97-051_LTRS 75

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Karen Dykes
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  • 75 - Midnight in a dree sing station October 25th, 1916. Tear Mother and Dsd,- Gueee it must be nearly two weeks ein.ee I drooped you that last short note. Have been on the move since then, and this is the first opportunity I have had to write. We are on a quiet part of the front now, so I guess I’ll be able shortly to resume my weekly letter habit, which, thru no fault of my own, hasn’t been kept up to the scratch, .v;>. "X It! ie a dirty, dark, disjpal, wet night outside, in fact the kind of a. one we used to hail with delight? down on the Somme."/-* How that that little affair is over for a while at least, as far as we are concerned, hardly know whether to hark back to it. Guess I’ll have to. though, for very little has happened since then,, end I feel that a. fairly voluminous letter is due you. Just what to write &bout is what is bothering me. However here goes for a 8tart at any rate, "7x 1 believe I mentioned in that note that our last turn up the line lasted thirteen daye;‘c~ Needless to remark we were all glad when it was over. Will try and narrate a few incidents that stand out more then the rest. Pirst, the worst trip we had. I might say here that on our second trip up the line from our base we found the dressing stations had been moved a mile farther ahead thus necessitating a longer carry.1^' Omjhis particular night, a* squad of us, six in number, including the kid and me, were sent up to one of the aid posts Just at dusk to bring down a stretcher case,. Had to wait around quite a time when we got there, so that it was pitch dark when we started back again. We exoected rather a lively trip back, as Pri tz had bothered us somewhat on our way in. We hadn’t gone 200 yards from the aid post when we lost the trail. Just imagine how nice it would be to find yourself lost in a wilderness of shell holes, trenches, barbed wire, eto. Be­lieve me, I was sure one scared kid. And all the time Pritz was sending over hie heavy stuff, some of it too close for comfort. It was just such a night as tonight, only mercifully it wasn’t raining. Well we wandered around for three hours before we fin­ally blundered onto the right trail. Then the blasted stretcher broke on us. Ye gods, maybe we didn’t swear. Two of us beat it up the trail to a machine gun emplacement nearly half 0 mile away and obtained another stretcher. It was an awful job transferring" the poor devil too, for he had both arms and one leg shattered by shrapnel. Somehow or other we managed it though and carried him through to the rail head. Ordinarily the trip could be madd in forty minutes, whereas we were four hours on the way. To say that we were all in when we finished is putting it mildly. Two nights later we had another enjoyable night. This time it was real wet, in faot had been reining hard all day. Pour
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