Saturday August 5, 1916

Last night we made up for the easy time the night before. We are still working on this new trench. I was given a piece to dig under one of the many small field railway lines behind our trenches. Fritzie's aeroplanes have found out that we are building a new trench and every night now his snipers and machine gunners are constantly driving us down on our bellies to escape their pills which they persist in trying to plump us with.

Fritzie evidently had this railway line marked for bunches of machine gun bullets whistled close over my head, and an occasional sniper's bullet passed right through where I had taken my head down from between the ties just a second before. One of the party in front of us, of the 25th were breaking ground on the surface and one of their men was shot twice in the neck. He was taken past us down the trench on a stretcher with a big bandage round his neck; his face was covered red with blood. He was very still, and the stretcher bearer thought he was dead. This is the second casualty on our job in four days. We had expect that when we start to sandbag up the top of the parapet there will be quite a few casualties, as the fellows will be up against the skyline all the time. But we may be away by then.

Went to Renningheist for a bath and a change today. 3 miles there, 3 miles back. Whew! Long walk for a bath.