97-051_LTRS 89

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Karen Dykes
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2022-03-08
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  • I guards, and looking for trouble. They’re not "infreke" „ but a fellow has to blow off steam on^e inawhileGuessJm?®"*' save mine till peace is declared and then have one grand old bu«t up. How about it? ^ Thought yesterday morning that I'd spend Xmas in the trencher as we were in an aid post, and no. relief looked, for for at least ' four days. To our surprise the relief turned up and we came back to headquarters last night. Just what kind of an Xmas it will be remains to be seen, but will go into detail tomorrow. Was on a dandy squad last trip up the line, all pals of mine one of whom came across from Victoria on our draft. Seemingly mv’ taste is somewhat cosmopolitan,, for of the other three fellows on the squad, one came from England, one from Ireland and my Victoria pal from the land of the thistle. Take it from me that• it makes a big difference in a fellows work when he is with pals. We're al­ways threatening to "clean up" on the other fellows but somehow or other proceedings never reach that stage, although at times we do have a mighty good old rough house. Only trouble is that the dug- outs aren't quite large enough for a real strafe. +Vl, j!lieve I,T« ever told yo« what our work is like on this front. Of course the objects aimed at are the same, vis. the speedy evacuation of the wounded. The methods are the same too in a way but the conditions under which we work are a good deal dif­ferent to what we have been accustomed to. How up at Ypres practi­cally all our work was done at night, it being quite a dangerous proposition taking out wounded by daylight owing to the "good" :°; 6 snipers, Down on the Somme we worked both night and day,, taking our chances with the shell fire,, and having no trenches to. carry through. Here,while we work night and day our work is Practically all done in the trenches, and believe me! it is some job to carry a stretcher through a trench or series of trenches,, our shortest carry being at least a mile. If the trench nlLti ^Ty i% \ouldn,t Pe too bad, but wh^n you have Io negotiate a bay" every hundred feet or so the difficulties are increased considerably. How I suppose I'll have to explain what a. ey is. Take ® trench of say 100 yds, in length, running straight Suppose a shell should drop into it near* the centre and the chan- °es that anybody at the extreme end of the mi^t be hU by some steel. In order to prevent such enfilading fire a "bav" is put in. To do so.is simplicity itself. The trenoh instead of thenrighttorifhf*tah+^d CU? in & seJT,i circular line either to tne right or left, thus leaving a mound of dirt in the centre from f®e.Vhick» whiGh effectually prevents any shell ffom getting a fellow on the other side of it. While they are are^t^ork16 ^ **** purP°8e* oan't saW 1 care for them *hen we the really h0rd part of our work comes when we have to s?rL8^theCt^n^niehtVqUite a occurrence. I might say tne.t the trenches are from seven to fifteen feet in depth. - 89 -
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