FOOTNOTES:
[3] Lieut. F.B. Cowen, a very cheery machine-gun officer, also 7th N.F., had his quarters here.
VI[ToC]
MOUNT SORREL AND CANNY HILL
When we went up the line again on January 31, it was to Mount Sorrel, on the north of Hill 60. Here we had a good set of trenches, but they were practically cut off from our trenches at Hill 60 by a swamp. Through the swamp ran a watery sort of drain about four feet deep. It was the old front line, now waterlogged and quite untenable. Although the drain was not held by day, a patrol of bombers used to pass along it at intervals during the night. And it was part of my duties to wade through it every night. This was not a pleasant job, because you could not show a light and the mud smelt abominably. We were provided, however, with rubber boots reaching up to the thigh, so we did not get very wet. The officers of A Company occupied an 'elephant' shelter just behind the support line. All its occupants were killed by a shell bursting in the doorway, just two days after we had left these trenches. I first met Lieut. W. Keene here. He was the Brigade Grenadier officer and had the supervision of all bombing arrangements in the Brigade area, besides being responsible for the supply of grenades. I always found him friendly and encouraging, and I was glad to learn anything he could tell me. He asked me to send in a daily report to B.H.Q.; and I have kept the copies of these reports to this day.
During this stay in the trenches the Germans stuck up a notice board with the following legend: Attention Gentlemen, and below in German, 'If you send over one more trench-mortar bomb you will get strafed in the neck.'
On February 3 we were relieved and A Company stayed four days in the railway cutting at Hill 60 in close support. The second day I went with Capt. Welch and Lieut. Greene to the trenches north of Mount Sorrel which were called Canny Hill. That journey was full of incident, we seemed to be shelled or bombed all the way to Mount Sorrel and back, and Capt. Welch has often humourously suggested that I was the Jonah. It also meant crossing the dismal swamp in daylight, and how we did it without being seen and shot I really do not know. During our stay in the cutting I explored the old broken trenches behind our support line at Hill 60, and found a fine dump of English bombs of early types. I spent quite a long time drawing their teeth. One little incident I remember at this spot. About 1 A.M. an elderly R.E. officer came into our shelter, and told us in a voice shaking with joyful emotion that he had just blown up a German counter-mine which had been threatening our mine galleries at Hill 60.