But it was not for a rest; for every night we had
to go up digging and consolidating the trenches regained and
digging communication trenches.
"It was on one of these digging fatigues that my chum was
killed. He and I had been given a small sector to dig, and
it was really a fairly quiet night, as far as firing was
concerned. We had dug down a depth of about three feet and
had secured ourselves against rifle fire and were putting
the final touches to our work, which we had rightly viewed
with pride and satisfaction, when the order came--'D Company
file out towards the left.' We were terribly disappointed
for we had worked all that evening on digging ourselves in
here and we knew that it meant a fresh start elsewhere. We
were just clambering out when there rang out one single shot
from a sniper, apparently lying in front of the German
lines.
"We all got up with the exception of my chum. I did not for
a minute imagine he had been hit, but merely thought he was
making sure that the sniper had finished, so I touched
him--and he half rolled towards me. I lifted him up and
said, 'Did you catch it?' All he could do was to point to
his chin. He was an awful sight. A dum-dum or explosive
bullet had caught his jawbone and had blown the left lower
jaw and part of the neck away.
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