Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/114/1 - June 1918 - Part 7

106 57
There was another post of the 22 Bn
immediately below / entrance of
Kybosh Lane. The Germans were
heavily shelling Ville - so I went
back down Kybosh along / way
I had come & round / bank of /
Ancre into / marshes. Up in
/ front line we had been hearing
 

106 58
every now & then the click as of a
rifle trigger pulled when there is no
cartridge in. Fricker, the Lieut. in charge
o / lower post, told me tt this
ws said: Did you hear tt noise -
thats one o / German Trench Mortars -
we captured it at in / attack
on Ville - in / caterpillar. The boys
found any amount of ammunition
 

106 59
for it in Ville – so they've been shooting
it off at / Germans." True enough.
about 15 seconds after the click there
ws an explosion over / top o /
hill behind Morlancourt & a
cloud of roan coloured dust - they
must have a good range. Then
another click & presently an
 

106 60
explosion quite close at hand
on a piece of ^brick red parapet in /
Green corn - one o / German
front line posts. "If you go round
there on your way back they'll
put send off two or three rounds for you to
photograph," Fricker sd on my
suggesting a photo. And there, in /
Big Caterpillar, I found it - a
 

106 61
[hand drawn sketch-see original document]
German trench mortar & one solitary
private of the L.T.M. Bty
firing it; & in / entrance
beginning of Kybosh
Lane ws my
friend the Suspicious
Sergeant, observing. He laughed
[hand drawn sketch-see original document]
when I spoke
to him this time
& asked him
 

106 62
whether they were touching the Hun up
with his own minenwerfer.
I went back through the saffron
field – a thick carpet of saffron -
a trench ran diagonally through it which
was deserted. The Germans had
registered it pretty closely all along
by the brown black shellholes in the
mustard. You could see the shoulder of
 

106 63
the hill behind Morlancourt looking
straight down on over at it from behind /
village.
I went along / bank with
the flats on my left & the field on
the right - past several dugout shelters
in / bank, full of bits of German kit
- some Germans had certainly been
killed round about here; - & across
/ flats, between / trees. The flats here
 

106 64
h were covered with long grass & a
few rushes & reeds. Wherever there
were daisies the ground was
dry - indeed the whole of this part
was dry except for a few deep lanes
or ditches of water about 6 or 7 feet
wide which ran in one of two
places across them. It was
easy getting going & I soon came
 

106 65
upon a road which ran straight
across my front into Ville. It was
a Well made road & abo the tree
trunks on the right hand side of it
(looking towards Ville) were wired by our
Engineers. There was a single big
strand of German wire across the
road - very thick & closely barbed -
stretched from a tree trunk on one side
 

106 66
to a trunk on the other side. I thought
at first that his was Egerton's
road - the track along wh he took his
party; & so I took a photograph of it.
But it was not - it was the road
from Buire into Ville – Egertons track must
ws be further along out through the trees.
I struck towards Eastwards
- the flats being still ^dry & easy to cross though
the grass became longer. The Germans