Many a poor chap succumbed to his injuries as he
staggered along our trench. To keep the gangway clear we had
to lift these dead bodies out and put them on the top of the
parapets. It was ghastly, but you get accustomed to ghastly
things out here. You realise that fifty dead bodies are not
equal to one living. And these poor fellows, who only a few
minutes before had been alive and full of vigour, were now
just blocking the trench. And so we simply lifted the bodies
out and cast them over the top. By this time the trench was
absolutely full of wounded, and our little party was told to
act as stretcher-bearers, and to get the stretcher cases
down. We were only too glad to do something to help. The
first man that my chum and I carried died half-way down the
cutting. We felt sorry for him, but could do nothing. He was
dead. So we lifted his body on to the side of the track and
returned for the living. This work lasted some considerable
time, and when more stretcher-bearers came up, most of the
cases had been carried down, so we returned to the Convent
exhausted, nerve-shaken, and very glad of the opportunity of
a few hours' sleep. The sights we had seen, the
nerve-racking heavy shelling had upset our chaps pretty
badly. Many of them sobbed.
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