My first trip into the line

I remember my first trip into the line with the 46th after working parties. I had been on working parties for some time now, going just going up at night and doing the odd jobs, putting up wire fences and helping with trenches and that kind of thing. Our first night in the front line we were attacked by the enemy with our own guns from behind us. They had got through and killed the gunners and taken over our guns and shelled us from behind. It was a very exciting night for a first night on the line. I was on a post along a railroad line that had been kinda blown up. I was defending a portion of that, and one of these mortar shells that was being fired from behind landed about right on top of that and scored my rifle. I had to get another rifle from, we got it in the headquarters, you know, we were spelled off there. You know, we’d get it at headquarters and some of our boys had been hit and taken out and I got another rifle that way. But there was one sergeant from Moose Jaw quite badly hit that night, a Sergeant Miles. We only stayed overnight. When it come daylight, you see, they withdrew us back of there because we were practically right on top of the enemy. And they withdrew us back to a safer spot. But we, we had a lot of casualties that night from this firing behind us before they got them. Kind of a rude awakening, christening.