October 1, 1917
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A very quiet day, no gassed men coming through and few wounded. C.Section marched out to-day, but I remained back until next day when A.and B. Sections hand over. O.S. for the day. In the morning I went up to Birr Cross roads to collect stores and hand over the place to the 1st Field. Things were fairly quiet except for our artillery but this section of the road is perhaps the most dangerous of any in this region. A tremendous amount of traffic is always on hand, and it is lined with ammunition dumps, the concealment of which is practically impossible.
Hell Fire Corner, perhaps the hottest part, has a particularly bad reputation, rarely a day goes by without casualties occurring here, and dead horses and smashed waggons with the remains of exploded and burnt out dumps line the road. I have known days when the casualties from this section of the road exceeded those from the line, and yet the stream of traffic carries on. Our guns are so numerous that concealment is impossible, they simply lie in the open with camouflage netting over them, and during a bombardment or barrage the din is deafening.
The ammunition dumps are generally set alight by incendiary shells, and the spectacle altho’ grand is fearful, the flames creep around the shells and one by one they explode and destroy everything near by. Gas shells play an important part especially with artillery, the new mustard gas being very effective and yet more humane than Phosgene. It burns the flesh even when the respirator protects the throat and eyes, and having practically no smell men are often gassed without knowing it, especially if they use a dugout which had previously been gassed.
Time and again I have seen men report from battery for several days in succession having been gassed from the same source. Very few of the Field units escape casualties nowadays, the bad areas being shelled and bomb dropping increasing daily. Even when men are relieved from the line unless taken well back they are harassed by bombs, etc. so that daily the strain on men is becoming greater. Motor lorries in this area have suffered fairly heavily. On this particular road they go to within 3 or 4 miles of the line, and I have known 8 to be destroyed together. Last night was bright moonlight and several bombs were dropped especially round the Pi…inghi camp.
Of course the planes were fired at, the luminous “tracer” bullets from the machine guns being a pretty sight. Early this morning there was a heavy bombardment and now as I write this, our guns have opened up on Fritz, and are shelling him heavily. It looks as if the crowd relieving us to-morrow will have a hopover which is a good sign, and if it is as successful as ours we will be doing very well. I don’t envy the hun these times.