We had lots of hardware

To the centre of your belt carried you, your colt revolver. To the left and right were seven bombs. And if we carried Stoke shells, they were hung on the side of our legs. Now we were pretty well covered and we had lots of hardware. A hand grenade is held in the hand with a lever attached to the detonator held by the left, by your thumb. As you heave the bomb, the lever flies off and the bomb is detonated and you count 1-2-3-4 . . . explosion 5. With a Stoke shell I have forgotten how we detonated the shell before throwing it in a dugout. Dugouts always was dug, for instance, the Fritz line came towards us. Ours, likewise, went towards Fritz. These dugouts are possibly 20-25 feet, steps down. Then there was an excavation that would hold possible 20-30 people and that, for instance, was our headquarters, as it was Fritz’s. Now, I go back now to when we would throw a Stoke shell down a dugout. Unless that dugout was terraced as a trench would be, and that Stoke shell would land at the bottom, that wouldn’t only kill all the people, every mouse and everybody in there. The concussion from the explosion contained within that area usually killed them all.