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Letters from France by C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow) Bean
page 120 of 163 (73%)
occasion deserves a letter to itself.




CHAPTER XXIV

HOW THE AUSTRALIANS WERE RELIEVED

_France, September 19th._


It was before the moment at which my last letter ended that the time had
come for the first relieving troops to be drafted into the fight.

I shall not forget the first I saw of them. We were at a certain
headquarters not a thousand miles from the enemy's barrage. Messages had
dribbled through from each part of the attacking line telling exactly
where every portion of it had got to; or rather telling where each
portion believed it had got to--as far as it could judge by sticking up
its collective head from shell craters and broken-down trench walls and
staring out over the limitless sea of craters and crabholes which
surrounded it. As the only features in the landscape were a ragged tree
stump, and what looked like the remains of a broken fish basket over the
horizon, all very distant--and a dozen shell-bursts and the bark of an
unseen machine-gun, all very close--the determination was apt to be a
trifle erratic. Still, the points were marked down, where each handful
believed and trusted itself to be. The next business was to fill up
certain gaps. An order was dispatched to the supports. They were to send
an officer to receive instructions.
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