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An unusual occurrence took place on the 22nd December, when two Russians, who had been prisoners in Germany and had been working behind the line, escaped and came into the trenches in the Battalion sector. On Christmas Day the Battalion was out of the line and in the huts at Dickebusch. Capt. Bradford left on the 31st December to join the 7th Battalion, and was succeeded as Adjutant by 2nd Lieut.

During one trip along an exposed road we found ourselves in the midst of a furious hail of shells. I overheard one of our men say: "General Turner? General Hell! he ain't no general; he's a reg'lar soldier." On the night of the sixth we were relieved and, next day, took up our quarters in Dickebusch.

Personally, there was only one day in three months when I was out of sight of the German lines. We had comfortable quarters where we were and the towns of Dickebusch and LaClytte had no attractions for me; and as to the battalion billets, they were abominable.

One can not help wondering at the indiscriminate manner in which French and Flemish names are used in this corner of the world. Neuve Eglise, Bailleul, Dranoutre and Locre are all mixed up with Wolverghem, Ploegstert, Wytschaete and Lindhoek: Ypres and Dickebusch are neighbors; while St. Julian and Langemarck lie side by side, as do Groot Vierstraat and LaClytte.

In both places were hundreds of refugees from the ruined towns to the eastward. However, it seemed to make little difference to the boche; he shelled both towns, intermittently, killing a number of civilians but very rarely hitting a soldier. Later, in the spring of 1916, they started in to wipe out Dickebusch, and, for all practical purposes, they succeeded.

All troops going into the line anywhere from Wytschaete to Hill 60 were obliged to pass through or very close to it. Just east of the town was a shallow lake or pond, about a mile long and half as broad, called Dickebusch Etang, to cross which it was necessary to follow a narrow causeway, constructed by our engineers.

This was the work with which our battalion, and others, had been occupied and was just about completed when, true to their word, the Heinies started in, systematically, to write "finis" for Dickebusch. The church had already been pretty well shot up, as well as the surrounding graveyard where many of the tombs and monuments were smashed and the dead thrown from their graves.

Many of our camps were hardly better than the trenches. Only by duck-boards could one walk about the morass in which huts were built and tents were pitched. In the wagon lines gunners tried in vain to groom their horses, and floundered about in their gum boots, cursing the mud which clogged bits and chains and bridles, and could find no comfort anywhere between Dickebusch and Locre.

The German gunners seemed asleep in the noonday sun, and it was a charming day for a stroll and a talk about the raving madness of war under every old hedge. "What about lunch in Dickebusch on the way up?" asked one of my companions. There were three of us.

They had not been back in the line since we left but had been engaged in some special work in and around this town, about which there is an interesting story. Dickebusch was a town of several thousand inhabitants and considerable commercial importance, located on the Ypres-Bailleul road, about three and one-half miles directly west of St. Eloi.