brickfield Hill on the left of Albert. Here we recovered our packs, and received some pay amounting to 80 francs and then formed up with the rest of the battalion and marched back to the village of Warloy with the prospect of a good spell and a change of scenery in front of us.

At Warloy, which is a fair sized country village, composed of farmhouses and barns with a few substantial shops and public buildings and a population of about 2,000 people, we remained for three days. We occupied the usual barns with lousy straw as billets, the officers of course having the privilege of better conditions in houses, with bedrooms, etc. and filled in the time in cleaning ourselves up and getting reorganised and repaired generally and then marched on the fourth day a distance of 15 kilometres to the country town of Beauval, not far from Doullens. The country we passed through was beautifully green and fresh looking, with high crops of oats and wheat which the farmers were just beginning to cut.

Their methods of farming are rather simple and crude, as they generally cut their crops with a scythe and then tie the sheafs by hand, after which they are stocked by the female members of the family. There were no fences to divide one farmer’s land from that of his next door neighbour, so that Farmer X’s oats adjoined Farmer B’s clover or turnip crop. Good, made roads wound in and out of the fields under crop, so that for the 15 kilometres of our route march, our way was through such rural scenes and the journey was rather pleasant.

Beauval proved to be a nice little country town and boasted a rather fine church, a town hall, public school and several other nice looking houses and public buildings, and also a good number of shops and estaminets, where our chaps were able to spend their pay on eatables, wine and beer etc.

As soon as we arrived and had been allotted to billets and fed, most of us sallied forth to buy eatables and beer and otherwise enjoy ourselves until bedtime. As soon as we were in billets and asleep, along would come the drunks, who would keep us awake for hours with their histories of their experiences and adventures until at last they would be grabbed by the sergeant major and put into the guardroom for causing a disturbance.

During a tour of duty in the firing line, the battalion as a whole generally slackened off in discipline and efficiency, so that our time out of the line was mostly spent in drilling and training under our officers and N.C.O.’s in order to recover our lost discipline and in generally preparing for the next trip to the front line. With this aim in view, we were kept at our bayonet fighting, platoon and company drill, etc. most of the four days we remained at Beauval.

On September 5th. our company was detailed, as a whole, as an advanced guard and forthwith marched off at 2 am to Doullens and there entrained in the usual troop train, composed of cattle trucks, and arrived after about 8 hours journey at a town called Popperinche in Belgium, where we pulled in at a siding and there disentrained. At this siding we remained for two whole days, being engaged in unloading the artillery waggons and transport waggons for the 5th Brigade, working from 7 am to 7 pm each day until at last we completed the work and rejoined our battalion in billets at Popperinche.

The town of Popperinche is just over the Belgium border and is one of the very few Belgian towns in this portion of Belgium which escaped total destruction. When we arrived it was crowded with Australian and British troops, whilst there also remained a few thousand civilians who had stuck to their homes and farms in order to make a living out of the troops and also because they had no where else to go. It must have contained little short of 20,000 people in its better days before the war, but as the Germans had a habit of dropping shells into the town at intervals most of the people took their portable possessions and fled into France. However, enough people remained to supply us with eggs and chips and “special” beer, and the hundred and one knick-knacks in the fancy goodsline that soldiers want. Here we saw the famous Belgian dog carts. The Belgians build light carts to which they harness big mongrel bred dogs, sometimes putting the dog in the shafts and sometimes harnessing him to the axle. Then they go round with their milk, bread or vegetables etc, the dog tugging at the traces and the boss giving him a hand from behind. They also use these dogs in water wheels, and use them for drawing water or churning the butter etc. The dogs do not mind, but rather seem to like having to work for their livings.

The inhabitants of this portion of Belgium are a mixture of Flemish and French. Some talk only Flemish and others nothing but French and it is not uncommon to have a household in which one half of the occupants cannot understand the other half. The Flemish are hated by the French as treacherous people and are very fair complexioned and angular featured people, being much different in this respect from the French who are mostly dark and round faced. However, we found them civil enough and ever ready to oblige but with an eye to business and the francs we possessed and we generally got on well with them.

The billets we occupied were in an abandoned warehouse near the railway station and instead of the usual straw in barns, we were able to sleep on good, clean, hard and dry floors, in a three storey building which housed the whole battalion and here we remained for another six days. Every morning, we were paraded in some fields nearby and drilled from 9am to 12 midday, practising rifle exercises, bombing and bayonet fighting, etc. In the afternoons we went to the Y.M.C.A. and wrote letters or read the magazines, and went to the army picture show, which was showing in an old theatre in the Town Square. One afternoon we had an inter-company football match, A and B combined, playing C and D, the result being that A and B won by 6-0.