Two weeks before there’d been a lad stuck in one of these shell-holes; they couldn’t get to him. It was too exposed.

He must have drowned or died of his wounds.

A horrible way to go that. Not being able to help yourself and slipping into the mud. I wanted a clean end to it – a bullet through the head.

Your rations were mainly corned beef and a few dog biscuits.

When I say dog biscuits they were dog biscuits, they were like bricks. No bread. Your tea and sugar was tied into a corner of a sandbag. No milk. There might be two or three tins of beans and some jam. And you took your water in a two gallon petrol can.

Two days was the limit in there; I was in for a week.

You only went in with two day’s rations. It was so bad, the conditions, they couldn’t get anyone out … the shelling, the conditions …

We finished up there filtering shell-hole water through handkerchief.

They couldn’t send anyone in to relieve us.