Letters from France by C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow) Bean
page 120 of 163 (73%)
page 120 of 163 (73%)
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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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