Pte Arthur Thomas (Lilydale), 1^st Machine Gun Battalion: In the front line, France. In a letter to his father –‘Out at our billets they blew our house to the ground, one man was wounded, three horses and two cows killed and we buried them in a shell hole. So you can guess it made some stir. Forty-three shells they put in altogether.

I was just having breakfast at 3.15am, when we heard one whistle overhead, and when it burst we knew they were after the house, so we got out. I had a dixie of tea in one hand and a piece of bread int he other and just got outside when another came. I skipped, tripped, and lost my tea and bread. They put five shells in the house and yard and then stopped.

We decided to go back and found that one shell had blown the two sides and end of the washhouse out. The Corporal and a mate and I went into what was left of the washhouse to have a shave, and I just got a good lather up when we heard another coming, and we knew it was for us. We looked at each other and then lay down flat on the floor and took our chance. It burst about 20 yards away, and iron flew around us, but none of us were touched. I gathered up my shaving gear and we went out behind a tree and finished the shaving.

Things got quiet again and feeling hungry we decided to look for some tucker and what a mess we found. Half the house and outhouses were gone; blankets, rifles, equipment, bread and jam, dirt and bricks, all in a heap; one had burst right in the middle of our bedroom. Well, we got some bread and jam, and were just going out when along comes another. The Corporal ran one way, my mate another. I lay down and chanced it again. It was very close but no one got hurt and this time they kept it up until they blew the whole show clean down. We sat out in the paddock, having a rough feed, and betting where the next one would drop; whether in the moat or in the ruins of the house or on the road. We have shifted out of the place now. This was how we had our Sunday’s breakfast, quite an exciting meal, but we are singularly free from indigestion. This is what they call resting in France’.