The text, from pages 137, 137a and 138 of the typed transcript, reads as follows:

[Page 137a]

"Dear Wife,

I posted letter of 9th Sept in a hurry, so could not finish off as usual.

Well here we are a long way further on. We have arrived at the very heart of the war, and are on a very much talked about battlefield. It is wonderful and awful.

Shell holes every few yards, & some of them have water in them. Very slimy. Others are fairly clean, and we wash in them.

Last night Du and I slept in a shell hole. We just scraped it flat and smooth on the bottom, and put our Oil Sheets down & our overcoats on. We were about 3 ft [feet] below the surface of the ground, & there was room for four others. We slept pretty warm squeezed up tight.

This morning I had a good look round, & there are lots of dead Huns, half buried. I got two buttons off a Tunic as Souvenir. We had to abandon our first bed. We found a likely looking hole, & started to clean it out, but we found it was already occupied. Poor Beggar. He had been wiped out by a shell. It is wonderful how callous one gets. We only growled because we had put in half an hour digging for nothing.

There is a shell hole just by, and it would hide a horse and dray. This is one of many round about here. It is very wonderful.

Everyone Slept in Shell holes last night, and it was funny this morning to see them all popping up out of the ground for breakfast. It is nice and warm, & I am lying on the grass writing, and waiting for dinner. We have great appetites, & eat anything. The ground here is white below the surface. Chalk and limestone.

Sept 12

We have come a bit further and are now in the first Trenches. It is funny the way we work at night, like Owls. I wonder if you can understand this.

Sometimes 'No Man’s Land' is as bright as Manners St on Saturday night. Lit up with numbers of Star Shells and 'Very Lights'. It is such a dazzling white brilliance, and almost blinds one. If we have not time to lie down, we stand perfectly still, and the remarkable thing is, we are seldom seen. The glare just lasts a few seconds.

Last night we could not sleep for the heavy gunfire. There was 4 batteries quite close to us, & it was exactly like getting a heavy box on the ears. I had to put wadding in my nose and ears, and the awful wicked hiss of hundreds of big Shells. I can only liken them to a disturbed beehive, only a hiss instead of a drone, or rain falling after a thunderstorm."

[Page 137]

"[137a] No one can possibly understand unless they have been through it. It beggars description. We are sleeping in dug-outs cut from Solid Limestone, & they simply reek & you can see the walls come back, & pieces of stone fall down, & mind you this is only concussion of air. Poor beggars. I pity them when one of our big shells hits their trenches. The devastation is great."

[Page 138]

"A Hun prisoner passed my dug-out this morning, & I felt a wee bit sorry for him. He was only a lad of about 21, & was quite dazed. He didn’t know where he was.

I saw a very fascinating sight this morning. A 'Hun Aeroplane' falling to the ground in a mass of flame. Oh how we did Cheer our own Plane. It was a wonderful fight, & over in a few seconds.

You count time here by seconds, not hours & minutes. You throw a bomb & have exactly 5 seconds before the explosion. You hear a shell coming & you have a fraction of a second to wonder if they will find your identity disc. If it bursts near you, you say D----. If it goes on, the remark is 'What rotten shooting'. So you see we have our little jokes. And there are a lot of Aircraft. Can you imagine thirty two close together. Coming home? It is a grand sight.

Sept 14

We are going to take 3 lines of Hun trenches on Friday. 'My Lucky Day'. I expect we will go over at Dawn.

So today we are just filling in time & resting, getting our Rations & water bottles for a few days, and overhauling our gear. I can hardly describe what an awful litter there is on a battlefield. Everything is Higgledy Piggledy. Well I am all ready for anything that comes along, & of course you will have news of our doings long ere this letter reaches you.

[Signed] For Harry,

his friend,

Reub. M. Newman

('See Over' in Pop’s adult hand)

This was the last letter my father, H.T. NORTON wrote. On 15 Sept 1916 he was killed by shell fire in the advance at FLERS in FRANCE.

The shell killed him and three others and wounded seven more.

The newly invented TANKS failed, and the barbed wire & front of German trenches was not flattened when the N.Z. Troops advanced.

Signed

L.G. Norton (Son)

3/6/77"