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in case I did not get there. After going for a bit we saw what we thought was our support trench, we went up cautiously, and I called out who we were for fear they would shoot. We dived into it and I knew we were in the wrong trench, rifles were standing against the sides, but there was no one about. We slipped round into the next bay and I saw a German helmet, but still no one there. I had no rifle but a bomb in each pocket and these I got out very quickly. At the end of the next bay I found the blessed sandbag barrier that had been thrown up by us when we took our part of the trench. You see the Germs had retired for a bit for fear of our bombs. We slipped over very quickly, you bet, and persuaded our sentry not to shoot us. Now you might think that was a narrow escape, but that was nothing, for there was a machine gun at the barrier. The sergeant in charge told me that they watched us going towards the German trench and when we were thirty yards away he said "Let 'em have it!" and the gun jammed! Now don't you all think after that, Fate should let me alone in future, for you know what machine gun fire is, "death squirted through a hose". I went out again and got my stretcher bearers though.

The last job I did was to guide in the company that relieved us, but when I tried to guide our company out, I found my legs would not move any more. Have you ever read of the Sunken Road, the most awful place of death and desolation you can image, dead in piles and heaps. I used to dream of it, for it was always under fire, and the only way to get along it was to run the gauntlet of

BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 19 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873 - 1964. Victoria; librarian. / Letters from Cecil Harrow Unwin, 1916 - 1917.