e sandbags, as if they warn't there, sir. They caught
my Captain this morning, clean through the head. I was a-talking to him,
sir, at the time; the finest gentleman that ever lived; and the swine
killed him. I'll get six of them for him, sir." The look in his eyes and
the tone of his voice told me he was in earnest. I passed on, keeping
as low as possible.
The crater, when I reached it, proved to be one of an enormous size. It
must have been quite 150 feet across. The place had been converted into
a miniature fort. I noticed how spongy the ground was. When walking it
seemed as if one was treading upon rubber. I casually enquired of an
officer the cause of it. "Dead bodies," said he; "the ground here is
literally choked with them; we dare not touch it with a spade; the
condition is awful. There are thousands of them for yards down, and when
a shell tears away any section of our parapets the sight is too ghastly
for words."
At that moment a man yelled out "cover," and, looking up, I saw several
Bosche rifle grenades falling. Shouting to my orderly to take cover with
the camera, he disappeared into what I thought was a dug-out but which I
afterwards discovered was an incline shaft to a mine. He made a running
dive, and slid down about four yards before he pulled himself up.
Luckily he went first, the camera butting up against him. He told us
afterwards he thought he was really going to the lower regions.
I dived under a sandbag emplacement, when the grenades went off with a
splitting crash, and after allowing a few seconds for the pieces to
drop, looked out. A tragic sight met my gaze. The officer with whom I
had been speaking a few moments before had, unfortunately, been too late
in taking cover. One of the grenades had struck him on the head, and
killed him on the spot. Within a few moments some Red Cross men
reverently covered the body with a mackintosh sheet and bore it away.
One more cross would be added to the little graveyard in the Quarry.
Shortly after I met an officer of the Mining Section. He was just going
down into the gallery to listen to Bosche working a counter-mine. Did I
care to accompany him? "Don't speak above a whisper," he said.
He disappeared through a hole about three feet square. I followed,
clinging to the muddy sides like a limpet, half sliding, half crawling,
in the impenetrable darkness. We went on, seemingly for a great
distance; in reality it was only about fifteen yards. Then we ca
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